Mobile Marketing in the B2B World Part 2 – Response on the go

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Jeanette Mifsud

Your target audience is responding to your campaigns using their mobile device.  Take a look at your Web analytics report or email marketing analysis to see how many and what devices they’re using.

In this part of our series on mobile marketing, we’re going to examine how and where you can add calls to action to your offline campaigns that are specifically targeted at mobile device users, making it easy and convenient for them to respond.

QR (Quick Response) codes

A QR code

Here's a QR code for our Blog site

A QR code is two-dimensional barcode that can be read by a mobile application.  One use of QR codes is to store a URL, saving users the trouble of typing it into their mobile browser. The user has to have an app on their device to read the QR code, but if you’re marketing to tech-savvy professionals they will probably have that capability.  The QR code should take them to a Web site or content optimized for the small screen (more on this to come in part 3 of this series).

There are a number of applications you can use to generate QR codes–you can even generate them through a URL shortening service like bitly.  QR codes are great for printed pieces like event collateral, posters, direct mail pieces or print advertising.  You can even put QR codes on t-shirts, or giveaway items.

QR codes can also directly connect phone users to your call center—how about that for a direct connect option!

Text messaging

This is where you invite the mobile user to text a short string to a certain number.  In return they get a text message from you with a way to get further information, such as a link to a mobile Web site, or mobile optimized video or content download.  There are two types of addressing that you can use–SMS short codes or long numbers, with pros and cons of each approach.  For more on this topic see this entry on Wikipedia.  If you use long numbers you can also give the respondent the option of speaking to a live person. This type of call to action can be used in printed pieces as well as in radio or TV ads, or even in podcasts.

If you’re trying to build an opt-in list of phone numbers for future SMS (Short Message Service) or MMS (Multimedia Message Service) campaigns you might even create a special offer for mobile respondents, for example an exclusive video, mobile only newsletter or sweepstakes.

In our next posting we’ll share some tips on optimizing your email, Web sites and content for the mobile world.  Stay tuned!

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Mobile Marketing in the B2B World – Part 1 – What is mobile marketing?

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Jeanette Mifsud

Incorporating mobile devices into the marketing mix is an obvious and essential strategy for B2C companies.  We think the same holds in the B2B world.  Here are some interesting statistics that back up that assertion:

  • Enterprise Mobile apps to surpass traditional apps by 2015 (IBM/2010)
  • 70+% of executives under 40 classify mobile as primary communications tool (Forbes/2010)
  • Over 50% of Execs prefer business purchases on mobile Web vs. phone (Forbes/2010)
  • 72% of U.S. workforce already mobile, 75% by 2013 (IDC/2010)
  • Mobile as ‘first-screen’ for all Web usage between 2013 (Gartner/2010) or 2015 (Morgan Stanley/2010)

    Executive use of mobile devices

    The people you want to target are interacting with brands on their mobile device

These statistics were extracted from Christina “CK” Kerley’s The Mobile Revolution and B2B

These are some staggering statistics.  The fact is your target audience is already using their smartphone or tablet to get news, research vendors, network with their peers and get their business done.  This series of Blog posts will help you understand how to proactively incorporate mobile into your marketing mix and ensure that encounters with your brand are as positive on the ‘small screen’ as they are on a laptop or PC.

Let’s get started by defining what mobile marketing is.  The Mobile Marketing Association defines it as:

“Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network.”

That’s a pretty broad definition, and one that includes way more than just SMS messaging or mobile advertising–two reach tactics that often spring to mind when talking about mobile marketing.  Over the coming weeks we’ll examine the following facets of mobile marketing:

  • Response on the go – integrating mobile response mechanisms into your campaigns
  • Catering to the ‘small screen’ – design tips for email, Web sites and content
  • Display advertising – the landscape of mobile advertising platforms
  • Small but powerful – SMS, click to call, multi-media, location based campaigns–taking advantage of the unique things mobile devices can do
  • There’s an app for that – should you invest in one?
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Lead nurturing before it had a name

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Jeanette Mifsud
lead nurturing

It's always smart to pay attention to the leads you already have

Look at any Blog or site in the B2B marketing space and you’ll find a lot of discussion and buzz about lead nurturing and the marketing automation packages that facilitate it.

When I first heard the term lead nurturing it got me thinking back to my days at Avaya in the direct response team.  We were using a really great tool called Annuncio to send email campaigns, create custom landing pages and generate auto-responder emails.  We not only used this tool to create campaign landing pages for third party emails and direct mail pieces, but also for creating follow-up campaigns to what we called our “recent responders” (people that had come into our prospect database, but had not yet converted to a customer).   Tom Reid, then at Avaya, was the genius behind devising a strategy to nurture the company’s prospects.  He also worked with Annuncio to integrate the tool with our existing databases.  He created the “e-demand” initiative and the team to support it.  It struck me a few years back that we were doing lead nurturing and aspects of marketing automation before it had those name tags.

Our results were amazing—both in terms of the conversion rates of our prospects and the results we saw in cross-selling or up-selling our customer base. The Annuncio tool had some really cool features, and was very easy to use.   The company was acquired by PeopleSoft (now Oracle) in 2002, so I’m not sure where the technology ended up.  It was great to be a part of something in its early stages of development, and to see firsthand how it makes sense to spend effort marketing to those leads you’ve already spent time and money to acquire.

There are a lot of great resources out there to learn more about lead nurturing, like Marketo’s “Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing.”

We’d like to hear about your experiences with marketing automation or lead nurturing!

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Doh! Internet Explorer’s 31 CSS file limit

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Mark Eissler

I’m definitely not the first to report this but it bears repeating: Internet Explorer has a limit. A strange limit. The browser refuses to load more than 31 style sheets. Yup, it’s true…

as posted here, and here, and here… Heck, let me just Google this for you!

Now some keen developer might ask something like: “Why are you loading more than 31 style sheets?” To which I respond: “When you’re developing for a platform like Drupal, with lot of modules loaded, each loading their own special style sheets, you kind of want all of those style sheets to be loaded separately to aid with debugging.” Later, you can just switch on compression which will automagically distill all (or most) of those CSS files into one big optimized style sheet.

Now I’ve got to say that this whole situation makes no sense. So much no sense that it’s hard to believe it’s true. In fact, while debugging I had noticed that by turning off certain stylesheets things started looking good again, and started (just started) to think that maybe, just maybe, there was some bizarre maximum file limitation imposed by IE. BAH! What kind of a crazed coder would do such a thing?? Like any smart person, I shrugged the crazies off and investigated parsing errors instead. I diligently ran every file through the W3C CSS validator and commented out all of the “problem” blocks–a process that in itself is silly just because we continue to have to add crazy amounts of vendor-specific (aka “non standards compliant”) css just to accomplish anything neat (yup, thanks again Microsoft).

Eventually (like 4 hours later) I decided to finally look into the file limit idea. And that’s when I found it: confirmation that IE9 is still a crappy Web development tool. And that’s why the Number One Web development browser at Mixtur continues to remain Mozilla Firefox with Firebug. I’m convinced that Modern Web development would most certainly grind to a halt without this suite. Yup, even Google Chrome has can’t match that combination.

So to any other developers out there: try to file this little tidbit away because one day you are going to stumble across this very problem. Better yet, add it to your ever-growing list of “Stupid browser bugs” document in Evernote.

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4 best practices for landing pages that convert

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Jeanette Mifsud
best practices

4 tips to help your landing pages convert

I came across a Hubspot article, where they chose five landing pages to illustrate some best practices.  Here’s a summary of what they found:

Be consistent – Linking the subject of page headlines, form headlines and call to action buttons really helps drive home what you want the visitor to do.

Remove distractions – Have one clear call to action (E.g. download a content piece, sign up for a free trial), and remove navigation or other links that distract from the goal of the page.

Use relevant images – Don’t just use random stock photography to fill a gap, make sure the images you choose support the conversion action you’re asking for.  If you’re promoting a content piece, include an image of it, or if the offer is a software free trial, include a screen shot of the software.

Establish credibility – Great ways of doing this are including quotes from customer or trusted third parties, like journalists or analysts.  You can also use logos from credible trade associations or organizations such VeriSign or the BBB.

For more tips on designing landing pages that convert, see my colleague Kaitlin’s post on “8 Ways to Make Your Landing Pages Convert.”

Please share any examples of great landing pages with us!

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