We had another amazing session of webinar on March 22th 2012. As always we share the recorded session and some of the key highlights. Denise Greenberg, Principal – TragetRight Marketing explained how email lists can be a strong pillar of a demand gen program and how tricky it is to find the right lists to reach the target audience and make good use of them (especially in the era of CAN/SPAM and spam filters)

In this on-demand webinar you’ll find out how to avoid the top mistakes marketers make when renting email lists, and receive actionable information on list strategy and email design to maximize response.

Watch this webinar recording and learn the importance of:

• List Order Timing
• Testing – Why, What, How
• Why Rent Phone No.’s Too
• Optimizing ALL Campaign Elements
• Getting Expert Help
• Landing Page Optimization
• CAN/SPAM Requirements
• FAQ’s

Watch the Webinar Recording

Brian Giese, CEO of True Influence, discusses what kinds of content works well for b-to-b emails, addresses the challenges of list churn for b-to-b marketers and talks about email deliverability at the enterprise level. Giese has held executive level positions at Harte-Hanks, I.T. Selling Worldwide and Avectra.

Direct Marketing News (DMN): What kinds of content are you seeing b-to-b markets using for emails these days?

Brian Giese (True Influence): Emails need to be educational in nature in the business market. Business buyers are very savvy. They view email as a way to learn information about a topic, so emails that educate business people work best. Content should also offer something to the recipient, be it a webinar, a white paper or an eBook. There should be a value in it. Emails should also be behaviorally targeted with relevant content that is of interest to the recipient.

DMN: What challenges do b-to-b marketers face when it comes to email delivery?

Giese: With consumer email, you have a handful of ISPs, that marketers have to form relationships with like AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo. They establish a relationship with these ISPs and the process of getting delivered is fairly straightforward. This is not so in the b-to-b market. In the business market there are thousands of different ISPs since every business handles their email differently and many do it in-house. It is a much more complicated trail to blaze to deliver a b-to-b email than it is to deliver a b-to-c email. It helps to keep data clean.

DMN: What challenges are b-to-b marketers facing with list churn?

Giese: Email list churn is somewhere around 6% a month. If you buy a list from any of the providers, about 40% of that list will be inaccurate because mail and email addresses are always changing. Marketers shouldn’t buy lists. Data is a challenge. It is never really very accurate and most marketing departments don’t have great ways to manage it. We bring data in and use our systems to verify it and make sure that it is accurate.

DMN: What new trends do you expect to see in the b-to-b email space going into the new year?

Giese: I expect to see the rise of a pay-for-performance model. It just makes sense for the customer. It is easy to justify because there is no risk. Also, companies are smartly buying marketing automation products for nurturing like Eloqua or Marketo, then putting data into Salesforce.com, which seems to be a fairly good process. We’ll see more of this kind of thing. It can help get leads that are interested. Just because a customer clicks on a whitepaper, it doesn’t mean they are interested. It’s better to follow up with a nurturing program to make sure the lead is qualified.

Source
Direct Marketing News

While there is much talk about the growing use of text messages, one look at our in-boxes will confirm that email remains a primary communication method between businesses.
But how can a young business use email to expand its B2B business, particularly during a downturn? How can you send emails that do not sound pushy or like spam?

Portfolio.com asked him five questions about B2B marketing.

1. How can start-ups use email to get the word out about their companies in the current business climate?

Email is by the far the most cost-effective and risk-free way to generate high-quality leads for new business owners, but it can only reach its true potential when the small-business owner understands it must be delivered with the right message, at the right time, to the right prospect.

2. What are the biggest mistakes that business owners make when it comes to emailing prospective clients?

The most common mistake for small businesses is being impatient and trying to close the prospect too early. In our experience, educating your prospect as much as possible about your products or services and nurturing them can not only generate short-term gains, but also can lead to a long-term satisfied customer who responds again and again to future campaigns.

We also counsel our clients against purchasing expensive email lists, which more often than not are riddled with SPAM traps, and/or deliver un-targeted leads that aren’t worth the expense. Small-business owners must also remember that email is just one tool to grow their business. They need to educate themselves on a full multichannel marketing model to make sure they can expand their message and their reach.

Another common mistake is not being compliant with the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act. Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000, so noncompliance can be costly. The Bureau of Consumer Protection provides straightforward tips that all small-business owners should review and keep in mind when developing email campaigns.

3. On the flip side, what are the most successful tactics that you’ve seen business owners take in using email for sales leads in terms of communicating well, responses, etc.?

Small-business owners who use email as an educational channel and not exclusively as a closing channel are most successful when it comes to generating quality leads. Small-business owners should use email to communicate a message and educate a prospect first and foremost, and not to try to close business right off the bat.

Behavioral targeting is another extremely successful method. In our experience, the most successful email marketers are those who target their audience based on the interests of the end user, not themselves. For example, you don’t want to send white-paper offers to prospects who’ve never clicked on one in the past, or webinar invites to someone who has never attended one.

4. What role do you see email playing as business gets more mobile? Will texts push it aside?

We believe email will remain the core communication method for small-business owners and the most cost-effective way to generate quality sales leads. After all, how are iPhones or BlackBerrys primarily used? To make phone calls and send/receive emails. Mobile marketing and social networking will continue to evolve and make the interactive experience more unique and personal for the end user, but email will remain the method of choice from which mobile and other new platforms pivot.

5. Companies that specialize in email communications are evolving. True Influence has a new platform that lets users hone in on specific targets. How does that work?

Our new platform, LeadPAC, is a behaviorally targeted, self-service email prospecting platform that segments our 20-plus million verified B2B contact database and allows online advertisers and marketers to target their unique message to the right audience at the right time. It’s based on a cost-per-click (CPC), pay-for-performance delivery model, and there are no recurring monthly charges, no set-up fees, and no long-term commitments. Customers only pay for leads that match their predetermined criteria. The pay-per-click platform allows clients to avoid wasting money buying or renting lists for email marketing and instead has them only pay for the results that they want.

Source:
Portfolio.com

On November  10th, Steve Bernstein, Founder and Principal Consultant, Waypoint Group presented an informative webinar on “3 Steps to Acquiring New Sales-Ready Leads Faster than Ever Before” Webinar helped the audience in understanding the innovative process that has proven to drive new opportunities for the sales team –producing conversion rates in excess of 30%. We also discovered:

• Preparing by predicting your results in expected revenue.
• Where to find these opportunities: The new ‘targeting’ method
• How to engage them
• How to get started and how fast you will see results

Watch It Here

It seems people have grown weary of “gated” web content – the practice of requiring site visitors to fill out a form to gain access to premium content.  Conversion rates are declining steadily for all but the most valued websites. The reasons vary according to market surveys – some responders complained of the time to complete the forms, while others doubted that the quality of the content would justify the follow-up phone calls they assumed would be received from aggressive marketers.  And, despite passage of the CAN-SPAM Act, there are still those who are reluctant to share personal information for fear it will lead to clutter in their In boxes. The aggregate result of all this is a strong prospect preference for non-gated content.

In this business brief from the marketing experts at True Influence™ try to answer the most commonly asked content marketing question. To Gate or Not to Gate. Which approach is best for your business?  Read on…

Read the Business Brief

On Oct 13, Kim Albee, President and Founder of Genoo, presented an informative webinar on “How To Get Started With Content Marketing and Marketing Automation”. This session was a pragmatic approach to easily getting started generating leads to help your business grow.

This Webinar highlighted on the aspects of:

1. How to think about your goals with online marketing, so they lead to a campaign that will work.
2. How to research your target audience and uncover the content that will engage.
3. The essential elements of the campaign, and putting them together.
4. How to follow up effectively with the leads you generate and keep them engaged.
5. How to drive traffic to your content.

Watch It Here:

On Sep 27, Jason Hekl, Founder and Principal of Demand a Lot Marketing, presented an informative webinar on DIY Demand Generation: Scrappy Marketing Strategies for Filling the Funnel Faster.

Recession. Limited resources. Budget cuts. Pricing pressures. Diminishing returns on advertising. Poor response rates. Low conversion rates. Prospects who don’t want to engage your sales staff. Stiff competition. The challenges facing B2B marketers today are many. There is no “business as usual” any more. Traditional marketing techniques just do not work as well as they once did. And that is creating great demand for scrappy, street-smart marketers who know how to do more with less.

Watch it here:

At True Influence™, we believe that email advertising is central to our digital economy as it helps support the free online content we have all come to enjoy every day. We are guided by the premise that email advertising is a valuable source of information – that it can connect people to advertisers, services and ideas that interest them. And by improving these connections, we can create more value for everyone.

Date: September 15, 2011 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST

B2B marketers supplement their own direct marketing efforts in a wide variety of ways in order to maximize pipeline. One of 2011′s most popular new concepts is that of pay-for-performance email, as highlighted at recent B2B conferences such as DemandCon and the Online Marketing Summit series. As with any pay-for-performance service, the appeal of the LeadPAC pay-per-click advertising platform is easy to understand – clients pay only for results!

Participate in our fast-moving 30-minute session to see for yourself why LeadPAC has become one of 2011′s fastest-growing B2B lead gen approaches.

About the Speaker:
Mark Nachlis, Sr. Vice President at True Influence – Mark has 25 years of experience in sales and marketing leadership and has most recently been the Vice President, Technology Markets at Harte-Hanks selling and developing lead generation, demand generation and custom database solutions for top tier B2B companies. Previous to that role Mark was the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Maxspeed, a thin client and security provider.

Register Now

On Aug 18, Ruth P. Stevens, author of the widely acclaimed book ‘Trade Show and Event Marketing: Plan, Promote and Profit’ presented an informative webinar on Maximizing Lead Flow from Events.

Events can be an extraordinarily productive source of sales leads—or they can be a total budget black hole. Why? Because, on a cost-per-contact basis, event marketing is most expensive arrow in the marketing quiver. If managed poorly, events generate a lot of waste. But if managed well, events can be harnessed as an excellent, high-value lead source.

Watch it here: