Are you choosing the right keywords?

Most people know how important it is to achieve a high ranking on Google if you want to attract 'zero cost' leads to your website. The first requirement for success is choosing the right keywords.

When I start a keyword research project with a client I always ask them to supply an initial keyword seed list which I then supplement with my own research. I recently did some research for a client and one of their proposed keywords (let's call it keyword A to protect client confidentiality) typically had 7,000 searches a month in their chosen market. However, according to Google they were competing against 10 million web pages. The chances of getting a new website to appear on Google Page 1 would be very low whatever the time frame and budget.

However, my research identified another very similar keyword (let's call it keyword B) that had significantly less competition (350,000 web pages) but also fewer searches (400 per month). Given the nature of the client's business they were looking for dozens of clients per month (not thousands) so the lower search volume was not an issue to them.

How strong are the competition?

Although Google identified 10 million and 350,000 competing web pages respectively, some of these pages would have a great Google ranking and others would be weak. The amount of competition is one thing but the quality of the competition is more important. When I assessed the quality of competition, Keyword B only had 18 high quality competing web pages out of the 350,000. The chances of getting a strong Google ranking would be much higher when competing with 18 pages compared with thousands or million pages.

Learning for companies big or small

• Think hard about the keywords that your target prospects are most likely to search on and convert well against your desired business objectives
• Success depends on choosing highly relevant keywords with high search volumes & relatively low competition
• With so many competing web pages in most sectors, quality is more important than quantity alone
• Review keyword performance against your desired objectives on a regular basis
• Don't delay - Google rewards longevity and every month, new competitors will be added to the rankings
• A short Google PPC test can be of great help in highlighting top performing keywords
• If you need help, contact an SEO specialist

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Using Google PPC as a research tool to refine your brand messages?

Many of Britain's best brands will research their brand proposition and messaging before developing new web sites and marketing communications. However, they tend to be the exception and many companies fail to do much research. Either they:-

• are in a hurry & don't want to wait to get results
• will not want to allocate any budget to research
• don't have the resource or expertise to manage research effectively
• believe they know what their customers want without the need for any research or insight

If you always guess what your prospects / customers are thinking you are highly likely to get it wrong. If this is the case and results are not as good as expected, you may have to re-do the previous website / brochure / advertising campaigns etc resulting in longer lead times and higher costs.

In my experience, (and I have worked with brands like Asda & Egg who have an enviable track record for achieving great results in shorter lead times than average) doing some essential research to quickly find out what works and what doesn't, means that you are significantly more likely to achieve the desired objective in less time & for less cost.

Using Google PPC as a research tool

I frequently use Google PPC to do research for my clients and find this a fast & low cost way of doing some research and getting results that enables clients to make objective decisions designed to maximise their Marketing Return On Investment (ROI).

With Google PPC it is possible to get a research test campaign running incredibly fast. e.g. suppose a company wants to test different propositions such as whether cost, service or quality is more important to prospects. An ad could be created for each of the 3 propositions & depending on the search volumes it is possible to get valuable results the same or next day. The results will show which proposition is more compelling to the target audience by comparing how many clicks or conversions each version gets. This principle could also be applied to researching headlines, ad copy, product names etc.

Google research example

A campaign was created with 3 different Google ads each communicating a different message. The ads were clicked 1,000 times in 48 hours at an average cost of 25p click, giving a Google campaign cost of £250.

• Ad version 1 accounted for 27% of the clicks
• Ad version 2 accounted for 58% of the clicks
• Ad version 3 accounted for 15% of the clicks

Clearly, message 2 had significantly more appeal to the target prospects.

Can Google research pay for itself?

If the client had progressed version 1 or 3, the test results suggest that their ongoing business results would only be a half or a quarter of the winning test's results. This would have a huge impact in lost sales revenue / profits. At some point, sooner rather than later, the proposed brochure, ad campaign, website etc would need to be redesigned duplicating the original development costs.

In the above example the advertising cost was £250. Even adding in a set-up cost if this is managed by a web marketing specialist the total research cost is likely to be significantly lower that redesigning everything in a few months time.

Depending on the value of the product or service, it may be that if just 1 of the 300 visitors attracted by the research test actually buys, then the value created is higher than the cost of the test. e.g. One of my clients ran a Google PPC research test investing just £300 on Google PPC media and attracted a client worth £140,000. Not a bad marketing ROI.

If you need help on using Google PPC as a research tool then contact a web marketing expert.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Tesco use Clubcard data for personalised emails

UK retail giant Tesco is to start using its Clubcard data to broadcast personalised emails. For many years they have been sending Clubcard members personalised coupons by direct mail but this is the first time they have sent personalised emails.

The coupons by post are sent out quarterly as part of a massive logistical operation. By using email, they have the potential to send coupons more frequently. The huge savings in paper, distribution & postage will also be appreciated by Tesco.

Tesco's loyalty card scheme has consistently provided an excellent marketing return on investment and importantly provides Tesco with great insight to improve its customer offer on a store by store basis.

Important lessons for companies big or small

• are you collecting customer data?
• how could you use this data to improve your understanding of their requirements?
• could you develop personalised offers relevant for each individual?
• do you have an advanced email system to broadcast personalised and dynamic emails?
• is there an adquate reporting process in place to highlight what's working and what isn't?

It is perfectly possible and affordable for a small or mid sized company to replicate a simplified version of the Tesco Clubcard loyalty scheme to grow customer lifetime value.

If you need help to do this then contact a web marketing expert.



Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Is your email marketing getting through? - Part 2 - Inbox Preview

If you use more than 1 email client (or reader) like Outlook or AOL or Gmail then you will probably have seen that the same email can look totally different when viewed in different email clients. So you may have prepared a great looking email with powerful sales messages but it could look a complete mess when viewed in Outlook or Gmail or Windows Live.

It's important to make sure that your email template is designed by someone who has a good working knowledge of the major email client systems used by your email list. However, the various email clients are constantly updating their specifications and what worked with Outlook 2007 last month, may not render correctly this month.

One way round this is to open up a series of test email accounts with all the major email clients and send yourself a test email to see how it renders before broadcasting it to your full list. However, there is an easier option.

The advanced email system I use has an Inbox preview facility which automatically sends a test email to over 50 different email client options. A few hours later I can preview how the same email renders with each email client. Better still, it shows how the email renders with images switched on and images switched off. It also shows how the email will look if the recipient uses horizontal or vertical preview panes.

This enables me to identify if there are specific problems with one or more email clients. Amendments can be made to the email before being retested to ensure the email renders as well as possible. Importantly, I can also ensure that the intended message is communicated effectively regardless of whether images are turned on or off or they are using horizontal or vertical preview panes.

For me, the Inbox Preview is an essential email check that offers my clients a high degree of confidence that the email will arrive in the recipients in box as intended and maximise campaign effectiveness.

If you need help in developing email marketing that increase customer lifetime value then contact an email marketing expert.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Is your email marketing getting through? - Part 1 - Hard bounces

Earlier in the year, I attracted a new customer who asked me to manage their email marketing campaigns. They were sending a B2B monthly newsletter to over 2,000 global corporate customers. They were doing a good job using a basic email system. However, the quality of report data available was poor and nobody was spending much time doing any analysis.

When I did the first email campaign, there were a significant number of hard bounces indicating that many of the email addresses on their database were invalid or no longer live. For a customer database, especially a high value B2B database, this has to be a concern, as potentially, customers will not be getting your email communications announcing new products or special offers or changes in specifications etc.

As a result of my first email campaign report, my client investigated the hard bounces. In some cases, the email address was found to be incorrect and updated. In other cases, the individual had left the organisation and they were able to update their records with the correct contact. As a result of cleaning up the data, the hard bounces for each campaign are now less than 0.5% which means each month's follow up takes little time and they are reassured that their client database is in good shape.

Learning for companies big and small

• Review the hard bounce rate after broadcasting an email campaign
• Remove hard bounces from your mailing list to avoid ISP's considering you a potential spammer and blocking your broadcasts
• Depending on the volume & value to you of the recipients, consider contacting them (if you have their phone number) to update their contact details
  

If you need help in developing effective email campaigns that increase customer lifetime value then contact an email marketing expert.


Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Are you making the most of your customer & prospect data?

Many companies have customer or prospect data but fail to use this data effectively to grow sales & profits.

One SME retailer I met had 15 years customer data and attracted over 2,000 customers per month. However, they never did anything with that data. Having worked so hard to be distinctive to the competition, develop a compelling message to target prospects and finally achieve a sale, it is bizarre that they chose never to contact the customer again.

A significant number of those customers would have been happy to:-

• provide a glowing testimonial for the retailer
• buy additional products and services from the retailer in the future
• refer them to friends and colleagues to grow the customer base
  
• provide important feedback on customer service

However, this retailer didn't believe in seeking customer opinions or allocating any budget or resource to any marketing activities beyond the first sale.

Many of Britain's best brands know the true value of 'retention' marketing to customers after the first sale. Previous companies, I have worked with including RAC & AA get incredibly high customer retention levels which are proven to deliver high Marketing Return On Investment (ROI).

Amazon develop bespoke personalised email messages that provide relevant offers based on previous purchasing / web viewing history. Brands like Sky & BT invest heavily in Friends & Family referral programmes.

Historically, many of these data-driven marketing programmes were outside the scope of small and mid sized companies due to technical resource & cost requirements. However, these barriers to entry no longer exist given the explosion in web development software & systems in recent years. The barrier to entry is knowledge.

I believe that 90% of the data-driven marketing programmes that I developed with some of Britain's best brands to grow sales & customer lifetime value could be successfully applied to small and mid sized companies.

A customer database is an asset but only if you make use of it. If you do it well it will help grow customer lifetime value and increase your marketing ROI.

Data marketing tips for companies big or small

• Give a specific individual in your company responsibilty for managing customer / prospect data
• Try and collect relevant customer / prospect data whenever possible - make sure every employee knows the importance of doing this well
  
• Use this data to help profile your customers / prospects especially your high value customers
• Use email to get customer feedback on your service shortly after purchase
• Email customers to ask for a testimonial shortly after purchase
• Email customers with a relevant offer to incentivise referrals to friends & family
  
• Emailing customers with relevant & targeted offers based on their purchase or web browsing history
• Make sure you comply with the UK Data Protection Act
  

If you need help in using data effectively to attract and grow customer lifetime value, then contact a web marketing expert.


Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Garden email review - "Not bad but could do better"

One of our local garden centres sends out monthly emails to customers. For them, email marketing is a great web marketing strategy. It enables them to regularly communicate with customers & prospects who have opted in to receive emails with relevant messages. This would be a fraction of the cost compared with printing & distributing a traditional paper version which I suspect would be unaffordable. However, the email I received this morning left me with mixed views.

What are their objectives?

I don't work for them so I do not know for sure but I suspect their objectives are to grow profitable sales by increasing:-

• the number of valuable customers
• the frequency of shop
• the average spend per visit

Attracting new customers

The email could help attract new customers in a number of ways:-

• firstly, they should be increasing their email list by capturing prospect email addresses and their opt-in permission at every opportunity 
• one way of doing this is by placing a prominent message on the email to encourage people to 'forward this email to a friend'. n.b. I will cover this in more detail in another blog. They do this but it is far from prominent, being just a small link at the bottom of the page near the legal copy. 
• if someone did receive a forwarded email, there is no obvious place (unless I missed it) where they could subscribe to receive subsequent issues

The importance of content 

The garden centre has a lot to talk about. Given the economic pressures more people are likely to 'grow their own' this year and their email sensibly leads with this with simple steps to grow tomatoes, cucumbers & chillies. They include links to their online store for associated products like Miracle Grow but not for the tomato plants which presumably are not suitable for standard home delivery. It is almost as if they are encouraging me to buy fertiliser online rather than visit the store.

A great advantage of best standard email marketing is the ability to tailor messages to different audiences. With advanced email systems (like mine), it is possible to send different content to different audience groups.  e.g.

• people who live close to the store(s), could be sent copy version 1 with an incentive to buy 'Grow Your Own' packs which includes tomato plants, compost, fertiliser. Better still, it could also include additional cross selling opportunity such as a small greenhouse.
• people who live further afield and are unlikely to visit the store could receive a different version which includes more links to their online store

Make it personal

People are much more likely to open the email and read it if it is personalised. However, something has gone wrong with this email and the first name & last names are repeated twice.

There is some good content in the email such as a photo competition & details of talks & events. However, the overall layout is a bit dull & may not encourage people to explore all the content. They appear to be using a system that tracks clicks to some degree. An advanced email system would provide lots of data on how the email performs which provides useful insight to help improve the overall content & layout.

In my email client, their email layout looks odd with different elements not aligning properly and there are some font problems which compromises the appearance. There is a huge gap under the main image at the top. Best practice would include a prominent link at the top of the email to 'click through to an html version' which should render perfectly.

Rendering problems are not uncommon and an email may look fine with one email client but can often look a mess in another. My email system has a preview facility which shows how the email will render in over 40 different email clients. Before you send it, you can see how it looks with images turned on or off in AOL or Outlook or Google etc which is an essential check to minimise email rendering problems.

Overall view

It is terrific to see a medium sized business incorporating smart email marketing as a key part of its overall marketing strategy. Their business has great potential to incorporate compelling content. This is especially relevant in gardening where many people are actively interested in seeking more information. I can immediately think of a dozen different initiatives that would help them achieve the objectives I outlined at the start of this blog.

Right now, it looks as if they are still learning their way and I suspect doing it in-house. The downside of this is that some errors are being made and they are probably only seeing a fraction of the potential value that best practice email marketing would bring.

But at least they are doing email marketing which is more than most & I would rate this email 3.5 out of 10. However, given major players like Tesco are looking at this sector, 3.5 is a good start but 9/10 would be a better target.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Are you using enough keywords?

Keywords are an essential part of web marketing effectiveness as many initiatives (e.g. search engine optimisation & Pay Per Click advertising) require the consistent use of relevant keywords likely to drive revenue producing traffic.

The keywords that work for browsers / researchers might be different to those used by people who want to buy now. Web searchers are increasingly using more specific searches as part of the research & buying process. Financial service companies can often use more than 3,000 keywords. Online retailers can use anything from 100,000 to 1 million keywords.

In some markets, sophisticated data analysis has demonstrated that key words can vary by day of week and even by time of day.

There are a number of tools available to help identify potential keywords. However, it is important to overlay marketing expertise and insight to fine tune the list to avoid wasting time, resource & money on keywords that will not work for your brand.

As ever, regular analysis of web metrics to identify what's working and what isn't is a key factor for business success.


Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Are you an outbound marketer or an inbound marketer?

Traditionally, companies have used 'outbound' marketing to communicate their messages to large numbers of people. Examples include, radio advertising, TV, national press, local press, cinema & outdoor posters. In over 20 years of marketing with Britain's best brands I have done plenty of mass 'outbound' advertising.

But traditional mass 'outbound' advertising is costly & often unaffordable for smaller companies. Increasingly much of this advertising is wasted as a large proportion of the audience (that are paid for) may not be the brands target audience. e.g. By placing an ad in a magazine you pay to reach all readers, even if only a small percentage are the ones you want to reach. The web is not immune to this e.g. banner advertising & emailing a cold audience can also suffer if old thinking is applied to new technology.

Secondly, people are so bombarded with marketing messages that we have all got pretty good at filtering out these 'interruption' based messages: either by using systems (e.g to detect junk email) or just mentally ignoring stuff that is not on our 'personal radar'. When I speak at seminars, I always ask the audience, how many marketing messages they recall seeing that day. They will have been exposed to thousands of messages but typically only a few people can recall two messages.

Looking for a needle in a haystack
When I talk with my B2B clients, I often say traditional 'outbound' marketing is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Potentially, there might be a huge number of companies across the UK that would benefit from their expertise. There could be over 500,000 companies within 80 miles of their location. However, only a small proportion of these prospect companies would be thinking about their solution in any particular week. The chances of reaching the right individual in the right company at the right time with the right message is like finding a needle in a haystack. For many companies the cost of doing this using traditional outbound marketing is prohibitive.

The effectiveness of inbound search
Increasingly, businesses & consumers search online as part of the research process before making a purchase decision. Comscore reported there were 135 bn searches across the world in Feb 09.

Inbound marketing is about making it easy for target prospects to find you and contact you when they are ready to buy. It includes search engine marketing (such as search engine optimisation & Pay Per Click) social media, blogging, podcasts and smart email marketing using autoresponders. e.g. With Pay Per Click advertising you decide which keywords should trigger your ad to appear and then only pay if the click the ad to be taken to your website.

Permission marketing not interruption
Outbound marketing is about interrupting consumers, hoping the messages stick long enough until the recipient is ready to buy. Inbound marketing is about attracting target prospects to visit your website, when they are ready to buy. It is about seeking their permission to follow up with smart marketing that addresses their individual problem.

Your website is critical for success
If new inbound marketing is about attracting target prospects to your website, then it is obvious that the website needs to perform. However, in my view 95% of websites fail to deliver. Just sticking a logo on a brochure wasn't good enough for a web site 13 years ago and it certainly isn't good enough now.

It requires well thought out optimised content, with appropriate offers relevant for the target prospects & designed to convert visitors to leads or customers. It depends on regular analysis of website performance against key metrics or key performance indicators.

Companies that want to succeed, especially in tough times, need to switch their focus from outbound to inbound permission based marketing in order to maximise their marketing ROI.


Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Facebook UK traffic up 75% but does it deliver better business results?

Digital research agency comscore has just released data showing Facebook's impressive growth in Europe over the last year. In Feb 09, Facebook had a 4.1% share of internet minutes up from 1.1% in Feb 08. Its share of networking minutes increased from 12.32% to 30.4% over the same period.

The largest audience is in the UK with 22.7 million unique visitors up 75% year on year. Across Europe, it is the number one social networking site in all countries except Germany (ranked 4th), Russia (7th) & Portugal (3rd).

Will Facebook help me get better business results?

Understandably, there is a lot of talk (some might say hype) about using Facebook as a web marketing option. Clearly, any medium that has mass reach and takes a 4% share of internet minutes should be taken seriously as a web marketing option.

However, most companies already have thousands of ways of spending marketing budgets and resources. Unless you have the resources of a Coca Cola you have to make choices and focus your money, time & resources on a limited number of activities designed to help you achieve your strategy and business objectives.

So despite its popularity, using Facebook is not guaranteed to work for your business nor that it will deliver a great marketing ROI. Like all web marketing strategies, it is unlikely you will be successful without joined up web marketing.

e.g. Is your target audience likely to engage with your brand on Facebook? Just because I have bought a Dyson and use Facebook does not automatically mean that I want to engage with Dyson on Facebook. 

Is it more likely to be positive engagement or negative engagement that might damage your brand? How does it fit with your brand thought?

So the challenge is how can you use Facebook to help you achieve your business objectives in a way that recognises why people use Facebook (which is not to receive 'traditional interruption marketing messages'). As ever, without a sound strategy there is little chance of success.

What's new?

My first experience of social media (probably before the name was coined) was at the RAC in 96. We were repositioning the brand. Customer research told us we had some great brand values: we were trusted and expert. However, we were also patronising & unapproachable. For many people we were considered once a year for breakdown membership and we wanted to be more relevant for more of the year. When I developed the new RAC website as part of the brand repositioning I included a forum called Your Voice which was designed to encourage user generated content about motoring related issues. i.e. make us much more approachable and demonstrate the year round benefits of RAC membership

All posts were published if:

• it was motoring related
• they did not contain swear words
• they didn't blatantly promote or criticise a 3rd party brand which might involve me appearing in court
  

The first post we received was from an individual who hated the new corporate identity that had just been launched and the fact that we had removed the royal crown from the RAC logo. My heart told me that the forum was all about engaging customers / prospects and encouraging dialogue (positive or negative). My head told me hardly anyone else at the RAC wanted a website and especially a forum which was 'out of our control' & if the 1st thing I published was a negative criticism of the biggest thing the RAC had done in 20 years, I half expected to be fired. 

I published the post and minutes later I received a 2nd post from someone who said they 'loved the new corporate identity. It was colourful and modern and made the RAC less like old fashioned farts'. Of course, I published this in nanoseconds. 

The lesson for me was if you genuinely have a strong brand and offer a great service than don't be afraid to encourage dialogue. With even the best brands, there will be some negative comments. However, these are likely to be significantly outweighed by positive comments. Having both on the website, showed the RAC had confidence and was big enough to display good and bad comments which reinforced our integrity.

The negative comments may also contain helpful clues to areas in the business that require improvement. Read more in my article Are you getting enough customer complaints? 

Had Facebook been around in 96, it would have made life much easier for me and I could think of a number of strategies that would engage the RAC's  target audience on a regular basis (making us more approachable) and encourage user generated content such as maintenance tips, debates on motoring issues e.g. speed cameras, my favourite drives / rides, my favourite cars etc. 

So, Facebook could help your business, as long as it is part of a joined up web marketing strategy that focusses on initiatives most likely to deliver a good marketing ROI. But without the thinking and strategy it's unlikely to deliver great results and will probably be put in 'another marketing fad that didn't work' box.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Email marketers increase focus on customer emails

The latest National Email Benchmarking Report covering Q2 2008 was published this month by the Direct Marketing Association this month. 

Acquisition campaigns accounted for 18% of the total (down from 24% in the previous year) with 82% of email campaigns targeted to customers.

This reflects that delivery rates and email marketing ROI is higher for customer campaigns than acquisition especially for cold lists. 

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

UK internet advertising spend was the only medium to grow in 2008

In the Advertising Association's latest quarterly report on UK adspend, overall spend was down 3.9% year on year. In Q4, 2008, the decline was larger at 9.6% compared with the previous year. 

All media spend (except for internet) declined with newspapers down 12% & magazines down 9.9%.

Internet advertising was the star performer with adspend up 17.3% year on year.

These figures show that when times get tough and advertising needs to deliver a good marketing ROI, online is the place to be.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

New report shows email marketing gives best ROI

Econsultancy in association with Adestra have just published  their Email Marketing Census 2009. 78% of respondents rated email marketing's return on investment (ROI) as excellent or good which is an increase from 66% last year. This makes email marketing the highest rated digital marketing channel for ROI.

The report highlights that not everyone is following best practice with only 18% of respondents knowing what percentage of email budget is lost through non-delivery.  

And 44% of company respondents say that their email marketing is hampered by the lack of an effective strategy. There have never been so many ways to market and so many ways to waste money. Email marketing should definitely be an area of focus if you want to cost effectively attract and keep valuable customers in 2009. However, to maximise success it needs to be part of an joined up marketing strategy.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

How event triggered email marketing improves marketing ROI

In the current recession, life is tough for many companies:-

• marketing budgets and resources are under increased pressure
• in most markets there are numerous competitors
• customers are suffering advertising fatigue & cynicism
• 'outward bound' response rates (especially in traditional channels) are reducing

Yet the challenge for most companies is to grow customer lifetime value by keeping valuable customers and improving their web marketing return on investment (ROI). 

Good marketers have always strived to get the right message (using the right channel) to the target prospect / customer at the right time. With conventional media like radio, press, direct marketing etc, this involves huge wastage as many of the people that you are paying to reach are not likely to be in the market for your product / service at that point in time.  This led major FMCG advertisers to advertise frequently but few companies can afford to do this anymore. So unless the marketing is first rate, much of today's traditional advertising fails to deliver the results business needs.

Traditional advertisers are switching more of their budget to web marketing 

For example, Google PPC enables advertisers to reach target prospects who are actively searching for their product or service and with one click can take them straight to a compelling message. Advertisers only pay when  the ad is clicked regardless of how many other people have been shown their ad thus reducing wastage.

Triggered event email marketing 

This involves sending a specific email to an individual being triggered by a specific event such as:-

• customer life stage trigger - e.g. new baby; retirement; marriage; birthday; empty nester
• customer life cycle trigger - e.g. new customer cross sell;  end of contract / membership 
• transaction behaviour trigger - e.g. cross sell ink cartridges to people who bought printers; lack of activity
• customer initiated trigger - e.g. inbound interaction; online behaviour
• external trigger - e.g. change in interest rates; competitor action; regulatory; 

Key learning for companies large or small

• Consider using triggered email marketing as part of a joined up web strategy
  
• What would be the most relevant triggers for your prospect / customer segments?
• What would be the most compelling message for each trigger?
• Have you got a smart email system that enables multiple trigger emails to be automatically sent to target individuals?
• Can your email system send personalised, dynamic content with great reporting capability?
• What are the desired objectives for each trigger?
• Analyse your web metrics performance  
• Find out what's working and what isn't and refine the campaign.

If you need help then contact a web marketing expert.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Is the rest of your business letting your website down?

In a previous blog, I wrote about how UK retailers were relying on the internet for sales growth. However, some companies traditional business processes compromise their website performance.

Recently, I wanted to buy a personal video recorder (PVR) & one of the websites I looked at was Richer Sounds. The price for my chosen product was OK and the web copy said 'Save delivery costs, pick up today.' I had a meeting scheduled in Bristol a few days later (where they have a store) & considered this as an option. 

I telephoned the store to check if they had the product in stock and received a voice message saying they were busy doing other things. I called back 4 times and received the same message. I gave up and bought the product from somewhere else.

If they were to analyse their web metrics, it would show that my web visits failed to convert to a web sale. From a retail perspective, this would imply the website is not working properly. However, the reason for the 'failed sale' was that the store didn't answer the phone. Whatever the reason it affected their web marketing return on investment (ROI)

Key learning for companies large or small

• do you regularly review your website performance against agreed objectives? 
  
• do your non-web operations support or compromise your website performance?
• if your telephone support is below par what alternatives are available? - e.g. Argos enable shoppers to check stock & reserve products using an automatic telephone service & online

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

How do you encourage off-line customers to shop online?

Many companies have a large existing customer base who may not be aware that they could also transact or service their account online. Encouraging these shoppers to visit the website should help grow customer lifetime value by encouraging extra sales with lower costs.

One way of doing this is to give off-line customers an incentive to visit your website & buy online. e.g. providing a voucher / coupon that gives shoppers 10% off their first online order. Include a valid until date and any other conditions that may apply. Incorporate an offer code so you can also calculate your Marketing ROI. 

By including a requirement for an email address in the online order you can also build a customer email database to enable smart low-cost email marketing.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Facebook proposed data ownership changes upsets users

Facebook recently amended its terms and conditions to claim lifelong ownership of uploaded content even after user profiles have been deleted. This gave concern to a significant number of Facebook users as previously a clause allowed users to 'permanently delete any uploaded content'. 

Within 24 hours, numerous Facebook groups had been launched to protest with widespread media / blog coverage. Facebook quickly did a u-turn on the policy change. 

However, they propose to develop an alternative clause as they believe the existing terms are unclear, as once a page has been published the information is out there on the web even if the content is removed from Facebook. I assume that they want to retain ownership as they are concerned that it would be hard / impossible to remove the non-Facebook content that might exist elsewhere that was based on the original Facebook pages. Critics are concerned that they may want life-long ownership for some form of commercial gain. Different people will have different views, to some extent based on the trust between users and the brand.

Lessons for companies big or small

• What policy do you have in place regarding customer data? 
• Are customers / prospects clear about what you will do with their data?
  
• Does it comply with your legal obligations?
• Is it up to date? 

For more information to ensure that your data capture improves (rather than damages) your business performance take a look at my blog Do you have a web marketing privacy policy?

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

UK retailers relying on internet for sales growth

Marks & Spencer announced their Q3 UK like-for-like sales were down 7.1%. During the same period, their online sales increased 29%. Debenhams like-for-like sales for the 12 weeks beginning 21st Oct 08 were down 3.3% whereas their online sales were up 37%.

Smart retailers know that the internet can help grow their sales and cut their costs. As someone who has been active in internet marketing since 1996, I am clearly an internet advocate. However, in my view the majority of UK business websites fail to perform well. So in these tough economic conditions, it is crucial to make sure you focus on getting the best marketing return on investment.

Amazon's approach

Regular readers of my blog will know I am a great admirer of Amazon. Their Chairman & CEO, Jeff Bezos is widely quoted as saying 'We are not great advertisers. "So we start with customers, figure out what they want & figure out how to get it to them."

3 Ways to transform your internet marketing ROI

In my experience, there are 3 key ways to transform your internet marketing ROI:-

1) Attract more target prospects 

As Jeff Bezos says, you need to start with the customer. What customer segment or profile do you want to attract? What problem are you trying to solve for them? Have you developed a compelling brand thought?

Are you making full use of KeyWord Research, Search Engine Optimisation & Google Pay Per Click advertising to make it easy for target prospects to find your website?

2) Convert more website visitors to valuable customers

Do you have a strategy to capture website leads? Do you have a strategy to follow up and convert these leads? e.g. email marketing.

Is your website designed to do business?

Is measuring marketing ROI a key part of your web marketing strategy? 

3) Grow customer lifetime value

Do you have strategies in place to grow customer lifetime value?

If your website is failing to perform, don't delay and let others steal your business.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

How did Virgin stop a brand advocate becoming a brand terrorist?

Some of you may have recently seen (on the web) a letter of complaint from a Virgin passenger to Sir Richard Branson about the food served on a flight from Mumbai to Heathrow. In the letter, the complainant says he was a Virgin fan. Whether he remains a Virgin advocate or becomes a brand terrorist will depend on how Virgin treats his complaint.

In this case, Sir Richard called him and thanked him for his 'constructive if tongue in cheek' email. Virgin apologised and invited him to their catering house to select the next range of meals and wines on board. See Telegraph article.  

If you want to maximise customer lifetime value and avoid brand advocates becoming brand terrorists then a look at my article, 'Are you getting enough customer complaints?' 

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Capital One switch from direct mail to digital to attract customers

Credit card company Capital One (historically a UK top 3 user of direct mail) is switching to digital for customer acquisition. They say that the traditional approach isn't working for them anymore. 

Their new strategy combines digital ads on mainstream websites and affiliate marketing using price comparison websites.

This sends out a strong message to UK companies large or small.

Despite their significant DM experience, resources and investment, Capital One cannot make traditional direct marketing deliver cost-effective sales. Once again this demonstrates why UK business in increasingly switching budgets to internet marketing to attract and keep valuable customers. When times are tough, you need to use a channel that is effective and accountable.

If you are not making best use of the internet to attract and keep valuable customers, talk to a web marketing expert.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.