Do you have a web marketing privacy policy?

If you are serious about web marketing, you should be collecting your customers and prospects contact details. It is especially important to collect email addresses to enable smart email marketing. Ultimately, whether this will add any value to your business will largely depend on how you collect the data and what you do with it.

For me, it is critical that you treat prospect & customer data as a valuable asset but also treat it with great respect. 

In a recent research report of leading US web marketers over two thirds said that they include a privacy link on their emails. I always include privacy links on the emails I create for my clients, on all web pages & on all data capture forms. Not many people actually click the link but that's not the point. It's about sending reassuring signals to the reader that you respect their privacy and have a policy in place if they want to take a look at it.

Capturing email addresses

I always encourage my clients to capture email addresses on their websites (and offline too) usually through some form of compelling incentive such as a special download e.g. a white paper. I generally use up 3 or 4 fields in my standard data capture forms. It is important not to have to many fields as it will discourage completion which will be counter productive. I was surprised to see in recent research that over 40% of companies had 6-10 fields in their registration forms and nearly 10% had over 11 fields. 

I would not usually complete a registration form with more than 5 fields unless they made it worthwhile for me by offering something like a free iPhone or free tickets to a MotoGP event! You don't have to get their whole life history in the first form. It's best to capture data 'little and often'. But, only collect data that can reasonably be expected to help your improve your offer and marketing to prospects & customers.

It is important to comply with the UK Data Protection Act. For some of the questions you need to consider take a look at Your Legal Obligations:

on the Information Commissioner's Office website.

Don't forget to always include an unsubscribe link on all emails.

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 marketing that delivers a high ROI - a case study

Marketing ROI is all about getting more for your money. But is it possible to cut costs and get more sales?

Cut costs by more than 80%

One of my Chippenham email marketing clients used to post thousands of high quality printed newsletters to their customers and prospects every month. Taking into account design and print costs, postage and handling the typical cost was around £1 per newsletter. By switching to email they reduced their costs by more than 80%. 

As their volume grows, email offers a significantly lower marginal cost than conventional mail so the savings are even higher. At high volumes the cost per email is pennies.

Greater flexibility

With conventional mail, the same newsletter was sent to everyone. With email we send different content tailored to different audiences: currently 4 major versions but this is likely to grow over time with improved customer insight.

Improved customer insight

In addition to cutting costs, the email marketing provides much greater customer insight. With conventional mail, you have no idea whether the mail got to the intended recipient let alone read. 

With advanced email systems (such as the one I use for my clients), you get a wealth of data:-

• delivery data such as the number sent, the number delivered, hard & soft bounces which enable you to clean your database 
• opening data which is a useful indicator as to whether recipients read the email & if so, the number of times. Who the non-openers are is just as important and this insight can lead to changes to improve the open rate.
• action data such as the number of forwards to colleagues, unsubscribes, unique users click throughs

Identifying hot leads

My system also identifies hot leads which are people that have opened the email or clicked article links a specific number of times. This enable me to flag these hot leads to customers. 

e.g. Suppose an email was sent to 5,000 customers or prospects. Under the conventional post system, everyone would have to receive a follow up call to identify hot leads, which would be unnecessarily time consuming and costly, especially if the hot leads were all in the last 5% of telephone calls. It may be too late by the time you got to them!

With systems such as mine, data capture, identifies the hot leads that should be followed up immediately because they have read a specific article x times which implies a high level of interest. I can flag this insight to my clients within hours / days of the email being sent.

Greater insight = more sales

So, with greater customer insight, emails can be personalised and have tailored content to be more relevant for the target audience. Lower costs make it possible to have more frequent and timely communications. A greater focus on hot leads improves conversion rates and increase customer lifetime value. The wealth of data available should enable continuous improvements in email marketing to significantly improve customer lifetime value and Marketing ROI.

There is still a role for conventional mail but for most companies, most of the time, email marketing will cut costs significantly and improve sales.

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.

Pay Per Click Marketing That Delivers A High Marketing ROI - a case study

Traditional marketing aims to get the right message to the right person at the right time. This is easier said than done. For example one of my new clients is a workplace design agency based in the south west. They transform the interiors for companies around the UK including offices, financial services and retail. 

Looking for a needle in a haystack

Potentially, there are a huge number of companies across the UK that would benefit from their expertise. There are over 500,000 companies within 80 miles of their location. However, only a small proportion of these companies would be thinking about workplace design on 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 marketing is prohibitive.

Attracting target prospects to your website

I advise my clients to make it easy for people in 'buying mode' to find them. One of the strategies I recommend to my clients is Google Pay Per Click Adwords. I have been using Google PPC for over 5 years to help attract target prospects to my customers' websites. 

I set up a 4 week Google PPC test for my south west client, spending just £10 per day on media. As a result of their £310 Google media investment they won a new client: an African company that was opening a new London office. There was no way that client would have heard of them, let alone contacted them without the Google campaign. 

The value of the 1st order was £140,000 which is over 450 times their media investment. Not a bad marketing return on investment!

Use the search box on the right to find other blogs about Google PPC.

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.