Saturday, July 19, 2008
Five Lessons from Online Marketing Summit, Chicago Edition
The whirlwind Online Marketing Summit (OMS) Tour, sponsored by the national branch of the Business Marketing Association (BMA), visited Chicago on July 17. I attended the first OMS in San Diego a couple of years ago, and I was glad to hear that organizer Aaron Kahlow was touring the event around the country this summer. I've spoken with Aaron, and the OMS tour joins two things he is passionate about: educating people about web analytics & internet marketing and traveling.
The OMS is a great place to dig into all aspects of online marketing: Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Engine Marketing Campaigns, Web Site design and usability, Web Analytics, and Email. Kahlow and the presenters all share a strong commitment to education, and the policy of OMS is that sales takes a back seat to case studies and lessons learned. The audience is encouraged to "boo" any sales talk from the speaker.
Kahlow's opening remarks chided marketers for living in a "Cuban Time-Warp" -- with another travel reference, he compared marketers (and specifically B2B marketers) to Cuban car owners, relying on really well-maintained technology from the 1950's and 60's. He went on to describe this time warp the result of marketers continually "hitting the snooze button", buying time with half-measures, rather than "waking up and embracing the new day" full of lead generation, customer service, community and brand building that online marketing offers.
Doug Lenos of BRC Marketing, Inc. shared a few of the secrets of his success in re-creating the web site for Cintas, the uniform and business services giant. The first was the enormous benefit of the one page memo. Every time his team received a measurable benefit or significant learning from a change to the site, they released a one page memo stating 1) the objective, 2) what was done, 3) the quantifiable results (or do you say metrics), and 4) the conclusion reached. By taking incremental actions in the early assessment phases of their project and sending out these one page memos, the team built credibility for the full-on web site redesign.
Another insight from <> came from his team's experiments with different photographs on the Cintas home page. When they found the right photo they knew it -- a significant increase in multi-page visits, or, as we tend to say these days, a big drop in the site's Bounce Rate. Good photographs make a strong emotional connection. Knowing who your audience is and having a picture they can relate to makes a big difference.
Debbie Qaqish of The Pedowitz Group shared the results of their study on how companies are using the internet to support "demand generation". "Marketing is the secret new sales person in the firm." The biggest challenge facing B2B marketers -- creating higher quality leads (62% of respondents), tracking & reporting metrics (49%), Time to devote to analysis and improvement (43%), collaboration with sales (29%), generating enough leads (29%). The study also discussed the challenges of skills acquisition, staffing, compensation and budget trends.
Chad Malchow of Return Path had some examples of going from good to great with email campaigns. He also had some interesting statistics from a Return Path study, highlighting where people can find some low hanging fruit for email marketing: 30% of the sites did not send any email within the first 30 days, and the average time from sign-up to first email was nine days. 60% didn't send a "thank you" or "welcome" message, which is a best practice with a high value payoff for marketers. And while 70% of the companies studied collect enough information to personalize the email, 75% don't use that information. Malchow showed some case studies where strong welcome messages and personalized emails and/or targeted offers made a significant difference in returns.
The OMS is a great place to dig into all aspects of online marketing: Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Engine Marketing Campaigns, Web Site design and usability, Web Analytics, and Email. Kahlow and the presenters all share a strong commitment to education, and the policy of OMS is that sales takes a back seat to case studies and lessons learned. The audience is encouraged to "boo" any sales talk from the speaker.
1. Are You in a Cuban Time-Warp?
Kahlow's opening remarks chided marketers for living in a "Cuban Time-Warp" -- with another travel reference, he compared marketers (and specifically B2B marketers) to Cuban car owners, relying on really well-maintained technology from the 1950's and 60's. He went on to describe this time warp the result of marketers continually "hitting the snooze button", buying time with half-measures, rather than "waking up and embracing the new day" full of lead generation, customer service, community and brand building that online marketing offers.
2. The benefits of One Page Memos
Doug Lenos of BRC Marketing, Inc. shared a few of the secrets of his success in re-creating the web site for Cintas, the uniform and business services giant. The first was the enormous benefit of the one page memo. Every time his team received a measurable benefit or significant learning from a change to the site, they released a one page memo stating 1) the objective, 2) what was done, 3) the quantifiable results (or do you say metrics), and 4) the conclusion reached. By taking incremental actions in the early assessment phases of their project and sending out these one page memos, the team built credibility for the full-on web site redesign.
3. Pictures Matter
Another insight from <> came from his team's experiments with different photographs on the Cintas home page. When they found the right photo they knew it -- a significant increase in multi-page visits, or, as we tend to say these days, a big drop in the site's Bounce Rate. Good photographs make a strong emotional connection. Knowing who your audience is and having a picture they can relate to makes a big difference.
4. Marketing is the new B2B sales person
Debbie Qaqish of The Pedowitz Group shared the results of their study on how companies are using the internet to support "demand generation". "Marketing is the secret new sales person in the firm." The biggest challenge facing B2B marketers -- creating higher quality leads (62% of respondents), tracking & reporting metrics (49%), Time to devote to analysis and improvement (43%), collaboration with sales (29%), generating enough leads (29%). The study also discussed the challenges of skills acquisition, staffing, compensation and budget trends.
5. Low hanging fruit for email marketers
Chad Malchow of Return Path had some examples of going from good to great with email campaigns. He also had some interesting statistics from a Return Path study, highlighting where people can find some low hanging fruit for email marketing: 30% of the sites did not send any email within the first 30 days, and the average time from sign-up to first email was nine days. 60% didn't send a "thank you" or "welcome" message, which is a best practice with a high value payoff for marketers. And while 70% of the companies studied collect enough information to personalize the email, 75% don't use that information. Malchow showed some case studies where strong welcome messages and personalized emails and/or targeted offers made a significant difference in returns.
