Are You Getting Bored With Your Most Profitable Lead Generation Methods?

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It’s funny how often marketers shun tried and tested, reliable strategies that bring in new customers much more effectively than other, more elaborate approaches.

It’s almost always the case that businesses will spend much more to acquire a new customer than to get an existing customer to purchase again OR to stop an existing customer from defecting to the competition. (My theory is that customer acquisition marketing tends to be a lot “sexier” than followup communications, so acquisition gets more of the attention).

In much the same way, I often see people mothballing their BEST marketing methods in favour of risky, untested lead gen tactics that produce anything from half to 5% of the results of other strategies.

Of course, this isn’t done with any masochistic intent to deliver sub-par results.  It’s just that we humans seem to have a “love of the new” and think we have to be constantly re-inventing our marketing approaches in order to gain traction.

If you take your eye off your metrics, even for a minute, this is a very easy trap to fall into.

Case in point: I recently consulted with a retail chain with a fairly substantial web channel.   We analysed where all new customers and sales had come from over the last few years and found the metrics somewhat lacking in detail.    Most of the “active” lead generation activity that had been conducted appeared to be rather expensive, requiring at least a year of loyal custom by the new customer to pay the initial marketing expense.

One method that had been tried, but didn’t have any hard metrics associated with it, was enclosing printed referral request cards with orders.  I asked the client about this and the general consensus was that the referral cards were producing a few leads but that the cost was probably not worth it — that’s why they were discontinued for a year or so.

I persuaded the client to try another batch of referral card marketing, and the results were staggering — it was about 500% more cost-effective than ANY of their other active lead generation methods currently in operation.

I had to agree — this simple referral card marketing techniques was one of the most “un-exciting” marketing strategies they were deploying (not a “2.0″ to be seen anywhere!).   But it was also the most profitable.

Having got a handle on firm metrics associated with lead generation, the client is now sending referral request cards to customers no less than 6 times per year.    We will continue to monitor the results on an ongoing basis, but the campaigns will continue until there is something better to replace them.

What about you? Have you become bored with the lead generation methods that worked well for you in the past?  Try resurrecting some old favourites — you may be pleasantly surprised by the results!

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How to Stop Spam Email In Its Tracks – MailWasher Pro Review

Despite numerous anti-spam laws, the quantity of spam email floating around the Internet only seems to grow and grow. I must get 200 spam emails a day, and I’m know many people get even more.

Now I’m using a great tool called MailWasher Pro to stem the tide. MailWasher Pro is a program that you open prior to downloading your email that connects to your email server and allows you to preview incoming email messages without fully downloading them. So instead of waiting 5 or 10 minutes for a whole lot of junk email to download, you can view all incoming mail in about 15 seconds.

Then it uses a number of filters and learning tools to classify your email into “good” and “bad” groups. It also has a facility to easily “report” spam emails, which feeds back into a network of other users. This means that around 90% of spam emails are already correctly flagged when they appear in the program window.

Then you hit “Process Mail” and download only the emails you want to view – deleting, blacklisting or bouncing other emails non grata.
I estimate that MailWasher Pro saves me at least 20 minutes a day – it’s definitely worth the nominal price and is a vital productivity tool.

From the Mailwasher website:

MailWasher works directly with your email server, exactly like your email program does. But there is one important difference: you can tell MailWasher to delete a message at the server, without downloading it – or you can bounce an email back to the sender so that it looks as though your address is not valid.

MailWasher retrieves information about all the emails on the server. With that information (some of which is also processed by MailWasher) you can decide what to do with each individual email – download, delete, or bounce back.

If you check your account with MailWasher first, you can delete or bounce the emails you do not want. Then, when you use your email program, it downloads only the remaining emails, those that you want to read.

MailWasher can be thought of as a “first line of defence” which can weed out junk, large wasteful attachments, and potentially harmful viruses.

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How To Know When Subscribers Unsubscribe From Your Autoresponder Email Sequences

Lead generation on the internet, like all direct marketing, is a constant interplay between you (the marketer) and your prospects and clients. By understanding how suspects and prospects and clients are responding to your marketing message, you can tweak and optimise your approach accordingly – and the faster you tweak, the faster your results improve.

A client in the B2B consulting area recently asked me what a “typical” unsubscribe rate is for an email or autoresponder list. Here’s how I replied (paraphrased of course — I don’t actually speak in numbered points).

1. Unsubscribe rates can vary enormously. The main factor that influences your unsubscribe rate is the VALUE you offer your list on an ongoing basis. There is a delicate balance between education, value and selling – and the general rule is it’s much more effective to demonstrate value first before selling.

2. You’ll notice I didn’t actually answer the question above . If I had to give a figure, I would say that typical unsubscribe rates for “Special Report/White Paper + followup” sequences are in the 5% to 30% range.

3. Your unsubscribe rate is cumulative — it will tend to climb over time so in order to maintain a robust list size, you have to add new members faster than they unsubscribe.

4. Some messages in your autoresponder series will trigger many more unsubscribes than others. If you know which message(s) are the main culprits, you can edit accordingly. Take a look at the Followup Status – Unsubscribed report from within the Aweber autoresponder system (highly recommended, by the way):

As you can see, message 7 is the main offender — responsible for a massive proportion of unsubscribes!

A quick check of message 7 confirmed that the subject matter switched from good information and education to a “buy now” pitch, with some fairly clear-cut “disqualification” criteria. In other words, “buy now or go away”. Many subscribers obviously “took the hint” and hit the “unsubscribe” button.

Should you really care if list subscribers unsubscribe?

Making your unsubcribe rate as low as possible is NOT optimal in most circumstances. If your unsubscribe rate is very low, that MAY indicate your offers are too weak or you are not qualifying clients and/or setting appropriate buying criteria.

Autoresponder series are not only a powerful education tool but also a powerful QUALIFCICATION tool. Let me give you an example:

One of our clients is involved in property development project management in Brisbane. Their marketing had been quite effective at generating enquires, but of a very low quality. The result was that the sales team was forced to pick through the pile of low-quality leads to get to the hot prospects.

They solved this problem by publishing a targeted Special Report on their website, backed up by a series of autoresponders, educating prospective property investors about new property development options and how to put a deal together. One of the main purposes of the sequence is to DIS-qualify “non-buyers” BEFORE they call and start consuming salespeoples’ time like hyper-absorbant sponges.

So in this case, a certain number of unsubscribes from the list are a good thing.

Although not all unsubscribe patterns are as pronounced as the one in the image above, if you at least know how users are responding to each stage of your lead generation process, you can test new approaches to get improved results within only a few iterations.

Here’s to YOUR success!

Will
Autoresponder Marketer

P.S. I highly endorse the Aweber Autoresponder system because of it’s very reasonable cost and raft of useful features, including the ability to SPLIT TEST multiple emails to the same list and track the results — that’s instant leverage.

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Alternatives to “Submit” and (UGH!) “Reset” Buttons In Online Forms

Something that really raises my hackles is the use of the default buttons “Submit” and “Reset” on web forms.

For starters, the “Reset” button should be banned altogether. Why on earth would you want a perfectly good prospect or client to reset an entire form? Although this seems self-evident, I’m amazed the the number of companies (even big, reputable companies) that still feature “reset” buttons on their forms. (In one case, tweaking form design including removing the dreaded “Reset” button doubled conversion for that page.)

Then there’s the trusty “Submit” button. Remembering that EVERY element of a form can potentially influence response and that the button is the last thing the user sees before taking the desired action, wording is critical.

Some good alternatives to “Submit” are…

• “Free Instant Access” (very good for opt-ins and digital information)
• “Yes! Count Me In!” (good for event and seminar registrations
• “Yes! Reserve My Place”
• “Yes, Fast-track My Application”
• “Contact a Website Conversion Expert Now”

You get the idea.

You won’t always significantly boost response with a custom button name, but it is one of the many conversion levers you have at your disposal, so why not use it?

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New Video: Introduction To Exponential Lead Generation On The Internet

2008 has been a big year so far — can you believe it’s more than 1/3 over?

I’ve been flat out team building and working on some exciting internet consulting and lead generation projects for clients as well as a few “side projects” including information marketing, and as a result content production and blog posts have suffered.

I’ve recently started creating more content on generating, nurturing and converting more leads online — here’s a brief introductory video on Exponential Internet Lead Generation strategies for product and service businesses. This is the first in a series of three – the other 2 will be posted here shortly.

Here’s a brief summary of the topics I cover in the video:

1. Your Selling Philosophy
2. Your Lead Definition
3. Your Lead Generation Map
4. Testing and Tracking
5. Optimization Strategies, and
6. Integrating Lead Generation and Sales Functions

Episode 1: Introduction To Exponential Lead Generation On The Internet

Press “Play” to listen.

Download a FULL TRANSCRIPT of the video in PDF format here

More profit-boosting resources:

• If you’re a Small Business Owner: Discover how to multiply your website profits with the Marketing Results Gold Internet Consulting Program.
• If you’re looking for an Enterprise-level solution for improving web profits: Read more about the Marketing Results Platinum Internet Consulting Program.

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