Tips to Boost Marketing ROI

Transcription

1 Tips to Boost Marketing ROI

2 Table of Contents About the Author Tips to Get Your QR Codes Scanned... 4 Marketing Trends: Humanizing Your Brand... 5 Tips to Improve Retention Marketing Improving Online Conversion: 10 Tips to Optimize Landing Pages... 8 Contact Us... 9

3 About the Author Brian Snider Brian S. Snider is President and Chief Creative Officer of The GRI Marketing Group, a direct and digital marketing agency based in Trumbull, CT. Celebrating 29 years of service, GRI has built a client list that includes Embrace Home Loans, Bloomberg, Time Consumer Marketing, Conde Nast, McGraw-Hill, Time Warner Cable, The Direct Marketing Association, New York Life, Pitney Bowes, The Hartford, InterMedia Outdoors and dozens more. Brian has been personally involved with hundreds of campaigns for both b-to-b and b-to-c. In his current role he has responsibility for agency positioning, strategy and vision. He also likes to get hands on with the creative teams for each GRI client. He holds a Bachelor s of Science degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University. When not at work or spending time with family and friends, Brian enjoys traveling, spending time on the golf course, on a tennis court and in his recording studio.

4 5 Tips to Get Your QR Codes Scanned If you thought QR codes were everywhere in 2011, you will be seeing more in 2012 as the QR code provides a method of instantaneous, impulsive responses. In fact, 20% of US smartphone owners scanned a QR code with their phone as of December, as did 16.1% of Canadians. You can get creative and use QR codes in many places to make your print interactive magazines, billboards, product packages, store shelves, catalogs, or on a direct mail piece such as forms or envelopes. Here are a few tips to incorporate QR Codes into your marketing materials so your audience will scan. 1. Provide Instructions Near the QR Code Awareness of QR Codes has increased dramatically over the past year, but there are still plenty of people out there who don t know what they are or how to use them. To assist those folks, provide instructions near the QR Code on your printed materials. This can be done by simply including text such as scan to subscribe. 2. Give People an Incentive Provide consumers with a good reason to scan the QR code and include that incentive on the printed materials. Will it make it easier to make a purchase, provide information or offer a discount? Once the QR code is scanned, take the consumer to a targeted landing page that continues to carry the message and offer from the printed material. You can also embed a video in the landing page to show case studies or see a demonstration. 3. Educate Your Audience Ahead of Time Use other media to increase awareness about them. Create blog posts on your website that talk about your QR Codes. Put one on your social media pages or in your signature. Talk about them in your e-newsletter. By taking those steps, you may not only create curiosity, but you may increase the chances that your audience will know what to do with them when they see one on your printed pieces. 4. Get Personal with Your Message On a direct mail piece, a QR code can link a consumer to a personalized URL (PURL). A PURL provides a Web address for an individual so the content at that address can be unique for that visitor, and marketers can create unique QR codes linking to PURLs for everyone on their direct mail lists. This online interaction can be tracked, making it easier to measure in terms of campaign ROI. The text PURL can, of course, be put on a direct mail piece in conjunction with a QR code, allowing recipients to manually type it into a Web browser if they don t have smartphones or would rather engage from a computer. 5. Shorten the Destination URL This one is very important! QR Codes can hold a lot of data, but the more data that you have in a QR Code, the harder it may be to scan it quickly. Make sure to use a service that shortens your URLs before generating the QR Code.

5 Marketing Trends: Humanizing Your Brand Marketing in 2012 is more than just selling your products and services. With 70% of brands planning to boost their presence across social media platforms, customers and prospects are more apt to move quickly from one marketing message to the other. Your marketing message needs to be educational, relevant and filled with personality to create an immediate connection with your customers and prospects. So how do you add value and inject personality to humanize your brand? Listen to what your customers have to say. First, start by paying attention to your customer and prospects behavior and listen to them on social networks, community forums and through the use of surveys. 90% of Fortune 500 marketers cite brand building as a benefit of social media and 81% cite mining customer insights. Monitoring your brand on social networks will help identify customer concerns that need to be addressed and may give you a competitive edge. It can also identify brand advocates and there is nothing more powerful than customers saying how great your brand is on social networks! Once you learn more about your customers and prospects, then you can talk to them the way you would talk to another human being. Use your social networks to not only answer questions but also ask them. Try sharing little known facts about your company to strengthen your social customers bond with your brand. Package your product or design your marketing message to inform, entertain, surprise and provide value rather than just sell. For example, a travel company can recommend the best way to pack for a trip or suggest the best locations to travel by season, a kitchen appliance store might offer wine pairings with meals, a technology company could write a how-to white paper that doesn t hype its own product. Getting your customers to become brand ambassadors and talk about your product for you instantly humanizes your brand in a way that even the best promotional copy can t match. Pinterest, a fast-rising social network that focuses on sharing images and content, is gaining popularity in the media and among brands. For example, a non-profit organization looking for volunteers featured Pinterest in their monthly enewsletter for three consecutive months. The marketing team evolved the message to include more useful and relevant content on their Pinterest site which gradually increased response each month. By the third month, the team saw a 256% increase in Pinterest related clicks. Thank your customers and prospects. Get your customers Talking about your brand. Build on your relationships by saying Thank You to your customers for their business and to your prospects for their interest in your product. The human touch is so vital to the customer relationship and you can show your appreciation by simply making a phone call, sending a note or by visiting them. Bottom-line: people are bombarded with advertising messages. To break through the clutter and to build brand loyalty, many organizations are putting more emphasis on personal interactions and nurturing their engagement with customers and prospects.

6 Tips to Improve Retention Marketing During a time of tight purse strings in both business and consumer spending, organizations are looking to improve their bottom line by increasing focus on their customers. Finding the right formula to strengthen the relationship between customer and business is a struggle. Today, marketers are challenged with retaining customers during a global recession and channels that now give the consumer significant power to make purchasing decisions. It is tough to keep brand loyalty alive when buyers can find, compare and evaluate what to purchase through social media and other online channels. The cost of acquiring a new customer is estimated at 6 to 7 times what it costs to maintain a current one. Research shows that the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 70% while the probability of selling to a new prospect is 5 20% (from Marketing Metrics). The nurturing of loyal customers is a strategic imperative when statistics show a 10% increase in customer retention results in a 30% increase in the value of the company. And, the cost of acquiring a new customer is estimated at 6 to 7 times what it costs to maintain a current one. Keeping customers is one of the most effective and yet neglected ways to control marketing costs. Several tactics for holding onto those customers are: Increase spending of existing customers by focusing on customer behavior In order for a loyalty program to succeed, the focus should be on customer behavior. Digital media and digital marketing have helped businesses understand customer characteristics, behavior and preferences. This information can be used to develop personalized, targeted marketing programs. Regular communication with customized content and special offers are part of a good retention program. Amazon.com is an excellent example of a company offering customized content. Amazon Daily is a customized blog based on your preferences and topics of interest. A good way to keep customers coming back for more is to customize your own blog or site so that visitors first see information that they have tagged to be of interest. Or, offer a selection of content to them such as whitepapers or product information all based upon their selected areas of interest. Improve the natural churn rate Poor customer service accounts for 70% of customer loss. Most of this is due to a mismatch Continued

7 contact through customer advisory boards or less structured customer calls will often alert you to a problem. You can learn a lot about customers by monitoring on social media such as blogs, twitter and forums. Ask for opinions by sending out surveys on a regular basis and offer an incentive to those customers who respond. Create a client portal in which customers gain access to exclusive information about the service or industry. One approach is to enable customers to share information with one another in terms of experiences, tips and tricks. This information can be meaningful. Develop an personality in all of your customer service s, even those that are automatically generated. Make it sound like there are humans who do care about whether your customers are satisfied. Phrases such as your fabulous new piece will be on its way in less than 24 hours or we re so delighted that you ordered from us have a personal, chatty tone. Create brand advocates Rewarding customers for referring you new business or for repeat buys is a powerful way to build relationships. Consider membership cards or programs that accrue points. Some successful examples are: AAA Member Services, offers excellent cross promotions with hotels and other travel companies T.G.I.F s Gold Points, where points are accrued for every meal and you earn complimentary drinks and appetizers Amazon Prime, which offers complimentary 2-day and discounted 1-day shipping as well as frequent $25 we love you gift cards Triggered coupons give immediate gratification of a reward or a discount right at the point of purchase. For instance, every time you use your CVS ExtraCare card, you receive discounts on the spot and coupons to use for future purchases. Social Media, Local Marketing and Mobile (referred to as SoLoMo ) are channels when integrated provide highly targeted, context-rich communications to keep consumers coming back. Encourage users to share by offering incentives when they post a link to your offer on facebook, twitter or other social media sites. Plan a win-back program as an effort to win-back a customer who had already made up their mind to leave. You often see win-back programs used with Direct TV and the cable channels offering attractive rates or packages as a last ditch effort. Effective loyalty and retention programs take time to provide return on investment. You will differentiate your programs by identifying and connecting with the unique characteristics of your customer base and creating additional value for your customers.

8 Improving Online conversion: 10 Tips to Optimize Landing Pages The landing page is the final step in converting a visitor to a lead. It starts with a valuable offer and must have a form to collect visitor information. These 10 tips will help you optimize your landing pages to generate qualified leads. 1. Explain Value of the Offer The landing page must clearly explain the benefits of receiving the offer in exchange for their contact information. The content must answer the question: what s in it for me? 2. Consistent Headers and Call to Action Headers should clearly explain the offer and be consistent with the call to action visitors clicked on to reach the landing page. The headers should start with an action verb like learn or download Second Rule In less than 5 seconds, visitors to your landing page should be able to understand what the offer is, the value of the offer and what they need to do to get the offer. Make it easy for the visitor to scan the information by using 3 to 5 bullet points. 4. Create a Short Form Short forms are always better than long forms to make it easier for a website visitor to become a lead. Only ask for the information that will help you or your sales team fol low up with or qualify the lead. 5. Place Content Above the Fold The content and form on the landing page should always be visible above the page s fold. Testing has proven you will see a higher conversion rate if visitors do not have to scroll down to see the form. 6. Go Naked Remove menu navigation and links that could distract the visitor from filling out the form or provides an easy means to escape. The only action you want the visitor to take is to fill out the form and become a lead. 7. Include Attractive Images Including a relevant, interesting image on the landing page will help your visitors visualize the offer. For example, you can use an image of the cover of an ebook or White paper, first slide of a webinar presentation, or screenshot of free-trial software. 8. Redirect to a Thank You Page After someone completes the form on your landing page, redirect them to a thank you page. This is a perfect opportunity to ty to upsell the lead on another offer of to just let them know that you will be in touch with the 9. Test, Test, Test Test your landing page to see what works well with your audience. 10. Optimize your Landing Page for Mobile Devices Traffic on mobile devices is soaring, so it is imperative that your landing pages are easy to view and navigate on all devices. Nothing turns off a visitor or prospect if they can t read and or react to your content.

9 Want more information? To request more information or to schedule a complimentary initial consult, call: X11 or go to