Thursday, February 12, 2015

Personalization Spurs Digital Results, If Done Right

Personalization is becoming best practice for e-mail, mobile marketing and digital display ads, and recent marketing data underscores digital personalization's potential power, asserts a ClickZ article by Tess Wegert. Consider "Share a Coke" labels personalized with 250 popular names, which "reversed a decade-long decline in U.S. Coke consumption," per a Wall Street Journal report. Another example from Wegert is the personalized interest- and location-specific video ad campaign by automaker Land Rover, which lifted brand awareness by 50% and purchase intent by 53%. In the e-mail arena, data shows that personalized e-mails can yield transaction rates and revenues six times higher than non-personalized messages, she notes. And when it comes to online ads and content, Yahoo reports that 78% of consumer surveyed say they want some degree of content personalization. But, Wegert cautions, personalization can be a double-edged sword, turning off audiences if it is inconsistent, intrusive or mistargeted. She cites three basic tactics for succeeding with digital personalization: 1) coordinate messaging across all channels; 2) go slow and avoid creepy, excess personalization upfront and all at once; and 3) make sure personalization is targeted based on accurate data and profiling. For the complete story, go to http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2374653/the-importance-of-personalization

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Small Tests to Yield Big Leaps in B2B Digital Leads

Boosting business-to-business digital leads doesn't have to overtax marketers' imaginations and budgets, reassures a recent hubspot.com blog post by Lisa Toner. She suggests five quick, low-cost experiments for boosting B2B leads and sales from social, e-mail and online traffic. First, she advises trying out an embedded one-field subscribe form at the end of blog posts, instead of a call-to-action button; it boosted hubspot's conversion 20%. Second, do A/B testing of content titles; the winning title for an ebook increased leads 776% in one hubspot test, she notes. Idea No. 3 is to experiment with targeted Facebook dark posts (News Feed-style ads published outside your News Feed); she cites one test of ads and targeting that yielded an ROI 35 times the small dollar commitment. Her post links to tutorials for those unfamiliar with dark posts. The fourth area to examine is reduction of form fields on landing pages; Toner cites the example of ImageScape, which reported a 120% improvement in conversion by cutting form fields from 11 to 4. To reduce fields without losing key user info, Toner points to "progressive profiling" software and provides links to explanatory articles. Finally, there is tried-and-true A/B creative testing, starting with something as fundamental as the color of call-to-action buttons. To see examples and links to relevant articles, go to http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/lead-generation-experiments