Google’s new feature for email marketers, the rise of mobile marketing, privacy plans that will change direct marketing and 5 ways to improve email marketing with social media.
Google Test Shows Paid-Search Ads, Email Marketing Integration – MediaPost
Email marketers may soon have an opportunity to tie campaigns into paid-search ads through a new ad format being tested by Google.
Mobile Will Be King by Year’s End: Return Path – The Magill Report
Email readership on mobile devices is growing so fast that at least by the end of 2012 it will be the predominant platform for email consumption, according to Return Path.
Privacy plans set to change direct marketing – B&T
Direct marketers who breach data laws could face penalties of $220,000 under privacy proposals being discussed by the government.
5 Proven Ways to Improve Email Marketing With Social Media – ClickZ
Email marketing managers are looking for ways to increase their reach and enhance their engagement. If done correctly, social media offers an antidote to fix waning engagement. Here are five specific things you should be doing with social media to improve your email marketing.
Have you read anything from the realm of e-messaging that you’d like to share?
Posted by:
Matthew Johnson
EDM Specialist
There’s a popular theory when collecting information via a web form that less is more.
The idea is that by asking for less information in your web form, you’re increasing the likelihood of someone submitting it by reducing the friction they might feel about handing over their details.
Makes sense right? It’s a good theory that has certainly proven true in my experience.
But there are times where you need to know more about customers than just their name and email. In order to build a meaningful relationship with a prospect you need to know what makes them tick and what they care about most.
It’s tempting to turn the less is more theory on its head and simply ask for all the information you might ever need to know. But this runs the risk of scaring people away from your web form altogether.
Thankfully there is a better way. A way that allows you to manage the friction whilst still collecting the information you need.
The answer is to align the data collection in your web form with your sales funnel. This helps you ease prospects gently through their interactions with your business by asking only for the most appropriate amounts of information at each stage.
Here’s how it works. The deeper someone is within your sales funnel, the more information you can request. Let’s take a look at three stages of your sales funnel and explore how each can relate to your web form’s data collection.
Top of the funnel
At this stage a prospect is usually just researching and has not yet committed in any way to your company. This is where the less is more theory is most relevant and you need to make it as easy as possible for people to provide you with their details. Here you should limit your data collection to an email address and a first name. An example of a web form that fits into this stage is a newsletter sign-up form.
Middle of the funnel
This stage is where a prospect has interacted with you in some way. Here you can ask for a moderate amount of information in your web form without creating too much friction. Just make sure that you’re only asking for information that adds to the prospect’s experience. For example, you might ask for a phone number so that you can respond to their enquiry. Web forms that fit into this stage are online enquiry forms and document download forms.
Bottom of the funnel
At the bottom of the sales funnel your prospect has become a customer and has hopefully formed a trusting relationship with your company. This is the stage where you can ask for more personal information without creating too much friction. It’s important not to go overboard though and still only ask for information that you intend to use. For example, you might ask for a customer’s date of birth, but only if you intend to communicate with them on their birthday. Similarly you might ask for their personal interests, but only if you intend on delivering content that is tailored towards their interests. Web forms that fit into this stage include customer surveys and online preference centers.
By following this approach you will ultimately have more prospects entering your sales funnel that then go on to become customers.
And now… over to you. What tactics have you used with your web forms to encourage more people to submit their information? Share your experiences using the comments section below.
Posted by:
Matthew Johnson
EDM Specialist
Related posts
- 10 ways to get more responses to your next survey
- The secret to growing your database with web forms
Surveys are a great way of collecting valuable marketing intelligence.
The only problem is that countless companies know this and send out surveys endlessly. Due to this, many recipients are ‘fatigued’ and no longer complete surveys.
But, you can break through the clutter! In this post I’m going to share with you some tips on how to achieve the highest possible response rates. I’ll also provide some tips about post-survey activities that are great for fostering ongoing engagement.
- Reward participants: Let’s start with the obvious, reward your participants. They have taken the time out of their day to help you with your business. Say thank you with a discount or other incentive.
- Set expectations: Tell people how long it will take to complete your survey. There is nothing worse than starting what you think is a two minute survey only to be confronted with a ‘never ending’ questionnaire.
- Grow your sample size: If you need as many responses as possible (and they don’t need to come from your existing client base) make it easy for participants to share the survey. Also remember to put it on your website, social media pages and promote it via email.
- Short and painless: Only ask participants for information that you actually intend to use for a specific purpose. If you can’t use the information collected by a particular question maybe it’s not worth asking.
- Explain why: Tell participants how you are going to use their information so they understand why it’s important. It’s also a good idea to include a link to your privacy policy.
- STRONG call to action: If your aim is to get recipients to fill in your survey you need to make this call to action very strong and enticing. You can do this by using action orientated words, images, layout, buttons, fonts and colours.
- Correct fields: Make sure that you use the correct field format for each question. For example use a date field for a date of birth, a text field for names and when you only want a participant to choose one option use radio buttons. This makes it very easy for participant to complete the survey and also preserves the accuracy and integrity of the data.
- Post survey updates: People like to know that their feedback had an impact and if you tell them what improvements resulted from their feedback they are much more likely to participate in your next survey as well.
- Breaking it down: Think about collecting information in stages. Realistically how much can you do in response to your findings? Collect some information starting with the most important, make improvements then collect more.
- Attention: By the time participants reach the end of a survey you generally have their complete attention. This is a good time to ask participants to tell a friend, subscribe to a new offering or check out your social media.
So there you have it. Follow these tips and you will set your survey up for a great response.
Do you have any great tips for getting people to respond to surveys? Let me know in the comments section below.
Posted by:
Kristin Huddleston
Marketing Coordinator
Related posts
