Pardot Blog

Do you have five minutes to spare? I know you do, and you should spend it filling out a survey for DemandGen Report. DemandGen is a popular website in the marketing automation industry that Pardot works with. They are a targeted e-media publication spotlighting the strategies and solutions that help companies better align their sales and marketing organizations, and ultimately, drive growth. They are currently conducting a short survey with less then 20 questions. The survey is titled Lessons from the Trenches and if you participate you are entered to win an ipod touch! Click here to go directly to the survey.

This week was the BtoB Leading Edge, Demand Generation in the Digital Age.  The event brought in a lot of great speakers who had some useful tips for us marketers.  One I want to touch on now is giving your website visitors a proper welcome and proper instruction.  Every page of your website and every landing page should be clear and to the point.  In the next few steps I am going to cover some best practices specifically for landing pages:


1.  Get it right from first glance.  The landing page needs to be relevant to the search the prospect performed.  From first glance, if a prospect finds that your landing page either does not relate to their query or looks too complicated, you will lose them as a lead.  So make sure you have an offer that is appealing and relative.

2.  Keep it clean.  Landing pages should be simple and should not include links to everything like your homepage does.  Those additional links only bring more possibility for your viewer to navigate away from your landing page.  Also be sure to include relevant graphics with captions.  As far as the content of the page, make it simple and straightforward.  Bullet points help to minimize reading time, as many people do not read landing pages.

3.  Gather information.  Before you send your prospect the offer from your landing page, get some of their information so you can have a valid lead.  Only ask for what you need.  Too many fields to fill out will also hinder your chance of turning a visitor into a lead.  To make sure you have a valid email address, Prospect Insight has an email blocker that automatically checks the validity of an email address to ensure it is valid and from a non-free provider.  You should email your offer to your prospect, this will also give you a reason to ask for their contact information.

4.  Thank and confirm.  Once your visitor completes the form direct them to a thank you page.  This way you can thank them for their time, tell them you will be emailing the offer to them, and possibly promote something else or ask for feedback.

Follow these steps and double check your current landing pages to make sure they fit this criteria as well.   By having clear landing pages you will be guaranteed more leads.

Not many people realize all the benefits of using twitter, even I was skeptical until I came upon the compilation of articles titled 10 Ways Twitter will Change American Business. Inspired to learn more I set up my account and started to learn all about Twitter's many uses and how they can help me and my company. Here are a few of the ways small business's can get started using Twitter.

1. Micro-blogging: What Twitter is known for, the 140 word posts members create to share everything and anything. These mini-posts are a great way to share news and product updates with your clients and prospects. Coming up with creative hooks and then attaching a link to your latest blog or press release will help draw your follows and other Twitter members to your website.

2. Direct Messages: These allow you to send a personal message to any of your followers. It is a great way to network and also to respond to any questions directed at your company on fellow Twitter member pages.

3. Invites: You will notice that a lot of websites now have links to "Follow us on Twitter". Sending out an e-mail blast when you first make your page is a great way to inform people about your page and it gives them another place to not only find information about your company but also communicate with you. Putting the link at the bottom of future e-mails and your website pages allows people who may not have gotten the original e-mail or did not accept the invite to choose to follow you.

4. Twellow: The Twitter yellow pages. It lists people by industry and allows you to read a little about them. You can also list your company on Twellow.  

Twitter has proven extremely useful for big business's such as Zappos who have learned how to use Twitter to their advantage. It is time for small business's to follow their lead and start using Twitter as another social media networking tool as well. Using these helpful hints is a great way to get started with Twitter.

Follow the Pardot Team on Twitter @pardot

So your e-mail made it to the inbox...now what? Half the battle is won but getting your reader to open your e-mail and actually click on your ad or link to your website can be really tough. Here are some tips to help your Click-Through Rate:

Tempt your Readers: Give your readers a little taste of your product, if you show them everything they won't bother clicking through to your website or landing page, which is the goal. Follow in the footsteps of itunes who offers a clip of each song, enough to tempt the listener to buy it. Your e-mail should leave them wanting more.

Keep Advertisements to a Minimum: The purpose of an e-mail campaign is to sell your product, however an e-mail that gives the reader nothing to read besides "24 Hour Special 15% off" will likely result in them ignoring it and any further e-mails they receive from your company. Especially in B2B sales, there needs to be something else, a white paper or even a blog post, that entices them to continue on to your website.

Designed for the Reader: Most people first see your e-mail in the preview pane and then decide whether or not to view the full e-mail. Knowing this, it is important to design your e-mail for the preview pane. Whatever they see in that space needs to capture their attention so they actually open the e-mail.

Give the Reader what they want: Prospect Insight offers drip nurturing which allows you to tailor each e-mail campaign for each prospect. Depending on the action of the recipient, the campaign adjusts itself so that the    reader will be encouraged to open the e-mail.

When preparing an e-mail campaign it is important to remember that the purpose is to get the reader interested in your product and onto your website. Keep these tips in mind while getting ready to launch an e-mail campaign and you should see improvement in your click through rate.

Are your subscribers opening the e-mails you are blasting them with each day, week, or month? We all want our answer to be yes, but the truth is that not everyone reads every e-mail they receive. While reading THE DAILY FIX, I realized that e-mail campaigns are often not being tracked properly, which is a huge problem for companies. When analyzing results properly, the information can lead to higher ROI and more money for worthwhile marketing initiatives. There are many metrics that business's measure but it is important to take a step back and look at what is driving those numbers. It is also important to find out what is working and then adjust e-mail campaigns to fit the needs of those they are aimed at, and re-engage them before they are gone forever. By looking at a few simple numbers you can find out the problems in your e-mail campaigns. Prospect Insight allows for an easy overview of all e-mail campaigns. The things you should be paying attention to are:

Click-through rates: How many people are opening your emails? If it is low for your industry or even your company's expectations then you need to find ways to bring it up.

Bounced E-mails: How many e-mails are actually reaching their destination? There are many reasons an e-mail may not make it to an inbox. It is important to learn the rules of SPAM and your sender score, which gives you the likelihood of your e-mail reaching an inbox in the next 30 days, to make sure you are doing everything right. 

Opt out rate: How many people are choosing to unsubscribe from your campaign? This number should be looked at closely with your click-through rates. It takes an extra step (even if it is just one click) to opt out, so most of the time your emails will just be ignored, therefore if your opt out rate is high that is probably not a good sign.

Once you have gotten to the root of your problem it is time to revamp your e-mails to wow your subscribers and increase your click-through rate.  I will talk more about this in Part 2 of this blog...soon to come.