One question we hear quite often from our clients is, “How often should I be sending emails and communicating with my database of leads?”

While we wish there was a hard and fast rule on this topic, like so many other marketing questions, the answer really depends on many variables.  Take a moment to think about your database and answer the following questions… Read more

Although Marketing Automation is certainly not “New” it’s also not a concept that is deeply engraved into the mind of every marketer.  Net-Results provides one of the most effective and user friendly marketing automation platforms out there, but we too must send our own sales soldiers out to encourage consumers to shed the shackles of basic marketing and learn to love the web 2.0.  In our efforts to spread the good word, we come across every size, shape and color of marketer, and gather quite a few interesting questions on the way. One of the most recent, which seems to be quite common, is the unsettling rebuttal to our pitch: “But I already DO marketing!” Read more

Social media remains a hot topic and one that many Net-Results customers explore to build brand awareness, and ultimately, to drive qualified traffic and conversions to their website.

There is no doubt that social media is awesome because it enables customers to have one-to-one, personalized conversations with virtual strangers and to communicate with prospects, clients and peers on an intimate level.  However the very premise of social media – giving everyone a microphone – can create awkward and frustrating situations.

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“Personally Identifiable Information (PII), as used in information security, refers to information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual. The abbreviation PII is widely accepted, but the phrase it abbreviates has four common variants based on personal, personally, identifiable, and identifying. Not all are equivalent, and for legal purposes the effective definitions vary depending on the jurisdiction and the purposes for which the term is being used.”(Wikipedia 2010) Read more

Have you ever sat down at your favorite Mexican restaurant and been so hungry that you can’t decide what to order?  From chicken enchiladas and rellenos to carne asada and shrimp ceviche, it all looks so good that you sit there…stumped.  The wait staff may have to make several extra trips because you are distracted by the choices and can’t decide.

Now think about this scenario in the context of setting up a multi-week, multi-step marketing automation campaign.  Sounds familiar, right?  You have so many decisions and moving parts to control that getting started can be overwhelming.

We suggest answering these four simple questions beforehand to make structuring your first few marketing automation campaigns a little easier…a little more digestible, if you will.

1.       Who are your leads and what is their source?  Answering this question will help determine their initial interests and how you first communicate with them.  For example, leads from outbound calling efforts should probably be segmented and receive different communications than those generated via an affiliate email program.
2.       What would you say in a 1:1 conversation – why should these leads care about your communications?  Are you offering them something of value such as a special offer, educational material, free assessment, etc?
3.       How can you support your campaign?  Content rules as a way to interact with leads so audit your existing content and determine what is relevant or can be repurposed.  White papers, case studies, testimonials, webinars and videos – you probably have more than you think!
4.       What do you want to accomplish?  Are you qualifying leads to hand off to sales or are you driving them to an online demo?  It makes sense to identify your end-goal at the beginning of the campaign because you can review every step to see if it logically supports the overall objective.

Armed with the answers to the above questions, the next step is to actually hit the whiteboard, Visio or old-fashioned pen and paper to map out the decision-tree and possible outcomes.  The few minutes that spent answering these four questions will have a huge pay-off as you become familiar with developing and structuring your marketing automation campaigns.  Be prepared for delicious results!

E- mail marketing is powerful and effective, and a targeted e-mail-marketing campaign can drive traffic to your site, put your name in front of qualified prospects, and turn leads into sales — for much less than a traditional direct-marketing campaign. However, building your email list of prospects and potential customers can be difficult and cumbersome, but there are some options and strategies to simplify and improve the process. Read more

In this post, we’re continuing to share tips and tricks for ways to use marketing automation to augment the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, beyond email. Read more

1. Fraud Control

With the increase in credit card fraud and ID theft, any additional mechanism to detect and capture fraud attempts increases your ability to prevent further fraud while decreasing your chance of losing money. One of the lesser known ways to accomplish this goal is to use Net-Results to determine whether an individual is attempting transactions with more than one credit card. When an individual uses a credit card and then continues multiple transaction attempts with other cards, you may have an instance of attempted credit card fraud.  You can configure a notification within Net-Results to let you know that the same IP address has returned to the credit card transaction landing page a seemingly excessive number of times.

2. Return Customer Coupon and Item Referral

When a customer makes a purchase on your website, personalizing his/her experience moving forward can increase the likelihood of future purchases.  You can use the Net-Results platform to help by setting up a campaign that is triggered when a visitor, who has purchased a certain product in the past, returns to your site. Based on the visitor’s activity and previous purchase patterns, you can send coupons, promotions, new product offerings, etc.  There is really no limit to how much communication you can automate with Net-Results!

3. Promotional Drip Campaign After Purchase

Additionally, when a customer makes a purchase on your website, you can also configure Net-Results to send reminder emails to buyers about future events, sales, promotions, etc. by setting up a drip campaign with the trigger of a completed purchase. You can customize the drip campaign even further by including information about the item purchased, similar products, etc.

4. Outbound Calling Tracking and Reporting

It’s often hard to know when prospects that have been cold called actually come to your site to learn more about the product or service you are promoting.  You can use Net-Results to make the process automated and simple.  Have your sales team perform cold calls with the objective of obtaining an email address and permission to email the person.  You can then set up an email campaign using those email addresses and track the recipients’ interaction with the campaign.  Now, when any of the recipients of the email visit your website, you’ll be able to view the visit in detail plus set alerts to have this intelligence sent to you or your callers’ inbox.  Sales can now follow up with these prospects at the height of engagement for better close rates.

5. Triggered Auto-Responders When Someone Logs In

For websites that require or request a log in, Net-Results can be configured to automatically send the user an email detailing any new product or service, updates or offering. A good example of this functionality is a software provider where updates are inevitable.  Instead of making your customers peruse the website or customer portal to locate information, you can send an auto responder containing updates and any associated information.  Not only does auto responder strategy provide customers with go-to information at their fingertips, but also it can decrease the strain on your resources for customer service calls and inquiries.

6. Remove Non-Responsive Contacts

As spam increases tenfold, so does the rigidity of your recipients’ spam filters which makes it increasingly important to make your lists as clean as possible. New spam filter technology is beginning to rely on interaction with your campaigns.  It follows that if your recipients are continuously non-responsive, but do not unsubscribe from your campaigns, this lack of interaction can damage the integrity of your list and of your domain in general.  By utilizing the statistics reporting in Net-Results, you can create a segment that identifies any recipients who receive your emails but are non-responsive. By removing them from your list, you will keep your list current and fresh—and engaged.  The improved “interactivity” metrics will help keep you white-listed as a company and decrease chances of getting caught in spam filters or marked as junk mail.