The holiday shopping season starts earlier every year. And while it’s not quite in full swing yet, earlybird deals and preview sales are already taking over inboxes. Black Friday and Cyber Monday promise to drive tons of online and in-store traffic. ‘Tis the season to ramp up your efforts and convert those new leads into customers. But it’s also the perfect time to re-engage previous customers with a campaign to win back unsubscribers.
Lead generation can be downright scary, if you make some of these mistakes. Read on for cautionary tales to scare you this Halloween. And whatever you do…don’t turn off the opt-in!
On a dark and stormy night, a skeleton salesman set out to create a lead generation campaign. He built a complex landing page designed to obtain all the information he needed to build the perfect skeleton exactly to his client’s specifications. The form was long and detailed, including fill-in answers, drop-downs and radio buttons. Multiple buttons and clicks were required to advance and submit the final form. He cackled as he launched the lead generation campaign and sat back to watch the thunder and lightning roar outside.
As a marketer, data protection is probably top of mind most days. It’s clear that privacy regulations are becoming the norm, and for good reason. But without a standard policy, it can be hard to determine what is required to truly maintain data privacy and when this all needs to happen. We’re here to tell you that it’s not as complex as you might fear, but data privacy does matter at every stage of lead generation. Customer or not, it’s your job to safeguard the data of your leads, potential leads and prospects.
You’ve got a solid email list. And a great email marketing strategy for turning sends into sales. But every email list could be bigger. And every unsubscribe list could be smaller. The key is to put those unsubscribed email addresses to work for you with a campaign to win back unsubscribers. The catch? You can’t email someone who already opted out of your list. So you’re going to need to reach them another way. But once you do, your email marketing strategy will be working twice as hard for you.
Opt-in advertising isn’t exactly a new concept. In many industries it has become so standard that it’s not often mentioned, simply running along in the background, quietly supplying quality leads. Targeting and delivery capabilities have evolved with technology, but opt-in advertising has continued to be the standard in lead generation. And it’s a workhorse that delivers powerful results. But now more than ever it can and should be an integral part of your lead generation strategy. Here are three reasons opt-in advertising matters now more than ever.
The old adage “it costs less to keep a customer than convert a new one” is still true today. But what about a former customer who has unsubscribed from your list? You might think it would take more time and money to resubscribe and resell to them than to an unknown user. After all, they actively opted out of your list at some point! Perhaps they have a reason to dislike you or no longer need your product? On the other hand, an unknown user has no history with you, and no pre-conceived ideas to block their path to purchase. It sounds reasonable, but we’ve actually seen that previously unsubscribed users are easier to resubscribe and often more likely to convert than a new lead. They’re easier to target, too. You just need a strategic win back campaign.
Ask any marketer running a lead generation campaign and they will probably agree that lowering Cost Per Lead, or CPL, is always on their mind. For some it’s the ultimate goal, while others may consider it secondary to quality leads and recognize that some leads simply cost more. Still, no one wants to pay more when they can get the same leads for less. How low your CPL can be is based on a variety of factors, including industry, size of desired audience, and targeting methodology. But many look at CPL as strictly a measurement of the cost to acquire leads, and nothing else. This can provide an incomplete picture of your lead generation efforts and prevent you from fully optimizing your campaign. To truly measure actual cost per lead, you need to develop a lead nurturing CPL that measures past acquisition and tracks performance.
Email is one of the most powerful tools at a marketer’s disposal. It’s a highly personal way of reaching people at home, and often quite literally in the palm of their hand. Depending on how robust your database is, you’ll also be able to include personal details, such as their name, location, last purchase, and other preferences. A lead nurturing email campaign can be especially powerful. A series of lead nurturing emails will pull leads through the funnel, using contextual clues, demographic data and retargeting to trigger emails based around intent and action. When executed correctly, a well-timed lead nurturing email can decrease the time to purchase and convert leads into customers.
Most marketers understand the value of email in the general sense. But it’s also one of the oldest tactics in the digital marketing playbook. So its unmatched ability to reach qualified customers is often overshadowed by the latest and greatest marketing trends. Underestimating the power and potential of email marketing is a huge mistake that could cost you dearly. We’ve identified three ways that an email marketing plan can be one of your most valuable assets, and the single biggest factor in lead nurturing.
It’s a given to most businesses that they need to protect the data of their customers. But what about potential leads and unsubscribed users? You might not think of this data as “yours” to protect yet, but perhaps you should. Because you could be inadvertently making a very big privacy mistake if not. By applying the same data privacy policy to any data you interact with, you’ll ensure a compliant, clean database of leads and customers, as well as unsubscribed users. And that sets you up for a better, more cost-effective method of building your email list as you work to win back unsubscribers.