DataConsult

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What medium has an average of 90% open rates? SMS Marketing Does!

In Australian there are more mobile phones than the total population. Every single phone can receive SMS messages. Now I hear what you are saying- its tacky marketing, basic text and a limit of 160 characters, however there has never been a better time for this type of communication as it cuts through to the consumer better than any other medium 90% of the time.

The average Email open rate is 22%, 29% for Tweets and 12% for Facebook ads.(Source: Frost & Sullivan 2010, Slick Text). With these numbers it only makes sense to test this medium.

The key issues that will directly influence the success of a SMS campaign are;

  • Using Permission based mobile numbers
  • Clearly identify who has sent the SMS
  • Simple way to unsubscribe

There are many ways to brand your message so that is does not look generic. You can personalize it with the name of the recipient as well as including in bold your company name and offer.

Avoid acronyms and abbreviations as this makes it hard to decipher. You can always include a link to a URL landing page for further information and registrations.

As with any direct marketing offer make sure you have a call to action and an expiry date so as to give your offer a sense of urgency.

DataConsult can help you with designing an SMS package including list selection and broadcasting.

Costs for SMS including data selection and broadcast are $0.50 per mobile send. A $350 set up fee is also charged. GST +. Minimum 10,000 records.

 

 

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How to Place an Order for Prospecting Lists & Data

Marketers looking to acquire new customers or generate sales leads typically rely on outside data providers for lists and contact data to give them access to new markets. But when they place an order for prospecting data, marketers often end up with data that isn’t exactly what they had in mind. What happens then? They have to order again, wasting time and money. Or, worse, they may use the data in a campaign and wind up with suboptimal results. With a bit of planning and strategy, these problems can be avoided. Let’s look at techniques you can use to obtain the right lists and data to produce a successful prospecting campaign.

The data ordering process, step by step

1. Find a data broker. A broker represents the interests of the marketer, and develops a deep knowledge of the lists and data available from many sources. You want a broker with experience in your target audience category. Ask around. Find out the names of brokers working with your competitors. Once you select a broker, make that person your full partner.
2. Describe your target. Use your market research, audience profiles and personas—whatever richness you can add to the description and the marketing strategy. The broker will convert your description into the language of data, and come back to you with a recommendation for lists and segments (selects) with the closest possible match to your vision. Build in enough time for the broker to research your options and prepare a recommendation for you.
3. Review the recommendation thoroughly. Here, too, ensure you have enough time for due diligence. Please see to the right for tips on how to evaluate the list recommendation.
4. Take a sample of the data to test, if there’s time and if the universe of potential prospects is large enough. If you end up with a sizable file from a single list, consider developing a message specific to the characteristics of that audience.
5. Examine the data on arrival. If the data was sent directly to your agency or another third party, request a sample from them. Visually inspect the output for problems like transposed or missing fields, or names that appear to be duplicates. Compare a sample of records against your own database to check for outdated addresses or phone
numbers. In B2B, ask your sales team to look at names in key accounts they manage.
6. Post campaign, review the results and share them with your broker.

 

How to get the best work from a list broker

  • Select an expert. The basic function of a list broker is to help you find the right lists and handle all the logistics of ordering, delivery and payment. But the key is expertise. You want to select someone with deep knowledge of your industry, your customers, and your competitors. In fact, it is often wise to select a broker who works with your competitors themselves.
  • Share everything. A good broker is going to partner with you. The more information you can provide about your campaign goals, your market, your products, your offer, your past results—the better the broker can perform. This is not the place to be shy, or cagey.
  • Involve the broker early. Call the broker while the target prospect is still being defined, well before the offer and the creative are in development. The broker might have some good suggestions for how your campaign can be improved.Early involvement will also allow the broker time to do in-depth research, get you accurate counts, and beat the bushes for ideas.
  • Use a single broker. Some marketers like to divide up their business and play brokers off against one another. But what you earn in loyalty and service by using a single broker generally trumps the competitive play.
    Look for market knowledge versus media specialization. Most brokers today operate in multiple media. New media come onto the scene regularly. What you want is someone who understands your target audience, and has the experience and connections to help you reach it, through whatever media channels are available.
  • Pay the fees. Some marketers try to negotiate down the broker’s standard 20% fee. Others try to do the brokerage function in house, demanding the fee equivalent in discounts from the list owner. Neither is a smart move. Brokers easily earn their money, and you don’t need the aggravation. And, when you think about it, the 20% represents only a tiny fraction of the total campaign CPM.
  •  Ask for new ideas. Tell your broker you’re looking for full team membership. That you want not only list recommendations, but all kinds of ideas for how to reach your target market.
  • Be open. And be sure to test some of your broker’s ideas when you get them.

 

This information has been extracted from the white paper ‘How to Place an Order for Prospecting Lists and Data’ By Ruth Stevens. Download your copy here.

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Small Business Guide to Customer Experience

What is Customer experience?
These days it seems like everyone’s talking about “customer experience.” But how do you know what it is and how to get it? It’s not just how well your product works, whether or not 2016_principles-of-a-great-customer-experienceprospects like your ad campaign, or if your support agent was polite. It’s the way you engage with customers and the cumulation of every interaction they have with your company. Customer experience is becoming the single most important differentiator of successful businesses — both large and small. It’s time to start thinking about how you can use it to drive your own business today.

5 Key ways to make your customers want to deal with you

Know your customers.
Today’s customers expect fast, personalized experiences. To deliver, you need to know them whenever and wherever you meet them. It may sound hard, but it’s easier than you think – and your customer support tool can help. Use it to see what a customer says about you on Twitter, track customer requests, and build a product roadmap that better meets their needs. And since today’s cloud-based solutions are designed for easy integration, connect your systems so everyone at your company can share information and collaborate to help customers. When you bring sales and service systems together, your sales team will know when a customer has had a problem. Your support team will recognize high value customers, and know when there are open opportunities. With 360-degree views, everyone can deliver the five-star experiences customer reviews are made of.

Make customer experience part of your DNA.
It’s not just enough to *talk* about offering an amazing customer experience. To be successful, you need to make it part of your company’s DNA. Include it in your mission and make it an objective for every team. Everyone in your company — from the CEO to the receptionist — needs to play a role.
Some startups train new employees in customer service as part of their onboarding processes. Not only does this help new employees learn about products and customers faster, it also ensures they’ll keep customers at the center of everything they do. It’s critical that you give your teams the power to go the extra mile with customers. These days there’s no such thing as “that’s not my job.” You’ve got to give customers what they want, when they want it. That means empowering everyone on the front lines to go the extra mile to make unhappy customers happy, or manage opportunities to drive the business forward.

Watch every touchpoint.
Customer experience is the sum of every touchpoint you have through the lifecycle of a customer relationship. It includes advertisements and promotions, sales calls, product usage, and customer support. Building a strong, likeable brand is the first step. And it’s critical that the brand flows through everything you do. A brand guide and messaging document are invaluable to small businesses who are moving fast but want consistent creative. It’s also important to create messaging documents and share them across your business so everyone who’s on the frontlines — in any capacity — uses the same speaking points whenever they engage with customers. Touchpoints also include the experience that customers have with your products, so it’s essential that product and marketing teams talk to
each other, and that quality is built in from the start.

Be easy to do business with.
To create an awesome customer experience you need to truly engage with customers. When they have an inquiry, get them fast, helpful answers. You can do this with a support tool that makes it easy for agents (or anyone interacting with customers) to respond quickly. Today’s customers also expect you to be available whenever they need you. Small businesses can do this by offering self-service support so customers can find solutions 24/7, or by giving agents mobile tools that let them answer questions from anywhere. Some companies are also offering proactive support — getting help to customers before they even know they need it. Transparency and authenticity are paramount when building customer relationships. Check out Salesforce.com’s Trust site to see how one company is
doing it.

Continually improve.
Customer experience is not “one and done.” Providing an amazing experience is something that requires constant attention. You can use survey software to maintain a pulse on what customers are feeling and to measure their satisfaction. Your customer support tool can also give you invaluable information about how customers are using your products, whether they’re having any issues, and what they’d like to see in the future. If you share this data regularly with your product team you can be sure that you are building the products that your customers really want. Another easy win? Take note of excellent service experiences you, personally, have with other companies; think about how you can share them with your team and integrate some of the same techniques.

( this information has been taken out of SalesForce’s white paper – Small Business Guide to Customer Experience – Download here )

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State of Marketing in Australia – Where do you stand?

Over 4,000 of the world’s best performing Marketers have been surveyed for Salesforce’s annual “State of Marketing” report.

Marketing has entered the age of the customer, where customers have more information, choices, and power than ever before. The customer experience— the culmination of all brand and customer interactions — now matters more than anything. Core business tenets like customer satisfaction are progressively falling under the CMO’s umbrella, expanding the breadth and depth of what marketing means in 2016. At the same time, marketers’ success measures, priorities, and even challenges reflect the rising emphasis on customer experience. Customer satisfaction — historically, the domain of service teams — is the number one success metric for marketers today. This is further evidence of the blurring lines between marketing, customer service, and sales. Marketing is more about building and sustaining customer relationships than merely filling the funnel.

Find out what they’re saying about customer satisfaction, digital, customer journey strategy and much more.

Download the report here.

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Do CEO’s really spend time on Social Media?

With all the hype around inbound marketing particularly Social Media, we sometimes forget what medium our target audience is likely to use.CEO-pano_12194

If you think the majority of CEO’s of medium to large companies sit in their ivory towers surfing the net, reading twitter feeds, updating their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts on a daily basis then you are mistaken. They just don’t have the time.

Yes some CEO’s will do this and are very comfortable with the digital age however most are not.

Companies that are targeting potential clients via inbound marketing need to be aware of where these people hang out. In the case of marketing to CEO’s then outbound tactics will give you better results.

CEO’s still read direct mail ( or their PA does then passes it on ). CEO’s will most likely take a phone call from a reputable business with a strong offer. CEO’s will open an email if they see it is important to their company.

Social media also takes time to kick in. With outbound or direct marketing, the results are faster.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe companies must have a Social media strategy however this must be run at the same time as outbound campaigns in order to reach those executives that do not communicate in this medium.

A good old fashion direct campaign targeted to the right companies and executives still works. The key is in the timing and the offer. Get these right and you will elicit a response.

By the way you need to know what type of response you are aiming for. Are you trying to get an appointment to further explain your product and offer? Do you want the respondent to download an e-book or whitepaper in return for their permission for you to contact them again? Do you want to invite them to a free seminar or webinar?

Give it a go and you will be surprised with the results.

Contact DataConsult for quality Business Lists.

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