muylaertmarketingtests-blog

[muylaertmarketingtests-blog]

Snail Mail vs. Email

When you host an event, the main ingredient you need to make it a success is PEOPLE! And not just any people, you want your target audience there to optimize the effectiveness of your event. 

What had previously worked...

Personal email invites from one of our sales reps worked to get people to our event. 

What didn’t work...

We had also previously tested a mass marketing email invite to our list. This approach did not work, we did not receive any sign ups from the blast. 

 What we tested...

We decided to test good old snail mail invites to see if that increased our sign ups for our events. 

Our method and process...

Text: To maintain consistency and reduce variables, we leverage the exact same copy and message that our sales rep had been using to reach out to our target audience via email. 

Imagery: On the non-text side of the post card we leveraged the same image that we had used on our Eventbrite event page with an overlay from the homepage of our website with our key message that we know speaks and resonates with our audience. 

Results...

Zero. We had a couple of hits on the tracking pages for the invites. There were two locations listed on the invites (within 9 miles of each other so it made sense to provide our audience the option of which one they wanted to attend). 

Location 1: 2 unique visits, 0 registrations

Location 2: 2 unique visits, 0 registrations

Conclusion/Next Steps

We concluded that we will not be sending out another direct mail piece for an event invite. We would be open to trying different direct mail such as small gifts and packages that are perhaps more eye catching and more likely to make it to people’s desks. 

In terms of next steps, we’re going to remove direct mail as a tactic we had lined up to encourage our audience to come to our booth during an upcoming tradeshow. We also know from experience that very targeted, personalized gifts work for those that we have SOME relationship with already. So we are possibly looking to find a way to a.) Gather more information upon interactions so we can effectively use gifts and b.) Come up with a different option in addition to personal emails to test for the pre-tradeshow reach out.

[muylaertmarketingtests-blog]

Event Round Up

Our next test came in the form of efforts to book meetings with prospects prior to the event. We used three different channels to reach out to prospects we knew were attending. We ran two different tests. 

Ads - We targeted ads to VERY specific email lists. Messaging was simply asking the prospect if they were attending the show, and if so let’s meet up based on our common purpose (obviously in different words!). The results are below:

Targeted Web Ads: Impressions - 293, Clicks - 0

Targeted Facebook Ads: Impressions - 19, Clicks - 0

What I learned: There are a few things that come to mind when I reflect on what I learned from this. One, it’s probably very hard for ads to be effective when you have an extremely small audience list. Two, I don’t know if the message we were using was effective or compelling because our personalized email outreach that you’ll see below, was successful. So maybe our messaging wasn’t compelling enough.

Next Steps: For our next event, I’m going to create ads that have the same messaging that we have seen success with in our personalized emails and see if that makes a difference.

Personalized Email Outreach - We had one of our sales people reach out to those on the attendee list with an ask for them to participate in a webinar with us since we’re always looking for new stories and examples to share with our audience base. This messaging is very different than the ads, which in hindsight, they should have all matched for a true test. 

Results: 12 meetings booked, (still waiting on the actual number that took place - the team is still traveling)

What I learned: I’ve known that the non-sales approach works well for us for awhile, however people love that we’re looking to meet to hear their story, what they do and the situations they face day in and day out. Being able to bring that element into everything we do will continue to be important.

Next Steps: Based on past experiences, prospects that we’ve conducted webinars with haven’t moved down the pipeline, so we need to find a way to build these relationships, give them something compelling (e.g. the co-hosted webinar offer) that won’t box us in and will allow us to progress down the pipeline. It is TBD whether the webinar ask strategy will work for any of these meetings we’ve booked, but if it doesn’t I think our team can conclude that it is a good way to get conversations and build relationships, but not a great sales driver.

[muylaertmarketingtests-blog]

A Little LinkedIn Fun...and Flop

Testing marketing tactics should be fun! You’re constantly learning something new, including how to switch your mindset from seeing failure as failure, to seeing it as opportunity instead. 

A test that I ran earlier this week was a complete flop...

Reason for test: We need to find consistent ways to reach new, qualified leads and engage them with our webinar content since we know we can build relationships once prospects start to attend them.

Hypothesis: We know our webinars that focus on providing templates and actionable takeaways perform well. We also know that our prospects are active on LinkedIn. If we set up a targeted Sponsored Content LinkedIn campaign promoting our template/hands-on webinar, we will receive more sign ups from organizations who haven’t been regular attendees.

Methodology: Developed a Sponsored Content post for LinkedIn and created an audience list composed of target prospects that are currently scoring low or at zero for engagement in Pardot (our marketing automation system). Ran the campaign for 2 days prior to our webinar. 

Call to action: To click through to the registration landing page and register for the webinar.

Results: Major Flop. Over 800 impressions. ZERO clicks. ZERO webinar registrations through this channel.

Next Steps: I’m going to alter this test for our next webinar by changing our audience list to be larger. If that fails, the next iteration will be to alter the bid dollar amount to see if we need to outpace other advertisers.

[muylaertmarketingtests-blog]

Targeted Asks

Today I’m starting to embark on a journey to not only increase my effectiveness as a marketer, but also increase my team’s effectiveness at bringing new business into our organization. 

A little background…

- We provide B2B Enterprise software solutions

- Very niche market, we know who all of our prospects are

- We are not commodity so there are no RFPs for a solution like ours

Our Challenge - We’re not getting highly qualified (ready-to-buy leads) into our funnel fast enough.

Today I’m running my first test…

Reason for test: We had a super hot inbound lead come through a couple of days ago that cited a very specific pain point and problem they were trying to solve. 

Hypothesis: Based on the hot leads’ background and activity history, leads that have a similar history will be interested in diving deeper into this specific topic.

Methodology: I’m going to send an email referencing the specific pains that the inbound lead expressed and the reason why they are receiving the email (past attendance on a webinar around the specific topic). This list was composed of 29 contacts...almost a proper sample size of 32.

Call to Action: One call to action on the page. A button to diver deeper into the specific pain.

Success Metrics: # of clicks to the landing page and number of form submissions from the landing page

Results: After 24 hours, I had the following results...

- 8/29 opens

- 3/29 clicks

-1/29 conversions --> Led to a meeting with sales person.

In the world of Enterprise sales it only take 12-15 deals per year to hit our goals. To have one lead come from an email that was sent to 29 prospects is close to a win in my book. However, my next steps are to conduct a similar test with a list of attendees from a similar high engagement webinar and see if it results in a similar outcome.