Improving Response Rates from Digital Marketing

About the Improving Response Rates presentation…from Sharon Wilding

Whether it is your email or website that you want to increase responses from, the key piece of advice from Craig Hanna of the digital marketing community Econsultancy, is to test, test and keep testing.  And the beauty of electronic communications and the internet is that it is so easy to measure what is happening, to implement changes, and to see if you are improving – or not.

Craig’s presentation was fast and furious, and jam-packed with advice on where to focus most of your efforts in your digital campaigns.  Applying the trusty 80:20 rule is the first step – focus on the 20% that will give 80% of the results.  And, as with all aspects of marketing, think about what you are doing from the point of view of your customers.  Internet marketing is about the ‘survival of the easiest’, but don’t assume you know what is easy – ask and test what your customers really do when sat in front of your website.

With email marketing the quality of your customer data and ability to segment and target is critical, but testing once again is the most important tool in your kitbag.  Measure who is reading and acting on your emails and test different subject lines, introductory paragraphs and even the timing of your mailing to see which has the best impact on results.  Craig’s tough love message was to clear out the clutter on your database.  The ‘emotionally unsubscribed’ are of no value and just serve to make your response rates look poorer!

The audience were scribbling furiously and there was just enough time at the end of the session to mention search engine marketing.  Three critical areas were identified: the site being technically able to be indexed, using keywords effectively throughout the site content, and having good quality links from other sites back to your own.  Once again Craig emphasised the importance of measuring and testing to improve results.  And keeping the customer in mind – what will they be searching for?

A lesson learned …There was a salutary lesson from Bupa who once upon a time decided they were a membership organisation not an insurance company and so removed the word completely from their website.  Customers, of course, thought differently, and Bupa ceased to feature in their search results.  If only they’d tested it first!

To access the full presentation go to www.econsultancy.com/reports/cim-kent-improving-repsonse-rates-25th-february-2009, if you are not a member you will need to sign up – for free.