Email Marketing Insights

Why is Email Marketing usage exploding?
1) Measurable
2) Targetable
3) Immediate response
4) Cost effective (no printing nor postage costs)
5) Viral
6) On-going client communication


Here are some insights for your email marketing campaigns:

1) Wednesday is Opening Day

* Wednesdays are the days with the highest open rate. Open rates for emails tend to hover around 22% on Wednesdays, followed by Thursdays at 21%, Tuesdays at 20%, Fridays at 14%, Mondays at 13%, Saturdays at 4% and Sundays at 4%.

2) Looking to kill your email effectiveness? Then DYI.

* A survey of 1,000 different business and consumer emails showed: 21% of emails sent showed-up completely blank when images were turned off by clients (which is the trend).

* The same survey showed that 28% of the emails sent had dead links.

* Save the DYI for updating the family room. Get a pro to manage your email marketing.

3) How are you on the Links?

* Subject lines with fewer than 50 characters as well as an increased number of hyperlinks led to increased open rates and click-through rates

4) Is that baby getting delivered?

* Here are some benchmarks to see how your delivery rates measure-up. If you are over 90% you are doing well. If you are at 70% or less you need to evaluate your lists and your email content.










Looking for more email insights? Contact us at 800.287.7198.

All the best,

Dave

Job Security in an unusual place.

I wanted to take a break from my typical blog to share with a story with you. I know this guy that had a Fortune 500 career, moved up the rungs on the corporate ladder, got his MBA, was making good money.....but his job stress level was high, job security was minimal and frankly his job satisfaction was moderate. Does any of this sound familiar?

Then the bottom dropped-out and the guy went through a down-sizing. For the first time in 18 year career he was "out of a job." He had a mortgage, two kids to get through college, a car payment, and all the rest.

Then he spoke to a friend of his, a successful entrepreneur named Harry. He explained to Harry how he always wanted to have his own company but the risk and the stress would just be too much for him and his family. Harry asked him "What risk? You could start a business (such as a marketing/advertising firm) with virtually no start-up costs, you don't need any employees, your overhead is low, you get to control your own destiny, your income is unlimited, you no longer rely on one source of income (your employer) - you get multiple streams of income from each of your clients and BTW you will have more fun."

You know what? Harry was right.

Thanks Harry,

Dave

When to use Channel Partners

Dave Gee has over 20 years of experience in sales and working with Channel Partners with the Fortune 500. He also teaches a course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Marketing Through Channel Partners in the Executive Education program.

When we refer to channel partners we are referring to indirect sales channels. This includes both agents and distributors. Agents typically do not take ownership of goods (e.g. real estate agent) whereas a distributor does take ownership (e.g. a beer distributor).

So, executive leadership has three main choices to make when determining Channel Partner options:

1) Direct Sales Channels
2) Channel Partners
3) Combination of Direct/Channel Partners

Advantages of Direct Sales Channels
A) Maximum control of activities
B) Accountability
C) Adaptability

Advantages of Channel Partners
A) Minimal overhead costs
B) Quick access to new markets
C) Scalability

So, when should companies use channel partners?
1) Firms seeking quick expansion into markets
2) Companies seeking to reduce direct salesforce but maintain market presence
3) New firms without the budget dollars to launch and maintain direct sales channels

For more information on channel partners see our recent article in Demand Gen Report.

If you would like to discuss your Channel Partner questions please contact Dave Gee directly at (262)949-4969.

Website Stats Made Easy

It is easy to fall into the "build it and they will come" mentality when it comes to launching a new website. Companies spends tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands on a new website and then ask themselves "so what happens now."

One of the first questions we ask our new clients is: "What is the goal of the site." Followed-up by "Who are the audiences for the site." Typically, I will get vague answers. Once these questions have been answered with all of the applicable sales and marketing strategy questions the site is built. It is also critical to have a strategy on how you are going to promote the new website. We will leave this for another discussion. So, we first need to capture stats from our website.

I am consistently amazed at massive corporations that have absolutely no grasp of basic website stats on their website.

Some of the basic stats include:
1) Visits
2) % New Visits
3) Page views
4) Page views per visit
5) Bounce rate
6) Average time on site

These stats need to be measured vs. benchmarks. The benchmarks can be historical vs. your previous company website stats and/or vs. other websites. Needless to say, if you have a new website with no historical benchmarks you can compare to other websites. You can even compare to other websites within your industry.

Capturing these statistics for your website is not complicated. Some html code simply needs to be added to each page of your website and you can track easily through a service like "Google Analytics."

Once you have these stats you can make modifications to the site to help achieve your website goals. Without this data you will waste time and money playing the guessing game.

If you would like more information on website statistics please contact us at 800.287.7198.

All the best,

Dave