15 Insights into Marketing Tactics That Work

An old adage reminds us that if you have foresight, you are blessed, and if you have insight, you are twice blessed. Here are fifteen insights to make you quadruple blessed.

When it comes to marketing in the digital age, knowing what works and what doesn’t can be invaluable.

Here are the top 15 insights about modern marketing from Eloqua that you should apply to your own marketing. All these facts are from their  Modern Marketing Insights Charts.

1. Emails sent at the weekend have a better response rate.

Sending well-targeted marketing emails over the weekend results in a click-through rate of more than 25% ‒ higher than at any other time during the week. If you send mail on Saturday, you cut through the noise created by your competitors midweek.

2. Clean customer records are essential.

Outdated contact information offers no potential for revenue creation. Little surprise then that data cleansing activity has increased by 50% in firms using automated marketing techniques.

3. Short forms work best.

Web users are constantly pressed for time, so shorter registration or data collection forms work best. In fact, forms with exactly seven fields are most likely to be completed. Go beyond 10 and the completion rates tail off significantly.

(Source: Eloqua Benchmark Data, 3Q 2011)

4. LinkedIn is a B2B social marketing powerhouse.

LinkedIn accounts for 16% of all B2B social referrals – 16 times greater than in the B2C market. Facebook is also a referral powerhouse for both B2B and B2C interactions, providing 72% and 84% respectively.

(Source: Eloqua Benchmark Data, 2010 Full year)

5. Static content no longer satisfies consumers.

Marketers who serve dynamically generated content to their contacts enjoy a 50% higher conversion rate compared to their competitors who rely on static pages.

6. Automation gets people into your webinars.

Automated reminders to contacts have been shown to boost attendance rates by 32%. Integrating your event platform with marketing automation to follow up no-shows can boost engagement even further.

7. Certified automated marketers generate more leads.

Marketing automation is one thing, but certified marketers can further boost campaign effectiveness. The Eloqua Benchmark Index suggests that qualified marketing automation ‘masters’ can reach 50% of their database – 20% more than their unqualified peers.

8. Email is still king.

Social referrals are on the up (331% increase year on year), but is still significantly outperformed by email. Click-through levels are roughly similar between social and email (around 15,000 per quarter), but email opens top 120,000 in the same period.

(Source: Eloqua Benchmarking Report)

9. Database growth relies on empowered sales people.

An average sales team can increase customer database growth by an average of 4.5% each month. Equip them with content sharing tools, however, and this shoots up to 7.5% every single month.

(Source: Eloqua Benchmarking Report)

10. Automation boosts conversion.

Manual marketing campaigns are tricky to set up and maintain, and are less effective in the long run. Automated campaigns are not only 200% more effective at converting customers, they also remain effective for a lot longer.

11. Be personal for greater success.

Emails with personal email signatures are five times more effective at raising open rates than those from a generic account. They also boost click-throughs by nearly 350%.

(Source: Eloqua Benchmarking Report)

12. Use social sign-ons to keep data clean.

Savvy web users who are keen to avoid unwanted marketing emails, often use fake addresses and details in return for access to your content. However 40% of users now claim to prefer social sign-on methods – allowing you to capture ‘clean’ data and helping them reduce sign-up time. A win-win for you and your customers.

(Source: Consumer Perceptions of Online Registration and Social Login – Blue Research Survey, 2010)

13. No more keyword data from Google . . .

The move to encrypted search by Google means that all search terms and keywords are now hidden from site owners. This, coupled with moves by the search giant to move away from keyword-based indexing, means that marketers are becoming increasingly reliant on paid search to stay top of the search rankings.

14. The rise and rise of video . . .

Text remains important for search engine rankings, but customers are increasingly seeking video content first. Traffic to video sites is up 18% year on year, with approximately 22 million videos streamed over that period.

(Source: Nielsen, October 2009 to December 2011)

15. Constant messaging doesn’t work.

80% of deals are closed within the first two marketing ‘touches’. The effect of any additional messages beyond that point is significantly reduced. Once your marketing team gets beyond the sixth email, any benefits to you or the customer are minimal.