10 SECRETS TO MORE SUCCESSFUL CAPTURE AND CONVERSION STRATEGIES An

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2 I akerolabs.com I Contents

Are you happy with your business’s conversion rate? Are there certain areas of your marketing strategy that cause you frustration? Is your business performing to its full potential? If you answered no to any of the above, it might be time to revisit your lead generation and nurture strategy. The backbone of any business, knowing how to persuade visitors to opt-in and then guide these leads through a series of touchpoints leading to conversion is one of the biggest challenges faced by any marketer. In this whitepaper, you will not only learn how to plan a successful lead generation strategy, but also find out the steps marketing teams must take in order to get data that will drive important marketing decisions, plus what actions must be put in place to properly track marketing performance and other important considerations to ensure you not only increase conversion rates, but are attracting the right leads.

CONTENTS Section 1 I Everything Starts with a Question............................................ 3 Section 2 I Objectives - what do you want to achieve? ............................. 4 Section 3 I Audience - what do you have that they want? ........................ 5 Section 4 I Track - getting smart with your marketing budget ................. 7 Section 5 I Data - your most valuable ally ................................................... 9 Section 6 I Think multi-device .......................................................................12 Section 7 I Creativity cuts through ............................................................... 14 Section 8 I Be agile ......................................................................................... 16 Section 9 I Personalise, personalise, personalise ...................................... 18 Section 10 I Re-think what you know about automation .......................... 21 Section 11 Conclusion ................................................................................... 24

SECTION 1 EVERYTHING STARTS WITH A QUESTION

4 I akerolabs.com I Everything starts with a question

Starting with this one... If you were to take a guess, how many search queries would you say does Google process per year? 100 million, 500 million, more? Back in 2015, we were given the figure of one trillion - that’s three billion queries being submitted per day. As you know, every potential purchase, whether it’s a product or a service, starts with a question posed by the consumer - what do I need in order to improve what I’m currently doing? Good marketers will know when these questions will be asked and be prepared to offer a solution. But how can businesses select key dates to put in their marketing diaries to determine their messaging? We’ll come to that later on.

SECTION 2 OBJECTIVES - WHAT DO YOU WANT THEM TO ACHIEVE? In an effort to be reactive and relevant in our marketing, we as marketers can often become engrained into a culture of ‘OK this is done, now let’s move on to the next one’ when it comes to our campaigns and forget the fundamental objectives of the campaign - what do we want to achieve from this, and why are we doing it? Again, this will be fully dependant on whereabouts the leads are within the sales funnel, but by having clear objectives, businesses can create highly-focused strategies that stand more of a chance of converting. In order to create successful objectives, businesses must define what success is to them. Defining what a hot lead is, and how they need to be treated, is key to determining relevant nurture paths. Which brings us to…

SECTION 3 AUDIENCE - WHAT DO YOU WANT THEM TO DO?

6 I akerolabs.com I Audience - what do you want them to do?

A real-life example... Here’s a scenario - I’m a B2B specialising in marketing software. I know that businesses will be looking at their marketing budgets roughly between February and April as this is the start of a new financial year. So as a B2B specialising in marketing software, I know the messaging for my campaigns will be based around inspiring new and more efficient ways of working, based on what they’ve been used to through using another product. Google Trends is an incredibly useful tool for businesses looking to pin down these key periods in their marketing calendars, so that they know when to provide the solutions to the questions they are set to pose throughout the year. This information can also be gained through conversations with your current customers as a way of collecting valuable market research. The aim of this strategy is to disrupt the consumers’ usual process for making important purchase decision by being one step ahead of them with your solution to thier challenge.

Google Trends in action

SECTION 3 TRACKING - GETTING SMART WITH YOUR MARKETING BUDGET

Next generation tracking Here’s a harsh truth - if you are not tracking your marketing activities, you are not doing your job properly, and as a result, you are affecting your chances of any future campaign succeeding. In order to successfully track success of any campaign, marketers must revisit their objectives - what does ‘good’ look like to you? What KPI’s must I use to show me whether or not I have achieved these objectives? What can I learn from the performance of this campaign? The Google URL Builder tool is essential for tracking success when promoting content across multiple platforms. Adding parameters into your links can allow marketers to access brand new data that shows them which content is working best on a specific platform. If you set up tracking correctly, you’ll be able to truly demonstrate ROI and not only find out which campaigns are resonating with your audience, but which ones are creating revenue for your business.

Every touchpoint that your leads have with your brand (whether it’s through social, email or your website) is automatically tracked within the Akero CRM, so that you can make better informed nurture strategies for each lead.

SECTION 4 DATA - YOUR MOST VALUEABLE ALLY

10 I akerolabs.com I Data - your most valueable ally

2016: A new approach to lead data Data is everything in marketing. For example, did you know that automated emails using data to personalise achieve open rates 75% higher than nonrecurring emails? Moreover, they generate 2.5 quintillion new bytes of data each day. There are two types of data that marketers can use to shape their marketing plans: ACTIVE DATA Active data comes directly from your potential customer. These are your inbound leads that can come as a result of a visitor filling a form on your website, making them your most interested and engaged audience. PASSIVE DATA Passive data is based on how your visitors behave on your website and how they interact with your brand but have yet to make an action. The devices you are using and the pages they are visiting are both examples of passive data.

11 I akerolabs.com I Data - your most valueable ally

For businesses looking to take their data-driven marketing to the next level, a DMP is an extremely powerful tool that can help you organise and understand their data and thus, make more informed decisions for their marketing. By definition, a DMP is technology that gathers, sorts and distributes information to assist marketers. For marketers they’re most often used to manage cookie IDs to help display online adverts to specific audience segments, as well as lookalike audiences based on web visitors, social media connections and email lists combined. DMPs can help marketers gain more precise information about their audiences, which is useful not only in helping to sell more targeted, more effective advertising, but also in providing greater insight into the needs and interests of their readers or viewers. In actual fact DMPs also have a role to play in the customer journey – as brands can use DMP technology to decide what content, offers and information particular audience groups are shown on their own websites.

SECTION 6 THINK MULTI-DEVICE

13 I akerolabs.com I Think multi-device

You may be thinking ‘this isn’t exactly brand new information’, but in 2016 ‘thinking multi-device’ goes much further than just having a mobile-optimised website in 2016. Consideration for your user is of utmost importance when forming relationships. 65% of buyers will come away from a website frustrated by inconsistent experiences. For example, a report from MoveableInk found that a massive 58% of email opens were on Apple mobile devices. The latest update of the iPhone has a new feature for the 6S model will have major implications for email marketers due to the introduction of its 3D Touch feature and Email ‘Peek and Pop’. Email marketers attempting to optimise their emails for opening on the new iPhones are treading into uncharted territory so testing should be priority number 1, to find out what works and what doesn’t. “3D Touch helps you get through the email in your inbox more quickly and efficiently. To Peek at a message, just press it lightly. The content of the email appears on top of your inbox. If it’s a short message and a Peek is all you need, simply stop pressing and you’re back in your inbox.” Officical statement by Apple

SECTION 7 CREATIVITY CUTS THROUGH

15 I akerolabs.com I Creativity cuts through

Did you know that 77% of marketers will increase content production in the next 12 months? Considering the fact that a consumer’s average attention span is eight seconds one second less than a goldfish, cutting through the creative noise is an all-too real challenge for businesses looking to stand out with their marketing. Being agile in your marketing and having a full understanding of your audience can pave the way for creating content that stands apart from your competitors. In turn, keeping up to date and being the first to create content using the latest technologies and tools will place your business as thought leaders in your field. Teaming this with intel on where certain leads are within the sales funnel (below) can be a powerful way to connect creativity with targeted content to increase conversion rates. Right now, which businesses do you know that are incorporating VR or Facebook Canvas in their marketing strategy? TIP: Set up Google alerts for every major social channel so that you are one of the first to be made aware of brand new tools and features that you can utlise.

SECTION 8 BE AGILE

Agile marketing has become more and more prominent within marketing strategies as businesses begin to use news stories as hooks to create reactive content for their audiences. So much so, that there has been a 100% growth in the search volume for ‘Agile Marketing’ over the last two years according to Google Trends. In turn, being agile with your marketing budget can bring huge benefits for businesses. Agile budget allocation comes from knowing how your visitors are behaving and interacting with your brand, and acting accordingly to help steer the journey to conversion. If tracking is set up correctly and clear objectives in place, businesses will know exactly what a ‘good lead’ looks like, meaning that they can then be agile in their reaction to guide them to the next step in the most effective way possible. Working out individual buying cycles can be the key to helping marketers guide this process. Whilst it can be problematic to know exactly how you can expect your visitors to behave, there are certain things that businesses can put in place to provide further insight into this. Second-stage forms are an excellent source of data to help marketers with this challenge, providing invaluable qualitative information that can help marketing teams better understand their audience. Through the collection of this extra data, we can then attribute separate stories for each lead.

SECTION 9 PERSONALISE, PERSONALISE, PERSONALISE

19 I akerolabs.com I Personalise, personalise, personalise

There are no excuses to not provide every one of your website visitors a tailored and personalised content experience. Think of it this way - landing pages and blogs have an average bounce rate of 70 to 90%, and the average website conversion rate is 2%. As such, leads who are nurtured with personalised experiences produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities. But how can businesses incorporate this into their marketing strategies? Dynamic Text Replacement (DTR) is a tactic that marketers can adopt in order to create landing pages that actively speak to their audience and increase the chances of conversion. DTR highlights select keywords on your landing page, to match to the specific keywords your visitor has used in their Google searches. This means that from source through to landing page, the message is consistent and the experience personalised to each specific user. Click here for more information on DTR.

Build highly-converting landing pages within the Akero marketing and CRM suite that easily incorporate DTR so that you can immerse your leads into each and every campaign

20 I akerolabs.com I Personalise, personalise, personalise

Conditional form fields are also an excellent way to create personalised experiences for audiences interacting with your brand. Conditional form fields allow you to build rules that define which and when fields are displayed to the user, dependent on the information they input. By using conditional form fields the added flexibility will ultimately lower your abandonment rate and allow your users to skip irrelevant form questions. They also ensure you gather optimum data for your campaign whilst not deterring users with large forms and irrelevant fields. Click here for more information on conditional form fields click here.

CONDITIONAL FORMS IN ACTION - ORION SERVICES Orion were looking for new ways to decrease the number of partial form-fill and create more relevant experiences for their web visitors. In order to fufil this objective, the team incorporated conditional form fields into their Contact Us page. Conditional form fields allow you to build rules that define which and when fields are displayed to the user, dependent on the information they input. The visitor’s journey is individually tailored even as they fill out their data.

“The conditional fields gives the team all the information they need to get the message to the right department fast and allows us to personalise the experience for the user.” Laura Warren, Marketing Manager at Orion Waste Management

SECTION 9 RETHINK WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT MARKETING AUTOMATION

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INSTEAD OF USING TECHNOLOGY TO AUTOMATE PROCESSES, THINK ABOUT USING TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE HUMAN INTER ACTION.” TONY ZAMBITO

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23 I akerolabs.com I Rethink what you know about marketing automation

Marketing automation drives a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead.* Traditional marketing automation implies that marketers are robots that we can’t do our job properly. However, more and more businesses are using the tactic to build carefully-crafted customer journeys, planning every touchpoint they have with their brand to drive personalised experiences for each lead. According to industry research source, marketing automation is used by 42% of companies, CRM / sales automation systems by 54%, while email marketing technology has the highest adoption, with 82% adopting the tactic. “Instead of using technology to automate processes, think about using technology to enhance human interaction.” - Tony Zambito Take a look at the CTA’s on your website - is there a clear path within your sales funnel that displays awareness, consideration, and evidence based marketing in order to guide your user to a conversion?

Source: Nucleus Research

Creating successful nurture strategies can be created by adopting the four A’s: AUDIENCE - Ensure each touchpoint is personalised for each and every lead by incorporating tools such as Dynamic Text Replacement and Conditional Forms into your marketing. ACTIONS - What do you want your visitor to do? These actions can be separated into two categories; Primary CTA’s, such as downloading a whitepaper, signing up to a webinar or attending an event. Secondary actions include leaving a review or recommending your services to a friend. ASSETS - What materials do you have to support your message? Evidence-based marketing is one type of marketing where a company uses content to prove the product or service works. We use evidence based marketing messages throughout the journey to reinforce the brand credentials and support the message. Case studies and FAQ pages are perfect examples of evidence-based marketing. ACTIONS - What triggers should occur in our messaging? Planning each touchpoint with personalised messaging and the correct content to relate where they are within the funnel is paramount to the success of your campaigns.

CONCLUSION There are many factors that must be taken into consideration before giving your capture and convert strategy an overhaul. By putting each of the previous steps in place, businesses can look to generate a stronger understanding of their audience needs and thus react more relevantly to their online behaviours. Adopting personalisation tactics such as Dynamic Text Replacement and Conditional Forms Fields will serve to provide experiences for users interacting with your brand. In turn, applying the Four A’s to your automation strategy will not only improve customer journey mapping for marketing teams, but provide more relevant experiences for each and every lead, improving relationships between the user and the brand, and ultimately, increasing conversion rates.

About Akero: Built by a leading digital agency that is both a Google and Facebook partner to increase client retention and improve campaign performance - Akero is a sophisticated marketing suite that adds purpose to digital marketing for marketing teams by capturing, scoring, converting and tracking leads generated from digital and social media marketing campaigns. The software allows marketers to create highly-converting landing pages and competitions effortlessly with forms that captures opt in lead data and triggers conversion codes to improve digital and social media buying in real time. Akero allows organisations to identify their ‘ True Customer’ and create personalised experiences throughout the nurture process.

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