There are possibly as many reasons to advertise as there are advertisers (ok, not quite). Amongst the many reasons, we hear increasingly the need for “sales leads”. That’s understandable: this is often seen as a good-enough metric that will help justify the marketing investment. And with the ever greater interaction seen between the sales & marketing functions, getting more sales leads is a quantifiable objective that managers like.
Of course, the term “sales lead” itself is open for discussion. Not all leads are of the same quality. Not everyone out there will have heard of your company, or your brand, or your products and so on… you will be dealing with a variety of people at various stages of their decision making process. Generally speaking, we can define as a sales lead someone who has a need for your product and is planning to make a purchase within the next two or three months – possibly more for those products that involve longer buying cycles. You must also have some form of contact details for that person to be a genuine lead.
One effective way to get sales leads is to conduct targeted emailing campaigns. It helps if you have a solid internal CRM program with a good database. But even if you have no databases, it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker: many marketing companies offer database you can tap into. They will be able to share with you a range of metrics including the opening rate, the number of clicks and so on. Beyond those basic metrics, you will want to ensure you get the highest possible response – with the highest quality sales leads as you can.
Writing quality content is important, and you’ve got to make sure you have something interesting to say. Your audience will decide in a matter of seconds whether the email is meaningful to them. Assuming you’ve ticked the right boxes in that respect, and you have a compelling offer… and also that you have a clear call to action, and that it takes your audience to a well-designed landing page where more information about your offer is available (perhaps in the form of a white paper). Assuming you have a strong subject line that will stand out in the recipient’s inbox. Assuming all of this, is the battle won?
It may not be – not just yet anyway. The reason for this is your prospects’ changing habits when it comes to email. Gone are the days when emails were checked on a desktop at work. Over the past decade, the rise of all things mobile has changed completely the way you emails. Think about the way we now read messages “on the go”: your audience is no different.
You cannot realistically expect your prospect to open an email whilst out and about, click on a link, end up on a landing page, download and digest your white paper, then share contact details… while walking the dog or – heaven forbid – keeping an eye on the traffic ahead. Yet figures from Litmus Software indicate that last year, 55% of all emails were opened using a mobile device. They’ve analysed 13 billion emails, so one would think this makes their data statistically significant.
Over the course of 2015, mobile opens increased 17% while desktop opens decreased 17% for a year-end 19% of total opens. So that’s under one fifth of your emails being read at your prospects’ place of work. Those figures may be skewed somewhat to account for an exclusive B2B environment. But the overall trend is likely to be the same.
This is worth keeping in mind when preparing your next e-marketing campaign. The battle to generate quality sales leads is changing. It involves fighting the easy ‘delete’ option your audience will be leaning towards whilst on the move. And the best way to do this is to send emails whose value will be deemed important enough that it is worth keeping and looking at again – once back at work, in front of a decent size screen.
If you would like to find out more about implementing an effective email campaign why not request our ‘A Step-By-Step Guide to Email Campaigns’ eBook? Just click here.
