b2b drip campaigns - 7 case studies - marketingsherpa jeanne jennings oct-2010

Jeanne S. JenningsConsultant, Email Marketing StrategyJeanneJennings.com, Inc.

Successful Drip Email Nurturing Campaigns

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Copyright 2010 It is illegal to distribute this presentation. C

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• What is a Drip Campaign?• Case Studies

• PRWeb• Nortel• U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)• XOsoft• BreakingPoint Systems• National Education Association (NEA)• Jaspersoft

• Additional Resources

Presentation Overview

April ShowersBring May FlowersBut…

Drip CampaignsDrive Revenue!

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Drip Campaigns• Named after drip

irrigation… • which saves resources by

allowing water and fertilizer to drip slowly to the roots of plants through a network of valves, pipes, tubing and emitters

Source: Wikipedia, September 2010

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Drip Campaign• A communication

strategy that sends or “drips” a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time

• Email marketing is the channel most commonly used

1. The timing of the messages follows a pre-determined course

2. The messages are “dripped” in a series applicable to a specific behavior or status of the recipient

3. Each message stands alone but also builds on those sent before

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Benefits of Drip Campaigns• Evergreen: build them once, use them on

an ongoing basis• Not Resource Intensive: automatically

triggered• Consistent Messaging: complete control

over the information and how it is relayed• Top of Mind Presence: build your case

over time

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CASE STUDY: PRWEBSuccessful Drip Email Nurturing Campaigns

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Case Study: PRWeb• Challenges

• Many visitors signed up for a free PRWeb account, but few went on to use the service

• No revenue is generated until the registrant uses PRWeb to send a press release

• Goal• Increase the free-sign-up to paying-customer conversion rate

• Campaign Elements• Existing Website content • Email drip campaign welcome series

• 4 effort series sent to all new registrants over a 4 week period

Source: Client Case Study, JeanneJennings.com, Inc.

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• Key Features, Benefits and Advantages– Reach beyond just journalists, also search engine visibility– Extensive tracking and reporting to quantify results

• Overcoming Obstacles to Using PRWeb– Ability to write a press release– Determining which service level fit their needs

• Testimonials– Didn’t include these but should have!

• Incentive– Significant upgrade on first press release send

• Urgency– Deadline to quality for the upgrade


Drip Campaign Message Map

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• Increase in attendance at the New User Orientation Webinars

• More traffic to previously “hidden” help pages

• Significant lift in conversions from free registrants to paying users

Source: Client Case Study, JeanneJennings.com. Inc.

Results

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CASE STUDY: NORTELSuccessful Drip Email Nurturing Campaigns

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Case Study: Nortel• Challenge

• Nortel had recently filed bankruptcy and was in the process of being acquired

• Goals • Overcome prospects’ temptations to “wait and see” what would happen with the company before buying

• Keep prospects eager to buy from signing with competitors

• Campaign Elements• New microsite• Paid search and social media• In-person and online events• Email nurturing

• 4 effort series sent to new prospects over a 6 week period

Source: Marketing Down the Sales Funnel: How Nortel’s Q4 Push Touched 30% of Pipeline and Helped Close Deals, MarketingSherpa, March 3, 2010

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• Assurance– Alleviate concerns about adopting Nortel tools and technology– Highlight recent company growth and product innovations

• Rebuild Trust– Focus on Nortel’s reputation for quality equipment, service offerings,

market share and history of innovation• Urgency

– Emphasize strong product discounts and the importance of staying current with technology to overcome the “wait and see” obstacle

• What’s Next for Nortel– Give prospects a sense of the future of Nortel, including insights into

technology development, industry consolidation and other trends



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• Assurance– Nortel’s role in providing communications infrastructure for the

2010 Vancouver Olympic winter games• Rebuild Trust

– Third-party analysis of the value of implementing VOIP networks• Urgency

– Reminders of the special deals and discounts being offered for Q4

• What’s Next for Nortel– An analyst report about trends in the IT industry, and how CIOs

should evaluate the impact of mergers and acquisitions


Drip Campaign Content

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• Email Lead Nurturing Series– Open Rates from 31.3% to

43.6%– Click-through Rates from

7.1% to 17.0%• 34% of revenue generated in

November and December 2009 came from prospects that had interacted with this program


Results

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CASE STUDY: U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION


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Case Study: GSA• Challenge

•Assist government procurement professionals with spending American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds

• Goals •Educate procurement officers about GSA programs

•Encourage them to contact GSA for help

• Campaign Elements•Drip Campaign

•Originally 10 messages, downsized to 6

•Focused on 4 key requirements of ARRA spending


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• Four Key ARRA Requirements– Speed: meet accelerated timeframes for spending– Value: provide the maximum benefit from funds– Transparency: show fair and reasonable

distribution of money– Accountability: protect against fraud, waste, error

and abuse


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Strategic Plan• 10 email messages; 2 phases (5 messages each)

– Each phase includes:• 1 general email to set the tone (all 4 key requirements)• 4 additional emails, each focusing on one key requirement

– Speed | Value | Transparency | Accountability

• Sent weekly over the course of 10 weeks• Only 6 email messages were actually sent

– Phase 1, email 1– Phase 2, emails 1 through 5


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Letter Format• Lotus Notes• It’s not about

images – it’s about the information


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Content Strategy

General Info (same all efforts)1. GSA logo2. ARRA logo3. Key Links in left column4. Call to action

Info specific to key requirement of the email

5. Quote from peer6. Timely fact about ARRA

spending7. Benefit-oriented bullet points


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• It’s important to look at the performance of each effort individually

• And also the average performance over the entire campaign

Tracking and Reporting

Phase Effort # Date Sent Send Q Bounce Rate Open RateCTR

(Unique)CTOR

(Unique)Forward

RateUnsub Rate

Spam Complaint

Rate

NA 5.9% 29.1% 6.4% 22.0% NA < 0.5% NA

1 17.21.09 - 7.24.09

(staggered) 52,621 13.4% 14.3% 1.0% 7.2% 0.01% 0.2% 0.00%2 1 8.4.09, 3:00 PM 52,514 15.4% 12.6% 0.7% 5.9% 0.00% 0.2% 0.00%2 2 8.18.09, 2:00 PM 52,410 16.1% 12.6% 0.7% 5.2% 0.00% 0.2% 0.01%2 3 9.1.09, 1:52 PM 47,426 6.5% 13.8% 0.6% 4.6% 0.00% 0.2% 0.00%2 4 9.15.09, 2:00 PM 47,338 7.5% 13.3% 0.6% 4.7% 0.01% 0.2% 0.00%2 5 9.29.09, 5:05 PM 47,265 8.1% 11.9% 0.4% 3.4% 0.00% 0.1% 0.00%

AVERAGES 49,929 11.2% 13.1% 0.7% 5.2% 0.00% 0.2% 0.0%

Epsilon Q1 2009 Email Trends and Benchmarks; Business Products and


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• You should also look at overall campaign performance• Average open rate over all efforts was 13.1% (11.9% to 14.3% range)• The cumulative unique open rate shows the value of multiple sends

• A total of 12,772 unique people opened at least one email in the series• This is 28.9% of the average number of email messages assumed delivered for

each send• With each send, the cumulative unique opens grew by an average of 10.6%



Send 1.1 Send 2.1 Send 2.2 Send 2.3 Send 2.4 Send 2.5Unique Opens (cumulative) 6,541 8,547 9,944 11,199 12,068 12,772 Lift Send over Send (#) 2,006 1,397 1,255 869 704 Lift Send over Send (%) 31% 16% 13% 8% 6%Average Lift 10.6%

Opens

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• A similar analysis of key link performance drives the point home• The link to the GSA Advantage landing page was one of the top four links

in all of the email messages• Click-through rates on individual efforts ranged from .07% to 0.18%• A total of 359 unique people clicked on this link during the campaign

• This is nearly 5 times the number of clicks from the first effort• The cumulative unique clicks grew by an average of 25.2% per send



Send 1.1 Send 2.1 Send 2.2 Send 2.3 Send 2.4 Send 2.5Unique Clicks (cumulative) 73 150 220 284 334 359Lift Send over Send (#) 77 70 64 50 25Lift Send over Send (%) 105% 47% 29% 18% 7%Average Lift 25.2%

GSA Advantage

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CASE STUDY: XOSOFTSuccessful Drip Email Nurturing Campaigns

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• Challenge• Find a cost-effective way to handle an onslaught of leads

• Suddenly 25% of unique Website visitors converting to leads

• Sales reps with limited time needed to focus on “hot” leads

• Goal• Convert a higher percentage of leads to genuine sales opportunities

• Campaign Elements• Lead qualification system• Targeted drip campaign based on prospect segment

Source: Best Practices in Email Marketing Handbook (2009), MarketingSherpa

Case Study: XOsoft

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Is the Lead Qualified?Reps Contact all Leads -- 4 Questions1. Existing Project

– Is there a real project in the works at the organization?

2. Budget– Has the organization allocated a budget yet?

3. Tech– Does the organization meet tech requirements?

4. Investigate Commitment – Is the lead also examining our competitors?


Qualified leads

immediately rose from 4% to 17%

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Decision TreeDifferent communications based on: •lead quality•source•title of prospect


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Informal Newsletter Format• Goal: keep unqualified leads

warm• Informal style outperformed

more traditional newsletter format– 14% lift in open rate

• 48% vs. 42%

– 100% lift in click-through rate• 16% vs. 8%

– 74% lift in click-to-open rate• 33% vs. 19%


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Just Checking in Email• Goal: keep

unqualified leads warm

• Sent quarterly

Results• Conversions on

qualified leads rose to 60%


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CASE STUDY: BREAKINGPOINTSuccessful Drip Email Nurturing Campaigns

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• Challenge• Develop a successful lead

generation program for a start-up without a strong brand or established customer base

• Goals • Create a powerful engine to

generate a consistent stream of high quality inbound leads from the Web

• Campaign Elements• Sales and Marketing Alignment• Social Monitoring• Prospecting Tools• Content Engine• Destination Website• Company Social Network Presence• Ready, Willing and Enabled Sales

Team• Email Drip Marketing

Source: How to use Social Media and Email for Prospecting: 8 Essentials, MarketingSherpa, January 28, 2010

Case Study: BreakingPoint

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Using Social Media to Drive Email Acquisition

Source: How to use Social Media and Email for Prospecting: 8 Essentials, MarketingSherpa, January 28, 2010

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CASE STUDY: NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION


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Case Study: NEA• Challenge

• Use drip campaigns to respond to add relevance and respond to member behavior

• Goals • Encourage members to add a

beneficiary to their complementary life insurance plan

• Campaign Elements• API to share information

between the NEA database and Web analytics

• Drip email campaign


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Drip Campaign Flow

• Flow begins at Website registration

• Information passed from NEA Database immediately

• Behavior monitored after each send

• Appropriate follow-up email messages are sent


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CASE STUDY: JASPERSOFTSuccessful Drip Email Nurturing Campaigns

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Case Study: Jaspersoft• Challenge

• Communicate effectively with many different customer constituent groups

• Open source developers• Customers using open source

version• Paying customers using

professional edition• Goals

• Develop a better way to segment the database and automatically provide relevant information to all groups

• Campaign Elements• Customer profiling• Database segmentation• Automated/triggered/drip

campaigns• Outbound promotions• Lead scoring

Source: Lead-Gen Revamp with Automation and Scoring: 7 Steps to 190% Increase in Sales Conversions, MarketingSherpa, November 11, 2009

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Drip Campaign Strategy• Trial download triggered

• Five emails over thirty day period• Thank you/welcome• Tools to help them use the software• Links to online documentation and forums

for support• Final email offering sales rep contact to

discuss professional edition

• Recipients sent into sub-campaigns based on behavior (40 possible paths)

Source: Lead-Gen Revamp with Automation and Scoring: 7 Steps to 190% Increase in Sales Conversions, MarketingSherpa, November 11, 2009

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCESSuccessful Drip Email Nurturing Campaigns

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Additional Resources• MarketingSherpa Email Summit

2011• Las Vegas, January 24-26, 2011

• MarketingSherpa Email Essentials Workshop Training 2010

• Toronto, October 19, 2010• Miami, November 9, 2010• Los Angeles, December 7, 2010

• MarketingSherpa 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report

• MarketingSherpa 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide

Taught by Jeanne Jennings

www.MarketingSherpa.com

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Additional ResourcesJeanne Jennings: Independent

consultant specializing in email marketing strategy and tactics

• More than 20 years of experience in B2B and B2C online and email marketing

• Sought-after writer and speaker on Email Marketing

• The Email Marketing Kit (Sitepoint)

• ClickZ Experts: Email Marketing• The Jennings Report

Clients Include:

www.JeanneJennings.com

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Thank you all for attending!Thank you MarketingSherpa for inviting me to speak!

Questions?

Jeanne S. JenningsConsultant, Email Marketing StrategyJeanneJennings.com, Inc.

[email protected]