Despite all the attention around inbound marketing, outbound sales emails remain one of the most effective tools for complex business transactions, including selling marketing services.

A report from The Radicati Group, Inc. finds that the average business professional receives 88 emails per day. So how does an agency new business person break through and get noticed in a crowded inbox?

I send hundreds of cold sales emails each week as a consultant and sales director at Catapult New Business, and I’ve developed a format that will make your messages stand out and get more responses from senior marketing decision makers.

Paragraph 1 — Entice With a Question

The first line of the cold sales email is the most important. With many email programs including a preview of the message, it’s imperative that the first line pique the prospect’s interest. It needs to be relevant and personal.

An effective way to gain attention is to open your message by asking one or two questions about the challenges the prospect’s business faces. These questions should center on problems that your agency is uniquely qualified to solve.

Research the company, their industry and the prospect to identify these pain points. Then ask yourself: What changes are affecting their business? What is the impact of these issues are on their business? Why are they important to solve?

Always personalize the salutation with the prospect’s name and reference the company’s name. Although the entire message should not read like a generic copy-and-pasted template, this is especially true of the first paragraph.

Example:

Rick,

Considering your acquisition of Zeus Financial, is First Primary Bank facing challenges integrating customer experiences or looking to build even more profitable relationships with customers?

Paragraph 2 — Demonstrate Value

You’ve identified key problems. Now offer to solve them.

Be clear that you are not sending them an email looking to set up a generic capabilities call. Senior decision makers are too busy. Instead, inform them specifically of what you can offer and how you might be able to help. Compel them to get to know your agency better by offering solutions to problems that you already understand.

Remember this is about them, not you.

Agency business development consultant and author Peter Levitan says, “Give them something of value in return. In most cases, this might be a serious insight or a creative solution.”

While you may not yet have a full grasp of the nuances of their business, you’ve demonstrated that you’ve done your homework and understand the likely issues your prospect faces. You have a point of view and a viable answer to the questions you’ve already posed.

Example:

If you’re struggling with either one, or both, I’d like to share two insights that we’ve uncovered about the banking industry and how they might be impacting you.

Paragraph 3 — Demonstrate Capability

You’ve asked the right question and hinted at the answers you have. But who are you, anyway?

The third paragraph will demonstrate your bona fides. This is where you show what you’ve done.

Show the prospect the proof that you’ve done this before. To build trust and credibility, mention clients that you’ve worked with that are within the same business category or faced similar challenges.

This is not about name-dropping. You need to create the wedge. Illustrate the compelling outcomes achieved by other clients using the solutions you provide and can provide for the prospect too.

Instead of saying how awesome you are, make your point by having your clients talk about you. If someone else is saying something about you, it’s a third-party endorsement, which is much more credible.

Example:

Mid-sized financial services clients like Second Eastern Bank have told us that we’ve helped them to provide dramatically better online customer experiences that improved market share by 17% in less than 12 months.

Paragraph 4 — Disarm

Next, is your opportunity to disarm the prospect. Make it clear that you’re not trying to sell them per se but rather to see if your agency might be a good fit.

Since there will be objections, select one and prevent it before it’s had a chance to plant in your prospect’s mind.

Example:

We respect that you may have other agency relationships and that there might not be a fit right now, but we would like for you to know us better because a need could arise down the road.

Paragraph 5 — Call To Action

Complex sales, such as for marketing services, are likely to take months or even years before there’s real movement. You will not make the sale with this first email and your call to action should be to advance the relationship forward.

For ad agencies, the typical next step is to secure a scheduled phone call with the prospect. Should there be an expert or other relevant member of your team that can add value to the call, mention them.

Make this call to action very clear. Limit it to one call to action per message, and one possible link, and propose a timeframe for the call.

Example:

Might a brief chat the week of June 2nd with our Insights Director, John Smith, and I, be of interest?

Full sample

Below is the full example, based on the points described above.

Rick,

Considering your acquisition of Zeus Financial, is First Primary Bank facing challenges integrating customer experiences or looking to build even more profitable relationships with customers?

If you’re struggling with either one, or both, I’d like to share two insights that we’ve uncovered about the banking industry and how they might be impacting you.

Mid-sized financial services clients like Second Eastern Bank have told us that we’ve helped them to provide dramatically better online customer experiences that improved market share by 17% in less than 12 months.

We respect that you may have other agency relationships and that there might not be a fit right now, but we would like for you to know us better because a need could arise down the road.

Might a brief chat the week of June 2nd with our insights director, John Smith, and I, be of interest?

Cheers,

Christian

Conclusion

Writing an effective agency new business cold email requires careful planning and research. If you keep it personal, outline the prospect’s needs, offer potential solutions, demonstrate capability, overcome objections and make a straightforward call to action, your messages will have a greater chance of cutting through the clutter, getting more responses, and paving the way for more new business wins.

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Author Bio

Christian Banach is an advertising agency new business consultant and sales director at Catapult New Business. You can connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

When you hear “automation,” chances are you’re thinking fast, robotic, and assembly line. While there is truth to these perceptions, email marketing automation requires a knowledgeable marketer to create a strategy, manage the process, and then analyze the results to inform on next steps.

If you’re unsure about using email marketing for your agency, let’s put to rest some common misconceptions.

1. Email Marketing is a Passing Fad

Talk about a huge misconception. According to a 2015 Salesforce analytics study reported on Forbes, email marketing is the top source for data used by high performance enterprises. Then consider the number of active email accounts is growing: there are over 4.35 billion in use now, which is predicted to reach 5.59 billion active accounts by 2019. 

2. Automation Means Set It and Forget It

Without human intelligence, all of that data your email automation software collected is as useful as 10,000 lbs. of cotton puffs at a building construction site. Software cannot create marketing plans or content. It compiles lists of your leads, tracks email delivery and engagement rates, and collects email performance data. You need to put in the intellectual and creative work; interpret the data to find insights that inform future campaigns and other marketing tactics.

3. Automation Ensures Email Deliverability

Between sophisticated spam filters and prioritized inbox features, it’s easy for your marketing email to go unread, possibly undelivered. Best practices play a role here in determining which segment of your audience will receive an email and the clarity of the message to inspire action.

4. Email Marketing Automation Is Effortless

Content is significant in email marketing, and you need to create a lot of it following a strategy and established goals. Each email campaign must be unique and should be personalized. Target your buyer personas using list segmentation, and speak their languages while addressing their needs. Then there is the follow through when you ask the recipient to click on the CTA (call to action). The work extends far beyond the email to fulfill the offer.

5. Automated Emails Are Cold and Impersonal

Email automation software is designed to integrate with your CRM enabling you to categorize your audience or leads based on interest levels and other segments. From there, the message and CTA are geared toward the targeted audience with personalized touches, including addressing the recipient by first name.

Now that these common misconceptions have been cleared, it’s time for you to put email marketing automation to work and win more business for your agency.

For years, most agency/client relationships developed into close, long-term partnerships. However, increasingly more these days, that’s just not the case.

According to Forbes, CMOs now view agency relationships differently. The Client/Agency Relationship Survey showed that 62 percent said that they now view their agencies as suppliers or vendors, not partners.

Also, due to the fact that many companies are now building in-house marketing teams, agencies are being asked to do short-term, one-off projects instead of acting as a long-term agency of record (AOR). Of course, this also plays into the vendor vs. partner relationship shift.

Marketers have also expressed consistent frustration with various aspects of traditional agency relationships. Although there are a number of things contributing to their dissatisfaction, two of the most common reasons are:

1. Lack of transparency about how their money is being used in relation to campaign spend and MoM results.

2. They were sold on a “full-service” marketing strategy with all the bells and whistles only to find out after the fact that the agency didn’t have the expertise or bandwidth to execute against it.

When agency relationships begin with unrealistic expectations, it only breeds distrust over time — and that distrust is compounded by the fact that clients already don’t feel involved with (or in control of) the process and execution of .

Key Takeaways

Although client-agency relationships are changing, the good news is that agencies can still increase revenue and close new business as long as they take a strategic approach to business development.

Here are four tips to get you started on the right path:

1. During contract negotiations, never promise deliverables your agency can’t do just to get the deal signed. Also, don’t just assume that your team will simply “handle it” or figure it out on their own.

2. As tempting as it may be, avoid pitching your agency as a “full-service” provider. The most successful agencies are those that differentiate themselves by specializing in one area of marketing or advertising.

3. Although “growing pains” are normal to a certain extent, make sure that you aren’t doing a disservice to your current clients or operational staff by prioritizing new business revenue growth above revenue growth from retention and referrals.

4. Remember: Just because a company has money to spend with you, doesn’t mean they are a good client fit for your agency. Clients that don’t fit with your agency’s culture will create more work for you and your agency than they’re worth. More often than not, they will end up costing you money, time, employees, and worst of all, the clients that you actually like.

It goes without saying, but conferences and tradeshows are a big deal in the marketing and advertising world. These events present a unique opportunity for senior-level marketers to learn from industry leaders, and at the same time, network with a large pool of top prospects to generate new business leads.

However, every year there are more and more conferences to choose from and it can be a daunting task to try and figure out which ones present the best opportunity for business growth and leadership training.

To save you some time and help you win more new business in 2016, here is our list of the 11 best marketing and advertising conferences to attend this year.

1. 2016 ANA Brand Masters Conference 
When: Feb. 3-5
Where: Hollywood, FL

A more intimate companion to the Masters of Marketing, ANA Brand Masters is an event that brings together CMOs and marketing thought leaders. These top marketers come together and share actionable tips on how to navigate customer insights, data analytics and technology to engage clients and prospects, and grow their businesses.

Learn More

2. Digital Marketing Innovation Summit
When: March 10-11
Where: New York, NY

This summit brings together innovative senior executives from around the world who work in digital marketing.

Digital Marketing San Francisco 2014 from Innovation Enterprise.

3. Intelligent Content Conference
When: March 7-9
Where: Las Vegas, NV

If your agency specializes in content marketing then this is a must attend conference in 2016. Speakers include Joe Pulizzi, Founder of the Content Marketing Institute, as well as Jeffrey Tambor, Scott Brinker, Robert Rose and more!

Learn More

4. Social Media Marketing World
When: April 17-19
Where: San Diego, CA

With an estimated 3,000 marketers attending yearly, Social Media Marketing World is the world’s largest social media marketing conference. By attending you get the chance to network with industry leaders and top prospects on the brand and agency side. Definitely one you don’t want to miss!

Learn More

5. Mirren Live New York
When: May 2016
Where: New York City

Every year, top agency marketers and CEOs from 400 different agencies gather in New York City to discuss innovative new business strategies and techniques. This conferences showcases over 50 speakers and includes more than 35 sessions.

Learn More

 

6. DIGIMARCON WEST 2016
When: June 15-16
Where: Santa Monica, CA

Held at the luxurious Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, DIGIMARCON WEST is known for showcasing the most thought-provoking and innovative digital marketers in the industry. The speakers provide attendees with insight on cutting-edge strategies, the latest technology and best practices for content, UX, mobile marketing, social media, search marketing, marketing automation, analytics and more.

Learn More

7. Content Marketing World
When: Sept. 6-9
Where: Cleveland, Ohio

Every year the best and brightest flock to Cleveland to attend the now infamous Content Marketing World conference. The event showcases more than 80 sessions with top content marketers. In 2015, the line up of speakers included big names like Nick Offerman, Jay Baer and David Beebe, the VP of Global Creative & Content Marketing for Marriott International. This is an unbeatable networking opportunity and a rare chance to get actionable tips from the very best on how to maximize results for clients’ content marketing strategies.

Learn More

8. Digital Strategy Innovation Summit
When: Sept. 14-15
Where: Sydney, Australia

If you have the budget and are looking for a conference with a little adventure, the Digital Strategy Innovation Summit in Sydney is a fantastic choice. This internationally renowned conference brings together the most innovative thought leaders in the industry for two days of inspirational discussions. This summit also presents a rare opportunity to network with top prospects from around the world for agencies targeting international audiences.

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9. INBOUND 2016
When: Nov. 8-11
Where: Boston, MA

No surprise here, but HubSpot’s INBOUND conference has quickly become the number one event of the year for most senior-level marketers. And with a line up of speakers that includes the likes of Seth Godin, Aziz Ansari, Chelsea Clinton, Marc Maron and Jonah Peretti, how could it not? Every year, thousands of top advertisers and marketers come together and have a great time. If you only attend one event next year, this is the best choice you could make.

Learn More

10. Internet Summit
When: Nov. 16-17
Where: Raleigh, NC

The Internet Summit presents a rare opportunity to rub shoulders with industry leaders from every area of digital advertising and marketing. For 2015, the star-studded line up of speakers included Russell Simmons, Rand Fishkin, Chris Brogan, Melanie Deziel and Tina Moffett — and that’s just a few of the unbelievable sessions attendees can look forward to. As one of the few conferences priced below $500 right now, this is one of the top three events to mark on your calendar next year.

Learn More

11. Digital Summit 
When: Varies by City
Where: Phoenix, AZ | Charlotte, NC | Atlanta, GA | Denver, CO

Digital Summit is a two-day conference held throughout the year in different cities. Thousands of top digital marketers come together and present innovative strategies, new technology and discuss trends emerging in the marketplace. According to Steve Wozniak, Co-founder of Apple, “this is where people get inspiration. Everything going on here is so important.”

Learn More

Attending a conference not included on this list? Tweet us @CatapultNewBiz and tell us about it!

Marketing automation has rapidly become a best practice for acquiring agency new business.

However, you may be surprised by just how many agencies don’t have any automation set up for email and marketing campaigns, not to mention, how many don’t even have a dedicated marketing department. 

If you are in charge of business development for an agency that isn’t yet convinced of the profitability of marketing automation, here are 25 stats to help you make the case.

25 Statistics on Marketing Automation Usage & Value

1. 79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for two or more years. (Source: Pardot)

2. Marketers using automation solutions have experienced a 34% increase in sales revenue on average. (Source: Pardot)

3. On average, nurtured leads produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. (Source: DemandGen Report)

4. Companies that use marketing automation generate twice as many leads as those just using email software. (Source: Autopilot)

5. Marketing automation drives a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead. (Source: Nucleus Research)

6. Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects see a 451% increase in qualified leads. (Source: The Annuitas Group)

7. 63% of the companies outgrowing their competitors use some kind of marketing automation. (Source: The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups)

8. B2B marketers who implement marketing automation solutions increase their sales pipeline contribution by 10% on average. (Source: Forrester Research)

9. 75% of companies that implement automated marketing campaigns see ROI in just 12 months. (Source: Focus Research)

10. The most important features of marketing automation for users are lead nurturing (57%), analytics & reporting (52%), and list segmentation (39%). (Source: Marketo)

11. Relevant emails delivered through automated campaigns drive 18x more revenue than generic email blasts. (Source: Jupiter Research)

12. Marketers who have adopted marketing automation suggest that the biggest benefits are:

• Taking repetitive tasks out of marketers hands, so they can work on other projects (36%)
• Better targeting their prospects and existing customers (30%)
• Improving customer experience (10%)
• Better email marketing (9%)
• Reduction of human error (8%)
• Lead management (4%)
• Multichannel marketing (3%)
  (Source: Redeye and TFM&A Insights)

13. Sales and marketing teams that use marketing automation software have more than 650,000 contacts in their database, which is 30% more than non-automation users. (Source: Autopilot)

14. Triggered emails – those sent in response to a specific user action on a website – have a 70.5% higher open rate. (Source: Gleanster)

 15. The average length of the sales cycle has increased 22% in the past 5 years as more decision makers are involved in the buying process. (Source: SiriusDecisions)

16. By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their buying journey without talking to a human. (Source: Gartner Research)

17. Businesses that use marketing automation average 4,200 leads per month. (Source: Autopilot)

18.  Marketers who send out communications to prospects every two to four weeks generate 2x the leads. (Source: Autopilot)

19. 35% of marketers using marketing automation solutions consistently capture intelligence for the sales team, compared to 19% without marketing automation systems. (Source: The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups)

20. Only 30% of agencies aren’t using marketing automation to distribute content, prove inbound marketing ROI, and improve inbound effectiveness with personalized targeting. (Source: SharpSpring)

21. Gartner estimates a 15% savings on creative production when businesses use a marketing automation system. (Source: HubSpot)

 

Social media remains one of the more challenging parts of the modern marketing campaign: Sure, you can use social media to help improve brand recognition and etc., but can it be used to create new business and find new leads?

The answer is yes…that is, if you invest enough time in social activities. Here are a few tips on basic social media management and how it can help bring in new customers.

Always Audit

Start by doing a basic audit of your social networks.

1. What social profiles do you have?
2. Are they all using the same marketing materials?
3. What links do you want people to visit?
4. How do people get there?
5. What is your end goal for lead generation?
6. Who is in charge of scheduling posts and ads?

You have to ask and answer these questions before you are ready to start creating new business on your accounts. Organization is a vital step: Don’t fall into chaos before you begin.

Get Involved in B2B Discussions

If you are a B2B seller, pay special attention to blogs, LinkedIn discussions and other places online where conversations are taking place.

You want to prove that you are an authority in the community and an expert in your field. Sites like LinkedIn even monitor your discussion presence as a way of charting your sales acumen. This commenting and industry leadership model works best for B2B selling, but can also be effective when selling to consumers.

Social Media Targeted Advertising

Social media is not just about posts – there are plenty of opportunities for creating social ads. Facebook has one of the most complete targeted online ad creators out there, allowing you to create and target ads to specific groups of users, then track their progress.

There are also options for mobile app advertisement for sites like Facebook. Use a combination of online social ads to bring in new business, but don’t stretch your net too wide!

Twitter Ads

Twitter also has several options for advertisement, but one of the most effective is the Promoted Tweet, which allows you to skyrocket tweets to the front pages of followers and searchers where it can be seen.

You can also promote your account or your campaign if you prefer. Link to a product page, a customer info form, or something else that will generate a real lead.

Hashtag Interest

Now that hashtags are supported across a number of social sites, you can use them very effectively to chart how well a campaign is going.

Who is sharing or mentioning your keyword hashtags? How many people have picked up on it? Smart hashtag use can attract the attention of people searching hashtags for particular suppliers, products or services, and it can generate more business than you might think. Just avoid going too general and getting lost in the chatter.

Always Manage Your Links

As you have probably noted, most of these social tips depend on really excellent link work. You need to have the right links in the right places at the right times to generate qualified leads.

Always double-check your link management, and keep a watch for potential problems, such as poor conversions or redirect issues.

Proper analytics and tracking is key here, but you can save a lot of trouble by checking and updating your links before you launch new material.

Social media is just one of the many ways your agency can generate new business. Click here, to learn more about how Catapult New Business can help you grow a pipeline of prospects and grow your agency.

Let me guess, during your agency’s annual planning meeting the decision was made to increase your business development efforts? You all decided that this is the year that you grow 15 percent and win four new AOR clients.

Now, you are all going to chip in a certain percentage of your time every day to reach out to new prospects and begin working those networks. And for the first month there’s momentum. Conversations are had and then Jim from Account Management has a breakthrough with a college buddy who runs marketing for a big brand and they want you to pitch.

Awesome! All of your team’s focus switches to pitch-mode 100 percent of the time. You stop that new business momentum that you were beginning to build because you don’t have time to pitch, manage clients and try to win new business. Clients take precedent.

Two months later, that momentum for new business still hasn’t caught back up because all your time as has been focused on current clients. But it doesn’t have to be like that.

Marketing automation is a huge part of being able to create a repeatable process that keeps business development efforts running regardless of what’s going on within the agency.

Our goal with agencies we work with is to change the business development process from hills of high activity and valleys of low activity to a constant rising line of proactive business development.

So how does marketing automation ensure that constant activity in your business development process?

1. Automates time intensive processes

When you sit down to begin creating a process, immediately look for areas in your agency’s current process that are impersonal and take a large amount of time.

With a good automation system, things like introduction emails to large groups, social media posts and web visitor follow-up are items that you can still give a personal feel to, while doing mass outreach at the same time.

2. Creates a standard process

Having a true process that essentially runs itself allows multiple people to work on new business development at any given time. This means that even when the Biz Dev Director is out, the system can keep running and driving profitable conversations to your agency principals.

No matter who is posting or emailing, you can be sure that the agency’s preferred voice and message is consistently being delivered to your prospects.

3. Gives a clearer picture of a prospect’s total activity

When you are evaluating a prospect’s activity, marketing automation programs allow you to go beyond the typical “Did they open and click on an email?”

Instead, you can really dig in and start tracking all of their activity across multiple campaigns and on your website. This allows your program to intelligently customize what messaging prospects should be receiving, while saving you time throughout the process.

4. Allows you to broaden your reach to more prospects, while staying hyper-targeted

We often see agencies fall into the trap of trying to work off of ultra-targeted lists. This really reduces the pool of total prospects. It also reduces their ability to reach more prospects while increasing awareness for the agency.

Marketing automation allows you to retain these very targeted prospect lists and serve custom messaging, while still reaching out to a broader audience.

At the end of the day, your agency’s goal is to win more business. Marketing automation can help make your new business process more effective and efficient when it comes to reaching larger audiences.

This means that you can have more intelligent conversations with more prospects in order to win more!

After producing thousands of email campaigns for various agencies, we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. Today we will explore those bad email campaigns and what mistakes we see most often.

 1. All you talk about is your agency

This is probably the mistake we see most often. Someone writes an email and spends four paragraphs explaining why they are the greatest social media agency ever.

The problem is, never once in those four paragraphs did they talk about prospect or a problem the prospect is looking to solve. So basically, the prospect just immediately tuned them out.

Solution: Open your emails with a startling stat or acknowledgement of a pain point that prospect is struggling with.

2. Your email is too good looking

We get it, you’re a creative shop with amazing design people. You want to create an email that looks amazing and really jumps off the page with fantastic images.

However, the problem is that all those images immediately tell a reader that this a marketing email and they are prone to delete it without ever even opening it up. Or, even worse, those images may not immediately download due to certain email settings and you just sent a blank email that they have to approve.

FACT: No brand has ever chosen to work with an agency because your email really really ridiculously good looking.

Solution: Keep it text only and simple. Your emails will feel more personal and less likely to get immediately deleted.

3. Your target list huge

It’s tough to narrow down and focus your prospect list when there are so many awesome companies out there to work with.

The last thing you want to do is overlook someone that could use your services, so you add everyone to one big list and send to them. The problem with this? It’s way too general, which makes it tough to really speak to any one prospect’s specific pain points.

4. Your target list is tiny

You don’t want to spam random people, so you make a list with one specific target per company, and then the list becomes really, really small. The problem here is that you don’t give yourself much room for error if a person has left the company or if the organization has multiple decision makers.

Solution: Channel your inner Goldilocks. We have our agency clients use a process called hyper targeting. This is basically where we can grab multiple people in similar roles within companies that we want to go after, while keeping lists separated by industry or company size.

For instance, List #1 is your primary target list of companies within Retail and Apparel with a very specific title. And List #2 is a secondary group where you target companies in other industries that you have less experience with and then expand job titles to anyone in marketing.

5. There’s no Call To Action

I’ve seen so many emails that spend so much time talking about how great the agency is, and then finish with something like “We would love to hear from you if you’re interested.” Ugh.

With every email there has to be a purpose to what you are doing; so make sure that every email lives up to that purpose with a CTA that asks them to do something.

Solution: Be aggressive. Not like crazy aggressive, but if you’re going to reach out to these folks, actually ask for something. You can ask for them to click a link to a case study, visit your website, or even just ask for the meeting outright, but be specific and clear. An email with no call to action will almost always ensure that no action is taken.

6. Your subject line is terrible

Subject lines are tricky and can immediately affect the open rates of the emails you send.

A lot of time we see agencies creating subject lines that are long and detailed so the reader knows exactly what is in the email. The trouble with this? The subject line becomes way too long and doesn’t feel natural.

Solution: Short and simple. Be straightforward and concise. You want this to grab a prospect’s attention. Think of it as a headline, and perhaps even throw in a dash of mystery with a word like “Opportunity” or “Idea.”

A/B test your subject lines and see what your particular audience responds to best. This isn’t a perfect science so do not be afraid to try new things.

7. Trying too hard to be witty or cheeky

There is nothing worse than reading an email that includes a mildly politically incorrect comment, and then 30 minutes later receiving an email from a CEO apologizing for their Marketing Director’s “innocent mistake.”

It’s never fun to read these emails – much less write them. Plus, it sends a bad message to your prospects about your organization.

Solution: Leave the social satire to Jon Stewart and John Oliver. You can always show your wit later in more one-to-one communications when you know the person, but for now, let’s attract them the old fashioned way…by talking about them and their problems.

Everyone who has ever done email marketing has found themselves “click watching.”

I define click watching as logging into your email system every five minutes to see how your most recent marketing email is doing in real time.

Watching the open percentage and click through rate (CTR) move up can be both rewarding and incredibly frustrating at the same time. But, at the end of the day, have you ever really thought about just how useful these two metrics are?

When I am evaluating an email program, my goal is to look beyond the individual email performance metrics and actually evaluate the overall effectiveness based on contact scoring.

The agencies we work with use a marketing automation program that allows them to track prospects’ website activity beyond email, which provides more actionable intelligence on who they should contact and when.

An intelligent scoring system gives points to a contact when they:

• Open an email
• Click a call-to-action (CTA)
• Fill out a form
• Visit the website
• Go to a landing page tied to larger goal measurements
• Have certain characteristics (ie, CMO)

Your system should also include a lead decay mechanism so that everything leads do is time sensitive. If someone visits your site 10 times in January, they should not still have that same score in June if they haven’t come back again. High scores mean they are high-activity users right now!

When evaluating a campaign, rather than simply looking at what the total open and click rates were for emails, take the time to evaluate how many prospects have increased their scores over a predetermined number.

We work with agencies to define a number (in this example 50), and then we set a specific goal – for instance, to have over 25 prospects scored over 50 points in a given month. This allows us to focus on driving web activity and increasing users’ exposure to our different content areas.

Obviously clicks and opens play a big part in a prospect’s score, but they just don’t tell the whole story. Using an intelligent scoring system allows you to prioritize which prospects truly deserve your attention.