One of the most common mistakes made by business owners and companies making their first foray into online marketing is to give up on email marketing too quickly because of less-than-stellar results.  There are a great many factors that go into successful email marketing, and if the appropriate time and care is taken, email marketing can be a very powerful marketing tool for any growing business.

One of the first keys to successful email marketing is deliverability, i.e. the number of emails that are successfully delivered to recipients’ Inboxes.  (For more online marketing terminology, please visit our Glossary here.)

In this first part, we have outlined four of eight ways to improve your email’s deliverability:

Test your messages first via seed emails
The use of seed emails is extremely important to testing deliverability.  These email addresses should be from various email service providers (ESP’s) so that you are able to monitor which messages make it to inboxes.  SPAM filters these days are more and more selective, but using seed emails to test will allow you to determine which messages, code structures, etc… have the highest deliverability rate.

Use an email template that you know works
This seems obvious, right?  Yes, but it requires testing, which is something many first time email marketers are not expecting.  Unfortunately, it is not as easy as putting together an ad and hitting “Send.”  This step falls right in line with the seed email addresses, and taking the time to perform this testing will pay dividends in your email marketing efforts down the road.

Make sure your list is clean
Another apparent no-brainer, but the list cleaning process is often overlooked.  It is extremely important, not just for optimal email deliverability in the short term, but also to maintain IP reputation.  So, of course, old and outdated addresses which are no longer deliverable must be removed, but also be sure to maintain an updated suppression list as well as a list of individuals who tend to complain.

Make sure your IP’s are clean
As addressed above, this is essential.  As an IP’s reputation is damaged, your deliverability will suffer.  List hygiene and a current suppression list will go a long way toward ensuring clean IP’s.  Additionally, removing opt-out’s immediately and addressing complaints promptly will contribute to a good emailing reputation.

For more tips on improving email deliverability, keep an eye on ThriveMG.com!

What Makes a Good Lead Generation Service?

The internet is replete with companies, services, and websites selling “sales leads.”  While many of these lists are perfectly legitimate as email, direct mail, or telemarketing lists, an important distinction must be made between them and a list of qualified leads.  Wikipedia defines a sales lead as “a person or entity that has the interest and authority to purchase a product or service.”  The question is, “Does that person or entity have an interest in your product or service?”  This is where a good lead generation service comes into play.  If you are considering whether or not a custom lead generation program is right for your business, here are some important items to consider when searching for the right company to produce qualified leads for you:

Does the company you are considering have a proven track record of providing qualified leads?
Does the company or service have examples of demonstrated ROI for its clients?  Do they have testimonials of individuals who have used, or are currently using their services?  These are important questions to ask, a reputable company should be able to provide you with examples of each.

Is it true performance marketing?
The lead generation company should provide you the service and you should pay based upon their performance, only after you have determined that their service works.  In other words, are they asking you to pay in advance for a large volume of leads, before you are able to test the quality of these leads?  A good lead generation company’s product (their leads) should speak for themselves.  (Read more on performance marketing here.)

Here is a list of questions that any good lead generation company should ask you:
What is your budget? This seems obvious, but you would be surprised how many lead generation companies will automatically try to sign you up for a minimum price/volume without inquiring about your budget.  You should be able to negotiate terms that allow you and the company to both profit.
Do you have a website? For online lead generation, having some type of website for potential customers to view is imperative, and this should be one of the first questions your lead generation company asks.
Who is your ideal customer/subscriber? This is a key question.  In order to truly customize a lead generation program for a client, one must have a good vision for whom to target with the initial process.  The more information the lead generation company has, the better they will be able to create a profile that fits this ideal lead, and this will shorten your company’s sales cycle, limit disqualifications, and so forth.
What constitutes a qualified lead for your business? Along with generating a profile for the ideal lead, this is an equally important procedural question because it is the second step in qualifying the ideal lead.  Knowing exactly what information is going to help your company to make the sale, attain the subscription, and so forth will also help to shorten your sales cycle and make it more efficient.

We love to answer questions and help businesses succeed.  So if you have further questions about lead generation, we would love to hear from you!  Even if you are not ready to move forward, please don’t hesitate to contact us by phone, or email.