How to Identify Leads' Needs So You Can Segment Emails Like a Pro

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There are quite a few different ways to segment and nurture your leads. And in fact, the way you choose to nurture your leads really just depends on how you decide to segment and target them.
Depending on your product or service and your marketing objectives, you can segment your leads based on demographic and geographic information or behavior-based information such as the type of content your leads have previously engaged with and which point they're at in your funnel. These are obvious and practical ways to segment, target, and nurture your leads. And from our experience here at HubSpot, we know they work.

A Needs-Based Approach to Lead Nurturing

List segmentation, however, doesn’t stop at this two axis matrix. There’s another, less obvious way to segment and nurture leads -- their needs! Think about it. What if you knew what your visitors and leads were looking for, or even better, the problem they wanted to solve? Then you could create super tailored and customized lead nurturing for different types of leads’ needs and problems to move them more quickly through the funnel to become a paying customer. Sounds awesome, right? The problem is, it's not as easy to figure out a prospect's pain points as it is to figure out, say, their zip code. One could be an essay; the other is five digits. Which information do you think would be easier to capture by a form and segment with?
Okay, so therein lies the challenge. But by knowing what your prospects want, you can easily and quickly position your product or service in a way that makes you -- not your competitors -- the clear and obvious solution. And there is a way marketers can do this more advanced type of nurturing. In fact, it's critical if they really want to take their lead nurturing to the next level! And in this post, we're going to teach you exactly how to do it. Just follow these four easy steps to a better lead nurturing approach.

1) Determine Your Leads’ Problems & Needs

In order to start segmenting and nurturing your leads based on their biggest pain points or challenges, you’ll need to figure out what those challenges are by collecting some data. You can do this by surveying a representative sample of your leads, or simply by adding a new field to your landing page forms. As a side note, this is a great tactic to gather information about your database -- just be careful it doesn’t hurt your conversion rates on the landing page. Below is an example of a field we use on some of our own forms.



Note that we sell marketing software, so knowing what our leads' marketing challenges helps us understand what types of content to create and provide to address those needs. This field should be open-ended and tailored to your business or industry. I know, I know -- it's hard to segment based on open-ended form fields, but I'll show you how. Trust me.
Remember that some of your leads may not even think they have an issue or problem that your product can solve. Make sure you use a broad label that covers a general industry instead of a niche one (e.g. for us, we use "marketing" instead of "marketing software"). Also, think about how you phrase “problem” or “need.” Most of your leads won’t want to admit -- or even realize -- they have an issue, so we use the term “challenge” instead. Once you have this field added to the forms on your landing pages, start collecting your data by promoting your landing pages and generating new leads and conversions!

2) Analyze Major Themes in Your Data, and Select a Handful of Key Issues

Once you've set up your landing pages and forms to collect data about your leads’ challenges, give them some time to marinate so you have a substantial data set to analyze. In order to analyze the data, you’ll need to export your form data from your marketing software or CRM. If you have your data stored in a CRM, pull in other useful information to your list such as demographic or activity data on those leads that filled out the “challenge” field. This data will be useful when you start to analyze the responses in order to leverage the data in your lead nurturing.
Once you’ve exported your data, let the analytical fun begin! Unfortunately, this is a somewhat manual process since you’re collecting data on an open form field. The best way to start is to read through some of the responses to get a sense of the common themes in the challenges your leads are expressing. A quick way to get a snapshot of this is to generate a word cloud. Try uploading all the responses to Wordle, and it will spit out a visual representation of the words and phrases that are most commonly mentioned in your leads' responses. When you're reviewing the responses, pick out 10-15 major themes you notice. Next, you’ll want to read through the list of responses and categorize them as best you can by those themes. Once you have all your responses categorized by theme, count the number of responses that fit into each category. As you do this, there should be a few that rise to the top of your list. When selecting your most mentioned themes, look at the data and decide on a threshold. Are there some themes that are mentioned a lot more than the rest? What sticks out? This will help you come up with your final list of lead “needs” or “challenges” that you'll use to create a drop-down list on your forms.

3) Create & Add the Drop-Down Field to Your Landing Page Forms

Once your analysis is done and you've identified your top themes, it’s time to create your drop-down form field and pop it into your forms. Like any drop-down that you use in a form, you’ll want to make sure the number of options does not hinder your conversion rates. This is something you should test and iterate once you implement the new drop-down field on your forms.
Simply remove the open field you used to gather your initial set of data, and replace it with a drop-down form field based on the top themes. Your leads will now be able to select individual “challenges” or “needs” that best apply to their situation. Simple as that!

4) Segment & Nurture Leads by Need

Once this is in place, you can start to segment your leads by need. In addition, you may want to also segment by other variables such as persona or demographic in addition to “needs” information. If you're a B2B company, for example, a lead at a small business may have the same need as a lead from an enterprise business, but you'd probably want to craft two different messages to these two distinct groups.
With all this detailed information, you can create specific lists to nurture based on a combination of need, persona, and position in the funnel. Simply pull this information from your CRM or marketing software to generate lists that fit various criteria, and import that list into your email tool. (Note: If you're a HubSpot customer, this is very easily done using the Contacts and Email tools.) This will enable you to send content that is very targeted to your leads' different interests and needs, improving your open and click-through rates as well as the overall effectiveness of your lead nurturing campaigns.

When you can offer your leads the right content at the right time that also addresses their most pressing challenges or needs, there’s no way you’ll miss out on future sales. Be sure to analyze the conversion rates from lead to customer before and after you implement this additional segmentation strategy. That way, you’ll have concrete stats that prove your marketing success in funneling more leads into a sales-ready state.

Image Credit: Darwin Bell

10 Tempting Email Promos Your Prospects Can't Resist

It's not that your email marketing content isn't spectacular. But your subscribers may be wondering, "Hey, am I ever going to get the hook up? The insider deal? That little bit of extra-special love reserved just for me?"
The answer is yes ... well, if you can think of a cool deal to send them. I mean, the straight up X% OFF and BOGO deals feel a little stale after a while, don't they?
If they feel stale to you, chances are your subscribers aren't drooling over them, either. And if you're unsure, just take a look at your click-through rates; if they're stagnating or taking a nose dive, it's time to get creative with the deals you're sending to drive clicks and revenue. And as it turns out, social shares and forwards, too --research shows that emails with a promotion or discount receive the most shares (34.7%) as compared with other types of email content. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
So what kinds of promotions can you send? We dug deep into the recesses of our brains (and our inboxes) to come up with a list of creative deals you can use in upcoming email campaigns that will perk your subscribers right up. Take a gander.

10 Creative Deals to Send in Your Email Marketing Campaigns

1) Limited Supply

A successful promotion -- especially an email promotion that relies on getting someone to whip out a credit card when they're trolling through an overloaded inbox -- needs to instill a sense of urgency. What better way to create that sense of urgency than a dwindling supply? You can make that sense of scarcity even more pronounced using visual cues, like an inventory ticker or counter, to indicate how much of your supply is left and really light a fire under their tuckus. For a promotion of this nature, try targeting first time buyers or those who make infrequent purchases to get them more engaged with your brand; you've already established your value with return shoppers.

2) "Use-It-or-Lose-It" Credit

TechCrunch recently published the results of a Harvard research study on teaching incentives in which they found performance improved not when incentives were given after performance metrics were achieved, but when incentives were given up-front and could be taken away if performance metrics weren't achieved. This is the principle of "loss aversion" in which people, once they have something, don't want to give it up. Experiment with this concept in your email marketing deals, too.
For example, you might offer a "Use-It-or-Lose-It" credit that gets shoppers to, well, shop. There are two approaches you could take with this: you could either give a credit that's less than the cost of your products or services, ensuring you still generate some revenue; or you could trust that a one-time purchaser will return and make more purchases in the future, offering a credit that wouldn't require a recipient to dole out any of their own cash.

3) Give Away Your Expertise

Sometimes a valuable action isn't a transaction -- it's an activity that leads to a transaction. These are the types of deals that matter for businesses with longer sales cycles and/or higher ticket items. Instead of focusing on price, you need an opportunity to build value, and you can do that by giving away your expertise as opposed to percentages off. Offer free consultations, free assessments, free diagnostics, free tutorials, free whatever to get high-quality leads to the point where they're ready to make a purchase with you.

4) Send This Deal to a Friend in Need

Leverage your network's network (and by extension, expand yours) by incentivizing forwards and shares of your deals. This is particularly effective for segments of your database that are engaged with your emails -- they'll have high open rates and often, high click-through rates -- but aren't actually transacting with your business. In other words, they like you, but they're not ready to settle down in a house in the suburbs with you. But they'd totally set you up with their friend!
You can do this with any deal, but let's use the last promo idea to demonstrate the principle. Let's say you're offering a free consultation to optimize someone's blog, and this certain segment of your email list just isn't biting despite all the regular indications that they're qualified for this conversion event. Send them an email that asks them whether they know any friends who need a little help with their blog. Hey, if they do, they can be the hero that sends them access to a free consultation with an expert that can help them! And there's something in it for them, too -- if their friend books the consultation, they'll get a $50 credit to a blog-writing service to help keep their content machine chugging.
You get a new lead, your recipient gets to be a hero and some free blog content, and their friend gets help with their blog. That's a win-win-win right there.

5) Give Away Something Really, Really Valuable ...

... that doesn't cost a lot to you. Many businesses have access to these things, but they overlook them because, well, it's just no biggie to you. For example, a colleague of ours used to own a website that sold cigars, and he had access to some pretty fancy-pants lighters. His leads and customers loved them, so he sent an email to those people cutting them a deal -- buy a certain amount of cigars, and you can have one of the lighters for free. Kind of like a reward for being a great customer! Sometimes people just need that extra cherry on top to incite them to action.

6) Thanks for Sharing!

Referral bonuses are a fantastic incentive for current customers to share their love for your brand with their network. Thank those who share your email content by giving them a discount on their next purchase, or a credit for your site. You can even reward both the referrer and the person he or she referred by offering them both the discount or credit. This helps keep everyone engaged with your company and coming back for more and more purchases -- oh, and more referrals, too. If you're looking for examples of this type of deal, two companies who do this really well are Jetsetter and ModCloth; check them out!

7) Instant (or Eventual) Rebate

Offer an instant rebate (or depending on how long it takes, an eventual rebate) to incentivize recipients to complete a desired action. For example, you might offer cash back or a credit on an order when someone forwards that order confirmation email to a friend to show off their latest purchase. This incentivizes good behavior, and if you're offering a credit for that behavior, it encourages the recipient to visit your site again and get shopping!

8) Price Change Notification

For this promotion, you're at the mercy of your operations and finance department -- but if you don't leverage it when you have the opportunity, you and your leads are missing out! If something you're selling is going to increase in price, let your leads know now. If someone's considering purchasing your products or services (especially if a product is favorited or in their cart), an email alert that the price will increase but you'll be able to get them in at the lower rate will create a serious sense of urgency. Plus, it will separate those who are serious about making a purchase with you, and those who are just window shopping right now. Be sure to include the date at which the price increase will take effect so the proper expectations are set, and you have that extra little bit of urgency to help motivate a purchase.

9) Leverage Themes and Timeliness

Another way to use newsjacking principles to craft a creative promotion is by leveraging events or popular news items to get people's attention. This is how you can take flat, stale deals like 50% OFF or BOGO and actually get people's attention with them. For example, you've all heard of Fifty Shades of Grey, right? You may have even read it ... though may not admit it ;-) Many hotels are finding ways to tie it into their industry, offering romantic packages where couples can, ahem, live out their fantasies. You don't even have to go this far, though; you could simply send a "punny" discount, like a 50% OFF Shades of Grey promo, or a Two-for-One Valentine's Day discount.

10) Partner Hookup

Finally, don't forget to leverage your partner network for email promotions. Ask them if they're willing to send out your email promotions on your behalf, getting you access to an entirely new list, as well as giving you some credibility by receiving promotion from someone other than yourself. You could even work out a deal with partners in which your services are discounted exclusively for their audience -- just be sure that value is clearly communicated in the email -- to give their list a sense of VIP status. Making people feel like they're getting the insider deal in this way is another fantastic way to not only generate new leads and revenue, but also make your partner look great as a provider of these types of VIP hookups.
What other creative deals can you think of to send in your email marketing campaigns?

How to Create Marketing Emails Both Readers AND Inboxes Love

Posted by Corey Eridon

Thu, Aug 09, 2012 @ 11:12 AM

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As an email marketer, does it ever feel like it's impossible to make your readers and their inboxes happy?
There are so many different factors to consider -- subject line, optimization, alt text, unsubscribe options, message copy, design -- it seems like almost every email is going to get sent with at least one fatal error.
But if you have a visual checklist to remind you what to do (and what not to do) when crafting your email, it's easy to always do a quick reality check before hitting 'send.'
If you're unsure whether your emails are up to snuff for your recipients and their inboxes, reference this visual guide to creating an inbox- and reader-friendly email, complete with explanations for why all of these factors matter so much for your deliverability, open, and click-through rates.

What an Inbox-Friendly Email Looks Like

 

Why These Elements Work

1) Short Subject Line: Under 70 characters, to be exact. This is critical so it displays clearly in inboxes without getting cut off. And if you want your subject line to appear fully on mobile devices, you have to get even shorter -- best practices recommend you aim for fewer than 20 characters.
2) Clear 'From' Field: Marketers are split on whether it's best to send email from a company name, a person's name, or both. And for good reason -- the results are different for everyone! In fact, you may find the results even differ based on list segment. Whichever way you choose, just be sure it's clear to the recipient who the heck you are so they don't get confused seeing your name in their inbox. That's a serious bummer for your open rates.
3) Real Reply-to Address: You know when you get a really wonderful, personal email from a company? The kind that makes you feel like they know you. The kind that makes you feel like you aren't part of a list? The kind where they're even asking you for your feedback on something? Those are awesome. So you hit the 'reply' button -- you know it's silly, but the email was so personal it just feels right -- and you see your message is going to xkv48_mfoas7@sender.replyto.bananaphone.com. Yeah, not good. Take the time to set up an email address that's actually functioning so your recipients don't feel like one in a million (and not in a good way).
4) Browser Version of the Email Is Offered: Emails don't always render the way they should in the inbox. We all know that. It doesn't mean your recipient doesn't want to see your email message in all its glory, though, especially your loyal recipients who know your content is typically fantastic. Give them (and yourself) a second chance by including the option for recipients to view your email in their web browser. With most ESPs (like HubSpot, which we used to create the email pictured above), it's as easy as selecting a checkbox to include this option as you're crafting your email.
5) Dynamic Tags Work: It's a little scary to include dynamic tags in email for fear they'll backfire. Greeting your recipient as "Hi [FIRSTNAME]" isn't really putting your best foot forward, after all. If you're using dynamic tags in your content, make sure your ESP has some safeguards in place to ensure that, if a field is left blank for a particular contact -- let's say I didn't provide my first name and (somehow) still got on this email list -- it's filled in with a default word or phrase that makes contextual sense.
6) Minimal Images With Relevant Alt Text: There's nothing like a little visual stimulation to break up the monotony of text. And the image included in this email is great because it's related to the subject of the email -- the email about downloading an ebook shows, well, the ebook. And you can't see it in this screenshot, but the alt text for the image is "download your complimentary ebook." So if that image doesn't render for some recipients, they know exactly what they're missing, and no meaning is lost. Learn more about optimizing your emails for HTML and plain text in this blog post.
7) Short Message With Short Chunks of Text: If you're trying to get someone to read a novel (or, ahem, an ebook) it's not wise to put all that copy in the email message itself. People have an inbox full of other messages to get to; if they want to read more from you, they'll click through and read it later. You know, after they've finished clearing out their inbox. But to make their experience reading the little copy you do have in your email better, make sure you break up chunks of text like you see in the screenshot above so it doesn't become overwhelming for the recipient. If your message looks like it has a ton of copy -- even if it doesn't -- readers won't make it far enough through your email to actually convert on your call-to-action.
8) Fonts and Colors Remain Simple: This email doesn't overwhelm the reader with too many fonts and colors, and the ones that are used are very compatible. Much like a ton of copy looks visually overwhelming to email recipients, opening an email with clashing colors and six different fonts is just too much to handle. Try to stick to three complementary colors, and two to three fonts of similar size for a smooth reader experience.
9) Clear Call-to-Action: Readers may not be thinking, "Gee, I wonder where the call-to-action in this email is located?" Well, unless they're marketers. But they are thinking, "What am I supposed to do with this?" Make it easy for readers to figure out what their next action is. This email makes the CTA big, bold, and blue -- it's the biggest thing in the email, in fact, except for perhaps the image. Oh, but that image also leads to the same landing page as the big blue text. See how that works? ;-)
10) Social Sharing Made Easy: Did you know that, according to Econsultancy, emails that include just one social sharing button have 30% higher click-through rates than those without social sharing options? Did you know that when you offer three or more, that 30% higher click-through rate jumps to 55%? Make your recipients' lives easier and your marketing more effective by making social sharing of your email content easy with the inclusion of those social sharing buttons!
11) Physical Address: You could make the case that the inclusion of a physical address in your email message helps the reader. Hey! Now they know you're a real company! But it's pretty unlikely readers actually scroll down to that little tiny text in the footer of your email. This is purely to keep you compliant with CAN-SPAM laws. Just make inclusion of your company's physical address in every single email part of your routine -- in fact, you can just craft email templates with this so everyone who sends email for your company is covered.
12) Straightforward Unsubscribe Option: Nothing is more frustrating than trying to unsubscribe from an email and being unable to find the option. Don't use weird language like "Alter your preference for communication." Just use the word we're all looking for, "Unsubscribe" and include it in the footer of your email. If you make the process easy on recipients, you won't suffer retaliation -- like being marked as SPAM -- when the recipient can't quickly opt out of your emails.
What else makes email marketing great for inboxes and readers alike?

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33473/How-to-Create-Marketing-Emails-Both-Readers-AND-Inboxes-Love.aspx#ixzz237w17t32