Customer Acquisition

So here we are in Summer already.   Beautiful weather, bike rides, baseball games, vacations--Who wants to work in a stuffy office?   "But I have to watch that new product intro and be prepared to speak to my customer next week."  "I have to review that latest webinar replay to see what my competitors are up to".

We've got the answer to your Summertime Blues.   Webinar Resources is excited to announce "mobile replay".   Now you can view that relevant content on many mobile devices (supported devices -- iPhone, Droid, Blackberry 8900 and even the iPad).   Yes, it is time to "lounge and learn" while soaking up sun, fun and knowledge at the same time.

We have begun producing content in the new Brainshark enhanced mobile format and will be adding more relevant content to our mobile catalog.    To view a sample on a supported mobile device, text the word webinar to 88769 and we will add you to our mobile subscriber list to receive our latest mobile replay.

With our new condensed webinar replay service, you can accelerate your customer acquisition process with mobile on demand presentation content.   Imagine serving up relevant, targeted content to a customer or prospect's mobile device with a simple text message.

Join our mobile subscriber list and see how easy it is to go mobile and get out of the office!

 

At Webinar Resources we have been producing short 2-3 minute Brainshark presentations as ticklers or "webinar trailers" to promote our series of Webinar Wednesdays events.   Webinar Trailers are a very effective customer acquisition process for engaging and acquiring registrants as they appeal to more modalities than traditional email invitations.

With Webinar Trailers, we can strengthen our marketing message with an on demand presentation that consists of audio, slides and capture a registration at the moment of the viewing of the presentation.   We also can post Webinar Trailers in many different locations - social network applications, webinar newsletters, landing pages and of course link directly to a personalized email.   Using our proven process of selecting the appropriate multi channel mix, we gain the attention needed to capture registrants for our webinars.  

We are now extending the reach of our multi channel marketing to SMS text messages and mobile video.   Registrants and/or past participants can subscribe to our Webinar Wednesdays SMS reminders and alerts by texting to the word "webinar" to short code 88769.   Once the subscriber is added to our list, we can then reach out to them in their preferred communication method with a text reminder.

Soon we will be delivering mobile content to our Webinar Wednesdays SMS subscribers.  Stay tuned for more information in our blog or text "webinar" to 88769 and join our Webinar Wednesdays subscriber list.

Building customer acquisition is all about extending your reach through an effective multi channel mix using cross media applications to drive attendance and list growth for your events.   We have partnered with Peter Muir, and his Bizucate team to communicate these strategies and enable our participants to learn how to develop a marketing plan to drive effective events.   Join us at our next Webinar Wednesdays event on June 23rd, from 1-2pm CDT.   Listen to our webinar trailer and register at:   http://www.brainshark.com/webinarresources/WebWed.  We hope to see you there.

 

• Make sure you’ve set up a series of informational emails or a website for support staff and presenters. They should know what is expected of them; where to be at what time on the day of event, deadline for submitting, tech requirements for laptops and presentations, etc.
• If it is a large event like a conference, let attendees set their schedules early to establish presentation expectations and to cut down on people asking questions.
• Delegate the compartmentalized or smaller tasks, like catering and registration, to someone with fewer things to worry about on the DOE.
• Delegate the updates of social network applications during the event such as Twitter, blogging and Facebook updates.

• To ensure attendees walk away with the information/material they came looking for.
• Make sure messages, observations and news from the event are captured for post-event newsletter/follow-up or to share with those who could not attend.
• Facilitate smooth running presentations to ensure everyone gets to present and/or learn.
• Help make networking as easy as possible for attendees and vendors alike. Assign a QR code to every attendee so they can simply scan to exchange information. Or, offer team with a local print shop to offer discounts on business cards so they have something exchange.

• Use SMS to send attendees a link to their event schedule on the morning of the event.
• Consider a live webcast or recorded podcast to share the event with those who weren’t able to attend. Webinar replays can be used as a review for those who attended as well as a customer acquisition process in your grand lead generation conference strategy.
• Place QR codes or Microsoft tags on presentations, collateral or exhibition displays to enhance attendee’s interaction with content.

Webinar Resources was recently recognized for our unique, personalized, Christmas Story Photo Book application at the second annual Brainshark Sharkie awards.     Our application was selected and recognized at the online Sharkie awards last week among a hundred entries of interactive Brainshark presentations.

You can view a sample Christmas Story Photo Book at the Brainshark Sharkie Gallery.   This presentation is a great example of the use of effective landing pages, cross media applications and on demand presentation content.   We personalized the reading experience for children with personalized text, images and audio in a unique Christmas story about Santa Claus and the Lost Dog.

Readers of our blog have seen some examples of how we have implemented cross media applications to drive the customer acquisition process.   Stay tuned for more creative uses of a multi channel mix of content and solutions that will bring business opportunity to your company.
 

• Why have an event, what are your goals? What do you want to get for your efforts? Develop objectives that are SMART (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Time Based) and align with the current or future needs of the organization.
• Having an educational event provides a reason to talk to customers and prospects. It gives you something to buzz about beyond your capabilities and need for business. It could give your customers reasons to invest in new ideas and new products and services to help them grow.

• Content: strategic, operational, sales, business processes? The content is what will be advertised and why people will attend. Theming your event and tying it to actionable outcomes changes an informative event to a results event. Types of businesses and the role of the attendee will be influenced by the content you choose.
• Type of Event: Face to Face or Webinar. Each presents its own benefits and shortcomings. Consider your content and audience along with your budget and resources as part of your thought process.
• Timing: Early in the quarter? At the beginning, middle or late in the week? Morning, afternoon or all day? What time works best for those you are looking to reach?
• Location: If face to face do you host it at your company, at a local hotel, a customers business? To feed or not to feed? Is the location part of your message? If you choose to have a web conference what are the needs of the solution? Browser, OS, phone, voice over IP, Presentation technology, presentation style, ability to interact with attendees.

Webinar Resources just distributed the latest newsletter and it contains some exciting announcements, enhancements and tools to keep you in touch with industry news and trends as they relate to event management and customer acquisition.

You still might have time to order your Sweetheart a personalized eCard along with their favorite audio clips from iTunes.   This Valentine's Day, we are adding music to the mix and further personalizing the experience of the recipient. Provide us the name, email address, a special message and the name of your Valentine's favorite musical artist and we will deliver a personalized eCard and iTunes Preview landing page with album selections that your special Valentine can listen to. Webinar Resources will be posting an iTunes redemption code ($15 value) in ten of the lucky Valentines' personalized landing pages on February 14th.

Order now at this link.

1. If you use forms on your web site, test them using multiple email addresses from different domains. You might find that your forms will accept emails from some domains and not others. If that happens, contact your site's host for help.


2. On the success pages and acknowledgement messages from your forms, suggest that users add your email address or addresses to their approved senders lists (whitelists).


3. Check all the email links on your web site periodically to make sure you actually get the emails. In addition, make a list of all the email accounts you have, with login information, and keep the list in a safe place. Check the spam folders on all of them on a regular basis. Many email accounts will stop working when the spam folder or the trash folder gets full. Also some legitimate emails might be caught by your spam filter, so you'll want to add those email addresses to your lists of approved senders. Some customers will try another way to contact you if they don't get an answer from your email, but most will just give up.


4. Have your web developer program an appropriate subject line in capital letters into all the email links on your site. Although use of all caps is something I normally stay away from, in this case I do use them because it makes the emails sent from my web site much easier to distinguish from all the spam.

Consider not having your email forwarded from one account to another, but getting all of it right from the source. The article Tips to avoid getting your server blocked by Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail explains why.


5. Examine your email sendings, including acknowledgement messages from forms, for characteristics that might cause them to be mistakenly flagged as spam. The following resources provide helpful guidelines:
   • Gmail Bulk Senders Guidelines
   • AOL Sender Best Practices
   • Hotmail Guidelines
   • Yahoo! Mail Best Practices
   • Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group Sender Best Communications Practices
   • Why My Emails Get Blocked or Filtered: Causes and Solutions Inside 
   
   Some email sending software, such as ExactTarget, has a built-in content checker that will alert you to possible problems in the text of your email, such as "Click here" or "Free".


6. Only send to engaged recipients. Believe it or not, some major ISPs are starting to flag messages as spam just because the end user doesn't open them. Consider sending periodic updates to subscribers to verify if they still want to be on your subscriber list.


7. Open up other channels to help compensate for the people you're not reaching by email, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, a Webinar for One Brainshark presentation, text messaging, and voice messaging. At Webinar Resources we use ExactTarget's social forward feature to add social media links to our customers' emails to drive customer acquisition.

• Will I give or sell their email address to someone else?
• Will the newsletter be interesting or valuable to them?
• Will they be able to unsubscribe if they decide they no longer want it?
• Will they be bombarded with a lot of email?

I recently took a vacation from our customer acquisition practice at Webinar Resources.  Of all of the different modes of transportation, I have learned this Summer that taking the train across the country is a great way to meet new people.   It is also an interesting opportunity to connect with people and make new contacts.

Think of it, passengers on a train are a lot more open as they have no other place to go
other than a dining car, sleeping berth or observation car.  People just have to interact
with each other as they are captive for the many hours it takes to reach their destination.

My wife and I joined a friend of hers to travel from St. Louis to San Francisco.   Our friend was volunteering for the 17th annual Sharkfest, where 900 brave souls swim from Alcatraz to the San Francisco shore.   See the Brainshark presentation on our webinar service portal for highlights of the event -  www.brainshark.com/webinarresources.

During our ride we met many interesting people and had some good conversations.  We met one retired couple traveling to visit their sons who work in Silicon Valley.  One of their sons works for Google and another is beginning a startup company.  I wrote down the company website www.glyde.com to look at later.   Maybe I will send them a Webinar for ONE presentation.

We met more interesting people on our 48 hr trek and I spent some time jamming with a fellow musician.  Luckily I brought my traveling mandolin and it was great to wake up to the sunrise in Colorado and be able to sing some John Denver tunes.

We had a great trip when we got to San Francisco, San Jose and Aptos.  When we headed back home on a Southwest flight, my wife commented on how people were more friendly on the train and that everyone was rushed in the airport.   We had lots of luggage in tow with souvenirs and we would have loved to have a porter help us aboard a train that would take us back home.  We took the quick way, but planes have no charm, no space and provide little opportunity for interacting with others.

We will always remember our great trip to California this year.  If you want to spend some time with people, see the scenery and possibly make a business connection, plan to take a train trip across the country.   Right now I am hearing "Flight 3346 is ready for departure.  What I would rather hear is "All Aboard!

• They fear that you will give or sell their email address to someone else
• They don't know what benefit they will get from your newsletter. Do they get something free for signing up? Is the content valuable?
• They worry that that they won't be able to unsubscribe if they decide they no longer want it.

The Carolyn Hasenfratz Design and Carolyn's Stamp Store E-Newsletter is sent to your inbox around 6-8 times a year and features articles by Carolyn about rubber stamping techniques and projects, as well as online marketing and other business tips. You will also be updated on my sales and specials, free template downloads, new products, and show appearances. Click here to view my privacy policy.

Everyday we are encountering more social media tools that allow you to quickly share information with others.   Today we launched an email campaign for one of our customers that contained a personalized video for the recipients.   Each customer received a PURL, a personalized URL, that embedded the customer's name in the video.   It was a pretty slick application.

Using ExactTarget, we launched the email movie clips through personalization strings that contained the PURLs.   This was an effective lead generation process for driving customer acquisition.   Through personalized marketing campaigns, you can capture your reader's interest and move them to take an action.

We are using Brainshark presentations to personalize on demand presentation content and further honing our abilities to deliver a Webinar for ONE.
 

Like everyone, we have some customers who come and go across our desks a couple times a year, and then we have some who are there a couple times a day to drive lead generation.

Recently we drove customer acquisition for one of our frequent customers for an event through a personalized marketing campaign.  Through a lot of work, the event sold out in two weeks and our customer was thrilled.

Because we work with this customer on an almost daily basis, we decided to go the extra mile and support the event locally, though there's nothing in our contract that defines our work in that way.  I found myself pulling what props I could from my children's closets so that I could dress like a pirate and take pictures at the event.

My thoughts were, "OK, just give me a salad at the customer dinner in exchange for these services, and we'll call it a draw."  What our team got in return was much more than a salad.

Yes, I dressed like a pirate and managed to draw enough smiles from our client's customers to create a spiffy memory book for the occasion.  We also managed to meet with no less than 9 cricital contacts in the span of 2 business days.  As a result of these meetings- some scheduled, some by chance, we are better positioned across our client's corporation, and we were able to schedule new business.

So - while the salad and the meal were really good, what was even better was the unexpected developments with existing and new contacts.  It's definitely worth it to partner with your clients in ways you might not consider "your area"- - it was well worth our while!


 

I just had the great opportunity this past week to attend one of my customer's events onsite in NY.   My events team spent a great deal of time setting up online tools to support customer acquisition including the use of a Brainshark presentation for customers.

Through specially designed personalized marketing campaigns, we were able to draw a record crowd of customers in less than three weeks.   The event also had a "pirate-theme" and we produced personalized pirate maps with the customer's names on them.

I attended the event and was able to participate in the festivities which included wine, grog, spirited networking and the opportunity to meet my customers and their customers.   I also repurposed one of my old pirate tunes from college and added new lyrics to fit the event.   I will share the song in a future post.

What I didn't expect was that I would run into other contacts from my customer's account that I have been trying to meet for over two years.   The success of the customer event established my company's credibility for building lead generation conferences like this one and our dialogue was both positive and productive.

So next time you put a lot of effort into setting up an event or campaign for your customer. make sure you participate in the event as well.   You will learn more about your customer's business, their customer's business and you may just meet that key contact/decision maker that will influence additional business in your customer's account.   You also will be considered more of a partner than a vendor and your business relationship will continue to grow.