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E-Marketing Tips from the Front Lines
Understanding why customers bail on you. Critical mistakes B2B sites still make today.
From AICPA Custom Media Solutions

Why customers switch from you. Survey finds big disconnect between what customers and vendors think.

What are the main reasons you lose customers to competitors? Inadequate service and support, according to 74 percent of customers in a recent Loyalty Connection survey. Service and support breakdowns far outpaced any other factor, including price (25%), quality (32%) or changing customer needs (8%).

But, here’s where it gets interesting. When companies were asked why customers bailed on them, their explanations were quite different. Nearly half (49%) cited price; 36 percent cited changing customer needs and only 22 percent said customer service and support.

Why customers bail on you

Source: The Loyalty Connection

Solution

The positive news in all this is that your Web site, if done well, can help you strengthen loyalty by filling in offline service gaps and making existing service programs more effective. They key, say the experts, is in understanding what level of online service and support will get it done. For example, it could be simply making it easier or more convenient for customers to complete mundane tasks like register for free newsletters, white papers, downloads, Webcasts, products, warranties and the like.

Avoiding key mistakes for B2B Web sites

Internet Marketing Report scours hundreds of B2B Web sites each month. Most of the mistakes, they say, fall into the following five categories. Chances are you own site may be guilty of some.

1. No call to action. We see this again and again in banner ads that our clients (and their agencies) submit to us for the Insider E-newsletters. If no call to action is included in your advertising banners, there’s a good chance you’re forgetting to stress it on your Web site pages. The call to action – asking for an e-mail address, telling prospects to call a toll free number, filling out a free download form – is what generate qualified leads.

2. Inadequate or confusing navigation. The Web is all about speed and efficiency. Prospects use the Web because they’re already in research/due diligence mode. Your site should make it easier, not harder, to navigate to the purchase validation information they need from you.

3. Trying to do too much. The best Web sites, according to Internet Marketing Report, are “lean and mean.” They focus on doing only a few things and they do them right.

4. Flash intros that waste time. This is a pet peeve of the CPA Insider staff, too. The “skip intro” button doesn’t really help. Nothing tells prospects “we don’t respect your time” more than a Flash intro on your site. A recent Marketing Sherpa study found that 80 percent of nearly 600 customers surveyed preferred a static HTML home page to the Flash.

5. Chest-thumping sites. Telling prospects how great your company is – rather than solving prospects’ problems – is another surefire way to drive prospects away and leave them with a negative impression of your organization. Not sure if your company’s site is too self-absorbed or not customer focused enough? Try running your Web site pages through this free tool from Future Now Inc.

Other ‘Gut Checks’ for your home page

Your home page should answer the following questions, say the experts:

1. What problems do you solve?
2. What results do you produce?
3. How can you prove it?
4. What makes you so unique?

Marketers stretched thinner than ever. How publishers can help

Nearly half of all marketing professionals report being close to burnout according to the latest research from UK-based Brand Republic. The leading causes? Longer hours, expanded duties and a hyper-competitive marketplace.

What’s more, most surveyed marketers say the situation has worsened in the past five years as they’ve had to learn many new skills, manage multiple campaigns across more channels and do more with less money and fewer people.

What we’ve seen here at AICPA Custom Media is that overworked marketers are increasingly turning to, even expecting publishers, conference organizers, and Web site owners to assist them in planning, executing and measuring campaigns across all media channels that they work with. “While more work for all of us,” notes Hank Berkowitz, Publisher of the AICPA’s Insider family of electronic newsletters, “it’s transforming the media landscape from one of buyers and sellers with little accountability to each other, to one of strategic partners with significant accountability to each other.”

Proven tactics for cross-selling online

Relevance and timing are the keys to successful cross-selling on the Web, say Internet marketing gurus Matthew Roche and Lauren Freedman. Relevance in this sense means offering the right add-on product or service to the customer’s main (intended) purchase. Timing means making the cross-sell or up-sell pitch at the ideal time in the buying process.

Here’s how to put this knowledge into play on your site, they say:

1. Cross-sell on product pages, but save up-selling for the shopping cart or post-order e-mail. Why? Because if you up-sell on product pages you’ll come across as overly aggressive. Post-order e-mails work better because recent customers are highly receptive to them and they typically get opened.

2. Suggest best-sellers and hot items when you don’t have relevant products to offer as a cross-sell. This works well if your site doesn’t collect data about customer preferences.

3. Be price sensitive. Some marketers have more success when the price of the cross-sell is equal to or less expensive than the main item. Keep testing to figure out what works best for your organization.

Visit Conversion Chronicles for more.