Optimize your Website for Email Lead Generation: Email Marketing 101

Optimize Your Website for Email Lead Generation: Email Marketing 101

In today's digital age, email is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses. It's a direct line of communication with your customers, and it can be used to build relationships, promote products and services, and drive sales.

The best emailing services or marketing automation will not help without the basics. You cannot jump ahead to the fun part without going through the weeds and setting up the important elements first.

The Website and Email Marketing Problem

It makes me sad when companies don’t utilize their websites to the fullest.  Websites are a GREAT discovery tool. But once they are discovered, there needs to be a pull or a reminder to bring prospective clients back.

That's why it's so important for everyone (but especially e-commerce directors and B2C business owners) to capture emails on their websites. By collecting email addresses, you can build a list of potential and existing customers who you can reach out to with your marketing automations and campaign messages.

Our attention spans are short (I can't be the only goldfish, right?), and as we are pulled in different directions, there needs to be something to pull us and prospective clients and customers back in.

Email Capture and Email Marketing Should Not be an Afterthought

That’s where email communication comes in.

It’s a great channel to remind your prospective buyers of what differentiates your brand and sets you apart from the noise.

Why Capturing Emails on Your Website is Important for E-commerce Directors and B2C Business Owners

In short, you don't own any of your "lists" on platforms like Meta, TikTok or Google.

That's why it's so important for e-commerce directors and B2C business owners to capture emails on their websites. By collecting email addresses, you can build a list of potential and existing customers who you can reach out to with your marketing messages.

With that said, here are just a few of the benefits of capturing emails on your website:

• Increased sales: Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to drive sales. According to a study by McKinsey & Company, email marketing can generate up to 38% of all online sales.

• Improved customer relationships: Email marketing is a great way to build relationships with your customers. You can use email to send them updates on your products and services, share exclusive content, and offer discounts and promotions.

• Better customer insights: Email marketing can give you valuable insights into your customers' interests and preferences. This information can help you improve your products and services, and target your marketing messages more effectively.

• Increased brand awareness: Email marketing can help you increase brand awareness by keeping your company top of mind with your customers. When you send out regular emails, you're reminding your customers about your brand and what you have to offer.
  
  Annnnnd… that brings me back to email capture placement.
  
  Next time you browse your own website, think about this… can your future customers easily provide their email addresses if they want to? If not, you're missing out on a valuable opportunity to grow your business
  

Where to Place Email Capture Forms on Your Website

✅ Is it in your footer?
✅ Is it inside blog posts?
✅ Is there a dedicated signup page (with a button to reach this on all pages)?
✅ How about a popup after a set amount of pages or seconds viewed?

No matter which method you choose (feel free to utilize all), make sure your email opt-in forms are clear and easy to use. There’s no need to ask for the world. Start with the email address and first name and you can always ask for more later for those that are engaged with the email communications. (Pro tip: first names help with open rates in campaigns and marketing automations).

Here are some additional tips for capturing emails on your website:

• Simple Language: Use clear and concise language in your email opt-in forms. Tell your visitors exactly what you're offering them in exchange for their email address, and make sure the form is easy to understand.

• Explain the Why: Use a strong call to action (commonly referred to as CTA). Tell your visitors why they should sign up for your email list, and make sure the call to action is clear and easy to understand.

• Always be testing (ABT): Test different email opt-in forms to see what works best for your business. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to capturing emails on your website. Experiment with different forms and see what gets the best results.

Emails are Captured, Now What? … marketing automation

Now that you have an email address…

✅ Make sure it’s pushed into an email platform.

✅ Have a welcome series with at least 3 emails and beneficial information (not just a sales pitch). You may hear some people refer to this as email or marketing automation.

✅ Send out consistent emails (after the welcome series is complete) that continues to introduce prospects to your brand and offerings.

Don’t forget, your prospects want to learn. So make it easy.

By following these tips, you can start capturing emails on your website and growing your email list. This will give you a powerful marketing tool that you can use to drive sales, build relationships, and improve your brand awareness.

How to Use Technology to Enhance Your Digital Marketing & Promotional Strategy

How to Use Technology to Enhance Your Digital Marketing & Promotional Strategy

20 years ago I was wrapping up my final semester at Muhlenberg College. My major...

Computer science. Nerd stuff (and my mom did and still does say that I'm cool)... and my friends still call me Milhouse.

I didn't really enjoy coding and certainly wasn't at the top of the class, so it was time to find something else.

Cut to, 20 years later, I'm in marketing. 21 years ago, I thought that those two fields were on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Digital Marketing & Technology

But in reality, digital marketing and tech overlap on a Venn Diagram.

Understanding systems, UI/UX (CRO), data, reporting, analytics, ad psychology, ad platforms and the overall business are different parts of the brain (but are important to bring a business from great to better).

While I cannot walk the walk in coding at higher than a "B-" level, that's good enough for a chunk of E-commerce and Internet marketing. SQL and HTML and "languages" that I can understand, but I maybe use those twice per year. A couple of the REAL helpful "technology" tools are...

API (Application programming interface) Data Integrations in Digital Marketing

✅ Zapier: Allows for data to seamlessly transfer between platforms without programmers (simply put, it's a prebuilt API). Think of capturing prospective leads in Facebook and pushing them to an email platform for nurturing.

Website Analytics & Tracking in Digital Marketing

✅ Google Tag Manager: Allows for adding snippets of code in the <head> of any website. So useful for analytic conversion events and other "add-ons". Another great use case, adding an email capture pop-up.

And when my "B-" level isn't good enough, I can talk the talk-ish with tech teams. Translating technical requirements from marketing speak to technical speak is an art form.

In short, while I wasn't thrilled with my C.S. degree, the learnings are still shining through.

Feel free to call me a nerd or Milhouse anytime.

How Should I Spend My Marketing Budget?

How Should I Spend My Marketing Budget?

While the answer can vary between industries, I think the below can be applied to the majority of businesses, especially in the B2C eCommerce and B2B space.

70%: SEO

Search engine optimization and thought leadership content for blog posts on the website, emails, and social media posts. There is a huge Venn Diagram overlap with Demand Generation here.

While SEO doesn't directly provide new interested prospects immediately, after 6-12 months, more quality prospects will find your business. With that said, having that relevant, timely content will help support other communications strategies (like email and social media)

10%: A Quality Email Marketing Platform (like Klaviyo).

Email automation and consistent campaigns that highlight thought leadership and the benefits for prospective clients will go a long way. Bonus points for lead scoring based on email and website activities. More bonus points for segmenting your audience into Hot, Warm and Cold prospects and communicating appropriately.

The goal is to own communications with your prospects and clients and not rely solely on social media platforms.

20%: Lead generation

Paid media, like Meta/Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, and TikTok will help to distribute content and acquire new prospects.

This is the faucet that introduces prospects to your brand and services.

Plus, since paid media is almost always performance-based and revenue can be tied back to costs, the profit dollars can roll in after the foundation is set up.

In closing, focus on the fundamentals first, then move on to the shiny object.

What do you think, do you agree?

Intro to Google Analytics for Small & Medium Sized Businesses: Part 1

Intro to Google Analytics for Small & Medium Sized Businesses: Part 1

If you are a running small or medium-sized business, I hope there is a strong correlation between your desire to succeed and your need for insights. Without data from which to gather insights, you're asking for trouble—sort of like swimming down class-5 rapid river without a helmet or a raft.

Insights help us all make more informed decisions. Think about a helpful 1-star Google review that directs us away from a potential price-gauging mechanic. Or client feedback that guides us toward making the customer experience more meaningful. Or Google Analytics findings that help us understand the need for more organic traffic.

"Wait, did you say Google Analytics? What is that?"

If you haven't dabbled in Google Analytics, I suggest setting up an account and properly placing the tag or code on your website. Today's popular website-building tools, such as WordPress and Squarespace, make integrating your site with Google Analytics very simple, even for non-technical folks. Typically, all you need is Google Analytics Tracking Id that looks like this, “UA-XXXXXXX-X”, and is found in the property settings. Then this code needs to be placed in the tracking section within the website platform (there should be more details within those platforms on the specifics).

If you know what Google Analytics is, have it set up, but have never looked at it, shame on you! (I mean that in the most respectful way possible.) As a data guy, that only hurts slightly.

But we can fix that. Let's go over what you should be viewing in Google Analytics.

Step One: Audience Overview

After logging into your account, you'll see the main menu off to the left. Click on the “Audience” category and then “Overview.”

If you see the screen below, you’ve passed the first test.

Before diving too deep into the numbers, let’s review the glossary of terms on this screen:

• User: An individual person browsing your website (or technically, a unique browser cookie). If a person is viewing your website from their browser in incognito mode, they will not be counted.

• New Users: Same as above, but the user/prospective client has never been to your website before, within a certain date range, or cleared their browser cookies and returned. It should be noted that if someone comes to your website from their phone and computer in one day, it will be counted as two new users (unless they are logged into the same Chrome account on each device).

• Sessions: Visits to your website. If a person comes to your site twice within a 30-minute period, that is one session. If they browse once at 3:00pm and again at 4:00pm, that will count as two sessions (but still one user).

• Number of Sessions per User: Math lesson… Sessions/Users

• Pageviews: The total number of pages that have been viewed

• Pages / Session: Another math lesson… Pageviews/Sessions

• Avg. Session Duration: How long users stay on your website. The last page viewed is not included, and thus, this number is usually skewed low.

• Bounce Rate: The number of sessions with a single pageview in which the user did not go on to view more.

Next, we can talk about how to use them to benefit your organization. The two numbers I review first are:

1. “Pages / Session”

2. “Bounce Rate”

Make sure that you are viewing a substantial time frame, otherwise, you may jump to a conclusion based on one bad day. If you see that people are bouncing at a high rate (i.e., your Bounce Rate is above 70%) and/or viewing less than 2 pages, something is wrong.

Best case, Google Analytics is not set up properly on each page, and you can work on fixing that setup (If you have an ecommerce store, there could be cross-domain tracking issues). Worse, if you know your setup is correct, your website is serving the wrong content or attracting the wrong audience. If it’s one of the latter two cases, DBV Marketing recommends revisiting your brand messaging and your target audience to diagnose how to speak to your prospective clients in the right voice.

Step Two: Trends Over Time

Next, I like to look at trends over time. Below are three screen caps that highlight “Users”, “New Users” and “Pages / Session” over a six-month period.

Above are “Users” over six months. Good news! The chart is trending up. If it were sloping down, a deeper analysis would be needed to understand why (which we'll review in a future post).

Above are “New Users” over a six-month period, and again, positive news here. They are increasing. If this line was moving in the other direction, I would want to understand why. (Again, we'll explore this in a future post.)

Above are “Pages / Sessions” over a six-month time frame. It may be hard to see, so I added a line to highlight the decline in “Pages / Sessions”. While the decline is not drastic, it is certainly worth exploring.

We have avenues to explore in Google Analytics, but at a business level, we'd want to know if there were website structural changes (e.g., blog posts or pages added or removed), if audience targeting changed, or if the audience source shifted. For example, when blogs are added to a website, people tend to view fewer pages, which could be a reason for such a decline. Regarding the audience source, if more users are coming from social media (and mobile devices), they will tend to bounce at a higher rate.

There are pros and cons to all of these changes, such as...

• While blog posts may have higher bounce rates, and in turn, people viewing fewer pages, they are still visiting your website and keeping your company top of mind (and they may be incremental readers to the website). The business case for a blog is to show thought leadership and help readers understand your company's overall place in the competitive landscape. Thus, while in general, you'd like more pages/sessions, the business case might be a worthwhile trade off. This is why numbers cannot always be trusted as stand-alone values and should be considered in a broader context of your strategic goals.

• Alternatively, a change in audience source, such as an increase in paid traffic from social media, could signal a real concern. Social media users are usually viewing from mobile devices, which may not be connected to Wi-Fi networks. That means page-load times are more of a factor in their behavior. (In my experience, I also find that mobile in-app browsers like Facebook's tend to load a little slower.) If the website takes too long to load on their device, then that user will bounce (leave the website). This would be more of a cause for alarm than the addition of a blog, as paying for unproductive clicks is not a good use of funds.

Step Three: Organic Search Behavior

Let's move into a slightly more advanced Google Analytics feature. The goal here is to view how “New Users” that found your site through “Organic Search” (i.e., search engine traffic) are behaving. In almost all cases, since users that find your website through organic search are looking for you, organic traffic will be the most engaged. This makes this segment a great baseline for all other segments.

First, go to the top of the page and click on “Add Segment”.

Then scroll to find “Organic Traffic” or search for it in the “Search segments” section.

After clicking “Apply”, you will see a screen as follows.

As expected, the organic search audience is behaving better than overall traffic. They view more pages and bounce at a lower rate. The cherry on top is that this segment is increasing over time (note the orange line in the chart). In this example, this company is doing something right to attract new clients organically.

Google Analytics 101: Keep Trying

Did you learn something? Are you still overwhelmed and need help deciphering what you have? If so, give us a shout, we can dig deeper together in person or on a call. After all, don’t you want a computer science major with 10+ years of marketing experience helping with your analytics?

(Artist's Interpretation of Author)

Alternatively, I'll be digging in a little more into more advanced issues with Google Analytics in future posts. If you want to keep apprised of new blog posts, then I invite you to subscribe to our email list below.