We’ve discussed using email marketing as a way to automate the lead nurturing process. But how do you figure out if those leads that are cycling through the top of the funnel are worthwhile to your company? Simply put, you would need to develop an effective lead scoring process. But First, What is Lead Scoring? Lead scoring is a method of assigning a point based relative value to each prospect that comes into your sales funnel. A set of criteria is assigned points, and those points are attributed by matching each piece of criteria with the qualifiers that a lead shows. These numbers do one... Read More

Less than half of marketers are using branded Facebook pages to collect email subscriptions. That’s right, half. What does the half that grabs prospect and customer email subscribers from their Facebook pages know that the other half seemingly does not? Our friends at DM News shared some interesting numbers on how marketers are actually using social media, and despite the talk of social conversions, marketing across social and email channels is rarely being utilized to it’s potential. Opportunity knocks. As of May 2011, 51% of marketers now have a branded Facebook page. That’s the good... Read More

Previously, we spoke about the typical hurdles that foster shopping cart abandonment and how to decrease abandoned carts through targeted email follow-ups. Let’s walk through how we could solve an abandoned cart issue with an automated e-mail marketing solution. It has long been considered an e-commerce best practice to disclose all possible shipping costs as soon as possible to spare sticker shock at the end of the purchase process. Nevertheless, it continues to be a top reason for abandoned carts. Step 1: Determining the Issue: How would you know that shipping costs were the reason for... Read More

A battle is brewing between marketers. In the red corner, weighing in at “The way things have been done”, is email marketing. In the blue corner, and weighing in at “Could work, but has yet to demonstrate strong, consistent, steady returns”, the new kid on the block, social media! It’s gearing up to be one heck of a fight, but does it have to? Well, let’s look at the numbers and we’ll see what kind of conclusions we can reach. . Right now, if Facebook were to declare sovereignty and take all of it’s users with it, it would become the third... Read More