So I have recently been cornered by a couple of B2B guys who were getting sloshed over at some random industry party when they approached me with a question. Should we use content networks and are they effective drivers of traffic. My answer over my Hendricks & Tonic, was inequitably, “Yes”, however, I quickly added that it depends on 3 things:

• What is your campaign goal(s)
• What network you are using?
• How closely are you going to manage the network?

As just about any technology, advertisement or network, you MUST manage the heck out of it or it can, and must likely will, deliver data which is near to worthless depending on what you as a company or you as an agency are looking for.

Some of the other possible problems are that your ad might show up on a site which is offensive or your ad will deliver a huge amount of impressions, but no clicks to write home and tell your management or client about.

To over come these ill fated possibilities, you must first set aside time to take management/client over the benefits and drawback of several content networks based on that particular network historical data:

• Some are good for branding, impressions, some are good for clicks, others are inexpensive substitutions for banner networks, but all of them need to be managed as to ensure the clients goals are not only meat, but lessons learned are passed to all other marketing initiatives.
• Next ask the network representative to give you a list of sites and channels they feel would be effective based on like minded sites and where competitors are and are not running. Then take that list and run it through management/client and your team to “clean up” the list. You can also ask the representative for example creative and use multiple creatives with a couple of dynamic keyword insertion settings.
• Once you have the list of sites and they are live, you should optimize based on tracking placed in both the ad and website (the whole web site, not just the landing page and homepage) for any success matrix you want. Once you see certain sites or channels working and not working, start making adjustments accordingly.
• As the list gets smaller, test new sites and approach the effective sites with site specific buys. That is a good start =) BUT also check out other networks: we have been using collective-media.com as they are fairly picky about who and what they have in their network so it is not full of spammers and domain campers.
• Remember, a network is only as good as the quality of its sites and your ability to mange it.

Just a quick rant about prospecting blindly via e-mail. Why? I received one of the worst email solicitations in my career, just today. I would love to mention the sales rep and the company but alas…I’ll just use them as an example of what not to do. Oh, and can I say, “Why in the h***, Mr. Sales Director, are you not working with your marketing team to craft emails that will ultimately get you appointments? Why are you letting your team write and send emails that 1) have no message, no call to action, and no way to contact your company, 2) don’t address me by name and 3) have spelling and grammar errors?” Uh…hello, Mr. Sales Director, how much time is your team wasting on sending out emails that aren’t going to deliver? And why, Mr. Sales Director, are your team members sending out emails first? Didn’t you hire them to make phone calls?

Ok, enough picking on Mr. Sales Director…for now.

In my years working with sales and marketing teams, e-mail has become a very effective tool in lead generation. Here’s the thing…you have to do it right in order to be successful. If you have the prospect’s email address and you are actually going to send them something, don’t you want to get it right? What if they actually open it and read it?

If you are going to send a prospect an email and you’ve never contacted them before, there are a few things you should know, a few things you should include AND a few steps that you should take in order to be successful.

Okay, here they are:

1. Include the prospect’s name. If you’ve done your research, found out who to contact, actually acquired their email address…why wouldn’t you personalize the email?
2. Know your target. Are you reaching the right prospect? Don’t try to sell a hairbrush to a bald man.
3. Work with marketing. They’ve probably sent out hundreds of these and have monitored their response rates for effectiveness (I said probably…but this is for another blog post at another time). Okay, let’s say that they’ve monitored effectiveness. The marketing department would LOVE to write your email. They will add the correct call to action, the right buzz words and match the offer to the kind of prospect you are mining. Come on sales…why work so much when you don’t have to! Besides, if marketing knew you were sending out your own emails, they would flip out!
4. Spell check.
5. Grammar check.
6. Ask for the reader to take action. Ask for what you want. Do you want me to call you? Then write, “Please call me at your convenience at 555-5555.”
7. Create a signature. Don’t write: “Best Regards,” then let the email template take over. It looks lazy.
8. Make sure your email has a compelling subject line, is known to be a spam word
9. For more ideas on creative and formatting, check EmailLabs’ resources section which is very comprehensive

In the example I received today, the unnamed sales rep made many mistakes. As a long time high-tech marketer, I’ve been approached by many vendors in every way imaginable. This guy obviously didn’t do his homework. He sent me an offer that I would never be interested in. He didn’t use my first name in his copy, just a “Hello-“ when it’s clear what my name is, my email address is lisa (at) e-storm.com. He capitalized three words in the subject line that didn’t need capitalization. He never mentioned the name of his company in the copy of the email. He asked me to contact him but didn’t say why and there was no email address or phone number to contact him with. Finally, he says that his company can, “…help you teach your team to sell more by working smarter—not harder.”

Ugh.

Oh and one final note: This email came from an up and coming CRM software company!!

Want more information? please don’t hesitate to contact me, I have helped with hundreds of email campaigns before…..