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Colleen Kennedy

5 Email Marketing Tips for Dummies (And Marketing Pros)

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This week we’re going to chat about the always feared and commonly dreaded: email marketing. Here at GreenBook, we send A LOT of emails. From 10 annual IIeX events, to GreenBook Marketing Services, to content like GRIT and Insights That Work, there’s never a dull moment. Sometimes I feel like I spend half my days on our email marketing campaigns. And, there’s a great reason…

The reality is, email marketing works!

Think about it. How many hours per day do you spend attending to your email? Recent studies tell us that for the average working American, it’s a solid 2.5 hours per day. So while we’re all constantly attached to handfuls of communications streams (LinkedIn, Facebook, online news sources, etc.) email really is the one to beat. And, it’s the most important channel (with the highest ROI) for B2B marketing.

But what if I don’t have time for email marketing?

Especially if you’re a small shop with a limited marketing team (or no marketing team at all), email marketing can seem daunting, time-consuming, and difficult. So whether you’re sending 5 or 500 marketing or sales emails per year, here are a few tips to help make your email marketing the best that it can be:

1. Step #1: Subject line

To be at all effective, your email first has to be opened. One of the best ways to achieve a higher open rate is to test your subject lines. 

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6 Ways to Boost Your Sponsorship Impact

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This article was written by GreenBook’s head of event production, Emily Fullmer.

The art of getting ROI from your event sponsorship is a result of your strategy and execution. All sponsors and exhibitors should have one goal in common when it comes to their event strategy – to stand out. As an event sponsor or exhibitor, you’ll be surrounded by your competitors, so setting yourself apart (in a good way) should be a critical goal.

So how do you stand out in a literal sea of competitors? Based on my experience as an event manager, I’ve learned a few things that can make (or break) your impact as a sponsor or exhibitor.

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4 Steps to Better Marketing in the Next 12 Months

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This article was written by Lauren Tilden, Director of Marketing at GreenBook.

Editor’s Note: This was written at the start of 2017 with the goal of helping insights marketers set up their marketing plans for 2017. But our advice applies no matter when you sit down to plan for the future, so we’ve included it here.

If you’re like us, you’re thinking a lot right now about wrapping up 2016 and laying the groundwork for an even better 2017. We’re looking back at the past 12 months and reflecting on what went well, and what could go better next year. And we’re thinking about all of the new ideas, campaigns and initiatives we want to implement in 2017.

As they say, failing to plan is planning to fail (Alan Lakein). The best way to ensure that your 2017 is your best year as a marketer yet is to explicitly articulate your goals and lay out the steps you will take to get there.

To help with this process, I thought I’d share the process that we are currently using to determine our marketing plan for 2017. I’ve adapted it slightly to be more relevant to an insights marketer.

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6 Simple Email Marketing Best Practices

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This article was written by Lauren Tilden, Director of Marketing at GreenBook.

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels available to the modern marketer. One study showed that email marketing is nearly 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter (McKinsey). According to Campaign Monitor, a message delivered by email is 5 times more likely to be seen than the same message on Facebook (Campaign Monitor). And even with new technology and tools available to us every day, email is the channel that delivers the highest ROI for marketers(Campaign Monitor).

If you agree that email marketing is worth taking seriously, there are some clear steps you can take to improve the effectiveness of your email marketing program.
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10 tips for Better Banner Advertising

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This article was written by Lauren Tilden, Director of Marketing at GreenBook.

Banner ads are an excellent way to get your brand and products in front of your target customer and generate more brand awareness, traffic, and conversions. To make the most of your investment in banner advertising, we’ve seen that there are some clear ways you can generate better results. Here are 10 tips to help you optimize your banner advertising:

  1. Know your audience. This is Marketing 101, but it’s worth emphasizing. Think hard about who will be viewing your banner ad, what they’re interested in, how they like to be communicated to, and what they want.
  2. Get clear on your objective. Think about what you want to achieve. Is it to make a big impression or is it to get people to click through to your site? Getting clear on what desired action you’d like viewers take will help you create a smarter ad.
  3. Be useful. Find out how to provide something that your audience wants. It may be information about a product that will solve a problem for them, great content in the form of an eBook, or a can’t-miss promotion on something they’re interested in.
  4. Write good copy. Limit the number of words you use, and make sure you use good ones! Ann Handley of MarketingProfs just came out with a book on copywriting that we think all marketers should have in their toolkits. It’s called “Everybody Writes.”
  5. Less is more. Keep your design and copy simple. Don’t making the mistake of trying to squeeze a ton of images and text into a small space.
  6. Speed matters. You want your advertisement to load quickly, or you’ll lose impressions. Keep the graphic size (file size, not dimensions) small. The Interactive Advertising Bureau put together display advertising guidelines based on extensive research.
  7. Clear to call to action. If you want people to click your ad and come to your site, make sure you’re giving them a good reason and that you optimize the design accordingly. HubSpot wrote this great piece on creating compelling calls to action.
  8. Think about color. The colors you use have a big impact on the way your messaging is interpreted. Research suggests that we should think about the personality we want our brand to be associated with – and choose colors accordingly. Check out this article to learn more about colors and psychology.
  9. Follow through. A great ad won’t do much for you if a user clicks through and is sent to a website that isn’t consistent with the messaging and design of the advertisement itself. Make sure to think about your audience’s whole experience interacting with your ad, from first viewing, to clicking and finally arriving somewhere on your site.
  10. Get creative. The best way to stand out is to do something different from your competitors. Think about different formats, different design, different offers. Take risks, measure your results, and keep doing what works.

If banner advertising is something you’d like to do more of, we offer a variety of banner advertising opportunities, including our newsletter which reaches 50,000+ market research professionals, GreenBook.org and the GreenBook Blog. Contact us to learn more.

8 Ways to Establish Your Brand as an Industry Thought Leader

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This article was written by Lauren Tilden, Director of Marketing at GreenBook.

For companies in market research, becoming a thought leader is an important way to gain credibility with clients and prospects. After all, who doesn’t want to do business with companies (and people) who really know their stuff? Showing your target audience that your company has the expertise to solve their problems is always good for business.

Below are some strategies your company can put into action to start (or continue) building thought leadership for your company and people.

  1. Create content. Creating high-quality content is the best way to show your target audience your expertise (and provide value to them in the meantime). Ask yourself about the business challenges your clients have that you’re qualified to help solve, and create content that helps them do that. Some types of content that are great for building thought leadership: blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, eBooks, podcasts, educational videos, and reports and publications.
  2. Have a stance. Share your disruptive ideas, and if you disagree with someone else’s views, don’t shy away from discourse. At the heart of thought leadership is having a position on issues, and being willing to defend them.
  3. Get on social media. Build a robust online presence, including the most relevant social media networks for your audience. Put content out there, share ideas and participate in online conversations.
  4. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Having well-known industry thought leaders on your payroll is great… unless or until they leave your company. Create thought leadership opportunities with multiple members of your senior leadership so you’re not stuck without someone to author content or speak at conferences if you part ways with a big name on your staff.
  5. Look for awards to win. Being an award-winning insights agency is a great credibility boost. Seek reputable awards programs within market research and other industries you serve, and apply to win their awards. Display them prominently on your website, email signatures, and anywhere else you can show them off.
  6. Speak. Speaking engagements at conferences are an excellent way to show the industry what you know and how you can help clients. But in our experience (and we have a lot of it!), there are things you can do to optimize the opportunity. Taking speaking engagements very seriously, put together great content, promote your speaking spot, rehearse, and most importantly – unless the speaking opportunity is designed for product or company sales pitch – avoid any kind of selling at all costs.
  7. Network. Connect with other insights professionals – even those who aren’t clients or prospects – whenever you can. Conferences, local industry events, social media and online groups are all great ways to do this.
  8. Guest post/blog. Look for media publications with an audience you’d like to get in front of, and find out if they accept guest bloggers/authors and if so, what the submission process looks like. This is a great way to reach an audience you might not otherwise be able to access.

If you’re interested in any of the ways GreenBook can help you establish thought leadership for your company (opportunities like speaking at events, hosting webinars, or providing commentary in the GRIT Report), just hit reply on this email and let’s chat!

10 Strategies for a High-Impact Webinar

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This article was written by Lauren Tilden, Director of Marketing at GreenBook.

If you’re looking for a way to position your company as a thought leader and generate new leads in a way that’s relatively inexpensive and easy to execute, consider webinars! Accessible to companies of just about every size, webinars are an excellent way to educate attendees on a methodology or idea, share a case study with a positive result, or even help attendees develop a new skill.

In our own hosted webinar program, we’ve worked with research companies to produce over 50 webinars, and we’ve seen some clear strategies that lead to highly impactful webinars. Here are our 10 strategies:

  1. Take advantage of your webinar before it happens. Hosting a webinar is a great reason to get in touch with your existing client or reach out to a prospect. It’s also great fodder for your newsletter, social media feeds, or any other promotional channel you have. Even if people don’t wind up hearing your webinar, it’s a great excuse to be in touch and stay top of mind.
  2. Pick a topic that is of value. Think about your target customer (and the profile of the list that the webinar will be marketed to) and ask yourself what business challenges they have that you can solve. Design your content around that.
  3. Consider partnerships and other ways to generate more leads.Webinars produced by you and promoted to your audience are great. But you may also consider partnering with an organization to produce or promote your webinar, to get your content in front of a large amount of new people. When looking for partners, make sure that the profile of their audience has a large amount of contacts who fit the profile of a prospect.
  4. Keep “the sell” to a minimum. We believe strongly that the best sales pitch is not a pitch at all, but the simple act of delivering value. Unless you have specifically marketed your webinar as a product demo, chances are your attendees are there to learn something, not hear a sales presentation.
  5. Include a happy customer. We have seen some of our highest registrations and attendance numbers on webinars that are co-hosted by a satisfied client who helps explain a case study and discusses the positive results they have seen.
  6. Subject lines are important. If people don’t open your email, they won’t sign up for (or listen to a recording of) your webinar. Select subject lines with the same rigor that you use for your other marketing emails (which we hope includes A/B tests… but more on that in a future email!).
  7. Practice, practice, practice. Very few of us can deliver a great presentation without rehearsal. While you don’t want to sound scripted, make sure that your presenter practices the presentation several times in advance to make sure it flows and sticks to your time constraints. Make sure your presenter(s) connect with either hard-wired internet or a landline, and have a quiet place to talk (no airports, please!). We also suggest a rehearsal webinar to get your presenter familiar with your chosen software, the process for presenting, taking questions, etc.
  8. Design matters. Have a designer (or someone with some design skills) take a look at your presentation before you present. The last thing you want to do is distract people from your (great) content with a poorly designed (ugly) set of slides.
  9. Keep it simple. Your webinar software may offer a lot of bells and whistles (live polling, surveys, video, etc.), but unless you need these tools to effectively convey your material (or have a skilled webinar production team behind you), just skip them. We know from years of working on our IIeX conferences and webinar program, that the presentations that run the most smoothly are always the simplest. In general, don’t increase the chances of a technical issue unless you need to. The exception to this rule is if you are very confident in having good technical support.
  10. Record the webinar & promote it afterward. After your webinar, clean up the recording and share it widely – with attendees, with registrants who didn’t make it to the live webinar, to prospects interested in the topic. This is evergreen content that you can and should use as long as the content is relevant. A webinar is the marketing investment that keeps on giving!

Further Reading: Like this topic? Here are a couple of articles on webinars that we like:

If you’re interested in hosting a webinar with GreenBook (and promoting it to more than 70,000 market research professionals who receive our webinar invites), contact us to learn more.