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Email Deliverability and the Law – A Quick Rant

January 21, 2014 By Josh Hill

I came across a question about auto-subscribing leads to a company blog. I was very surprised at the question this late in the game. Here it is, without names:

Is it appropriate, best practice to auto subscribe leads to your company blog then give them the option to unsubscribe or is it better to introduce the blog in an offer email and let them subscribe?

I naturally said this is not a good idea and that the marketer should invite currently opted in leads to sign up for the blog. This is what I got back:

…but I’m being pushed by my manager and our VP of marketing that said it is “best practice” to subscribe them and let them unsubscribe on their own.

If your executives believe email “best practices” are to violate several countries’ laws and get fined $16,000 per email, then yes, they are right.

Update: in the US, a reader reminded me CANSPAM is still “opt-out” which means the writer could have done this as long as there was unsubscribe option that could be honored within 10 days. The caveat is that this is not a best practice anymore. I know that some marketers have instead asked their email list to opt-in to blog posts. In the US, this may be legal enough with US emails, however, it should be done once and it would be a best practice to not email non explicitly opted-in email addresses again. Remember that Spam filters and blacklists punish faster than the government.

A better way is to treat people with the Golden Rule (and obeying the law).

You must tell people what they are agreeing to up front. You will get far more unsubscribes and complaints if you just start emailing people who never requested it. I’ve been there with management insisting it’s ok.

It’s not.

My understanding of the anti-spam laws in US, Canada, and EU (and I’m not a lawyer and this post is not legal advice) is to use opted-in emails. Here are some best practices:

  • You can email any customer in regard to their account, order, or if they made a request that implies a repsonse (like registering for a webinar).
  • Your forms MUST be “opt in” and cannot “default check the box”. That’s explicitly wrong in Canada and EU now, so if you are doing business there and have a US website, you should consider your form setup.
  • If someone did not opt in, do not send them an email. (exceptions above, but be very careful here).
  • If they opted in thinking they were going to receive an invitation to webinars only, then don’t send them blog posts.
  • You can send your list a one time email to opt in to stuff (if your data is sketchy), but do not do it again.
  • You must have an easy unsubscribe link. Best practice is to offer an “Unsubscribe Now” link and a “Subscription Management” link.
  • Yes, it is illegal to subscribe someone to anything that they have to explicitly requested in certain countries. The fine in the US for continuing to email someone after an unsubscribe is $16,000 per incident.
  • Always do the thing you would want someone to do to you. If I thought email practices were annoying on another website site, I would not do that to my subscribers.

The above is summary of various countries’ laws, so I would urge you to ask appropriate counsel for any local variations for the jurisdictions in which you operate. If you look for privacy laws and subscription management on Community, you’ll find more laws and more ways to operationalize them. Marketo wrote several articles and a module to handle EU Privacy and Cookie Directives. You can look up CANSPAM and Email Deliverability to find out more.

Are you putting together a Spam compliance workflow? Do you need some help? Let us know below!

And if you like what I’m doing here, check out my new Facebook Page. Yes, I joined the rest of the planet.

[Updated: January 6, 2018 – removed bad links]

Filed Under: Marketing Automation

Create a Marketing Automation Playbook

December 17, 2013 By Josh Hill

marketo-guide-quickparts

With the close of the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo, I’ve decided to release the templates I used for the book.

A few clients asked me for these templates so they could create playbooks or manuals of their own. I also have used the template for client playbooks. It’s very important to write down all the organizational knowledge about how your Marketo instance works. Otherwise, when your Marketo guru leaves for a firm willing to pay twice as much for her skills, you aren’t up the creek without a paddle.

The playbook can be constructed however you want. I do recommend a few sections, which you may recognize from my Guide.

Recommended Marketo Playbook Sections

  • Naming and Organization – codify the structure and naming scheme for easy use.
  • Lead Scoring – how yours works, threshold changes, counts, etc.
  • Analytics – which reports are used to build other reports?
  • RCA/RCM – used to document your system.
  • Program Templates – this might list out templates, uses, names, My Tokens, and Tags, and Cost Periods
  • Marketo Admin – the Marketo and CRM notes on how your system is connected.
  • Archiving – how you handle archiving and the frequency of changes.
  • Active Asset Templates – examples and links to templates in use and how to insert new templates.
  • Checklists – you can modify my marketing checklists or Marketo checklists.

Marketo Playbook Template [dotx]

Simply open it up and start typing. The chapter section can be refreshed, so be sure to keep it as is. Also, be careful when retyping the Chapter Header on Page 1 or it will lose it’s formatting.

Marketo Icon Template and Quickparts [docx]

You can copy these sections to drop in as call outs. For example:

marketo-guide-quickparts

 

 

 

 

 

So regardless of which marketing automation system you use, you can build a playbook and manual for your business’s systems.

Remember to sign up for more updates – coming soon!

Filed Under: Marketing Automation

Lead Nurturing with Marketo

December 12, 2013 By Josh Hill

With the advent of Marketo’s Engagement Program, much of what has been said before about lead nurturing in Marketo is out of date.

Or is it?

On December 10, I had the pleasure of presenting a short talk to the Boston Marketo User Group entitled, “Engagements vs. Drip Nurturing: Is Drip Really Dead?” I created this after working with a client who wanted to translate a drip program into an Engagement. As I walked through Engagements with them, it became clear their goals and intended cadences were not quite suited for Engagements. To complicate things, we were using Spark, giving us only one stream to work with.

I came up with a few different workarounds for her, which I outline in the slides below. First, I recommend understanding what you are doing with that nurturing program. Is an Engagement always the best choice?

  1. What are your goals?
  2. What is the purpose of this program?
  3. Are you sure that cadence needs to change?

 Why Might an Engagement Not Be a Good Choice?

  • One time drip flow – if this is a throwaway, don’t bother building an Engagement.
  • Welcome Program – this is the use case I mentioned. It seems that getting someone to engage with your product may not always work well with Engagements.
  • You only have 4 Active Engagements with 1 Stream each.
  • You don’t care about the Engagement Score.
  • You don’t care about content swapping and data.

Yes, Drip Nurturing is Still Allowed

In the situation with my client, I ultimately recommended a Drip Program nested inside an Engagement. They wanted to continually add content afterwards. With a one stream limit, this seemed to be the easiest way to accomplish her goal. Other options include:

  • Drip Nurture triggered by sign up, then Request Campaign or Engagement.
  • Drip Nurture separate from Engagement, so Engagement is triggered by another action.
  • Nest Drips inside Engagement.

My point here is that Engagements allow you to do more creative work with existing and new drip nurture Programs. And that Engagements may not always solve nurturing for you. It just depends on your goals.

One caveat before you go back to work: nesting Programs means the Program runs independently of the Stream’s Cadence, so you may want to temporarily adjust the cadence using the Program’s flow actions.

Engagements vs. Drip Nurturing:

Marketo Engagements and Drip Nurturing – Boston User Group Dec 10 2013 from Josh Hill

How to Do Lead Nurturing in Marketo (March 2013)

Lead Nurturing with Marketo from Josh Hill

*This is a bonus chapter from the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo. This chapter’s now free because Engagements made some of this obsolete, yet interesting anyway.

Remember, Friday is the absolutely last and final day to buy the Marketing Rockstar’s Guide to Marketo. After this, it’s going away forever. (I’ve also lowered the price!).

Filed Under: Marketo User Guide

An Interview with Howard Sewell of Spear Marketing Group

November 11, 2013 By Josh Hill

Howard Sewell - Spear Marketing

Howard Sewell - Spear MarketingToday I had the privilege of speaking to Howard Sewell, President of Spear Marketing Group. Spear has been a strong presence at the Marketo User Summits for several years and Howard continues to offer the community his expertise in a variety of ways. If you haven’t heard of Howard, you probably have come across Spear’s free Marketo template offers and Top 10 Webinar papers. Howard probably doesn’t realize this, but he is one of the people I continue to look up to in the Marketo Community because he took the time to speak with me way back in 2010 when I had just started with Marketo. Here’s what Howard had to say about his work in the B2B marketing world.

How did you get started in marketing automation?

I’m an old-school direct marketer. I started my marketing career in direct mail back in the late 1980s at Oracle. After Oracle, I ran my own agency for 19 years – at first, focused on direct mail, and later expanding to demand generation, and clients were always asking how we could help filter, qualify, and nurture the sales leads we were generating for them. Those questions led to getting involved in marketing automation, and ultimately to joining Spear in 2010.

Tell me about your approach to client engagements.

Our most successful client engagements are those where we’re a genuine partner and not just a vendor. Much of the value we bring to the table is in the area of fresh ideas and best practices, and so we’re most successful when we’re involved from strategy to execution. As an agency, if you’re executing on someone else’s vision, you’re simply bandwidth for hire.

What’s your favorite platform?

Most of our clients run Marketo. There’s no one platform that’s right for everyone, but we really like Marketo’s functionality, the user interface, and the fact that it enables our clients to measure the true revenue impact of demand generation programs. Plus I think they’re a great company.

What’s been your favorite engagement so far?

Navicure is a small, growing software company in Atlanta – we’ve been working with them for years and they make us feel like we’re part of the team. That kind of trust and confidence allows us to do great work. For pure cool factor, we’ve done a lot of work for Google, and they’re absolutely a fun company to work with. I appreciate the way they empower their people to make decisions – it gives a marketing agency like us the ability to really push the envelope.

How many people do you have on your team?

By the time this is published, we’ll be at 30, which will mean we’ve tripled in size in a little over 3 years.

Why should people choose you?

Spear MarketingWe’re one of the only true, full-service marketing agencies that really knows its stuff when it comes to marketing automation. Most service providers in the MA space – many of whom do really great work – are basically systems consultants, whereas clients hire us more for things like lead management strategy, campaign development, and creative execution.

Which areas do you specialize in?

We’re a very specialized agency. First, 90% of our clients are B2B technology companies. Second, the work we do is generally either demand generation (e.g. feeding the funnel) or lead management. We help our clients generate, nurture, and convert leads to revenue. On a day to day basis, that means we’re designing or building everything from PPC landing pages to lead nurturing emails to large scale, global campaigns.

Do you have a Package or Pricing Summary?

We really don’t – every engagement is unique. We work on both a project (fixed fee) and retainer basis.

What kinds of firms would find you the most helpful?

If you’re a B2B technology company that needs to generate more leads, generate better leads, or do a better job converting the leads you have, we can help.

What do you do for fun?

Cooking, cycling, and watching our two kids grow up.

What’s the best way for marketers to get in touch?

Email, definitely. I don’t answer my phone! howard (at) spearmarketing.com

I’ve noticed B2B marketing leaders eschew their phones because of too many cold calls or sales calls. Understanding this behavior vs. other functions would be an interesting research project for a marketing automation firm’s content team. – Josh

And I’m back to full time consulting with Marketo and Demand Generation. Let me know if you have a project – hello [at ] marketingrockstarguides.com.

Filed Under: Demand Generation

Learning from DemandLab’s Rhoan Morgan

November 4, 2013 By Josh Hill

Rhoan Morgan

Rhoan MorganI am continuing my Marketing Automation and Demand Gen Leaders series with an interview with DemandLab founder, Rhoan Morgan. Rhoan is CEO of this boutique firm based in Philadelphia. Rhoan founded DemandLab in 2009 and has grown the firm into what I would call a full service demand generation agency. Since my first conversation with her last year, I have known this is someone to both watch and admire. Let’s learn from her today.

How did you get started in marketing automation?

I fell in love with marketing automation when we deployed Marketo in a company I worked for. Until then, we were pretty much just tossing leads over the fence to the sales department using our CRM, with zero insight into the needs and behaviors of our prospects and customers. Marketo changed everything. It was a revelation, and I knew this was where the future of marketing—and my future—was headed.

[I felt the same way when I started with Marketo – Josh]

Why did you decide to start your agency?

DemandLab - Total Revenue MarketingAfter working as an independent consultant with a handful of clients for about a year, I founded DemandLab so that I could give clients more complete, integrated services. This expansion brought in staff to support deployment and implementation while I could provide more focus on strategic advisory.

Also, we found that many clients deployed these great systems and then said, “Now what?” They didn’t have the fuel to power the engine: professionally designed and written content that creates brand awareness and guides prospects skillfully through the funnel. So we further expanded into offering design and content services to help our clients take their efforts to the next level.

Tell me about your approach to client engagements.

As a consultant, I learned to collaborate closely with my clients. As an agency, we follow the same approach. We do a lot of listening and learning to understand the client’s business holistically and build on the experience and expertise of their marketing team.

We also prioritize structure, because we’ve found it results in a smoother project experience and a better end result. We hired a full-time project manager this year, and we use Clarizen to keep projects on track and moving swiftly.

What’s your favorite marketing automation platform?

That’s a tough question. My “first love” and my area of greatest expertise is Marketo, but when it comes to choosing the right platform for a client we will keep options open and consider the business need of the client. Everyone’s needs are unique, which is why it’s great to have so many strong marketing automation options to choose from.

What’s been your favorite engagement so far?

It’s really hard to choose, but ultimately I’m most proud of the work that produces highest levels of return for a client or pushes the envelope with respect to what we think the technology can produce. As part of a recent Marketo deployment we also included a newsletter “makeover” that’s saving our client about $300,000 each year.

How many people do you have on your team?

We have seven people on staff, including consultants, a designer, a content strategist, and a project manager. We also team with partners when a project calls for an expertise outside of our core capabilities.

Why should people choose you?

Because we structure every engagement as a tailor made project to deliver quick wins and long-term value; and have the capabilities to jump in and create a turnkey program that can be quickly implemented. We live and breathe marketing automation, so we bring a wealth of innovation, best practices, and practical experience to every project and we pass that expertise on to our clients so that they can continue to create success within their organization.

Which areas do you specialize in?

We specialize in ensuring the optimized use of a client’s marketing automation system from pre-deployment planning to implementation, integration with other systems, and leveraging the MAP to support all marketing efforts.

A big focus is on end-to-end lead life-cycle management, helping clients map out the life cycle of a lead and move that lead through their systems efficiently, from initial touch to conversion and beyond.

Our approach is different because it takes both technology processes and people processes into consideration. People often forget the “people” part of the equation, but the system has to work for the inside sales person and everyone else who has a role to play.

We also provide content and brand development when clients need help laying the groundwork for an effective campaign. No matter how finely tuned your marketing automation system is, you won’t see results if you’re not sending excellent content and spot on messaging.

Do you have a Package or Pricing Summary?

We offer a range of packaged services, including marketing automation audits (a complete audit of your existing system and setup), marketing automation deployments, managed services, content planning and creation, positioning, persona development and consulting.

What kinds of firms would find you the most helpful?

We have a diverse clientele, but we bring particular value to:

  • Value-driven companies. Because we’re very focused on optimizing ROI, we’re a good fit for companies that want to see more value from their existing system as well as those that want to make a wise investment in the technology.
  • Global companies. We have experience deploying solutions for global organizations, which tend to require more process mapping and training engagements to bring disparate teams together, and accommodate different priorities and work styles.
  • Smaller marketing teams. Having design and content specialists on staff allows us to deliver fully integrated marketing campaigns to companies that may not have the capacity to create new marketing assets in-house. Also, offering managed services packages mean we can keep the engine running while smaller teams focus on strategic efforts.

What do you do for fun?

Hang out with my husband and four-year-old daughter (reading, playing, and learning as much as possible). And when I want to relax I try my hand at baking a really complex dessert.  When I want to get full of energy and excited I read about and plan my ultimate productivity process (I know that is really geeky but I won’t be satisfied until life is seamless – which means I’ll be at it for the next 50 years!).

What’s the best way for marketers to get in touch?

Best way to get in touch is by emailing contact [at] demandlab.com.

And remember to stay with me this month – new Marketo How Tos are underway.

Filed Under: Demand Generation

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