It’s all about conversions. Handbook offers have long been the “home run” for b-to-b lead generation. But we took it up a notch when we re-directed the offer to a landing page created using industry “best practices”: just four fields to complete in the request form and no other links or navigation to distract the visitor. Of course, best practices applied here as well; lead flow from the handbook offer jumped 400% during the landing page’s first two months.
Lead Conversions Jump 400%
March 29th, 2011 by Cyndi FriedelAnother Great Award Season for Goldstein Group
March 23rd, 2011 by Cyndi FriedelCongratulations to Avtron Aerospace, which picked up top honors in the Cleveland Rocks PRSA Award and in the PRSA District Diamond Awards competitions for the new branding campaign created in partnership with agency Creative Director and Chief Imaginist Jeff Spencer. Congratulations also to Abanaki, which was honored for its Public Relations and Social Media campaign during the Gulf Oil Spill, which doubled traffic to the company’s web site in a two-month period.
Avtron's website
Seeing Is Believing
March 15th, 2011 by Joel GoldsteinWe’ve been able to monitor click traffic on web pages for a while now by using Google Analytics. But where do a visitor’s eyes go? Where are the dead spots on your web design, and exactly how far down are people scrolling on each of your main pages? We’re answering those questions with a new tool called Clicktale, which provides fascinating “heat maps” that identify where the mouse travels on a web page (but may not click). Why track mouse movement? Because there’s an 80 percent correlation between your eye movement and where the mouse travels. Quick hit: with one client, we learned that the unusual placement of its all-important “quote” button, even though it was at the top of the page, rendered it nearly invisible.
Something new to learn — “Wikibranding”
February 27th, 2011 by Joel GoldsteinReally interesting article on a new concept of co-branding, called “Wikibranding,” where your customers help shape your message. The old world days of marketing controlling the message is, sigh, in our rearview mirror. http://goo.gl/dg1LM
Online or Offline Spending: Here’s What Google Says
January 24th, 2011 by Joel GoldsteinIt’s human nature to try to simplify complex topics into black-and-white decisions, and that applies to marketing as well. As we all struggle to better understand the role of marketing in purchase decisions, and the shifting nature of online versus traditional marketing, many have come to the conclusion that it’s an online-only world today, and that nothing else matters.
But most marketers understand that the most effective programs are those that are consistent in approach and balanced in nature. It’s an online AND offline world for marketers, says one surprising advocate for traditional spending: Google. In its recent study on best practices for B2B marketers, Google, the center of all things related to online marketing, points to the importance of going to market with a balanced approach:
Sixty-three percent of B2B marketers recognize that traditional initiatives have a strong impact on online activity in terms of search traffic, web traffic, and online conversions.
That’s not to diminish the role of online marketing, but it points to the multiple tactics that are needed to break through the clutter, particularly in complex purchase decisions.
What Does Lovie Smith Know That Any Business Exec Should Know?
January 17th, 2011 by Joel GoldsteinAs I watched Lovie Smith’s Chicago Bears beat Seattle during this weekend’s NFL playoffs, I thought about where he started the season. He was on the watch list of coaches who might get fired this year, after finishing just 7-9 last year. So what did he do differently? There was no magic bullet, as there never is, but there is something unusual about this year’s Bears compared to other seasons: the coaching staff. In fact, Smith had the confidence and wisdom to hire three former head coaches (Mike Tice, Rod Marinelli and Mike Martz) on his staff, believing as most business execs do that hiring the best people you can find will ultimately make the boss successful.
And in fact, there are some who point to the coaching staff hires made during the offseason by the Kansas City Chiefs as a reason for that team’s 2010 turnaround – hiring former Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weiss to run the offense and former Browns coach Romeo Crennel to run the defense. Top talent on the coaching staff led to better performance by the team.
Lesson learned for any owner/marketing exec: as you build your team, top talent produces top results.
A Great Use of Home Page Real Estate
January 12th, 2011 by Joel GoldsteinOur agency has always been a big fan of a great idea, whether it’s ours or someone else’s. That’s the role of a good agency 
— to act as a harvester of “best practices,” to share great ideas that work in one company with others who could benefit from them. So here’s our latest great idea from one of our clients, Diamond America. By locating a highly shortened lead form right on its home page, this company immediately multiplied its lead flow by five. The form’s no different from what might be found on the “Contact Us” page, but its new front-and-center visibility makes it a far more effective lead generation tool.
Lead Generation in a New Era
December 21st, 2010 by Joel GoldsteinAgency President Joel Goldstein and Ron Gilbert of Keithley Instruments co-presented at the annual COSE Small Business conference in October on “Lead Generation & New Media Advertising.” Email jgoldstein@ggcomm.com for a copy of the talk.
