Email Marketing

+9%

increase in site visits in 2 weeks

+32%

average email open rate of total campaign

4

demos set throughout the 2-week campaign

Campaign Objectives

Onsite Demos & Lead Gen

The Sales Team at ActivEngage was going through a "demo drought" during the slowest month of the year in 2020. So, I was tasked with creating a compelling, time-sensitive offer and accompanying email campaign to assist with lead generation and meetings. Our campaign goals were as follows:

  • Secure four scheduled demos

  • Increase website visits by 15%

  • Maintain a 30% average open rate

Strategy

Two-week email promotion

I created a two-week email campaign to generate MQLs by offering ActivTarget free for 90 days with the purchase of a premium managed service.

  • Duration: We worked in sprints and wanted to create a campaign that, if successful, could be the framework for other high-urgency promotions.

  • Package: The company offered three service levels that are considered premium due to price. Less than 20% of customers are on a premium package.

  • Product: ActivTarget is a web tool, so there is $0 overhead. Plus, the tool works! Customers doubled their leads using it, making the offer a great value.

Content Structure

For this campaign, I wrote a combination of corporate and personal emails.

Target Audience

We targeted decision-makers (General Managers and General Sales Managers) and influencers (Internet Directors and BDC Directors) who want more leads.

Tone & Voice

Corporate emails looked and read like a billboard; the content was broad with little personalization. Personal emails were text-based and read like someone took 5 minutes to send a quick message.

Sender Address

Corporate emails came from a generic send address. In contrast, personal emails came from the prospect’s assigned salesperson.

Campaign Cadence

To create urgency, I drafted an aggressive campaign schedule that combined marketing emails with phone calls from the Sales Team.

  • Day 1: General ActivTarget email

  • Day 3: Early email offer from Rep + call

  • Day 4: No email + call & voicemail

  • Day 8: General promotion email

  • Day 10: Follow-up email from Rep + call

  • Day 11: General “3 days left to claim” email

  • Day 12: No email + follow-up call & voicemail

  • Day 14: General reminder email + Rep email & call

Resources

Automation

I used Pardot Engagement Studio to visualize, create, and test emails. Using the Pardot-Salesforce integration, I automated call tasks for Sales Reps based on email opens, link clicks, and PDF downloads.

Collaboration

Marketing worked closely with Sales in different ways to prepare, deploy, and track the campaign. What made this campaign so successful from start to finish is what makes all things work: communication.

Content

We chose some of the most common types of content for B2B, including a product sheet PDF, landing page, gameplan Google Doc, blog post, and social media posts.

EMAIL EXAMPLES

Marketing & Sales Campaigns

Here is an example of an ActivTarget email announcement. This message was followed by a 90-day promotion from salespeople.
Here is an example of an email from a salesperson. The tone is casual, and the copy continues to build on previous emails.

Results

While we didn’t get the 15% increase in website traffic, the 9% we did get was super valuable because the average time spent on the site increased significantly, and we saw the audience engage with different content formats (PDF and blog) more.

We achieved our demo goal by a very narrow margin, but we sold one of our more expensive packages quickly — we average 50 days to close a deal — with 3 more potential deals on the way.

  • Site visits: 9% increase

  • Email Open Rate: 32.2% avg.

  • Demos Set: 4

  • Deals Sold: 1 deal

  • Offers Extended: 3