MIXX Session: Best Practices For Gathering Online Leads

Every day, top-name brands turn to online lead generation -- the fastest growing segment of online ad spending -- to build relationships and drive valuable transactions. When done right, these companies can produce relevant and cost-efficient databases that can be used to determine contact strategies for customer relationship marketing programs and continue the brand's dialog with its customers. To learn about the best practices in online lead generation, eM+C attended a workshop at this week's MIXX Conference and Expo in New York and sat in on the workshop titled "Brands Winning With Lead Generation -- Are You One of Them." Panelists at the workshop included Lawrence DiCapua, senior marketing manager of CRM for Pepsi-Cola Company (www.pepsi.com); Audrey Sudran, partner and media director for Beyond Interactive (www.beyondinteractive.com); and Elyse Thibault, senior manager of marketing and audience development at Hearst Magazines (www.hearst.com).The panel was moderated by Matthew Wise, president and CEO of Q Interactive (www.qinteractive.com). Here are some tips from the panelists about the best ways to gather qualified online leads. 1. Make sure customers know what they are signing up for. Pepsi's Lawrence DiCapua said its crucial that customers opting-in to your online mailing lists understand what they are signing up for. "It sounds pretty simple to a lot of us, but really it's not the case with a lot of what I have seen across many sites," he said. "Use your language and creative to explain to your audience the benefits of your program, how you will be contacting that person and what is the frequency of that contact. When using this type of language, the more likely a customer will be aligned with you and the more likely you will avoid a negative experience. For us, this has been a very, very important part of how we set up our programs." 2. Add a pre-qualifier question. Besides the more traditional data you may be able to get from online vendors about online consumers -- such as how old they are or how many children they have -- try asking those vendors to add on a screener of a pre-qualifier question for you. "You can ask, for example, if they wear contact lenses and suffer from dry eyes, or if they travel more than three times a year," Beyond Interactive's Sudran said. "The intention is to actually eliminate those people who do not qualify, because why would they want to click through to the offer if they don't satisfy the need of that question." To complement that, Sudran said you also can target people through your creative messages for your offer. "This will help trigger these people to click through and get your offer," she said. 3. Don't use incentivized offers. "These are the kinds of things that are most likely not going to get you a qualified lead," Sudran said. "Those are just people that want to enter a sweepstakes or get lured into whatever the incentivized offer is before they even see what you have to offer them." 4. Have consumers double confirm. "We've had the most success when we have asked consumers to double confirm that they are really interested," said Hearst's Thibault. "Any time you ask the user to think, and ask them for more information such as a postal address, you will really see a lift in response, because all those people [signing up for an offer] on impulse are not going to take the time to answer all of those questions."

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MIXX Session: Best Practices For Gathering Online Leads

Melissa Campanelli

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Melissa Campanelli