Best Demand Gen. Metrics, B2B Word-of-Mouth Online Incentive Programs

June 20, 2011 | by | Category:

In our blogosphere recap we’ll examine four blog posts from the last weeks that look at how email can be instrumental in word-of-mouth incentive programs, B2B marketers can evaluate the success of their demand generation activities, Twitter users would like businesses to respond to their questions, and 80% of users who engage with a Tweet do so by clicking on an embedded link.

Below are some of the highlights from these articles:

Socialized Email Marketing Goes Mainstream

ClickZ | Tal Nathan | 6-14-11
When social media arrived on the scene, big brands achieved success in growing their customer bases by enlisting existing customers to share deals with their networks of friends. An easy sell when a brand is already well liked and the deal is a no-brainer, but will the same model work for products and services that are less “sexy” like a bank or a credit card? The article claims, (based on results of successful case studies) that yes, it does. But, to achieve successes, the offers need to be even more finely honed and tuned to the correct audiences.

Key Takeaways:

  • If financial service institutions can pull off word-of-mouth incentive programs, then really any business with fervent followers can do the same.
  • Email as a compliment to (rather than a replacement of) social media, for these finely targeted campaigns can be a highly effective medium for cutting through the clutter and inviting best candidates.

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Measuring The Success Of Your Demand Generation Efforts

Business 2 Community | Carol Fox | 6-13-11

For B2B marketers, tying demand generation to revenue is a necessity. However, determining which demand generation metrics to track can be murky. Some metrics don’t accurately capture the big picture and relying on too many metrics can leave marketers mired in data. You’re best off focusing on these two critical metrics: lead sources and trends. First, look at which lead sources equate to the highest conversion rates as weighed against costs. Second, follow your leads over-time to see how they trend through the entire sales life-cycle from prospect to lead to opportunity to win.

Additional Information:

  • Tracking trends over time gives you a more holistic view of the quality of leads you are generating and how they are cycling through the pipeline.
  • With these two metrics you can forecast revenue-cycles based upon known demand generation efforts. Sales teams can use these forecasts for planning, and if you have a short sales cycle i.e. 30 days, the ability to extrapolate revenue when prospects aren’t yet in the pipeline can be key. This forecasting ability can increase your organizational value.

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Twitter Users Want Businesses to Answer Them

eMarketer | Gavin Dunaway | 6-14-11



A study conducted by InboxQ, a service that delivers Tweeted questions to businesses, has found that Twitter users who post questions to their followers would like to receive replies from brands. In fact, if a brand were to reply, 60% of survey respondents would be more inclined to follow it and 64% would be more inclined to buy it.

Additional Information:

  • The author notes a potential incentive bias given the study’s source, but says the survey responses do line-up with a growing body of data that shows social media users look favorably on direct brand interactions.
  • Of the survey respondents with less than 100 followers, only 21% have received an answer to a question from a business. Of the survey respondents with more than 100 followers, only 41% have received an answer from a business.

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80% of Engagement with Tweets is Clicking a Link (Rather than Reply or RT)

Search Engine Watch | Rob Young | 6-10-11

Twitter recently launched a URL shortener as part of its interface. Now, if you include a link in a tweet it is automatically abbreviated to 19 characters. Adam Bain, Twitter’s President of global revenue has said that 80% of user interactions with tweets are link clicks. The remaining 20% of interactions are either replying to a tweet or re-tweeting. This has interesting implications for brand-engagement especially as Twitter introduces their self-serve model later this year.

Additional Information:

  • One example of successful brand engagement is the Twitter exclusive link to the new Beetle. According to the article 52% of users who viewed the Tweet clicked on the link.
  • Twitters launch of the self-serve platform is expected to enable the company to scale their advertising campaign offerings to many more customers.

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