Federal Court Okays Web Scraping

I've scraped many a website in my time.

"Web scraping," in case you're wondering, refers to the compilation of information that's published on websites.

A few recent examples:

• This week, I wrote a blog post on the birth of art history by web scraping. 
  
  
• Earlier this month, I taught a brainy high schooler how to "speed write" a term paper by web scraping. In the process, I learned more about Shirley Jackson than you'd ever want to know.
  
  
• Last November, I built an e-mail list of insurance executives for a client who had no marketing list.

Web scraping isn't theft.

Theft is what Instagram coach Kar Brulhart faced this week, when a rival ripped off her ideas verbatim and presented them as his own.

Web scraping is research, as a federal court ruled last week.

In the decision, the US Ninth Circuit ruled against LinkedIn, which sued hiQ Labs, a research firm that studies employee attrition.

LinkedIn wanted HiQ to stop scraping its users' profiles.

The court ruled that web scraping doesn't violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which defines computer hacking under US law.

Hacking is defined as "unauthorized access to a computer system;" but scraping snatches public data.

The case had reached the Supreme Court last year but was sent back to the US Ninth Circuit for review.

The court's decision is a "major win for archivists, academics, researchers and journalists who use tools to mass collect, or scrape, information that is publicly accessible on the Internet," says Tech Crunch.

Adorable

"Sharing photos of adorable animals is a great way to skyrocket engagement," according to lead-generation provider OptinMonster.

To prove the point, I asked Ron to pose for Goodly. Talk about adorable!

Ron, an adoptee from Delaware SPCA, wants you to know that his rate is highly competitive, should you need a professional male model for your next photo shoot. He can be hired through his agent, Pawsitively Famous Talent.

Photo credit: Ann Ramsey

Welcome to Perfection

There is no perfection, only beautiful versions of brokenness.

― Shannon L. Alder

B2B marketers who rent prospect names have a funny idea about accuracy.

They expect perfection.

A team of direct marketing experts sampled the offerings of five large suppliers of prospect names and verified the samples' accuracy by phoning the prospects.

They found the data offered imperfect. Suppliers' data-accuracy ranged from a low of 93% to a high of 98%, as the chart below shows:

Why anyone who routinely accepts less-than-perfection from a spouse, a quarterback, a physician or a priest expects perfection from a data supplier is beyond me.

If you do, my advice is twofold: get real; and get a list broker. Brokers know which suppliers offer decently accurate prospect data―and which don't.

And don't expect perfection.

13 Email Marketing Don'ts

My clients are nonplussed by spam traps. 

Me, too.

Spam traps catch legitimate emails—even personal ones—routinely. There are a million and one reasons; but most boil down to:

• The ISP that originated the message (some welcome use by spammers, so get themselves blacklisted);
  

• The software that sent the message (was it sent, say, sent by Outlook or by a suspected "spam engine?"); and
  

• Content "red flags" (flashy HTML, for example, or words and phrases like "click" and "buy now").

Like death and taxes, you cannot avoid spam traps. But you can try. Here are 13 email "don'ts" to help you:

• Don't neglect list hygiene. Bad list hygiene may very well be the email marketer's "original sin." Clean your list regularly through an outside service to remove non-deliverable email addresses.
  
  
• Don't get flagged as a spammer. Use email delivery providers who closely guard their reputations and don't use "dirty servers" to send your messages.
  
  
• Don't include a lot of pictures. Hackers love to use pictures to spread viruses, so spam filters consider every one of them a carrier.
  
  
• Don't include a lot of links. Two are safe; three or more put you in the danger zone.
  
  
• Don't use spammy keywords. Avoid "amazing," "limited time only," "you're a winner," and other dangerous words and phrases. Watch your Subject lines, in particular. A line like "Urgent reply required" makes your message look like a Nigerian business proposal.
  
  
• Don't use large fonts, colored fonts, or ALL CAPS. They'll raise your spam score.
  
  
• Don't send attachments. They're another tool hackers love. By sending them, you're begging to be blocked.
  
  
• Don't flout CAN-SPAM rules. Don't omit your return address or an opt-out feature.
  
  
• Don't send to web-based email addresses like Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL. These providers have traps that are unforgiving. If you must send to web-based email addresses, realize many messages will be blocked.
  
  
• Don't send to "seeds." Seeds are inserted by list-scrapers into harvested lists. Sending emails to them will get you flagged as a spammer.
  
  
• Don't send in the dead of the night. That's what spammers do.
  
  
• Don't send too often. Spammers do that, too.
  
  
• Don't bombard a single domain. Corporate email servers are set up to block messages sent to a large number of people at one domain.

Marketing Misfires are Maddening

Old-line retailers are deluging holiday shoppers with irrelevant emails this season, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Among other misfires, retailers have been promoting luxury underwear to broke college kids and women's clothing to men.

"Retailers have their work cut out for them when it comes to customizing and personalizing their email offers," the paper says.

So do many event marketers.

They're swamping attendees' in-boxes with vague offers of "must-attend" conferences.

Attendees are growing angrier and more resistant by the day.

The counter-move is targeting, and you shouldn't be surprised if 2018 turns out to be the year event marketers mastered it. 

The stakes are too high to do anything less.

Targeting demands not only that you segment your lists, but that you think hard about the relevance of your value proposition, and its expression. Can you:

• Distill your value proposition? Can you convey is a few short, simple sentences why anyone attends your event? Can you make the sentences memorable?
  
  
• Capture the message in a Subject line? Can you convey that value in 10 characters?
  
  
• Personalize the email? Can you avoid sending generic emails? Simply including the reader's name in the Subject line boosts open rates 26%.
  
  
• Assure readability? Can you design emails that encourage speed-reading and comprehension (especially on a mobile phone)?
  
  
• Leverage your content? Can you put content and speakers center stage? Will attendees meet celebrities, thought leaders, and influencers at your event?
  
  
• Provide social proof? Can you persuade readers they'll miss opportunities others enjoy by attending your event? Dropping names and including testimonials do this.

The Five Pillars of Lead Followup

Lead gen is only half the marketing battle. Marketers must enable salespeople to follow up.

But a lot of them don't know how, perhaps because business owners have conditioned them to turn all leads over to sales, as soon as they materialize.

Those marketers need to master the five pillars of lead followup:

Website. Your website needs to be lucid and mobile. Your About page must be clear, concise and compelling, because it's the only one most prospects will read. And you need to make it easy to contact your organization—in person.

Content. You need a world-class piece of "cornerstone content," such as a white paper, e-book, or cheat sheet you can share with prospects. It must be authoritative and educational, or prospects will conclude "they have nothing to teach me." Case studies also motivate prospects, because they provide "social proof."

Sales deck.Your sales deck arms your people with a structure for pitching prospects. It should be a scaffold, not an edifice. Avoid a lot of background and blue-sky baloney; lean on images to tell your story; and don't cram the deck with copy, or treat is like a script or book: it's an aid for online and face-to-face presentations, not an encyclopedia.

Playbook. Your in-house how-to sales manual should give salespeople enough guidance that they can close any deal that comes down the pike. Include talking points, target persona cheat sheets, industry data sheets, product data sheets, competitive analyses, a glossary of terms, and an inventory of current collateral.

Email. You need an outbound email drip-campaign that runs at a cadence that makes sense both to you and to prospects. Newsletters are a good place to start. Direct-marketing appeals can be sent in between your monthly newsletters. Each email should offer value and foster interest in talking to your salespeople.

The Seven Pillars of Lead Gen

Businesses that depend on salespeople for lead generation cannot grow rapidly or steadily.

Salespeople aren't good at it. 

While slow, uncertain growth may be—in fact, is—just fine for most business owners, for the rest lead gen is the job of marketers.

I'm aghast at the number of marketers I encounter who don't grasp lead gen's fundamentals, perhaps because they've never had to do more for a business owner than "make us look pretty."

Those marketers need to master the seven pillars of lead gen, if they hope to avoid tomorrow's scrap heap of outmoded jobs.

The seven pillars are:

• Email. Of all the pillars, email has the best ROI; but it's overdone and threatened with extinction on many fronts. And many marketers have no clue how to write compelling emails, or leverage prospect lists.

• Events. Events are expensive, but unbeatable for generating leads and accelerating conversions. But many marketers don't grasp the importance of speaking at events, engaging attendees, or following up. They believe it's sufficient merely to show up.

• Telemarketing. Outbound telemarketing. although not cheap, has the highest response rate. But many marketers shun it, due to its unfortunate association with "boiler rooms."

• Direct mail. Out of favor for over a decade, postal mail is the Comeback Kid, because it delivers leads at high rates. But many marketers aren't even familiar with the basics.

• Content. Content is marketing, the secret sauce the generates leads—and SEO. But too many marketers lack the imagination and discipline to produce and publish quality content—whether written, recorded, or illustrated—at a regular pace. And too many don't know how to syndicate content.

• Advertising. With the targeting tools and niche websites available today, web ads have become solid sources of leads. But many marketers don't know what makes an ad click-worthy.

• PR. PR isn't dead, it's just different than it used to be. It's still storytelling par excellence and a powerful lead-gen tactic when used correctly.

Can You Ever Send Too Much Email?

Does a rise in unsubscribes mean you should cut email frequency? Does a decline in opens and clicks?

Maybe not, says IBM.

Standard email metrics can deceive, unless you allow for the "frequency math effect," according to the company.

To understand the frequency math effect, you must assess unsubscribes, opens and clicks both per message and cumulatively over a sending period.

Looking at only the per-message metrics can mislead you to think you're sending too much email. Only by knowing both your per-message and cumulative metrics can you know whether frequency has an overall net-positive or net-negative effect.

For example, suppose you double frequency to four from two times a week. You might see unsubscribes rise, and opens and clicks decline from one message to the next.

But should you panic?

No. When you send email frequently, you should expect more unsubscribes—but, in the long run, more opens and clicks, as well.

Should You Worry about GDPR?

The roll-out of the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe next May will be spotty.

Like most government crackdowns, GDPR—mandating that marketers protect consumers' privacy and data—will be rigorously enforced in northern nations, lazily enforced in southern ones.

But if you do a lot of business up north, you should take steps now to comply. Experts recommend you:

• Appoint a "data czar" to police your marketing activities
• Get a third-party checkup of your data's health
• Segregate lists affected by GDPR, so you can treat them differently
• Confirm your suppliers will be compliant by May
• Sign up for "ready-made" solutions, if you're still worried

Unlike many current consumer protection laws, GDPR is tough. 

Screw up, and you could face fines in the millions.

GDPR disallows, for example, "soft" opt-ins, so you'll have to dump lists that aren't rigidly permission-based. It also grants the "Right to Be Forgotten," so you'll have to delete old web posts anyone could reasonably claim are inaccurate or defamatory. And it punishes marketers who make it at all troublesome for consumers to opt out of their lists.

The 3-Minute Guide to List Segmentation

I used to sell health insurance to letter carriers by direct mail (ironic, no?).

I targeted 27 segments within a list of 300,000 prospects, mailing each segment different creative. The individualized sales arguments made in the copy paid off, and more than offset the extra production costs.

So there's nothing new about list segmentation. 

It's high time to stop thinking of your mailings as "broadcasts" and segment your list.

But how?

Here are six tips (they apply equally to postal and e-mail lists):

Scrub your list. Seven in 10 names on a B2B list become outdated within a year, so don't dirty your hands with something unwashed. Send your list outside for a good cleaning.

Slice up the list. Comb through your newly cleaned list and identify commonalities. Slice up the list accordingly. I divided the letter carriers according to the health insurance policies they owned in the past.

Introduce triggers. Identify key events and add fields for them to every record. For example, how many mailings have they received? Have they bought anything? Have they changed jobs or companies?

Create niche content. Tailor sales arguments for each segment. Someone who's bought from you may jump at the chance to save with a "loyal customer discount," while someone who's never bought from you, but has recently been promoted, may be ready to save with a "first-time customer discount."

Keep it simple. Create a manageable number of segments and work with them for a while. Don't invent new segments or second guess yourself every month. Remember, if it isn't simple, it isn't scalable.

Grow your list. Rent highly-targeted prospect names from third parties, to protect your list from "list rot." B2B lists are volatile and decay at a rapid rate.

Bad Apple

Why does Apple seem bent on sinking your event?

In the past 13 months, the tech giant has taken shots at three activities vital to your event's well-being:

• In August 2016, Apple released Version 10 of iOS, which lays siege to your email marketing program. Version 10 begs users to opt out of senders' lists by displaying a mammoth unsubscribe banner above each incoming email. Opt-outs have soared ever since.
  

• In June 2017, the company announced its next version of Safari will block retargeting, so your ads won’t stalk prospects any longer. Safari will "sandbox" any third-party cookie after a day; and if the prospect doesn't revisit the site that dropped the cookie within that period, Safari will prevent it from dropping another, should she later return. Ad agencies are in a lather over Apple's move.
  
  
• In July 2017, Apple triggered "Appageddon" by prohibiting "white label" apps (built from templates) from its App Store. That includes the vast majority of event apps. Marketers must forfeit event branding in favor of the app developer's branding, or resort to paying for custom event apps.

Uncle Sam Should Damn Spam

US anti-spam law hampers marketers, says email marketing expert Chad White.

The feds agree, and are moving to reform CAN-SPAM.

The problem with the law?

It's lax.

That laxity makes "deliverability overly difficult for legitimate senders," White says, because email providers have to police inboxes.

"If a brand only clears the low bar set by CAN-SPAM, they are pretty much guaranteed to be blacklisted and blocked by inbox providers," White says.

"While on the surface, lax regulations look like an advantage to American brands, it’s really setting them up for failure."

White urges these seven reforms:

• Tighten the deadline for honoring opt-out requests. Marketers, by law, can now stall for 10. But customers want them to honor opt-outs immediately.
  
  
• Dictate how unsubscribe works. Customers struggle with marketers' inconsistent practices; as a result, one in two resorts to clicking the “Report Spam” button.
  
  
• Loosen the definition of "transactional" emails. Marketers should be allowed to send post-purchase emails (such as receipts, thank-you notes, and renewal notices) without be being flagged as spammers.
  
  
• Require CAPTCHA on signup forms. "Unprotected open email signup forms allow spammers, hackers, and other bad actors to use bots to weaponize email," White says. Only 3% of marketers use CAPTCHA on their forms today.
  
  
• Mandate authentication and encryption. Email personalization makes customers vulnerable to phishing. CAN-SPAM could protect them by mandating that senders authenticate and encrypt emails.
  
  
• Require permission. That requirement would harmonize CAN-SPAM with other countries' tougher laws, and keep US marketers out of hot water. Permission is defined as "an expressed or implied consent or existing business relationship."
  
  
• Stipulate that inactivity equals opting out. " CAN-SPAM should recognize that permission expires," White says. "CAN-SPAM should require senders to stop emailing subscribers when they haven’t opened or clicked an email in the past two years."

Where Should a B2B Marketer Spend Her Money?

It's September. You're being bugged for next year's marketing budget.

Spending is an art form. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sure, year-over-year analytics tell you which channels have produced, but—like any investment—"past performance is no guarantee of future results." We'd all still be buying full-page ads in trade magazines, if that were so.

For my money, your mix next year (ranked by percent of total spend) should look like this:

1. Events
2. Telemarketing
3. Direct mail
4. Retargeting
5. Email
6. SEO
7. PPC
8. Social

Too many channels for your paltry budget? Then work the list from the top down. You can't go wrong.

Don't be tempted to lay all your money on low-cost channels (like email and social), just because they're low cost.

A handful of proprietary events or an exhibit in a couple trade shows, done well, can generate enough leads to keep you in the black for 12 months. A well-conceived telemarketing campaign can do the same. Even a regular stream of pretty postcards can.

How to Build Your E-list

Serious B2B marketers know e-lists are the way to sway an audience (only face-to-face and telemarketing are better).

But how do you build an e-list?

Pratik Dholakiya, co-founder of E2M, recommends these six steps:

Find your keyword. This step separates the winners and losers. Winners choose a keyword that attracts their prospects; losers don't. Winners chose an intentional keyword, knowing it's probably the one most prospects search with, when shopping on line (mine is "copywriter"). Then, they lace their content with it (copywriter, copywriter, copywriter).

Plan unique content. Prospects will part with their email addresses if you offer content competitors don't. Here, substance always trumps form. Prospects want to learn from you, and don't care much whether you provide an e-book, white paper, video, podcast, webinar, template, spreadsheet, calculator, or quiz. Just be different.

Construct your landing page. Think "tiny house." Short and sweet landing pages work best. Focus on prospects' pain-points and the grievances they harbor about your competitors' me-too content. Be sure to split-test your page, to be certain you've chosen the right pain-points and grievances. (Tip: develop your landing page before you develop your content. You'll discover what you're really selling people.)

Blog, blog, blog. Blogging's pure Google juice. You'll not only drive traffic to your landing page, but entice prospects to request your content. (Tip: write posts that explain why your content differs from competitors', but don't crow about it.)

Hammer your audience. Don't sit back and wait for inbound traffic; send emails, early and often. Keep them brief and include "influencers," as well as prospects, on your list. People like to share good stuff, so you'll accelerate your list-building effort.

Rinse, repeat. This step, again, separates the winners and losers. Winners work at list-building, again and again; losers think "one and done." Pick another keyword and repeat the whole process.

BONUS TIP: Kick-start your list-building effort by renting good prospect lists. We can help you.

Ruined Your Relationship with Readers?

Has your relentless pursuit of eyeballs ruined your relationship with readers?

I bet it has.

If all you do is dangle click-bait and recycle sales-talk, you're driving readers away―and wasting your chance for romance on the biggest social network of them all, email.

Only value keeps the relationship alive.

Newsletter publisher Inside proves it. In less than a year, the startup has attracted 300,000 readers. Its newsletters garner 40% open rates, 10% click rates.

The secret sauce? Good content.

"We think news on the internet is broken," the company's website says. "Too much writing is optimized and incentivized for traffic and virality, instead of impact and quality."

By focusing on value instead of hits, Inside keeps readers reading. And a happy reader shares her love―causing your list to grow.

So how does Inside do it?

According to Austin Smith, Inside’s general manager:

• Five full-time staffers and 10 freelancers produce all the content for 28 newsletters. Staffers are generalists with multiple beats.
  
• Each newsletter comprises 70% curated content, 30% original. The content is "deep dive," business-only, and written for an advance audience.
  
• Staffers favor stories readers may have missed because other news outlets have ignored them.

8 Insider Tricks to Get More of Your Emails Opened

If the people don't want to come out to the ballpark,
nobody’s going to stop them.

— Yogi Berra

Because email marketing lives or dies on opens, you need to maximize them. Here are eight ways insiders do:

Qualify. Don't induce people to join your house list who won't love you, and don't expect much from prospect lists. Use "lead magnets" that attract only target customers, not every Tom, Dick and Harry; and rent only high-quality e-lists, such as those owned by magazines. The results if you do this right? According to the Direct Marketing Association, house lists enjoy an average open rate of 21%; prospect lists, 16.4%.

Segment. Don't broadcast; narrowcast. Segment your lists based on product interests, job titles, company size, locations, etc. Segmented campaigns outperform non-segmented ones by 14%, according to MailChimp.

Synchronize. Send your emails at the time of day people will open them: 8:30-10:00 am, 2:30-3:30 pm, or 8:00 pm-12:00 am. Avoid times when people are rushing to clean out their inboxes, deleting everything in sight. (NOTE: Times may differ for C-level audiences.)

Captivate. Tell or tease. Tell readers clearly what to expect in your email, if you believe it's an offer they can't refuse ("5 signs it's time to change LMS vendors"). Play to their curiosity, if it's not ("I heard you're a leader. Is it true?"). Here are more examples.

Clean. Low inbox rates necessarily dampen opens. Delete complainers and inactive subscribers on your list regularly. Using a cleaning service makes it easy.

Optimize. Design your emails for mobile devices. More than half are opened on them. Keep Subject lines short, too (6-10 words).

Infiltrate. Avoid spam filters by avoiding practices that trigger them. Here's a list.

Brand. Most readers don't open emails from senders they don't recognize. So, unless you're lucky enough to have an in-house "celeb," use your brand name in the From field.

Stuck inside of Mobile with the Email Blues Again

B2B marketers, why—when your email has a snowball's chance in hell of getting attention—do so many of you reduce the chance?

I see it every day: emails designed for desktop email clients, instead of mobile ones.

Seven in 10 prospects immediately delete mobile-unfriendly emails.

So stop sending them:

• Use a 300 pixel-wide template. Mobile screens are small and many smartphones don't automatically resize big emails.
  
  
• Use images sparingly. Mobile devices load slowly. The overall file size of your email should not exceed 70k.
  
  
• The top 250 pixels are prime real estate. Don't waste them on some gargantuan masthead. State your offer here in plain-text words.
  
  
• Use a clear call-to-action button near the top. Also include a text call-to-action linked to the same landing page (visible when images are disabled).
  
  
• Include a one-line pre-header to state your offer. Include as well the URL for the mobile-friendly version of your email you host on line.
  
  
• Avoid weird fonts, big fonts, reverse type, and red type. That stuff doesn't render and can trigger spam filters.
  
  
• Code short (basic HTML with tables).
  
  
• Write short (Anglo-Saxon words, and few of them).

Four in ten B2B marketers say designing mobile-friendly emails will automatically lift results.

So shake those email blues. Design for mobile.

6 Last-Ditch Ways to Sell Out Your Event

If you're not gonna go all the way, why go at all?

― Joe Namath

When events fail to sell out, resourceful producers pull out all the stops.

EventMB recommends these six last-ditch efforts:

Social media buy. Take out ads on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook that target locals (drive-ins) with an interest in your topics. Cull your database for locals to help you target the buy, and be sure to keep using free social media to chat up your event. Take advantage of past attendees' testimonials. You'll motivate fence-sitters.

Personalized email. Cull from your database locals who haven’t registered and conduct a drip-marketing campaign. Focus on locals who click through and send them additional emails that concentrate on justifying the cost of the event.

Special offer. Email registrants an offer of a referral incentive, such as "Buy two, get one free." Registrants will feel appreciated and help you. Send sponsors and exhibitors the same offer, to pass along to their customers. Sister organizations may also help you spread the word. You can also promote a contest on social media with free tickets as the prizes. Create a hashtag and ask people to vote on line. Contests, well done, are buzz-worthy.

Streamlined registration. Identify any causes of friction in your registration process and eliminate them―even if it means slaying sacred cows. Last-minute registrations are impulsive, and you don't want to deter prospects in any way. And add prominent copy like "Last chance to pre-register and save" or "Only a few seats left."

Telemarketing. The best way to spur last-minute registrations is to call locals, particularly alumni of past events who haven't registered. They know the value you deliver. (If yours is a first-time event, concentrate on locals who have some relationship with you.)

Retargeting. Retargeted ads can influence sales-resistant locals by making your event top of mind. By becoming ubiquitous, you'll sell out.

Last-ditch don'ts. EventMB warns:

• Don't offer last-minute discounts rashly; you only signal panic, cheapen your event, and train registrants to wait for deep discounts the next time round. ("Loyal attendee" discounts are okay.)
  
  
• Don't go all-serious. Play up the entertainment value of your event (remember, last-minute registrations are impulse buys).
  
  
• Don't go into hard-sell mode across all marketing channels. Concentrate on the ones above.
   
• Don't bury your calls to action in your last-ditch promotions. Big, colorful buttons work.
  
  
• Don't refrain from giving free registrations away, if the recipients are influencers who'll add to the prestige of your event.

Demand Gen Demands Focus

Lead gen (scattered) differs from demand gen (focused).

Demand gen identifies your best prospects, hooks them with content, and converts them into buyers.

It takes focus to pull it off, says Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group.

Here's Brenner's formula:

Step 1. Target your prospects and offer them premium content and giveaways through a variety of channels. Test e-books, white papers, infographics, videos, podcasts, free trials, and free apps. Test influencer marketing at this stage, as well. "With every download, sign-up or other customer action, you’ll gain insight and have a better idea of which segments are interested in what and why," Brenner says.

Step 2. Help prospects form an intimate connection with your brand. For this, try Webinars, contests, and events. "This tactic serves to invite the customer into a more committed brand-customer relationship."

Step 3. Now that you’ve identified your best quality leads, customize your marketing communications. "Hopefully, you’ve managed to collect some extra customer info along the way with survey questions and feedback requests to help firmly establish your buyer personas and clearly understand each segment’s pain points," Brenner says.

Step 4. Keep the customized content flowing. "It is the tailored, worthwhile content that will convince your vetted leads to follow you along until a purchase is made." Don't forget the continue testing different offers.

Step 5. Engage and delight your new customers through social media and email. Make sure they know about your new products, promotions, and content. "Meanwhile, your inbound marketing is working on gathering your next pool of prospects, ready to be identified, evaluated, thinned, and segmented."

Concentration is key.

"This approach does require a concentrated, ongoing effort to stay focused on your quality leads and customer retention," Brenner says. "But, as the nurturing process continues, relationships build, bonds thicken, and your pool of the highly qualified swells."

The Big 5 B2B Email Boo-Boos

Email, despite its shortfalls, is the B2B marketer's drug of choice.

And its shortfalls loom large: inbox rates max out at only 70%; open rates, at only 20%; click-through rates, at only 2.5%.

B2B marketers worsen things by making the same five boo-boos repeatedly.

You can't improve deliverability—much—but you can improve open and click-though rates, by avoiding these five common and colossal blunders:

Recycled Subject Lines. Open rates rely on Subject Lines. Formulas bore readers. Why begin every Subject Line "5 Top Tips for..." or "Last Chance to..."?

TMI. Click-through rates reflect readability, at least in part. Why overwrite? Time is short. Your emails should be, too.

Generic Emails. Your customers don't all share the same interests or pains. Why send them all the same thing? Segmenting customers isn't rocket science: it just takes time. Sure, it's tempting to create and send one email, and be done with it; but that's self-serving.

Impersonal Emails. If your email isn't personalized, it isn't 1:1. If it isn't 1:1, it's sorta spammy.

Unreponsive Emails. Half your emails are read on phones. If your templates aren't "responsive" and your copy bite-sized, you're toast. (This is my Number 1 B2B email bugaboo. My reaction's always the same: What's wrong with these people?)