2. Baird
Who is Baird Digital?
C R M f o r W e b s i t e P u b l i s h e r s
Digital
Marketing, Inc.
3. Baird
What’s Our Mission?
C R M f o r W e b s i t e P u b l i s h e r s
Digital
Marketing, Inc.
Registration
Conversion
Analytics 360 Degrees
of Expertise
House Email
Retention
Offer / Price
4. Registration
C R M f o r W e b s i t e P u b l i s h e r s
(After)
A publisher of 15 regional newspapers asked
us to recommend enhancements to their
post-launch, metered-access websites.
We reviewed their prior results and modeled
different response rate and revenue scenarios.
We then recommended a two-step conversion
strategy, emphasizing registration more than
the launch did. Sales email would then be
used to convert registrants. Funnels were also
streamlined to reduce abandon rates. (Before)
We provided detailed comps for all pages. The
changes produced a registration increase of
300% with no apparent loss of paid
subscription upsells in the funnel.
5. Lead Conversion
C R M f o r W e b s i t e P u b l i s h e r s
(Before)
A financial newsletter publisher had run SEM campaigns
to generate email leads via a free report incentive.
Response to their upsell and first email did not meet
expectations. (After)
We reviewed all creative, offers and metrics and
suggested:
- A new landing page and abandon recovery strategy.
- In the report, tease the lead back to order.
- Add an autoresponder email conversion series.
We then provided layout templates, headlines and a
skeleton copy outline, and they produced the
creative in-house with our feedback and guidance.
The campaign converted more than enough leads to be
above breakeven at the target CPA.
6. House Email Marketing
C R M f o r W e b s i t e P u b l i s h e r s
(Before)
Both websites wanted to move their sales
email programs further forward. We
assessed both clients’
creative, offers, timing and list
segmentation, and recommended taking
the best of their former campaigns and
merging those features with several new
ones.
We provided detailed creative for
EdWeek.org, whereas Posit Science
preferred to receive templates and
guidelines and produce art and copy (After)
themselves, with only our ongoing review.
In both cases gross response rate more
than doubled, and the increase was
sustained over the campaigns which
followed.
7. Short-Term Retention
C R M f o r W e b s i t e P u b l i s h e r s
(Before)
A database publisher wanted to reduce new customer cancels. We
recommended assistive messaging on the Thank You screen and in
a series of short emails.
Faster Value. We wanted the user to say “Wow!” immediately.
Later, we ‘d show other uses and value. (After)
Cancel Drivers: Research showed that cancellation was
driven by the user’s ability to quickly and easily find their
target. If they could not, then they’d leave. Other product
databases and power features had no influence yet.
The phone reps agreed, and said that the target usually
was in the system! New users didn’t know how to search.
Messaging: The layout of the new Thank You page focused
on the 3 most common tasks, and when a button was
clicked, more effective instructions and a link would
appear.
The client viewed the project as a success, but asked that
we not share the results. (Reference available on request).
8. Long-Term Retention
C R M f o r W e b s i t e P u b l i s h e r s
After launching its first paid content product, The
Motley Fool wanted to gain a better understanding
of retention best practices and which ones they
should employ or enhance.
Our assessment resulted in a recommendation to:
- Focus first on payment processing, not on call
center marketing as they’d originally planned.
- Shift communication timing.
- Reassess test priorities with our S-E-L
algorithm.
- Enhance reports, with formats we provided.
These recommendations added $500,000 to The
Motley Fool’s bottom line within 12 months.
9. Offers, Modeling and Analysis
C R M f o r W e b s i t e P u b l i s h e r s
A mid-size data publisher used a 14-day Free Trial offer, and
in tests using makeshift retention reports, the offer
appeared to produce more revenue than a regular Hard Offer.
We recommended creating a carefully-validated, routine
monthly Retention Report combining front- and back-end
metrics.
We worked closely with the team to design and validate the
report against other data sources within the company.
During that reconciliation process, it became clear
that the makeshift reports had been misinterpreted
due to the data’s complexity.
The new, validated report indicated that the Hard
Offer was more profitable than the Free Trial.
The client rapidly changed offers.
This discovery from the new report increased the
client’s annual revenue by an estimated $500k –
$750k. (Client reference available upon request.)
10. Other Projects
C R M f o r W e b s i t e P u b l i s h e r s
- Due Diligence for VC’s / Acquirers
- Customer Onboarding Best Practices
- Business/Launch Plan Assessment
- Industry Retention Rate Studies
11. Thank You!
Bill Baird
asap@bairddirect.com
(203) 838-5444
Baird
Direct
Marketing, Inc.
