An important step with email marketing is measuring your results.  By knowing how your campaigns are performing, you can consistently improve your response rates and ROI. 

Generally, the first place to go after you launch a campaign is Tracking Statistics (accessed from the View/Edit section of your dashboard). Stats show you the most common key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates and video view rates.    

It's important to get some perspective on these numbers.  Open rates are an obvious example. Do you have a 3%, 10% or 25% Open Rate? Numbers can be drastically different depending on the audience of each campaign. The currency of your list, the topic of the email and the campaign content also have a marked effect on Open rates. For example, 3% might be a good response when sending to a large prospect list of cold leads, but it would be disappointing for a list of current customers.  FYI—15-16% is the open rate average across ALL Voodoo campaigns from all clients. 

When first starting out, it's a good idea to do some web research to find out the open and click-through benchmarks for your industry. But over time, you'll want to compare your own campaigns against your other campaigns.  Get an idea of what your campaign averages are, so you can work to improve your response rates over time.  

Ultimately, stats are just percentages, and what REALLY matters is results.  Make sure you have a plan to follow up with contacts who show interest in your campaigns.  With a well-crafted subject line, an email Open is and indicator of real interest.  And recipients who actually click-through to other content and/or view a video are where your efforts will produce results most quickly.  Voodoo clients have had tremendous results when they follow up (especially within an hour of the click-through). 

Voodoo Quick Tip: Leverage Your Campaigns for Maximum Results

Following up with your contacts is a critical component of a successful campaign.  This quick tip will show you some ways to utilize Voodoo features for easy follow up with recipients who have show interest in one or more of your campaigns.  

1.  Most Interested Contacts and New Opportunities from Your Dashboard (Campaign Manager Users Only)

Don't have a lot of time for follow up? Business Builder users can log into Voodoo daily and immediately see their Most Interested Contacts on the Dashboard.  It's easy to see which contacts have been most engaged with your Voodoo outreach over time.  This box shows you your top 20 responders with the most responsive contact at the top of the list. Just click any name to go directly to that contact's information. 

Above Most Interested Contacts you will find New Opportunities.  In this box, you see instantly updated responses from your Campaigns and Sales Funnels. This box always shows your 20 most recent prospect and customer responses from newest to oldest.  Click any name to go directly to that contact's info. 

2.  Automated Action Alerts

One of the most powerful features of Voodoo is our Automated Action Alerts.  These alerts, available to both eVideo Launcher and Business Builder users, enable you to follow up with your hot leads fast. How fast you respond to interested leads is one key to your success.  In fact, the Lead Response Management Study shows that responding to web-generated leads within 5 minutes increases contact rates by 900%!  

This Voodoo feature gives you a fully automated way to know which leads are engaged with your campaign right NOW. Voodoo can notify you in real-time when a recipient:

1. opens your email 
2. views a video 
3. clicks a trackable link  

When any or all of these options are enabled, you'll receive a real-time "Action Alert" (an email notification sent to the address in your personal settings) telling you which contact took action and what action they took.

Get step by step instructions on setting these up on our Automated Action Alerts Blog post. 

3.  Automated 3-Day Stats 

All Voodoo users can choose to have a daily statistics report sent via email for the first 3 days of a campaign—the most critical days.  Automating this task allows you to check the results of your campaign and follow up immediately with contacts that interact with your emails and linked content.

Learn more about Voodoo's Automated 3 Day Statitics. 

4.  Creating Contact Lists for Following Up

We recommend created separate contact lists for those contacts that have interacted with your campaign.  Segmenting out these contacts allows you to follow up with them easily, either by email or a phone call.  

5)  Click the Copy to Contact List button at the bottom.


6)  Select Existing Contact List or New Contact List.  When naming your new list be descriptive (i.e. Campaign Name - Clickers or Campaign Name - Round 1 Clickers)
5)  Click OK and your contacts are now in the list.

Business Builder, Contact / Database Lists, eVideo Launcher, Quick Tip, Tracking Statistics automated action alerts, benchmarks, kpi, remarketing, results

Voodoo has just released another update to the system to improve the way users work with Custom Fields.

Campaign Manager users can now sort Custom Fields in the Custom Fields page and Contact Form’s Input Fields list using the drag and drop feature.

Just click on and drag the drag handle of any given row and drop it in the desired row position within the list.

From the Custom Fields Page: 

From the Contact Form’s Input Fields List: 

Business Builder, Contact / Database Lists, New Feature custom merge fields, custom fields

To leverage the power of Voodoo, you need high-quality Contacts in your system.  Where can you get names and email addresses of Known Contacts to "seed" your Voodoo account without purchasing non-permission-based lists that make you a spammer?  This Voodoo QuickTip will help you with some creative thinking to discover sources of contacts available to almost anyone.
 
Voodoo QuickTip - Sources for Contacts to Import into Voodoo

1)  Start by importing your Address Book from your Current Email System. Voodoo has a great time-saving feature that allows you to import directly from the most popular email systems including:  Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Outlook and Apple Mail. Check out our blog post on how to use this feature: Import Contacts Directly from Your Address Book.  

2)  Next, consider exporting contacts from your Contact Management Application. You might need to explore your app’s help menus to learn how to export your selected data in CSV format. Most apps do this in their sleep! Just Export or Save As a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file.  If you are a Salesforce user check out our post on Importing Contacts & Leads from Salesforce. 

 3)  Another excellent source of known contacts is your LinkedIn account. Here are step-by-step instructions on Exporting Your LinkedIn Connections and Importing into Voodoo.

4)  Check with your Sales Staff for contacts in their Personal  and LinkedIn Lists. 

5)  If you run Events or Tradeshows check for any Manual Lists, Scanned Leads or Exhibitor Attendee Lists. In some cases, exhibitors are entitled to a permission-based list of attendees as part of their booth fee.

6)  Brainstorm with your team about any other Freestanding Lists that may be stored in Excel somewhere. You would be surprised at how many of these lists actually exist. 

7) Don't forget your most fertile list of all: Current Customers.  It's easy to get so caught up in prospecting and finding new leads that we forget about our current customers.  They are already sold on you and your services, and many of them probably don't know about some of the new products and services you can educate them about using the email and video content in your Voodoo system.

The most important thing to remember is always review your list to comply with anti-spam law and to be sure you are emailing people who have expressly given permission, have an established business or personal relationship with you, and a legitimate interest in your content, company, or what you offer.

eVideo Launcher and Business Builder users: brainstorm today about where you can find high-quality Contacts and add them to your lists by logging into your Voodoo account.  

Business Builder, Contact / Database Lists, eVideo Launcher, Quick Tip, Salesforce address book, contacts, funnel contacts, LinkedIn

Data is the primary focus in technology today.  There are endless opnions on what you should track and store and how you should use that data. 

While every company's data needs are different, Voodoo has fields set up for the standard set of data most users need to communicate effectively. Common fields such as name, address, email, phone, website, etc. are stored within the Contact Record. 

Many Voodoo users don't realize you can expand on the standard set of fields built-in to Voodoo, by creating Custom Fields to store other important data about your contacts.

Voodoo customers often use Custom Fields to parallel data they have in other systems like their CRM.  For example, they store the Customer Number from their CRM into a Voodoo Custom Field, allowing them to easily align data from two systems.

Expanding on the data you store in Voodoo can benefit you greatly and make it easier to market to your lists. For example, storing the Product (or Type of Product) that a Prospect has shown interest in can allow you to easily create contact lists by this type, and then send out relevant content to this segment of your prospects. (Ready to get really advanced? Ask about Contact List Rules.  This special free feature allows automated sorting of contacts based on your choice of Custom Field criteria.)

Here's how to create  Custom Fields that will be used to store additional data in Voodoo:

Voodoo Feature #385 - The Power of Custom Fields

Campaign Manager Users: 

1) Login to your Voodoo account and access Custom Fields under the Manage section

 

2) Click the Add New Custom Field button

3) An Add New Custom Field window will open. Enter the Field Label Test, Custom Tag Name and then select the Field Type.

4) Click Save

Campaign Manager users, give it a try right now by logging into your Voodoo account.  And eVideo Launcher users, well...Custom Fields is yet another reason to upgrade to the full-featured version of Voodoo.

Business Builder, Contact / Database Lists, New Feature custom fields

We are excited to announce that Voodoo now offers Salesforce Integration.  Users can easily access Voodoo's entire toolset from a tab in your Salesforce account.

It’s easy to import Contacts and Leads from Salesforce into Voodoo Contact Lists.  Here’s how.

Initial Setup & Security

To protect your sensitive data, Salesforce CRM requires VoodooViral.com to provide a security token in order to sync.

Reset and obtain your new Salesforce security token:

1.    Login to your Salesforce account.

2.    Select your name in the top right corner and select Setup.

3.    Under My Settings > Personal (or Personal Setup > My Personal Information), select Reset Security Token.

4.    Your Salesforce security token will be e-mailed to you.

5.    Copy the security token from the email.  You will need it in the next step. 

In your Voodoo account…

Step 1: Create a Contact List to receive incoming Leads and/or Contacts from Salesforce. 

1.    Visit My Contacts page, click the + Add a New Contact List button.

2.    In the Contact List Info tab, name your new list, e.g. My Salesforce Leads or My Salesforce Contacts. Click Save.

3.    Click the Contacts tab, and near the bottom left, click the Import from Salesforce button.

Step 2. Enter your Salesforce Account Details and Security Token.

1.    Enter your Salesforce User Name and Password

2.    Paste your Salesforce Security Token into the designated field. 

Note: Ignore any instructions to “add your security token to your password.” Voodoo does this automatically.

Column Mapping & Final Import

Review Voodoo’s automated Column Mapping and Preview of the first 5 contact rows.

Make any desired changes using the pull down menus.

Click Finish. Your Salesforce contacts will now appear in your designated Voodoo Contact List.

If you would like to learn more about enabling this feature on your Voodoo account please contact us.

Business Builder, Contact / Database Lists, Salesforce salesforce, integration, importing contacts

Note:  this post was updated on 7/15/14 to reflect changes to the LinkedIn export connections process.  

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network. According to CMO.com, LinkedIn's user base now stands at more than 259 million people and counting, up 38 percent year-over-year. It's a great tool for professional networking and I hope you are taking advantage of it.

But did you know you can use LinkedIn and Voodoo together to enhance your success? It's easy to export your LinkedIn connections as a CSV file, then import them into your Voodoo system.

Here's how:

Quick-Tip:  Export Your LinkedIn Connections and Import into Voodoo

From LinkedIn, you can export connections from the Contact Settings page. Only the full name, email address, current employer, and position are exported. To export your connections list:

1) Login to your LinkedIn account and move your cursor over and select Connections.

2) Click the Settings icon near the top right that looks like a gear. 

3) Under Advanced Settings on the right, click Export LinkedIn Connections

4) Enter the security text if prompted.

5) Click Export.

6) Save the file somewhere you can easily find it, like your computer's desktop. 

Note: If you're using Internet Explorer and you see a yellow pop-up blocker across the top of the page, click the yellow bar and then select Download File.

Now you have a CSV file that you can import into your Voodoo account.  Always review your list to comply with anti-spam law and to be sure you are emailing people who have a legitimate interest in your content, company, or what you offer.

Need some help importing the CSV file into your Voodoo account? Click to watch this video Quick Tip.     

Business Builder, Contact / Database Lists, eVideo Launcher, Quick Tip LinkedIn, Contacts, Import

Did you know Voodoo contains features designed to improve your prospecting?  Powerful contact management features let you review and edit any individual contact's information with ease. 

We're not just talking about basic contact information like Name and Address.  You can also view a complete Send History and have the ability to keep Notes on each and every contact.  So when you are on the phone with your prospect, you can quickly check the Voodoo contact record and reference this information to improve your interaction. (For example, "Did you take a look at that email I sent you on our special pricing?" Of course, you already know the answer!).   You can also take notes on the conversation you had with them.

Voodoo Feature #221 - Contact Record Detail

Within each contact record you can easily access detailed information about the contact:

Contact Info
On the Contact Info tab, you will see all the basic information for the contact.  You can view or edit any of the information. Just click the update button to make any changes.
 
Contact Lists
See what Contact Lists this person is a member of. By selecting one or more lists, then clicking on the Add or Remove button, you can easily add or remove your contact from specific lists.

 
Custom Fields (Business Builder Users Only)
The Custom Fields tab contains any of the custom fields you have set up in your account.  Similar to the contact info, you can make any changes needed.  Click Save when you are done. 

Survey Responses (Business Builder Users Only)
Has this Contact completed a Smart Survey?  If so, the responses will be compiled on this tab.
 
Send History
The Send History is powerful.  You'll see a complete list of all sends to a given contact. Which campaigns were sent and when?  Did s/he open the email and/or view the video?  Find out here! 

Notes
Did you know you can add Notes about a contact? This useful tool lets you reference Notes easily when needed.  Contents of your Notes field will also be included when you Export a Contact List.

 

Here's how easy it is to get to all this valuable information...

eVideo Launcher Users: 

1) From your dashboard select View Tracking Statistics.

2) Select a campaign that was sent to Contacts you would like to view/edit.

3) Click the plus sign next to any of the options (Sent, Opened, Video Views) to expand that item and view contact records.

4) Click the Edit link on the right to open and edit any contact record.

5) Using the tabs across the top, you can now view and add Contact Info, change which Contact Lists this contact is a member of, review the contact's complete Send History, add time-stamped Notes to that contact’s information and more.

6) Make your changes and additions and then click Update/Save.

Business Builder Users:

1)  Users can access the contact record details from Contact Lists area, use the Search for a Contact button, then search for the contact you want.  Also access the contact from Tracking Statistics by selecting a campaign, then click the Plus sign next to any of the options (Sent, Opened, Video Views) to expand that item to view contact records.

2) Click the Edit link on the right to open and edit any contact record.

3) Using the tabs across the top, you can view and add Contact Info, change which Contact Lists this contact is a member of, review the contact's complete Send History and add time-stamped Notes to that contact’s information.

4) Make your changes and additions and then click Update/Save.

When you have a moment, log into your Business Builder or eVideo Launcher Voodoo account and take a look at a few of your contact records.

Business Builder, Contact / Database Lists, eVideo Launcher, New Feature contact record