Banner ads might be annoying or too easy to ignore on web sites, but Sigstr believes putting them within e-mail messages may hold the key to helping CMOs gain visibility in the marketing funnel, help sales teams hit revenue targets and stand out amid the noise in other channels.
Based in Indianapolis., Ind., Sigstr this month announced a series of additions to its technology for marketing through e-mail signatures. These included real-time updates on account-based marketing campaigns using a Google Chrome extension, the ability to see unique views and clicks on an e-mail signature banner and an integration with Salesforce’s customer relationship management (CRM) application.
Speaking at an event hosted by Uberflip in Toronto two weeks ago, Sigstr vice-president of marketing Justin Keller argued that using an e-mail signature for marketing effectively allows firms to run a campaign every time a message leaves an employee’s outbox. The value proposition of its software is that it makes doing so easier than sending around the infamous reminders to have staff add URLs or other changes in their signatures manually.
“It’s a huge volume channel but it’s a big pain the ass to get everyone to do it,” he said, adding that many B2B sales reps tend to manage information via e-mail versus updating the CRM. “They are awful at it. Isn’t it awkward that there’s not actually relationships in our CRMs? Relationships live in the inbox.”
Keller went on to show a heat map conducted by AI firm Eyequant that showed where B2B employee’s attention tends to focus when they open up an e-mail. Not surprisingly, the “hottest” areas usually include the subject line, the sender’s name and the first paragraph of the message. When the same message included a full-color banner managed by Sigstr, however, the heat map shifted directly to the bottom.
“That e-mail is a blank space. There’s white with a little bit of text,” he said. “It’s Las Vegas in there — you’re not going to pay attention to anything.”
Of course, the idea is not to let a Sigstr-served banner distract from the content of the message, Koller added. He showed examples of pitches he’s gotten from sales reps at other companies that were potentially compelling but could have been improved with the right creative element.
“I get cold prospecting e-mails just gum up my inbox every single day, he said. “This is a way where you’re able to make it something I didn’t really hate reading and hit the ‘spam’ button on.”
Sigstr recently tried to offer dozens of case studies at once with the launch of The September Issue, a digital “lookbook” that compiles many of its customers’ banners into something intended to resemble an edition of Vogue magazine.
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