There’s nothing quite like a case study on a slow day. How about two? That’s right… MarketingSherpa has published two new case studies that show how imaginative thinking and a customer-centric focus can help online endeavors succeed:

Get Personal With Online Registrations

A lot of companies have huge lists of leads that they build on a continual basis. These leads make marketing, research, and just about everyone other project that involves contacting customers easier. Eloqua Corp had just such a database.

But they decided to put that information to use in an innovative way. Instead of having potential customers use a generic, one size fits all form to sign up for an upcoming webinar, the company used a series of emails to drive people to a customized, pre-populated registration form. Not only were the form fields already filled in for Eloqua Corp’s leads, but the copy on each person’s landing page was personalized with a “by name” greeting.

How’d the personalized touch work?

• Lead generation goals were exceeded by 64%
• 14.6% conversion rate… which equaled a 2000% ROI
• 66% of their sales came from people who’d received a personalized landing page
• 76.4% of the people who got a personalized page registered for the webinar

Customer Service = Sales

We’ve all heard that before. But sometimes it seems like companies forget this (just go out and look at the customer service you get at a lot of places these days for proof). Backcountry.com decided that it’s customer service department could serve a more direct role in adding to the company’s sales (as opposed to just servicing customer problems).

To address the issue, the company took an existing customer service product - online chat - and revamped it in a way that put the customer’s experience first and foremost. By prompting customers at critical times in the visit to the site, the company was able to drive a lot of their visitors to the online chat application - and right into the expert hands of a specially-trained customer service representative.

Wondering how the increased customer service presence paid off?

• Overall sales rose ‘dramatically’
• The online chat staff went from 2 people to 40 to handle the increased customer volume
• The average order of a customer who uses the online chat feature is 61% higher than a customer who doesn’t use it
• 14% of all customers who accept an online chat invitation convert to paying customers (which is 820% higher than the site’s general conversion rate)