Did you know that Yahoo hosts email for over 127,179 domains? And the list of 127,179 domains comprises just the ones I know about. Those aren't all consumer domains. Yahoo has Yahoo.com, Rocketmail.com, Ymail.com, and all the various Yahoo domains for different countries, but they make up less than 600 of those domains. What else do they host? Sure, there are a lot of vanity (personal) domains. But, you'll also find that they host email for graphic arts companies, realty agents, investment bankers, sports teams, insurance agencies, online electronics retailers, medical clinics, and for many other companies big and small.

What does it all mean? It means that if you're a B2B sender, Yahoo is going to be significantly represented in your list.

This is yet another example of how B2C permission and sending requirements still apply to you if you're a B2B sender.

Monday was a BIG day for me. I ate my first branded donut.

I didn't know they existed. The idea had never crossed my mind. The sheer genius of it was beyond my imagination.

Yet there it sat, radiating happiness in all of its chocolatey-goodness inside the towering case at our new Dunkin' Donuts. This Mecca of yeast perfection and cream-filled heaven open its doors to caffeine-crazed, stomach-rumbling Indianapolis downtowners just last month -- and we welcomed it with open arms. 

(The fact that Dunkin' Donuts works with Customer Portfolios, one of our beloved Agency Partners, just increased our love for them. Check out Joel Book's blog post on the Dunkin’ Perks™ email program to see their work in action. Their email marketing program is very well done!)

Anyway, it came as no surprised that when R. J. Talyor (you probably know him better as the driving force behind ExactTarget SMS and recent New York Times "quotee") asked if I wanted to run out for coffee and donuts, I sprinted for the door.
 
Faced with the seemingly impossible task of choosing my donut, my eyes darted wildly from the chocolate cake to the marble frosted, the maple glaze to the vanilla cream-filled éclair-thingy. And then I saw it. An orange and pink sprinkled yeast donut with chocolate frosting.

With feigned calm, I quietly placed my order and watched as my Dunkin' Donuts branded sprinkle snack was placed in a bag.

In case you're having trouble getting as excited about this moment as I was, just look at this donut. (Yes, you can find anything on Google Images.) And just FYI, it tastes just as good as it looks.

Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate

p.s. -- If you want to pin down the team from Customer Portfolios to ask them about their Dunkin' Donuts success, register for Connections '08. They'll be there!

Occasionally I talk to somebody who opines that because they don't send to Yahoo, they don't need to follow Yahoo's rules. The point is rarely that simplistic, but it does usually boil down to this: "I'm a B2B sender. All of my lists are B2B recipients only. My lists are comprised of nobody but business professionals, for example. Yahoo or Hotmail's sender guidelines don't apply to me, do they?"

Yes, they do apply. And here is a great data point as to why:

Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports checked his own B2B lists. What did he find? 11% were Gmail, 4.6% were Hotmail, and just about 8% were Yahoo. That's almost a quarter of his list. And they are all B2C providers, with the typical B2C rules and requirements that senders have come to know and love: Keep complaints low. Subscriber engagement matters. Opt-in permission rules.

Mark's list makeup is typical. There's nothing too surprising there. The take-away here? B2C rules matter, even in a B2B world.

I promise it is not as scary as it sounds!

First, an introduction - Hello! My name is Dawn DeVirgilio and I'm one of the newer members to the ExactTarget Marketing Team.  One of the most exciting things I am involved in is heading up ExactTarget's social media!

The first day I joined ExactTarget, I received numerous triggered emails from my new teammates asking me to "friend" them on Facebook, or "follow" them on Twitter.  Many companies block these types of services, so I was excited to see that ExactTarget was adopting them.

One of the first initiatives was to get an ExactTarget account on Twitter.  We had seen companies like Jet Blue, and Comcast use Twitter successfully, and wanted to provide a place on Twitter where our clients could talk to us directly. 

One of our first "tweets" (a tweet is a post on Twitter) was a discount code to our Route 1 to 1 Marketing Tour. As we gain followers we are hearing about email marketing success stories, customer feature requests and a few complaints that we've tried to solve in real time.

We also have a Facebook Page, various Facebook Groups including one for our Subscribers Rule campaign, and you can find many of us on LinkedIn.

Every day, we are learning more and more about the power of social networking. 

So whether you friend us or follow us, we are excited to hear from you thru this new medium!

Dawn DeVirgilio
Internet Marketing Specialist

If you've read our Field Guide to Triggered Email, you're probably already pretty familiar with automated confirmation messages. This 1 to 1 marketing species is one of the easiest to automate, and subscribers all-but-expect an instantaneous response to actions like newsletter or event registrations.

Yeah, especially me.

If I don't get a triggered confirmation email about two nano-seconds after I take action on a website (especially if it was an action that required me to submit payment information), the cold-sweats begin. Did my registration go through? Is my credit card number just floating out there in cyberspace?

I recently began taking a few classes through the Red Cross of Greater Indianapolis, and they've been great. Wonderful people. Quality content. And I can't wait to get more involved with an organization so dedicated to helping people in disaster. So when I stumbled upon their email marketing newsletter opt-in, I figured "Why not?"

Within my two nano-second timeframe, a triggered confirmation email popped into my inbox. Wonderful! Though I normally just file these messages away without much thought, I made an exception for this one. The wording just seemed a bit strange:

"Thank you for contacting the American Red Cross of Greater Indianapolis. We will forward your e-mail to the correct department for response. If you need assistance because of a disaster or are in need of military assistance, please contact the chapter 24 hours a day at (xxx) xxx-xxxx to speak with a Red Cross representative."

Yeah, see anything about my new subscription? Me neither. Wouldn't it be better to customize the copy for an eNewletter confirmation so it references...the newsletter? Just saying, if I wanted "military assistance," (who knew we could request that, by the way?!) I probably wouldn't have tried to get it by filling out an online newsletter form.

It can be tempting to save time and just create one blanket confirmation email for all online activitites -- but it may leave your visitors confused. So take the extra few minutes to customize your copy to the action taken.

Because right now, I'm not sure if I requested a newsletter in my inbox....or a Sherman Tank at my front door.

Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate

Note:  Sorry for my absence on this blog - I have taken the SEC quiet period very seriously!

Regardless of political preference, this year's presidential election has sparked tremendous voter interest.  Young people are getting involved and the promise of better times ahead has everyone thinking about what it means to be an American.  As you might imagine, I have been watching very closely to see how both candidates use email, SMS and social media to drive voter interest and engagement.  

I was very excited to learn that Obama would use SMS to announce his VP.  The value proposition was clear (be among the first to learn of his pick for VP) and the communication had both an urgency and brevity ideal for a text message.  Everything was looking so good - millions opted in, confirmation messages and further opt-in messages were sent (enter zip code for local Obama updates).  

Then it happened - the VP pick was leaked and the Obama camp sent their text messages at 3am eastern time - oops!  Glad that I didn't have my phone near my bed!  I actually received an email (USA Today breaking news alert powered by ExactTarget)  announcing the pick over an hour before Obama's text message arrived!  Email 1, SMS 0.  What a missed opportunity!

The good news is that marketers and even politicians are starting to leverage SMS to engage their subscribers.  Just like email, success with this new medium requires planning, strategy and execution.  If you're interested in learning more about SMS, read our SMS field guide or give us a call.  When used appropriately, text messaging can be a powerful way to connect with your subscribers.

Hello friends -- 

Let's not bother with the standard excuses for my blogging hiatus. Suffice to say, I'm back. And I've missed you all!

A lot of exciting things are happening around here (the Connections '08 email marketing user conference is just around the corner -- clients, get registered!), and it'll probably take me a few posts to do them all justice. I actually wondered how to choose today's topic -- but the news just solved that little quandary for me.

See, the marketing team has a pretty sweet deal up here on the 10th floor. Aside from rooftop access and a massive kitchen, the flat screen TV hangs but a few feet from my desk. Sure, this can be distracting at times...like when quasi-dramatic soap operas come on (who's in the hospital today?) -- or The Ellen DeGeneres Show which brings our collective productivity to a virtual halt. 

But as this morning's news came on, I caught the following headline:

"Waiting for text from Obama with VP candidate." 

Coming off the launch of our new Field Guide to SMS, this immediately piqued my interest. I quickly opened Google to investigate -- and sure enough, Obama's going to text subscribers the moment he makes his VP choice. How cool is that?! Check it out. Full of engaging copy and a catchy tagline ("Be the First to Know"), it shows just one creative illustration of how of Landing Pages and SMS have become effective 1 to 1 marketing tools.

So download your copy of our Field Guide to SMS -- you just might find the inspiration for your company's first (or next!) text messaging campaign. The possibilities are endless.

Talk to you soon,

Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate

Not everybody we talk to (especially in the sales process) shares our commitment to permission, our commitment to spam prevention.

It makes sense, right? There is a lot of spam out there. I get thousands (literally) of spam messages myself, every single day. Somewhere, somebody is sending those messages. Even though it’s not a good idea, somebody thinks it’s a good idea. Either because they’re bad guys and don’t care about best practices, the law, and overwhelming ISPs, or because they just don’t know any better yet. Most folks aren’t born with an innate understanding of how email works, or they don’t understand that email is not the same as “direct mail.”

 

So, every once in a while, we have a sales call that turns out to be a real bummer. Somebody wants permission to spam, and is upset that we’re not about to grant that permission. What do we do in these cases? We spend a lot of time explaining that spam doesn’t work. Spam doesn’t get delivered. It gets blocked. The senders get blacklisted. It’s the kind of things ISPs are actively looking to prevent their users from receiving. How successful do you think you can be, long term, if you’re sending something that ISPs are actively attacking?

 

Oh sure, you’ll get away with it for a while. That is until the feds show up at your door, and you start down a path that leads you to thirty years in prison. Or, you could deal with lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit.

 

But, set aside the legal aspects of it. You want people to open your emails, to buy from you, and to do that, you need to be able to get that email delivered. And that means not sending spam.

 

It seems simple, but not everyone sees it that way. As my boss Chip is fond of saying, “Hey, we're just trying to tell you what works. If we thought spam was successful, we'd be telling you to spam. It's not. That's why we're telling you otherwise.”

In today's Email Insider column, "Statistics, Lies, and Mathematical Literacy", I wrote about some of the common errors that I see in email marketing on a regular basis with regard to the use of statistics. Honestly, it scares me a little when different statistical terms are used incorrectly. It concerns me greatly when clearly bad statistics about email marketing or direct marketing are published and not widely scrutinized.

I believe we could brush up a little. Not convinced?  Well try a few basic questions and see how you do:

1) What is the difference between "average" and "mean"? Mean and median? Median and mode?
2) Assuming a normal distribution, what percentage of cases fall within 1 standard deviation? Within 2 standard deviations?
3) What is a null hypothesis?
4) What is the name of the test for identifying significant differences?

I consider myself a "stats guy", having taken a lot of statistics both as an undergrad and in grad school. Even so, I am not embarrassed to say that the reference book used most often in my office is an old statistics textbook I bought at a used bookstore for $5.

Something similar, in combination with the book I wrote about in the article, "How to Lie with Statistics" should help you discern--and question when appropriate--the next time you hear something about averages and "significant" findings.

Question:  How do I design for an SMS message?

Answer: Designing an SMS message is very different from designing an email.  By nature - SMS is a text-only communication protocol that doesn't support rich content of any kind.  This includes images, audio and video.

Unlike with HTML emails, there are no font choices, sizes or colors, to choose from with SMS - all of the text will display in the same format.  In other words, the visual aspect of the message gives way to pure content.  With SMS, your words are the only tool at your disposal to inform and engage your subscribers.

To make things even more challenging, SMS messages are limited to only 160 characters.  Spaces and punctuation factor into character count, and exceeding 160 characters may result in a delivery failure or subscriber frustration.  If you send a message that exceeds the character limit it will be broken into multiple messages.  Subscribers will receive a disjointed communication (and may have to pay for more than one text message).

Each message should include QUIT and HELP options as well as make mention that "Standard rates apply" or "Other rates may apply."  This information may take up approximately 60 of the available characters leaving only 100 for the branding of the program and the primary message/call-to-action.

Remember to choose your words wisely when "designing" an SMS message.  With only 160 characters to work with, it makes creating an engaging and compelling message even more critical.

Tim Siukola, Senior Email Campaign Manager

Last weekend, I conducted my semi-annual "closet sweep." If you're a woman, you know what I"m talking about. Men, consider yourselves lucky that your fashion changes once a decade.  As I rummaged through my closet, it was tempting to hang on to items I might possibly someday want to wear again. After all, you never know when that neon-yellow tube top might come back in style.  But in the back of my mind, I kept repeating The Rule: If you haven't worn it in the past year, get rid of it.  I ended up with three lawn & leaf bags full of clothes to drop off at my local Goodwill.

If you haven't used it in the past year, get rid of it. Those are wise wardrobe words.  It's also a principle that is wise to apply to your email marketing program.  It's hard to believe that a year has passed since we launched ExactTarget Insight as a fresh new take on our eNewsletter program.  With new design elements, a new logo, new content and a freshly-scrubbed subscriber base, InSight simply couldn't have been more stylish. 

It's a year later, and InSight is evolving.  Sure, we're still delivering the best resources you can find anywhere on 1 to 1 marketing (just check out the new Field Guide to SMS) and providing expert advise and best practices to improve your lives.  But just as I reluctantly examined my closet with a critical eye, so too must I examine InSight.

Next month, you'll receive a different type of InSight. We're kicking off a re-engagement and preference campaign to continue to improve the quality of your newsletter.  On its heels in October, we'll be unveiling a new look and content for Insight.

In September, engaged subscribers will have the opportunity to update your personal preferences and choose form a new menu of content choices.  Unengaged subscribers will be asked to confirm their subscription to continue to receive InSight.  Those who do not will be removed from our subscriber base to ensure we keep our deliverability high and do not risk being marked as "spam" by uninterested subscribers.

Much like the yellow tube-top, it's easy to want to hang on to InSight the way I know it and love it today. But ultimately, going through this "newsletter sweep" is a hugely important component of a successful email marketing program. In the spirit of the classic "little black dress," the core of InSight will stay the same.  But like a great new pair of heels, a new InSight will be a welcome addition to my life.

Ashley
Manager, Marketing Communications

Prepare for it:  your marketing team will come running into your office.  They’ll demand that you drop everything and start programming the API calls that power an SMS program.  Sound familiar?
 
Their urgency is appropriate – as soon as an SMS application is submitted to the wireless carriers, companies have a small window of time to ensure that SMS programs are running as soon as possible to prevent delays in the testing phase of the campaigns.    Delays in the API call programming can cause delays in the testing, and thus, the launch of an SMS program.  
 
But because you’re the technical resource on the project, you’ll want to be ready to either to meet these quick turnaround demands, or with ask the right questions to assess that they’re not ready to go yet.  Here’s where you start: 

1. Request the SMS plan or strategy.  The marketing team or SMS program owner has to complete an application for a short code, including the plan and exact wording for the SMS messages.  This should include JOIN, HELP and STOP messages or messaging flows.  Ask for it!
2. Coordinate.  Once in hand, program the API calls exactly as written in the application.  You may identify some improvements or changes, but the smallest changes may or may not cause the wireless carriers not to decline approving the program.  
3. Be ready for more.  It seems that no matter the level of planning, you can expect a few quick change requests from the marketing team as wireless testing begins.  OK, this is true of any project, not just SMS.  

Likely, no amount of planning will prevent the marketing team from hovering over your shoulder as your program these API calls, but if you can ask the right questions and consider the three items above, you’ll be able to manage.

R.J. Taylor
Product Marketing Manager

I get this question often: Why are my emails being reported as spam? I comply with CAN-SPAM, I send only to people who opt-in, and I think I'm doing everything right. What's going on? How can I possibly still be identified as a bad guy by the ISPs?

Well, here's why. Tamara Gielen capably summarizes the recent MarketingSherpa/Q Interactive survey that talks about why recipients report mail as spam. According to the survey, the top five reasons people report a message as spam are as follows:

1. Didn't sign up to receive email from sender (52%).
2. Email received was not of interest (41%).
3. Receive too much email from the sender (25%).
4. Receive too much email from senders in general (20%).
5. Found email offensive (15%).

What does that all mean? It means that respecting subscriber permission is still the most important thing you can to do prevent spam complaints. But, it also means that permission alone isn't enough insurance against spam complaints. You need to ensure your emails are useful (#2 - speaks to subscriber engagement), ensure that your sending frequency is appropriate (#3), never buying or selling lists (#4, the tragedy of recipient dilution), and that you never send emails that are so far off the mark that you upset your subscriber base (#5).

Regardless of why recipients report your mail as spam, ISPs still count those votes against you. That's why it's up to you to ensure that you're doing all the right things, if you want to remain a sender in good standing. Failure to observe these best practice guidelines means you're far more likely to find your email blocked, filtered, or delivered to the junk folder.

Box of Meat points us toward this tidbit of information on anti-spam law in Viet Nam: Under a new anti-spam decree in Viet Nam, "[s]enders of spam e-mails and text messages which aim to cheat, disturb people, diffuse viruses, or advertise will be fined."

Anyone that has driven west across South Dakota knows about a little drug store called Wall Drug. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Drug  Located in the diminutive town of Wall, South Dakota, Wall Drug is resident Ted Husted’s tourist destination through nothing less 50-years of brilliant self-promotion.  The initial promotion started back in the 1930’s. As Wikipedia reports, “Business was very slow until his wife, Dorothy, got the idea to advertise free iced water to parched travelers along the road. From that time on business was brisk. Wall Drug grew into an enormous cowboy-themed shopping mall/department store.” By 1981 they reported serving over 20,000 cups of ice water per day, which is pretty impressive for a little town of 231 residents.

(If you haven’t heard of Wall Drug’s promotions, my friends further south tell me it is similar to the “See Rock City” campaigns for this icon in Chattanooga, TN).

I was reminded of Wall Drug recently while out driving in south-western Minnesota, some 500 miles from Wall, SD. They had a little road sign near the highway saying something like: “Been to Wall Drug lately?”  By erecting billboards across neighboring states, Wall Drug has created itself as a destination. The closer you get to Wall on highway 90 the more billboards you will see. Nearly every mile or two you’ll see a billboard ranging from 2’ x 3’ to 50’ x 80’ reminding you to visit Wall Drug.

But, they also use their billboard strategy across the world. One billboard in Amsterdam read: “5397 Miles to Wall Drug.” That concept got me thinking, is it really effective to post a billboard over 5,000 miles from a brick-n-mortar store?

For the most part, the folks at Wall Drug are direct marketers. They have “profiled” me by the fact that I’m in a car driving toward Wall, likely a hot/stuffy one, and I just may need a break. They’ve exploited the fact that I’m probably weary of the repetitive (albeit beautiful) scenery of middle South Dakota. And, they’ve taken this a step further by posting signs in nearby states, assuming at some point I’ll be that guy in the car and I’ll need a break when I’m driving to Mount Rushmore. Also, they’ve taken that a step further by branding themselves across the globe, presumably such that future international tourists will stop on their way to Mount Rushmore to see what all the fuss is about.

In the automobile days of the 50’s throughout the 90’s a billboard was a great way to make an impact on a new audience. As Americans begin to drive less due to fuel costs, what will replace the Great American Billboard? Can email be the answer?

Since over 95% of the population uses email, it has developed the reach and importance in our daily lives to allow marketers to create an online brand that scales much beyond what you might predict, much like Wall Drug has using older methods. Here’s the difference, the reach is actually bigger and isn’t limited to likely buyers based on proximity or chance. In fact, the timely nature and targeting capabilities of an email program integrated with other web technologies brings us opportunities for customer interactions the world has yet to see. Take concepts such as “out of stock” notifications, or “single use coupons” delivered via email, for an example. This is like Wall Drug beaming a coupon to approaching cars or catching them on the way back from Rushmore with a “now in stock” message. Try that with a billboard!

My pal Morgan Stewart recently presented some of these concepts at eTail East 2008 in Washington, D.C., and the folks at catalog success wrote about it. Great stuff!
See: http://www.catalogsuccess.com/story/story.bsp?sid=115096&var=story&3970

Hey, do you read Chip House's blog? If not, you should. Not just because he's my boss here at ExactTarget, but because he talks about lots of good stuff, much of it deliverability rated. Chip's been involved in the email marketing space for more than ten years, and is the mastermind behind most of the deliverability processes and subsequent email delivery successes here at ExactTarget.

CAN-SPAM compliance is an important topic that Chip covers capably, as well as good stuff, like why spam trap addresses are bad.

We're always happy to answer your questions - they give us good ideas for future blog posts, and we enjoy sharing our expertise. Don't hesitate to drop us a line!

My coworker Melinda emailed me today. She said, "This company keeps spamming me! I thought I already blocked them. What is their deal?"

I looked at the email she forwarded. You should, too. Check it out:

Dear Melinda:

Are you looking to acquire or build an email list of IT Decision makers across USA? If YES, we have 150,000 plus contacts with emails.
 
Our list comes with contact name, business name, job title, mailing address, telephone number, fax number, website url and contact person deliverable optin email address.
 
The list would become an asset once you acquire from us. You can use this list in multiple channels like email campaigns, direct mail campaigns and also for your telemarketing initiatives.
 
We have a promotional offer this month for acquring complete 150,000 contacts.

If you have any other specifications, please let me know to work on it and get back to you with the counts.
 
Also, if every thing looks fine, let me know to send you few samples and the proposal for your review.

If there is some one else in your organization that I need to speak in this regard, please let me know the details. Thank you in advance for this.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

The email contains unsubscribe instructions and contact information. So, it was probably legally compliant. But was it smart? Was it wise? Is anybody really dumb enough to buy a list from somebody who sent you an unsolicited email?

Think about it. If this guy has to resort to spam to sell himself, then how good are his lists? What are the chances that his lists are spam lists, regardless of how "opt-in" they claim to be. He's already demonstrating a lack of respect for subscribers, a lack of respect for permission.

My guess is, there's probably around a 100% chance that the lists he's selling aren't quite as opt-in as he claims they are.

Yuck.

DMNews reports on ReturnPath's acquisition of competitor Habeas: "Under the terms of the agreement, Habeas will be absorbed into the Return Path brand and integrate its e-mail reputation management and deliverability services under the Return Path name. The companies began discussing the transaction in May."

Over here you'll find commentary on the acquisition from ReturnPath CEO Matt Blumberg. You may recall Ken Magill reporting that Habeas was for sale back in April, 2008.

And finally, Des Cahill, CEO of Habeas shares his thoughts, under the odd title of "More Cowbell."

Today, while doing some research to answer a client's questions, I found myself digging through various archives and asking colleagues for points to bits of info. What I'm looking for happens to be information surrounding best practices for subscriber re-engagement and reconfirmation. Turns out, way back in December, our own Morgan Stewart posted his findings over on his blog, the Email Research Center. (My bad for not noticing this sooner! Sorry, Morgan!)

Point #3 really jumps out at me: I've never really considered using both a "Yes" and a "No" button as possible responses. But, the data speaks for itself: Doing so gets your more opt-in reconfirmation clicks.

He also talks about emailing a second request. This is also wise. Morgan says that he found "that these second requests consistently get nearly the same number of opt-ins as the first, so failing to do so could have a material impact on the success of your campaign."

As you may know, a few months ago we launched ExactTarget’s Landing Page capabilities.  The response has been overwhelming.  If you’re not familiar with ExactTarget’s Landing Pages, I’d invite you to read the press release or check out the product page for more info.  At a very high-level, this functionality gives marketers the ability to create customized web pages on the fly – all with the same look and feel of your corporate web presence.

From a development perspective, our goal was to take what we’ve learned about creating and deploying engaging emails, combine that with the digital assets clients already have stored in ExactTarget, and create a solution that provides the ultimate level of flexibility on the web to marketers – regardless of their level of technical expertise.

In just a matter of months, we’ve seen a solid increase in the number of clients adopting this new functionality.  So I wanted to share some examples of what those customers are doing with you. To help keep things straight, I’ll break the examples down into three categories – static pages, dynamic pages, and integrated lead capture forms.

Static Pages: This is the most straightforward example of landing page functionality. In this case, clients are creating basic HTML web pages that are displaying the same content to every visitor that arrives at that page. Clients are using this for things like promoting an event, announcing the launch of a product, storing documentation, tying relevant content to paid search engine phrases, and countless other scenarios. Here are two links to real live pages that ExactTarget clients have created:

• Strophe Product Launch Promotion 
• ExactTarget Landing Pages Product Page

Dynamic Pages: Moving up a notch in the level of sophistication, dynamic pages are landing pages that display unique content based on the preferences and attributes of individual subscribers. You could use this functionality to improve the relevance of pages you’re linking to in an email, or even to create unique landing pages that are promoted from print documents/brochures.  Think about sending a postcard to an individual with a completely customized web page for them to visit!

Investing in a dynamic approach will help improve the performance of your campaigns by delivering a more personalized and relevant message.  After all, just like in email, your subscribers are unique – so it wouldn’t make sense for me to link all of you to the exact same page, would it?
Instead, here’s a screenshot of one of our personalized landing pages in action…



Lead Capture Form Pages: Last (but certainly not least!) are lead capture pages tied directly in to backend systems.  If you’re looking to send the captured data directly into ExactTarget (or perhaps you want to send it directly into your CRM system like Salesforce.com or Microsoft Dynamics CRM) these are the landing pages for you. These pages help streamline the collection of data – and allow you run automated programs that engage the individuals that submitted their information. Here is an example of lead capture form pages:

• Compendium Blogware

Whether you’ve heard about the Landing Page capability or not, hopefully this helps you understand why we’re so excited about their potential!

Scott Roth
Director, Product Marketing