1 on 1 Email Marketing Solution

I've been telling my friends that I'm headed to the MMA Forum in New York City in early June and they ask me about my karate skills. No, not that MMA. Yes, this is a tired old joke for those not the mobile space, but we all know I'm referring to the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) annual forum. It'll be filled with the "who's who" of mobile marketing--top brands, agencies and solution providers all gather to listen, learn, advise and collaborate on the future of mobile. Plus, there are all of the events and parties to attend!

This is my third MMA Forum in New York City, and I can't wait...

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Thanks for the interest and excitement around the launch of SocialEngage.  Hundreds of CoTweet users have already signed up for the free trial and are up and running.  As we get closer to the Feb. 15 sunset date of the free edition of CoTweet, I wanted to answer some of the four most commonly asked questions that have come up about the differences between CoTweet and SocialEngage.  Here’s a quick recap:
 
What happened to CoTweet?
SocialEngage is the Enterprise Edition of CoTweet with a bunch of new features. We are sunsetting the free edition of CoTweet.
 
How is SocialEngage different from the...

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Each Thursday at 11am EDT, marketers from around the world join the ExactTarget Nexus partner ecosystem on Twitter for a conversation about trends and campaign ideas across the interactive marketing industry.  We call the virtual coffee chat the Nexus Café.

Our guest for a recent chat was Adam Evans, documentation writer at ExactTarget. Adam is a regular contributor to the ExactTarget blog sharing insights and tips on how to leverage product features. During our recent chat, we decided to take a tour of some of his recent popular posts. We're always interested to hear how our user community is...Read More »

Picking up from my last post on Contact Strategy Development, we’ll continue to explore the message personalities that make up successful contact strategies. As our own human personalities set us apart as unique and special, messages also provide the opportunity for a brand to allow their unique voice to come through. Brands can set themselves apart from the pack using clear communication, unique presentation and outside-the-box thinking, and those results become more meaningful when the value to the subscriber is apparent.

Message Personalities
When planning, each message that makes up an...Read More »

In the ever-changing inbox, it's critical for brands to have clear goals and objectives when creating an email contact strategy. Marketers are pairing a smart mix of strategy, user experience and effective design to drive engagement and deliver relevant, timely messaging.



Contact Strategy Development
Beyond the basics, it's important to address two vital components in developing a good contact strategy. Focus on both your business needs and subscribers needs, using a simple checklist:

1. Define your audience
   To whom are you sending?
2. Determine business goals and  set a clear value proposition

   What do...

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It just dawned on me that it has been 15 years since I sent my first email campaign. It was 1996, the Web was no longer new, but email marketing was just beginning to emerge as a discipline. To 1996 email recipients, email still had that new car smell--promotional emails were even marveled at. In 2011 this is difficult to imagine. Though email is no longer new, getting subscribers to marvel, ooh and ah at your emails takes a bit more effort, testing, know-how and discipline. The first step is getting to the inbox, and no one knows better how to do that than our partners Return Path.

Return Path...Read More »

Each week, marketers from around the world join the ExactTarget Nexus partner ecosystem on Twitter for a conversation about trends and best practices in the interactive marketing industry.  We call the virtual coffee chat the Nexus Café.

Last week we had the opportunity to speak with Tim Kopp, ExactTarget’s Chief Marketing Officer, on corporate marketing strategy.  In an ever-changing digital marketing environment, Tim shared his thoughts on developing an effective marketing strategy and making adaptations to position for changes in the marketplace.  A summary of the conversation is below:

@ET... Read More »

Over the next few blog posts, I’m going to go over some tactical recommendations for overcoming bulking.  Being delivered to the bulk folder is a major concern because it means subscribers are not seeing their emails. 

When it comes to deliverability, most people worry about getting blocked at a domain and getting a bunch of bounces.  This is a serious problem, and is usually due to major reputation issues.  However, a block is pretty easy to spot since your bounce rate will spike from 1% to 20% overnight.  Bulking is more subtle, but no less impactful on the effectiveness of your email...Read More »

One of the hottest topics in the areas of privacy and policy lately has been the "Do Not Track" proposal found in the FTC's latest privacy report: "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers".  In fact, this one topic has completely overshadowed all of the other things mentioned within the report.


Last week, AdWeek published an op-ed by FTC Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch.  Commissioner Rosch pointed out that the FTC has not actually endorsed any particular Do Not Track mechanism:

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Happy Holidays from everyone on the ExactTarget Design Solutions team! To end the year with a bang, we’re highlighting our ten (okay, a few more than ten) most useful interactive marketing tips from 2010.

1. The 6 Stages of Subscriber Experience 

   Performance-driven design is the foundation on which emails are created.
    
2. Email + Video Take 1 and Take 2
   
These posts discuss support, delivery methods, benefits and the concerns of using video in email.
    
3. The Design Center on 3sixty
   
The Design Center is an all-inclusive design resource to view and download our latest design whitepapers, template source...

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Before starting my career at ExactTarget, the title “designer” often brought to mind thoughts of artworks and purely aesthetic pieces that are meant to be appreciated and interpreted by their viewer.  However, I have been introduced to an entirely new aspect of design that goes far beyond pretty pictures and mad Photoshop skills: Performance-driven design.  

Performance-driven design is the foundation on which emails are created. In fact, it is the visualization of a business plan and takes into consideration the subscriber at all stages of development. Rather than a designer trying to express...

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Not that long ago while working for a web analytics company, I went on a joint sales call with our founder Peter McCormick who was a partner of mine at the time. While neither of us were technically sales people, here we were in the boardroom of a Fortune 100 client pitching the benefits of a lead nurture campaign. For their part the client had very realistic expectations, after all they had believed most of what they had been told by their vendors.

The client wanted three basic things:

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Have you ever read Why We Buy; The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill? Underhill’s company, Envirosell, specializes in retail marketing solutions. In the book, there's a chapter titled “Shoppers Move Like People” that contains humorous narratives about basic mistakes in retail environments’ “usability” that seem to ignore human limitations.

For example, we humans only have two hands, so there’s only so much we can carry while shopping. So retailers would greatly benefit from scattering shopping baskets throughout the store – not just two feet from the entrance – to overcome this limitation....Read More »

CRM, Web Analytics, and Email Marketing are each powerful tools to better understand your audience. Put them all together and tada! you’ve got a powerful one-to-one marketing engine. When sales and marketing technologies are integrated, marketers can identify the effectiveness of their website copy, whitepapers, webinars, and other online efforts through conversion rates. Enhanced prospect segmentation and targeting results in increased personalization, targeted relevancy, and deeper visibility into conversion rates and campaign return.

So where do you reside on the marketing integration... Read More »

No matter whether you’re a small, mid-size, or enterprise business, the number of messages your interactive marketing and sales staff are sending to customers and prospects on a daily basis is significant. And with that many messages going out the door each day, there is a common challenge that every organization is faced with – preserving brand voice and corporate messaging amidst all the chaos.

There’s not been an easy solution to this problem– until now. ExactTarget’s unique Lock and Publish email functionality allows you the ability to ensure your corporate marketing department can easily...

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ExactTarget's Design Solutions team is getting geared up for the best Connections yet! We’ve been planning sessions, compiling handouts, helping with some rockin’ demos and designing buttons. We're here to make sure you learn all that you can about how to improve your interactive campaigns through strategic design.


Our Top Ten Conference Design-Musts:

1. Design Booth Buttons

   Back by popular demand, make sure to drop by to grab a few of these.
2. Design Booth
   
Your fearless designers and their leader - Chris, Kristina, Andrea, Anna, Tana and Justine – are waiting to chat about all things design in the...

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Connections 2010 is coming! In just 6 days weeks 2,000 interactive marketers from around the world will gather for 3 days (September 14 - 16) of collaboration and education in this industry-leading interactive marketing conference. From permission based email marketing to social media marketing, Connections will explore the latest topics in interactive marketing. 

We also have a lineup of partner-specific events that will educate and inform our partner community while attending the Connections interactive marketing conference. Here are a three highlights that partners can expect at Connections...

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Connections 2010 is coming! In less than two weeks 2,000 Interactive Marketers from around the world will gather for 3 days (September 14 - 16) of collaboration and education. The excitement is in full swing around the ExactTarget office and I thought I’d share 10 ways ExactTarget uses email to communicate about our favorite time of the year.

1. Corporate Communications – As soon as our event team secures keynote speakers, entertainment and details on other guests, that information is quickly disseminated to the entire Orange Nation (that’s what we call ourselves) via email. I can’t tell...Read More »

Life is full of tradeoffs. One that most of us face every day is during our commute to work: though we’d like to get there as soon as possible, we drive the speed limit. We trade our need to get there quickly with our need to not get arrested or die in a fiery wreck. But how fast is too fast? How slow is too slow? As far as the law goes it is clear that the speed limit is the fastest you should go. But, to stay safe the answer is less clear. In general, however, the slower you go, the safer you are. Want to get there in one piece, for sure? Then drive 5 miles per hour. Want to get there...Read More »

The power of 1 to 1 direct email marketing is amazing. You can deliver a tailored message to your subscribers with a push of the button. Within minutes, your message is delivered. Deployment consultants are often called on by our customers to help leverage ExactTarget’s application for email campaigns.

What is a deployment consultant? We’re more than the people who hit the send button. Basically, we treat sending an email like sending a rocket to space; making sure the best product is sent to ensure success of the campaign.

We work with our Services team to provide support you in the...Read More »