The interviews are done, "cat chats" successful, and tours have been given. The Catapult class of 2010 can breathe easy now that Finalist Night is behind them. Yesterday, over 20 top graduates from all over Indiana came together for a night away from school. After 6 hours at ExactTarget's headquarters, they all left knowing a little more about one of the fastest growing 1 to 1 marketing communications companies in the nation.
One of the highlights for the current Catapults was at the end of the night where we kicked back, relaxed, and shared stories about our first year here. Yes, there were some embarrassing moments and lessons learned... just ask Isaac...
It's amazing to look back over a year and to realize how much we've learned about the industry - The inner workings of SMS, Voice, Landing Pages, Email... it was all a foreign concept a year ago.
Out of all of the very talented and deserving potential Catapults that we met yesterday, we will be extending offers to have the chance to work at the leading B2B Email Marketing company.
We are excited to bring on board the next class of Catapults who will represent ExactTarget!
Drip marketing comes from the phrase drip irrigation, which is where crops are watered in small amounts over a long period of time. This same concept is applied to marketing and is called drip model marketing. Customers or potential customers are given small amounts of information over a long period of time.The idea behind a drip campaign is that it takes between 3 and 30 impressions of a brand to make it sink in. When creating a drip campaign its important to have a consistent brand with varying messages to help develop the reputation of your company.
Drip emails are the most common type of drip communication, however there are other ways to communicate in a drip campaign. Some other options are - voice messages, SMS messaging, and direct mail.
Drip model marketing is a good way to help avoid always trying to sell a product and a good excuse to provide content that will engage subscribers. Think of this as a great way to nurture your potential clients. Drip marketing can be used for business to consumer or business to business email marketing solutions.
The good news is ExactTarget is one of the best email marketing software providers for creating automated email integration. To learn more about ExactTarget checkout their website.
ěm-běd'ə-bəl
–verb (used with object)
1. Ability to incorporate or contain as an essential part or characteristic
2. Capacity to leverage existing code and infrastructure to save costs and accelerate speed to market
3. Marketing automation technology from ExactTarget
Commercial Software developers and IT professionals need power, control and flexibility when it comes to managing the lifeblood of the business – INFORMATION! ExactTarget delivers on all fronts with its agile and embeddable marketing automation technology and services.
Contact your marketing automation partners at ExactTarget today to see how our technology can augment your technology stack and go to market strategy.
I've been using it to host my personal email domain for a few years now, and I love it. And I'm apparently not the only one -- Google says that "over two million business and 20 million users in over 100 countries and more than 40 languages" have adopted Google Apps.
What does that mean to you? It means that Gmail's spam filtering matters to you if you're a B2B sender. Lots and lots of companies use Google Apps for email, and the spam filtering is exactly the same as Gmail's spam filtering. (And engagement rules at Gmail!)
(H/T: Mark Brownlow via Tamara Gielen)
This week, we are excited to release Omniture Test & Target. And in iLab, it's not just another affordable email marketing solution--it's free! This new feature is a conversion product that allows marketers to test subscriber interaction with website design, content, navigation, and campaigns. Test results can be accessed in real time and used to target marketing offers, products, and content to different segments or individuals in order to create the most effective campaigns.
Whether it's B2B or B2C, access iLab today to sign up for Omniture Test & Target and take the next step in delivering the most relevant information to your subscribers!
In case you missed it, here is the Top 5 round-up of ExactTarget's best blog posts from last week:1. Staying Connected with ExactTarget
Almost a year ago, I blogged about ExactTarget joining various social networks. I love this line: “Every day, we are learning more and more about the power of social networking.“ What a difference a year makes! Read More
2. Measuring ROI By The Square Foot
I was driving along the interstate last week when I noticed a billboard alongside the road. In big, bold letters it read: "Measure Your Advertising ROI By the Square Foot". Suddenly the difficulties of advertising in print media took on a whole new light. Read More
3 Email Design Tip of the Week: HTML for the Unique Email Landscape
As we touch on this issue time and time again, HTML for email can be very different than HTML for websites. Here are a few tips to get started, and for coding veterans, some thoughts to freshen your perspective. Read More
4. New Email Marketing Tracking Software In iLab
Improve your email marketing strategy with us! One of the newest innovations coming through ExactTarget's iLab is Impression Tracking - a new feature that allows users to track the effectiveness of different content regions generated by AMPscript or Dynamic Content. Read More
5. Email + Social Media: The Future of B-to-B Marketing?
At the recent ANA/BtoB Magazine conference in Chicago, Paul Dunay, Global Managing Director for services marketing at Avaya, and Jason Ferrara, VP Corporate Marketing at CareerBuilder.com presented a terrific session titled "How B-to-B Marketers Are Using New Media," in which they discussed how they have increased spending on new media, especially in the past year. Read More
At the recent ANA/BtoB Magazine conference in Chicago, Paul Dunay, Global Managing Director for services marketing at Avaya, and Jason Ferrara, VP Corporate Marketing at CareerBuilder.com presented a terrific session titled "How B-to-B Marketers Are Using New Media," in which they discussed how they have increased spending on new media, especially in the past year.
"We do search, email marketing and social media. That's the holy trinity of online marketing," said Dunay. He also noted that – with no new money in the marketing budget – he has paid for his new media efforts by decreasing spending on print, TV, radio and other traditional media. Ferrara has done the same at CareerBuilder.com
Avaya and CareerBuilder.com are not alone in embracing new media. According to a recent survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers and BtoB Magazine, 20% of b-to-b marketers used social media in 2007. This year, 66% of b-to-b marketers are using social media.
My Take
I think it’s becoming more and more clear that email + social media is an effective strategy for business development. And there are three reasons:
1. Attracting Email Subscribers. One of the biggest benefits to social media is the ability to attract new email subscribers. Brands that provide a compelling reason for members of social networking sites to subscribe to their email communications are finding that these sites are an ideal venue for list growth. And as these people become new email subscribers and use Social Forward to share email content with those in their online social networks, they become powerful influencers.
2. Professional Networking. With more than 45 million users representing 150 industries around the world, LinkedIn is the biggest networking watering hole for business professionals. It’s just as effective for attracting talent as it is for generating referrals and product recommendations. But be on the lookout for WSJ Connect from The Wall Street Journal, a new networking site that’s in the works. It will also be aimed at professionals and its being billed as the “LinkedIn killer.”
3. Lead Generation. Social networking sites provide a natural gathering location for people who are passionate about a particular brand or interest. Engaging these individuals with offers that are relevant is proving to be smart business. An excellent study from OneUpWeb shows that ads on social networking sites work. As the report states in its summary, “Repeated exposure through the synergy of sponsored ads and search results increases familiarity with the brand. This is vital for generating sales both online and offline.” And once these leads are generated, email provides the most effective tactic for lead nurturing and aiding the buyer’s decision-making process.
I was driving along the interstate last week when I noticed a billboard alongside the road. In big, bold letters it read: "Measure Your Advertising ROI By the Square Foot". Suddenly the difficulties of advertising in print media took on a whole new light. Advertising on paper is a very difficult task. You can't measure impressions, you can't track data, and it's almost impossible to follow the path of your customers through the buying cycle. In the end, it comes down to a guessing game paired with a hopeful strategy. So what can marketers do to target their audiences and to track relevant information? I'm glad you asked.In fact, with a platform like this, you can Integrate Email, CRM, and Web Analytics, helping you to spend your marketing dollars even more wisely and giving you the power to make informed marketing decisions.
Don't throw your marketing dollars to the wind. In this economy, it's more important than ever to make sure your marketing dollars are giving you the best return - a Digital One-to-One Communication Platform will help you track your ROI without the guessing.
Last week I talked about surviving the digital communications storm and starting with the basics. When it comes to list growth essentials, it is truly amazing to see business after business without the most basic need for an email marketing program - an email sign-up form on their website's home page. We work with one company that was definitely planning ahead when it comes to email marketing. In fact, they signed with ExactTarget a full-year before they opened their doors for business. Their focus during that time? Buildling their email list! This small Midwestern winery wanted to gather information about their clientele to build a strong and targeted email list.
Take a moment to look at your website through your subscribers' eyes. Can you find your email sign-up form in 10-seconds or less? 30-seconds or less? 5-minutes? Find some more great list growth ideas from Kevin Nuest, "5 Do’s and Don’ts To List Growth From Non-Incident Site Visitors".
According to an exclusive survey of B-to-B and B-to-C marketing professionals conducted by BtoB Magazine and the Association of National Advertisers, more B-to-B marketers are getting on the social media bus. Here are some highlights:
- 57% of B-to-B marketers are now using social media channels, compared to just 15% in 2007.
- Among newer media tactics for social networking, blogs top the list.
- 81% of B-to-B marketers are currently using LinkedIn compared to 25% in B-to-C.
- Twitter use ranked highest among B-to-B marketers at 70%.
- Facebook is still the most used social media site (74%). Among the B-to-B marketers, 60% use Facebook.
How B-to-B Marketers are Leveraging Social Media
Tactically speaking, Social Media Marketing (SMM) is primarily a public relations tool, but it is fast becoming very effective for generating new business leads, either directly or through referral. While Facebook is the dominant social networking site for B-to-C marketers, LinkedIn – as the study revealed – is the preferred watering hole among B-to-B marketers.
Another big way in which marketers are leveraging social media is for email list growth. According to the recent ExactTarget 2009 Email List Growth Study, Social Forwarding is projected to be the most frequently adopted new list growth tactic in 2009. Social Forwarding uses ShareThis to make it easy for email subscribers to share email content directly with friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and many other online communities.
Are you LinkedIn?
If you want to learn how to best leverage the networking and lead generating potential of LinkedIn, my friend and social media expert extraordinaire, Jason Baer, of Convince and Convert, has a great presentation on using LinkedIn to build your reputation and generate leads.
Aptera Software is a great example of how a small B-to-B marketer can produce big results by using email for lead generation and brand building. After overhauling its email strategy, Aptera is consistently generating open rates of 30% and click through rates of 10%.
As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Aptera specializes in custom software development and website design. The company serves clients in Healthcare, Manufacturing, Financial Services, and Retail segments and is fast gaining a reputation for its innovative solutions.
Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Aptera’s co-founder, TK Herman and Brooke Francesi, who heads up email marketing for company. One of the things that impresses me about Aptera’s email strategy is their “less is more” philosophy regarding the size of their email subscriber database. As Francesi points out, “We’ve learned that it is far better to have a smaller list of highly engaged subscribers who want to hear from us than it is to have a big list of people who are passive.” As evidence of this commitment to list quality, Aptera’s list of subscribers for its quarterly newsletter is a lean 2,600. And the list of subscribers for Aptera’s monthly newsletter for users of Aptera Scorecard, a web-based firm management tool designed to meet the needs of a variety of Professional Services firms, is 15,000.
Both Herman and Francesi are quick to point out that, in addition to keeping their email subscriber list clean, the other big keys to their success in B-to-B email marketing are engaging content and engaging design. As TK Herman says, “If you provide information that is of value to the subscriber, and deliver that content in a newsletter that is attractive, you’ll generate response.”
Karen Bannan of BtoB Magazine recently interviewed Brooke Francesi about how Aptera re-tooled its email strategy after switching to ExactTarget for its email campaign application in early 2008. You can read the full article at BtoB Online.
Being an avid participant in the social media sphere - I’ve found myself subscribing to more and more email. (So much for email being dead!) I generally keep a separate email for these opt-in’s and check in once a week to see what cool things other companies are doing with their email marketing. Randomly a B2B opt in email started coming in to my personal account from a company who I had NOT opted in to. I started doing some sleuthing on how they acquired my email address.
We had two things in common:
- The company was in Fort Wayne, Indiana - my hometown
- They were in the communication/advertising industry
I had solved the case. This company received my email because I had added one of their employees to my social network.
But did that constitute opting into their email campaign? Just as my colleague (and true social media friend) Al Iverson has said, giving someone your business card does not imply permission. The same should be said for all your friends, connections, and followers in your social network. By adding you into my social network, the only one to one communication I’ve opt-in to is that you communicate to me personally, thru that network.
I'd be interested in your thoughts. Does adding someone to your social network equate to opt-in permission? Does it matter what network you’ve accepted them on (LinkedIn vs. Facebook)?
In case you missed it, here are the Top 5 most requested ExactTarget blog posts last week:1. Many Subscriber Preferences to Respect
by:
2. Relevance is Half the Battle
by: Angela Khan
3. How Can I Segment My Subscribers Easily?
by: Dawn DeVirgilio
4. How Do You Add Personality to Your Emails?
by: Angela Khan
5. Best Practices for Successful B-to-B Email Marketing
by: Joel Book
Sallie Anthony is one of the smartest email marketers I know. As Field Communication Manager for the Retirement & Protection division of Genworth Financial, Sallie’s job is to use email to keep Genworth connected to – and top of mind with – Insurance Brokers, General Agents, and Independent Financial Advisors.
In her recent presentation at the Annual Conference of the Business Marketing Association in Chicago, Sallie discussed the value of personalizing email content to the needs of individual subscribers. Two statistics stand out:
- Email personalized with photo and contact information for the Genworth sales person produced a 7-10% higher open rate compared to non-personalized email
- Sales were 39% higher for Genworth customers who received personalized e-newsletters compared to those who did not
You can view and listen to the entire presentation at the BMA website.
3 Guidelines for Effective Email Personalization
Having observed how email has become the backbone of successful one-to-one marketing solutions, I have 3 guidelines that will help you use personalization for more effective B-to-B email.
1. Remember that People buy from People.
With all due respect to brand marketers, creative directors, and copywriters, it’s important to remember that nothing is more important in selling than the customer’s relationship with the person with whom she is doing business. That person may be a dealer, an agent, or a field sales representative.
When you send email, send it on behalf of the “relationship owner” and include that person’s photo and contact information so it’s easy for the customer to contact him. This type of personalization dramatically improves email marketing campaign performance.
2. Serve. Don’t Sell.
Customers don’t want to be sold. But they do want to be helped in making their buying decision. That’s why using email to deliver information and offers that aid the customer’s decision-making process is the best way to support – and accelerate – the buying process.
Once a person has been attracted to your web site, use email to engage with and move the prospect through the consideration and evaluation stages . . . all the way to purchase. Serve your subscribers well, and the will reward you with their business. In fact, Forrester Research reports that “those who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than non-readers of email.”
3. Put the Customer in Control.
One of the smartest things you can do to maximize email marketing performance is to personalize email content to the subscriber’s needs. When a new subscriber opts in to receive email from you, invite her to go to your preference center where she can check off her needs and topics of interest relevant to the products or services you offer. Then, use the Dynamic Content feature in your email campaign application to deliver content that’s relevant and timely. This is the essence of the Subscribers Rule mantra.
#1) MarketingSherpa
According to website traffic data from Alexa, Marketing Sherpa doesn’t generate the same traffic that ClickZ and Mediapost do. However, when it comes to a trusted source for information on email marketing, Sherpa tops the list. Sherpa’s latest Email Benchmark Guide is the 6th they have published. Their longstanding commitment to the email space along with their focus on independent research, benchmarks, and real world case studies has helped them become the ‘friendly native guides’ they aspire to be (hence the Sherpa name) to many email marketers.#2) Email Experience Council
Better known as the EEC, the Email Experience Council is the email marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association. This global professional organization strives to enhance the image of email marketing and communications, while celebrating and actively advocating its critical importance in business. Content is largely produced by its membership through member roundtables and advisory committees that consist of a virtual who’s who of industry professionals and email marketing companies (and yes, ExactTarget is a very active member).#3 (tie) MediaPost Email Insider
Mediapost was founded in 1996 and has strong online and offline presences. Mediapost’s Email Insiders column features approximately 4 columns per week on email marketing distributed through daily newsletters and hosted on blog. Articles are written by industry experts, including the authors of two of the top 5 independent blogs identified in our survey and yours truly.#3 (tie) ClickZ
ClickZ is has more than 12 years under its’ belt as a resource for online marketers. It. covers a number of topics from email to search, analytics, media buying, and online marketing trends. The publisher features approximately 3 columns per week on email marketing written by various industry experts broken into 5 categories: B2B Email Marketing, Delivery, General, Email Marketing Optimization, and Trends. #5) MarketingProfs
MarketingProfs has evolved over the past 8 years from a site where ideas could be exchanged between marketing academics and professionals to a full-fledged online publisher of marketing insights covering topics from email to public relations and social media. About 1 how-to article per week is published on email and an email marketing case study is published about once per month. They also host several online seminars on email each year.Disclaimer: ExactTarget is an advertiser, sponsor and/or partner of many of the sites listed in these survey results. Our affiliation with these sites did not play into their rankings—rankings were based solely on the responses of 351 respondents to an open-ended question contained in the survey fielded in March 2009 by ExactTarget and the Email Marketers Club.
Truth be told, Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft host a ton of inbound email for many thousands of B2B companies. Yahoo, Hotmail and Google host mail for more than 264,000 domains. A big chunk of those are small-to-medium sized companies who have outsourced their email handling to one of these mailbox providers. And they pretty much have the same spam filtering systems on the B2B side as on the B2C side.
On the spam filtering hosted service or appliance side, you've got companies like Postini, Barracuda, MessageLabs, Cloudmark, Frontbridge (Microsoft), Brightmail and many others. Probably Postini has the broadest reach, though it's not always easy to tell from the outside how big any of these providers really are. They probably all claim to host a bajillion mailboxes, but what really matters is, what percentage of subscribers on *your* list are hosted behind these various filters. That's the kind of thing we can tell with our domain intelligence data, helping you to understand that if you have a delivery issue at a Postini, it's likely to impact X% of your list.
After you figure out what the top domains and spam filters are (relative to your own lists), it's a simple matter for us to set up specific monitoring for those domains, or even just for any domain with over Y recipients and a Z% block rate.
That's about the only difference between B2C deliverability and B2B deliverability, what domains you look at when you're doing deliverability testing and whom you contact when an issue is revealed. Lots of people I talk to don't realize this - they don't know that 1500 domains on their list are all hosted by Postini or are behind a Barracuda filter. When you dig into it, you find that same commonality of hosting on your list that you find for B2C senders.
And the B2B filterers work pretty much the same way the B2C filters work. That means your sending reputation (and ability to deliver mail through these filters) is governed primarily by complaints and bounces. The usual things that, when they spike, indicate issues with permission.
Just like I talked about in regard to Yahoo, your deliverability is not governed by us having "a relationship" with an anti-spam filtering vendor. We do maintain good relationships with quite a few vendors and I talk to many of them fairly frequently. Helping them test things, discussing the bigger picture of how to improve permission practices, showing them how ESPs prevent and react to spam issues, answering questions about our client practices, etc. But it is important to remember that it is exceedingly rare that we would ever have the ability to call one of these guys and "tell them that your mail is good" because that's not how the process works.
On January 20-22, 2010 hundreds of top email marketers will gather in Miami for MarketingSherpa's 5th Annual Email Summit & Expo. It's the world's largest email conference and will feature Best Email Marketing examples of how email is being used for Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer 1 to 1 Marketing.
If you'd like to be a featured speaker at this conference, now is your chance. MarketingSherpa is looking for B-to-B and B-to-C email marketers to share Case Studies and best practices from their own recent real-life tests and tactics.
But don’t delay. Speaking proposals are due by Friday, July 24th. Click here to submit your speaking proposal.
What Kind of Presentations are Selected by MarketingSherpa?
MarketingSherpa is looking for actual email marketers (i.e., not email marketing software vendors or agencies) to present Email Marketing Campaign case studies that show what they did, how they did it, and what results they achieved. So if you’re an agency or service provider, encourage your client to speak at this important event.
If you’re an agency or service provider, consider moderating a panel of multiple email marketers that are focused on “proven” advanced tactics -- see MarketingSherpa’s list of suggested panels below (or make up your own).
If you want to see an example of the kind of email marketing case study that gets rave reviews at MarketingSherpa Email Summit, check out the following ExactTarget Recorded Webinars that feature Johnston & Murphy and Dreamfields Pasta. Both of these case studies were presented at last year’s Email Summit.
And one more thing to remember -- All speakers get their own free ticket to the Summit!
I get a lot of questions about spam laws both domestic and international. I study various email, privacy, and spam-related laws out there, so I tend to be the one that people ask first when they have a question. All fine and good, I'm happy to share what I've read. But I'm not a substitute for the real thing; ultimately, anyone with legal questions needs to consult with an attorney qualified in the area of concern.
A lot of my advice boils down to "don't spam," and that's for a reason. If your processes are truly opt-in, you're not spamming, and you're not likely to run afoul of any relevant email permission-related regulations. "Don't spam" works well as an answer to almost any spam law-related question.
Here's a few examples:
What does CAN-SPAM mean to me?
It means you shouldn't spam. Spam may be legal, but it also allows ISPs to block it, and all competent ISPs block as much spam as they possibly can. Your mail is not likely to deliver well if it's spam.
What does the new Canadian spam law mean to me?
It's hard to say exactly, because the current version under consideration has not passed yet, and may not be the final version. But, whatever comes, "don't spam" is likely to be the right advice. If you send mail only to recipients who ask for it, I would be surprised if you were not in compliance with the new Canadian law.
How will the new Dutch B2B email restrictions affect me?
As long as you don't spam, they won't affect you negatively. My understanding of the new requirements is that they close a loophole that allowed treating B2B addresses different than B2C addresses. It was already against the law to send unsolicited commercial messages to B2C addresses. Now, any mailings to B2B addresses must also be sent only to recipients who have opted-in.
Keep in mind that no such distinction between B2B and B2C ever existed in ExactTarget's policies. Whether you are mailing consumers or businesses, your recipient lists may only be comprised of email addresses where the owner of that address has specifically told you that they wish to receive email from you.
Want to know what made me stop and realize that? I was updating our graphics on ExactTarget 3sixty and realized that our next webinar was fast approaching. Just recently, we released a great whitepaper about list growth. And now, you can learn more about the results by signing up for a webinar with our very own Morgan Stewart! Joining him will be Tamara Gielen from Email Marketers' Club, and they are going to be highlighting the whitepaper, but also answering questions about creating successful, ROI-generating lists, that are also CAN-SPAM compliant. Want more info? Keep reading below for details and registration information:
When:
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 2:00 pm EST
Presenters:
Tamara Gielen, Founder, Email Marketers' Club
Morgan Stewart, Director of Research, ExactTarget
Description:
Get the inside scoop from ExactTarget’s Morgan Stewart and Tamara Gielen, founder of the Email Marketer’s Club, on developing a successful list growth strategy with examples and insights from experienced B2B and B2C marketers.
What are you waiting for?!? Register now!
During the webinar, we will provide actionable strategies, examples, and tips for growing and nurturing your most precious asset--your subscriber database! We'll also have a time for Q&A. If you have a question you would like to submit in advance, leave a comment or send me an email at mstewart(at)exacttarget(dot)com.
Register here!
Details
When:
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 2:00 pm EST
Presenters:
Tamara Gielen, Founder, Email Marketers' Club
Morgan Stewart, Director of Research, ExactTarget
Duration:
1 hour
Description:
Join ExactTarget’s Morgan Stewart and Tamara Gielen, founder of the Email Marketer’s Club, as they present highlights from the 2009 Email List Growth Study whitepaper. Get the inside scoop on developing a successful list growth strategy with examples and insights from experienced B2B and B2C marketers. You’ll learn:
- Keys to developing a sustainable list growth strategy
- How to find the right subscribers for your list
- The hot new tactics you should consider trying in 2009
- What both B2B and B2C email marketers around the world consider the best list growth strategies
- Which list growth tactics you should approach with caution
If you’re ready to create a successful, compliant, ROI-producing list growth strategy, be sure to attend this information-packed webinar. Sign up today!
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