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Successful Marketing to Gen Y: Exclusivity

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 by Kyle Schroeder

Exclusivity in marketing to gen Y college students is important. Colleges students want to feel like they are important.

 

Exclusivity can be taken a lot of different directions. I think it has some positive outcomes and some negative ones as well. I think that overall, exclusivity means one thing in particular to gen Y college students:

 

               “Make me feel like you are just marketing to me.”

 

In the midst of all the other sources of marketing out there, the gen Y crowd notices when the marketing is personalized. When you target specific campaigns toward their interests, you’ve grabbed their attention.

 

How do you go about doing this?

1.       Allow them to opt-in to your communication channels.

2.       Reach out to them on social network platforms like Facebook.

3.       Send emails with content-specific material to the various groups of gen Y lists you have developed.

4.       Don’t overdo it.

                                                                                                                                                                       

Exclusivity can be felt through effective email marketing campaigns and SMS marketing that is targeted directly to the individual. Allow them to opt in and chose what they want to receive and build a presence on social networking sites. Don’t forget that ExactTarget’s one to one messaging platform provides these capabilities.

 

Be exclusive.

 

Kyle Schroeder

Slingshot Summer Intern


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Quality Internships Begin with Effective Recruiting

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 by Kyle Schroeder

ExactTarget has an excellent internship program that is well developed and focused on providing worthwhile experiences for both the student and the company.

 

I hear from many of my friends that they just aren’t be utilized at their internships. They sit around and surf the internet for 6 of the 8 hours they are on the clock because they don’t have anything to work on.

 

That is not the case at ExactTarget.

 

This is week #7 for me and I am juggling a handful of meaningful projects. I have been able to work with several different people and departments and take on work that is significant and challenging. I didn’t really know much about the world of email service providers or email marketing software, but after an intense week of training and a dive headfirst into the channel sales department of ExactTarget, I have picked it up.

 

I would strongly encourage any company to carefully consider how they build an internship program. Be willing to challenge and push your interns. Let them fail. But, should you hire the best and brightest, maybe they will succeed.

 

Keep in mind, this all begins with recruiting the best talent. Using a targeted email campaign or SMS marketing can be a great way to reach out to college students.

 

While undergoing this process, make sure you emphasize three areas of your company:

1.       What an intern does and how you will challenge them.

2.       The kind of culture your company has fostered.

3.       The core values that are rooted in your company.

 

You will find these are important questions that college students have when they think about and talk up companies.

 

Kyle Schroeder

Slingshot Summer Intern


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Julie Katz and Stefan Tornquist at Connections... Survey Says!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Morgan Stewart
ExactTarget is in full swing preparing for Connections 09. If Malcolm Gladwell, Marlee Matlin, They Might Be Giants, and Second City aren't enough, then how about a panel aimed at sorting through reams of email marketing research? (Okay, that may be a bit of a stretch.)

This week I have received confirmation from two of the industries most trusted experts on email marketing that they will be participating in the "Survey Says!" breakout session on Day 2. Stefan Tornquist from Marketing Sherpa and Julie Katz from Forrester will join me Wednesday October 14th with one goal--extracting the research insights that matter most when developing your 1 to 1 marketing plans!

If you haven't signed up for this event yet, register before July 10th to get a $200 discount.

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Mobile Email Update

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Morgan Stewart
Last week I spoke to Mark Browlow of Email Marketing Reports with some brief updates on the state of mobile email. This entry provides a good collection of practical advice on handling the challenges he presented a week earlier.

Taking a look at the posts should provide a good overview of the challenges and the best solutions available. Unfortunately, these solutions are still largely unsatisfying. In 2007, ExactTarget wrote Email Marketing for the Third Screen. In that whitepaper we outlined how the total lack of standards in how mobile devices handle email make it difficult to optimize email across these devices. However, all hope should not be lost since the vast majority of consumers are not looking at your email on their mobile device anyway.

Since Mark already alluded to an update in his post (with permission), I wanted to provide a little more concrete insight into what the new data says--and what it does not say. What it does not say is that things have changed much in the two years since we wrote Email Marketing for the Third Screen. That paper is still very much up to date. I imagine this is a surprise to you, I know it was for me too.

The same rendering challenges plague the mobile email landscape. While marketers seem to care a lot, consumers still don't. Consumers still access the same email account on their desktop or laptop that they access on their mobile device. They still flag commercial email on their mobile device so they can follow-up on their computers where a full keyboard, rich internet experience and full size screen make it easier to transact online. Their mindset when interacting with mobile email is still distinct from their mindset when reading their email on a normal computer. They are looking for urgent messages from friends, family, and co-workers--they aren't looking for deals. They tend to wait until they get home (or to work) to their computers and read commercial messages there.

There is one exception. iPhone users. To get a sense of this, take a look at the latest research from Crowd Science on their smartphone usage and brand study. They compare the satisfaction of iPhone users with Blackberry users. It's simply not a competition. If you weren't already convinced that iPhone ushered in a new era for smartphones, the Crowd Science data should remove all doubt.



As you consider the "mobile email problem", look at Mark's post and do what you can to follow the advice on his blog. Simply keep in mind that given the choice between optimizing for a mobile device and optimizing for standard email clients on a desktop or laptop, pick the standard clients--iPhone can handle it and that is where the rest of your email subscribers are most likely looking anyway.

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Chip House on the Tipping Point

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Al Iverson
Over on his "House of Email Marketing" blog, Chip House talks about the Tipping Point Between Inbox and Spambox. He raises some good points: Email is a stable technology, but reputation and filtering is ever-evolving. The fact that you got to the inbox five years ago does not mean you will get to the inbox today. Receiving systems are smarter, so senders have to be smarter, too.

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Billy Mays' Legacy

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Amanda Cross
The last several days have brought the deaths of a surprising number of celebrities. In the clamor over Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, you might not have heard that Billy Mays, heir to Mr. Popeil as the "Infomercial King," also passed away last week.

Billy Mays was known for selling OxiClean, Orange Glo, and Mighty Putty. In addition to Mays' exuberance and passion for the product, what made his infomercial work stand out was its length. Unlike 30 minutes infomercials, weighed down with incompetent people incapable of performing even the simplest task with the competing product, only to find the featured product made them super-geniuses, Mays' work was just a few minutes of compelling product demos.

According to Billy Mays, the Infomercial King, the infomercial brief/eulogy posted on Economist.com today, infomercials are proving to be surprisingly recession-proof and are currently boasting revenues of $30 billion a year and a growth rate of 7%.

Because infomercials are traditionally shown on television, it's challenging to track the viewer conversions and calculate ROI. Email, however, is excellent for tracking these numbers. Is it just a matter of time before companies start marrying their infomercials and their email marketing initiatives?

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Creativity or Bust - Connections '09

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Nicole Ross
Last week I headed down to Austin, TX for the HOW Conference. At first it was the record high temps (107 baby!) and local juice bar that confirmed my trip was going to be a success.

But then the sessions began. Rooms full of designers and creative-types listened with rapt attention to speakers like Cameron Moll, Scott Belsky, and John Creson. They shared best practices on everything from interactive design to print, brainstorming to copywriting. They told us how to work better with non-creatives (people that don't dress in black all the time). And they encouraged us to think outside the box, push our clients (internal or external), and help make the world a more engaging place through design.

Short of transfering my entire notebook to this blog (not gonna happen), I want to just share one of my favorite statements from Scott Belsky. "The creative world isn't short on ideas. It's short on execution." That really made me think. Too often, I get stuck on the ideas side - thinking that I need to discover 'the next BIG thing!' when in reality, I have a million ideas already that I could execute. Getting sucked into an endless brainstorming process can be dangerous too!

Good conferences have a way of making you think differently. They help you connect with people that get what you're going through. And they give you access to speakers that are the best in the business.

That's why I'm so excited to return home and help prepare for Connections '09. A must-attend 1 to 1 marketing event, Connections '09 sessions will not only give you practical tips and tricks to improve your email marketing programs. It'll give you a chance to connect with other email marketers who face the same challenges you do. And you'll get to hear great speakers like Malcom Gladwell and Kelly Mooney.

So register now!

Nicole
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Catapulters Hitting the Streets

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Morgan Stewart
This years Catapult team is on the road. The group of 12 has been sent to cities around the midwest in search of video magic. Broken into three teams of four people each, Catapulters will be conducting interviews on the street to get at the heart of what subscribers want to hear from marketers. In years past, these street interviews were an independent project. This year, the interviews are being coordinated with the 2009 Channel Preferences Survey which addresses key topics related to email marketing, social media, and text messaging.

Last year's 2008 Channel Preferences Survey was the basis for several whitepapers including the 2008 Channel Preferences Whitepaper, and Messaging Behaviors, Preferences, and Personnas. This year, with the help of the Catapult team, we are adding a video component to the research project that should be both entertaining and informative.

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Going Green with your Corporate Colors

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Amanda Cross
Green initiatives are all the rage, and companies are even able to use it as a selling point in their marketing materials. For example, the rice I just made for my lunch boasted on its bag that they've taken away the zip closure that made the bag resealable and saved tons of plastic going to landfills.

Even if you're not ready to hand over your corporate headquarters mowing duties to goats, you can make a change to your web and email marketing initiatives that are "green."

The colors that appear when your subscribers view your email or webpage take energy for monitors to produce, and some colors take more energy than others. You can adjust your color palette to take less energy to display and turn your email "green."



Check out the information about low-energy colors on TechChee.com to see if you can work them into your electronic communications and work your green message into the text of your email.
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Showcase Your Expertise in Email Marketing!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Joel Book

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! 


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Successful Marketing to Gen Y: Entertainment

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Kyle Schroeder

Entertainment in marketing to gen Y college students can be the tool to turn their attention from what they are currently doing, toward your company. tv

 

When I think about the words entertainment and marketing, my mind goes toward Super Bowl ads. As much as people complain about commercials during regular weekly shows, it’s shocking to see how excited everyone gets for the commercials during the Super Bowl—myself included. 

 

But when it comes to entertainment and college students, my mind goes to YouTube. Not only does gen Y spend countless time watching all types of videos on there, you have other guys who are filming and posting their own content. In the classroom, professors are using YouTube to show supplemental material and student slide shows include links toward a particular video they have found.

 

What is it about entertainment that is so important to college students? I am going to attempt to uncover this mystery with my own experiences:

1.       We want to have fun – even if that can be done through an advertising campaign.

2.       We admire those that have the ability to entertain – it separates you from everyone else.

3.       We love to talk about what we have been entertained by – to impress our friends.

4.       We like being individually engaged – because it makes us feel important.

                                                                                                                                                                       

What does this mean for marketers?

 

I would emphasize point number 4 above. Target me and know my interests. Allow me to opt-in to your email marketing campaign and send me targeted emails based on what I have identified as my interests. Be willing to portray your company as being fun. Film and upload a YouTube video. Use creative advertising. Just don’t go over the top.

 

Be entertaining.

 

Kyle Schroeder

Slingshot Summer Intern 


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Don't Categorize Me

Friday, June 26, 2009 by Amanda Cross
I know that a lot of targeted email marketing relies on categories, counting on the fact that people with the same generation, gender, or hometown will have things in common.

I know that some powerful and thoughtful research has been done on which channels people in different age groups want to be marketed to.

I know categorizing provides very compelling ROI compared to same-message-across-the-board techniques.

I know all this. But even so, if I hear another person tell me that I can't really understand social networking because, at the ripe old age of 31, I've just missed the cutoff, I'm going to scream.

When you study technical communication (my field), you put a lot of emphasis on audience analysis, and inappropriate categorization is a common trap that people fall into. For example, a writer might look at the user base and say something like, "hey, 60% of our readers are women, so we'd better not use language that's too technical."

The problem with this, of course, is that they've relied on a stereotype about women to derive a course of action from demographic information. If their readership really requires language that is not too technical, it doesn't matter whether they checked "male" or "female" on their information sheet.

So, at the very least, when looking at your audiences, you need to ask the right questions. Why group people by generation and then choose marketing channels for each group when you could just group the people by their preferred marketing channels to begin with?

Frankly, I think we can do better than this, though. Why categorize people at all? ExactTarget has the technology to empower you to know each your subscribers individually. That's the key to *real* targeted marketing.
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Targeted Emails and Social Networking Deliver 70% Open Rate to One User

Friday, June 26, 2009 by Amanda Cross
Powell's Books, a book seller in Portland, OR, reports open rate of over 70%, 400 new subscribers over a 6-day period, and over 10,000 more "fans" on Facebook as a result of a new email marketing initiative that's tied with their social network presence.

From the story on Yahoo! Finance:

The company, which began its email marketing efforts in 1999, offers book aficionados a suite of seven email newsletters ranging from a book review a day to a listing of its recently arrived used books. Collectively, Powell’s sends more than 27 million emails every year to its growing subscriber list that now tops more than 500,000 book readers.

The move to personalize the content of its emails comes as Powell’s expands the reach of its emails and online marketing efforts with social media. Through its email newsletters and Website, the company encourages customers and site visitors to follow the company in online social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, for the latest book news and promotional offers from the Portland-based retailer.

One of its most recent social media efforts was aimed at driving subscriptions for its Specials email newsletter. The company posted a note on its Facebook page offering an exclusive offer for fans who signed up for the newsletter. In return, new subscribers received a $5 off coupon for their next online purchase.


While this is a compelling story in its own right, it's also particularly relevant here because it's done with ExactTarget tools. Check out information about the growing social network functionality.



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Outlook 2010: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Friday, June 26, 2009 by Tim Siukola
There has been a great deal of discussion over the past few days concerning Outlook 2010 and Microsoft’s decision to continue to use Microsoft Word to render HTML emails. When Outlook 2007 was first released, Microsoft switched the email rendering engine used in previous versions of Outlook (2000, 2003) from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Word. This caused some major differences in the way HTML emails were displayed since the engine changed from a web browser to word processing software. As a result, support for a number of CSS properties, background images, HTML forms, and animated .gifs was removed.

The current email landscape is very unique and diverse. Emails clients and ISPs each display HTML emails differently due to varying support for HTML and CSS. Unlike the web, there are no set standards in place to govern which HTML attributes and CSS properties email clients should support. Efforts have been made over the past few years by the Email Standards Project to work with email client developers to improve the support of web standards in email. Much of the buzz surrounding Outlook 2010 is a result of the Twitter campaign the group behind the project launched to bring their concerns to Microsoft’s attention. Microsoft has responded with an explanation of their decision to use Word as Outlook’s email editor.

Based upon the Email Standards Project testing with the Outlook 2010 beta, no significant changes were reported. The same display issues that are present in Outlook 2007 remain in 2010. Thankfully, if you have optimized your emails to display properly in 2007 you should be in good shape when 2010 is released next year. Until the final version of the software is available, we won’t know for sure what other differences exist. However, the transition from Outlook 2007 to 2010 shouldn’t be as jarring as it was when we switched from 2003 to 2007.

It’s important to remember that the email landscape is in a constant state of flux, with email clients adding or removing support for various HTML attributes and CSS properties. Because of this, you must remain diligent in your testing efforts to ensure that your subscribers are treated to the most positive inbox experience. Regardless of the outcome, we’ll do our best to provide you with the information necessary to create emails that display the way you intended.

If you are looking for tips on how to code emails for proper display in Outlook 2007, please reference our whitepaper.

For other email design tips please read Email Marketing Design: The New Essentials.
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Marketing to the Gen Y College Student’s Interests When Recruiting

Thursday, June 25, 2009 by Kyle Schroeder

Marketing to the Gen Y College Student’s Interests

 

In Experience, Inc.’s Recruiter Whitepaper, they suggest marketing to student interest as a way for today’s companies to recruit Gen Y employees. They found a discrepancy in students’ top fields of interest and fields they find job offers in (page 5).  

 

Experience suggests tailoring job postings to fit student interests may increase recruiting yield. I think they are right on track of keeping information relevant.

 

An opt in email marketing campaign can be one way to connect with Gen Y and keep them updated with job information that might be different from someone in their 40s. The ability to develop targeted email campaigns is another feature of a quality email service provider, like ExactTarget.

 

Kyle Schroeder

Slingshot Summer Intern


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Help us drive Q2 to a strong close and attend Connections ’09 in Style!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by Partner Ambassador

Valued Partners – With a healthy pipeline and several big deals still to close,  we are positioned for another strong quarter.   And with 5 business days remaining in Q2, we want to ensure a strong finish – and reward our partners with a chance to attend Connections ’09 in style!  Each quarter, 3 VIP prizes will be awarded to our top deal producing partners.  To qualify partners must close a minimum of $100K in new business by 11:59:50 PM on June 30th to qualify for the Q2 prizes.  New Business is defined as the “purchase of any combination of new client accounts and additional messaging volume and additional messaging volume.  Renewal agreements do not apply. Details of the prize below:
 
•  The 1st place (highest finisher) wins 3 VIP trips to Connections.
•  The 2nd place finisher wins 2 VIP trips to Connections
•  The 3rd place finisher wins 1 VIP trip to Connections
 
We know time is short till the end of Q2, but we also know that we have the pipeline to finish strong and a number of big deals still to close.  Help us finish strong and let us reward you for your hard work!  Attend Connections ’09 in style and rub elbows with NY Times Best Sellers and Academy-Award Winning Actresses at this must-attend event of the year for email marketers. The VIP Prizes includes include full event admission to Connections, Premium Lodging package courtesy of ExactTarget, and a package of special activities that will be certain to entertain and educate.
 
Thanks for all your effort and hard work to drive Q2 to a strong close!
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Deliverability and Tiny URLs

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by Amanda Cross
Many times, URLs are too long or contain too many non-word characters to be rememberable for regular human beings. Usually, this isn't such a big deal if the URL is hidden behind a text link, but if you are asking your readers to type in a URL, such as from a piece of print marketing, or if you are sharing URLs via Twitter, URL length can get to be a serious concern.

Several services, such as TinyURL.com, will give you a very short URL that they will redirect to your longer URL so that you can use the short version when you need it. MarketingSherpa recently ran a story on the impact that using these services can have on the deliverability of your email marketing messages.

Within the ExactTarget application, you can create short, meaningful URLs for your landing pages by using the personalized URL feature. When you create the landing page, you enter the "key" value that identifies the page. Then, to access that page, subscribers just type in your company domain followed by the key. For example, the URL for a page with a key of "community" would be something like:

http://example.com/community

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Love for the ExactTarget Newsletter

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by Amanda Cross
Insight: the ExactTarget newsletterThe Scrappy Email Marketer had some nice things to say about the ExactTarget newsletter last week:

Rarely do I run across a near perfect email in every sense of design and best practice, but today was the day that I received this beauty from ExactTarget.  I like everything about it.   It is well laid out, easy to read, has pre-header and the calls to action are clear and concise.

Not that I had anything personally to do with it, but thank you anyway! It is a nice piece of work.

Though there was one negative:

Guys…where are you links to your FB or Twitter account?  Why are you not jumping on the “social networking injection into email bandwagon”?  C’mon..bunch of hip folks like you should know better.
 

I can't speak to the links to the Facebook or Twitter accounts, except to say that they do exist (I'm a fan on Facebook :), but I bet it won't be long at all before recipients of the newsletter will be able to share its content on their favorite social networking site using the Social Forward feature.
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Metrics-Driven Video Email Marketing

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 by Amanda Cross
Just noticed this story on PR Newswire:

Flimp logoFlimp Media, a developer of online video marketing and viewer analytics solutions, announced today that it is partnering with on-demand email provider ExactTarget to offer email marketers a metrics-driven video email messaging solution.

Flimp is a solution that allows you to create, distribute, and track video content in your email and landing page marketing. They are working with ExactTarget through the Extensions Network, a program in which applications that integrate with the ExactTarget application are made available to users.

Read more about the solution on the ExactTarget Extensions Network website.

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Hold the Coupons, I have too Many

Friday, June 19, 2009 by Kyle Schroeder

 

I don’t want a coupon from you every day.

 

Why? Because I am not going to buy your product every day.

 

Don’t get me wrong, college students like a great bargain but there are lists of companies that overdo it when it comes to email marketing. Unlike commercials, I don’t think quantity is always the desired method of attack.

 

I have found that a leading retail apparel company does a good job of 1) targeting their emails to me and 2) spending only relevant ones. Doesn’t this sound familiar to the recommendations that Morgan Stewart highlights in his recent blog, How would college students target their peers?

 

Back in early December, I received an email from this company advertising their need for additional holiday employment. Who were they targeting?

 

College students home on Christmas break.

 

The fact that I don’t get an email (or two) from this company every day prompted me to see what motivated them to send one out. I was pleasantly surprised to find it specifically targeted to my demographic.

 

This is the power of effective email marketing campaigns with tools that ExactTarget can provide for your company.

 

Kyle Schroeder

Slingshot Summer Intern


 

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