Business Text Marketing

Andrea Vahl (@AndreaVahl) wrote a great blog post about How Your Business Can Use the New Facebook Cover Photos. While she goes into much more depth, the two primary items to keep in mind are 1) cover photos may not include more than 20% text, and 2) cover photos are no longer disallowed to incorporate calls to action, websites, or address information.

Marketers should definitely keep #1 in mind to ensure they don’t go through official Facebook reviews like I mentioned in my last blog post. Meanwhile, #2 provides some great new opportunities in taking advantage of your Facebook presence.  Even...

When Seth Godin introduced the concept of permission marketing in 1999, it was a big idea: ask customers to accept marketing messages from you. Looking at the best uses of mobile, I believe we are at a new crossroads; one where customers request marketing messages.

Never forget that digital messages rendered on mobile devices are personal and intrusive. On the Advertising Aggravation Continuum (shown below), they are most comparable to telemarketing. We all know what happened to that traditional marketing channel and the impact on brands that abused it.

In the middle of the continuum, people...

The mobile inbox is a powerful tool if used the right way. We know that smart phone penetration in the US has reached 55% and mobile email open rates are over 40%. Almost half of your database is opening email via their mobile phone. Are you designing your emails to display correctly?

You could be leaving money on the table by not designing effective mobile email. Actually, you ARE leaving money on the table. Here are four design tips to help you design for the mobile inbox. Need more tips? Check out our Designing for the Mobile Inbox white paper.

1. Design for Your Audience

Know your...

Permission-based email has become the foundation of successful one-to-one marketing, and a company's database of email subscribers is one of its most valuable assets.

And with good reason! As our 2012 Channel Preference Survey revealed, 66% of US online consumers report making at least one purchase that was triggered by an offer received via email. And for BtoB marketing, nothing tops email for aiding the customer’s buying decision. In a 2012 article, BtoB Magazine reported that 59% of BtoB marketers say email is their most effective channel for generating revenue.

At the recent 2013 MarketingShe...

You've launched your mobile program, and fine-tuned to increase customer engagement. Your mobile program is finally in full swing, and you’re looking to create highly personalized messages that are consistent across all areas of your business. Since you know your customer lifecycle well, why not seize the opportunity to streamline interactions using mobile?

Here are some ideas to create a truly engaging mobile experience in months 7-9.

Empower customers to interact with your brand in real-time. Mobile doesn’t have to be a one way conversation—a simple text response allows subscribers to tell...

For the past three years, ExactTarget's SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS research series has taken an in-depth look at consumer preferences and behaviors as they relate to email, mobile, and social channels. In Marketers From Mars, the 20th report in that series, we turn the tables and look at ourselves: marketers.

As marketers, it’s our job to be on the cutting edge. We were most likely the first among our friends to have smartphones. We were the first to tweet, pin, like, follow, and have a business page on Facebook. We Skype, not Keek. We Google Hangout, not FaceTime. We are the early adopters...

50 years ago we only had a few media outlets: print, television, radio, and maybe one or two others. Now it seems we have a new media outlet everyday. Case in point: just the other day Twitter released Vine.

Vine, for those of you late to the party, is a 6 second video loop. Imagine Instagram for video, meets Twitter. Twitter calls it, “The best way to see and share life in motion." The 6 second lenth is the key here. Sally Hogshead states that with the increased volume of content these days, we only have 9 seconds to reach someone with our message. Putting constraints on the length of video...

If Client Experience (CX) experts are right, companies that use surveys heavily to monitor the opinions of their customers will find their effectiveness wanes over time. This “Decline of Surveys” was highlighted as the number one CX trend to watch for 2013 in a recent blog post by the Temkin Group.

As they point out, “As more companies thirst for customer feedback, the number of surveys has escalated. But there is a limit to customers’ willingness to complete surveys. As completion rates get more difficult to maintain, companies will become more efficient with the questions they ask, target...

At Connections this year we recognized over 30 companies as finalists for our Power of One Awards. The marketing team from Blinds.com, a leading retailer in the window blinds and shade business, was recognized as a finalist for their "Entice and Engage" campaign that generated 175% growth to their email list. Featured below is a summary of how Blinds.com went about achieving these phenomenal business results.

THE BLINDS.COM STORY

The Blinds.com team wanted to grow their email list with engaged prospects that could be reached across a number of platforms—not just email. The team knew that...

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

This month, Facebook launched “Custom Audience” ads, which allows marketers to use their email subscriber list to target advertising on Facebook.  While most agree that this could be a really big deal, there are some skeptics who see this as an invasion of privacy or a misunderstanding of channel preferences.

How does Custom Audiences Ads Work?
Custom Audience ads let businesses submit a text or CSV file of privacy-protected hashed email addresses, phone numbers, or Facebook User IDs and have Facebook target those people with a specific ad.

Is this an invasion of privacy?
No. Facebook doesn't get...

Each Thursday at 11 a.m. 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.

In this weeks #NexusCafe chat we discussed the good, the bad and the latest trends that exist with mobile photos and social sharing. On the right is a picture of Amanda Berkey and I hosting the chat -- post Amanda being consumed by the chat and spilling coffee.  It might be because I am an instagram and pinterest fanatic, but this was...

There’s been a new trend cropping up lately in inboxes – maybe you’ve seen it? It’s full of love. Sometimes it points you in the right direction. Other times, it’s simply breaking up the information overload.

What’s the trend? It’s icons in subject lines, and marketers in every vertical are finding ways to use this eye-catching new tool to snag more opens on their emails.

It’s actually not that new. Since a fourteen year old first learned to text her friends, they’ve been putting the < together with a number 3 to create a heart. (It looks like this: <3 See it?)

What IS new is that all kinds of...

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) released the final form of its regulations on March 5, 2012. You can see them for yourself in the Canada Gazette (Canada’s version of the United States’ Federal Register). They are printed in the March 28, 2012 edition. This version is not a call for comments, but rather the release of the actual rules after considering the comments made in response to their prior “Call for comments on draft Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations” which was released last July.

These regulations are not much different than the...

Recent legislation passed in Brazil could result in employers being required to pay overtime to employees checking email or taking phone calls after work hours. This law seems to follow some global employers' efforts to limit the time spent on email while not at work--going to such extremes as shutting off email servers during non-work hours. You can read more of the original Mobiledia article that reported this data here.

Since much of the non-work email checking takes place on smartphones, this news feels like a potentail speedbump in the global acceleration path of mobile email--with many...

You’re busy, I’m busy, everyone is unbelievably busy these days. And that’s why NOBODY has time to sift through an email packed full of 5-10 news articles written straight into the message. However, you probably DO have an interested list of folks who want to hear from you. Want to increase engagement and performance right away? 

Here are a few steps you can take using ExactTarget Landing Pages to improve design and content and increase open and click-through rates, highlighted by Barbara Ryan and Church Pension Group (CPG):

1.      Scale back the content in each news article, so the email...