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.
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!
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".
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)?
#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!
I received a B2B spam email today. That’s not too remarkable. I get anywhere from four to eight of them a day. The volume is irritating enough that I log them, and I always reply and ask where they got my email address from. (Some day, I might even “out” some of the worst offenders, highlighting their lack of permission for the whole world to see. And to shine an uncomfortable spotlight on those awful “business contact database” selling companies, who sell B2B lists.)
This time, I got a reply back to my query. The sender indicated that I gave them a business card at a conference.
Okay, so it’s somebody I’ve actually met. That’s fine, that’s good. I give out a lot of business cards at conferences. People always want my business card, and often ask me if it’s okay to email me a deliverability question or two at some point in the future. Time permitting, I welcome deliverability questions via email, and answer as many as I can.
But, just because I gave you my email address, how does that mean that I wanted to be subscribed to your company’s newsletter? A competitor company, even. Think of how poorly considered this is, on multiple levels. Wanted mail is well delivered mail. Did I want this mail? No, I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t expect it. Also, do you think it’s wise to obtain competitor email addresses at conferences and sign them up for your newsletter? Do you really want to broadcast what you’re doing, directly to your competitors?
The real issue here is the logical leap (or lack of one) from “you may have my contact information” to “please send me your newsletter.” I stated the former by handing over my card. I did not state or even imply the latter. So how does somebody make the logical leap from contact info to permission? I’m not seeing it, because there’s a step missing: Asking me if I wanted to receive your newsletter. That’s what permission is all about. Ask, don’t assume.
In this case, the guy assumed. And that assumption was a bad one, and it colored my opinion of him, and his company’s permission practices, accordingly.
I’m sure somebody somewhere will take a different point of view and suggest that gosh, this email was really targeted (or should have just been targeted a little better), and then it would have been fine. That’s untrue. “Properly targeted” spam is still spam, and the proof is in the spam complaints. Send mail to people who don’t want it, even if it’s on topic, and it garners spam complaints. It’s that simple.
In this case, I know I wasn’t the only person who received this mailing, and I know that some of the other recipients were similarly unhappy about it. I guess I’m not alone in thinking that a business card exchange doesn’t equate with opt-in permission.
If you haven't heard, in addition to email and SMS marketing, ExactTarget also offers voicemail marketing.
While I'm well versed in permission practices regarding email, I didn't know too much about how permission applies to voicemail marketing. So, I attended Vontoo's Permission-Based Voice Marketing Webinar recently to learn more. I picked up some valuable information I thought was worth sharing.
Just as email marketing is governed by the CAN-SPAM law, voice marketing here in the United States is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR).
Today, the TSR stipulates that voicemail marketing messages must have an interactive means to opt out that has to be revealed to the recipient at the beginning of the call—i.e., press * to opt-out at any time. In addition, the recipient must have the option to opt out at any point during call.
If a recipient opts-out, the marketer must add the recipient's phone number to their Do Not Call list.
If a voicemail marketer leaves a recipient a voicemail they must provide a toll free number for opt out and the process must be automated so that recipient doesn't have to speak with a live person.
Also restricted by the TSR are the days and times that voicemail marketers can contact consumers. Voicemail marketers are only allowed to make calls from 9am to 9pm local time Monday through Friday and from 9am to 8pm on Saturday and Sunday.
The TSR currently states that voicemail marketers can market to anyone with which they have a business relationship. Beginning September 1, 2009, voicemail marketers will be required to obtain consent before calling, even those consumers with whom they have a business relationship.
Any call whose purpose is to induce the purchase of a good or service is covered by FTC regulations.
There will still be some calls that can be made without prior consent, including:
- Informational Change Calls
- Service Calls
- Appointment Verifications
- Reminder Calls
- Notification Calls
- Event Announcement Calls
- Update Calls
I got some bad news last weekend. No, I haven't lost my job (ExactTarget's growing like a weed actually!). And no, I don't have an incurable disease (that I know of...). But my hair salon is tightening budgets, restructuring their contracts with the stylists...and - wait for it - axing their Voice appointment reminder program. UGH.
My heart skipped a beat when they told me. It was all I could do to smile politely, give a compassionate head-nod as they bemoaned the down economy, and walk out the door after they delivered the news.
(and no, this isn't what I look like now...)
Granted, my salon isn't an ExactTarget client, so I'm not sure who's been coaching them on the value of Voice. But apparently they didn't make a good enough case.
Which is crazy because of all the business that need Voice marketing capabilities, a spa/salon is near the top (at least in my life). When you set appointments 6 months out, it's pretty hard for clients to remember them. And the prompt day-ahead Voice reminders were just what I needed to make sure I showed up Saturday at 2PM for a trim. See, now I'm getting all wound up.
Still skeptical about Voice marketing? Check out our new Field Guide to Voice to see just 15 of the many real-world species and use cases for this emerging channel. You'll learn about the different breeds of Voice marketing messages, what diets they need to thrive (a.k.a. data types), and what B2B and B2C habitats commonly host each species.
I'm not unsympathetic to tightening budgets -- but I do get sad when I see companies sacrificing emerging 1 to 1 marketing programs that have the power to bring big long-term business gains to save a quick buck.
So if you're thinking about cutting 1 to 1 digital marketing programs to save a nickel or two now, just consider what you're sacrificing down the line.
Plus, now there's a 50/50 shot I'll forget my next haircut appointment....blast, blast, blast.
Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate
Stefan Tornquist, MarketingSherpa's Research Director, had the honor of kicking off this year's Email Summit, and he did so with 30 minutes of fast & furious email marketing insights.The high level take-aways:
- 72% of consumers report a noticeable increase in emails from opt-in relationships over the past few months (MarketingSherpa has yet to survey B2B recipients, but assumes that this increased volume will hold true there as well).
- Company churn is making it harder to grow in-house email lists because there's no staff or strategy stability.
- As our own Morgan Stewart has hypothesized, overall benchmark stats are declining as marketers becoming for desperately frequent with their email programs.
- Way too many consumers are still getting email without opt-in
- More consumers--including Millennials (51%) agree that "Email is more important to me than the phone.
- Email is still driving more online purchases than other online media
- Marketers must be more clear in opt-in privacy & guarantees not to share email addresses--consumers will respond positively.
- Go fix your opt-in form to expressly state that emails will not be sold or shared
- Be more clear in value proposition for opt-in at time of opt-in (the quid pro quo I've blogged about previously)
- Introduce a "Welcome Series" for new subscribers as right after opt-in is the moment of greatest opportunity and response.
- Conduct a "Transactional Email Audit" as this form of email communication with thrive and survive due to its importance to the recipient.
- Start or upgrade your "Preference Center" in order to give greater control to subscribers (dare I say, SUBSCRIBERS RULE!).
Stay tuned for more to come from MarketingSherpa's Email Summit '09!
In fact, many types of organizations (B2B marketers, financial services firms, and. . .arts organizations!) can use SMS--also known as text messaging--to promote their business.
Want an example? Take a look at the promotion Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra put together to support their Happy Hour Series. This just one of the ways that ISO is using ExactTarget SMS. If you're curious about how it works, dig your phone out of your pocket and follow the instructions on the top right.
Looking for more ideas? Check out ExactTarget's Field Guide to SMS. Thought starters abound.
Not only does ExactTarget enable organizations with innovative solutions for their one-to-one marketing efforts, we also use them in our own business-to-business marketing. Yes, I sound like the guy on Hair Club for Men commercials.
But if you're headed to the mPlanet in Orlando next week, make sure you stop past Booth 63/64. We're going to be showing off some cool stuff including our Text Capture and Text-to-Voice functionality. Trust me: you're going to want to see it.
Text Capture: works like this: subscribers can opt-in to an email list via text message. No more writing on clipboards or mail-in postcards. If you want to join an email list, just type in your email address and send it via text message.
With Text to Voice, you text in a keyword and get a voice message back. At mPlanet, you'll get a call back from Scott Dorsey. It's a quick and easy way to put some inflection and emotion into your marketing.
The best part? It's easy. Megan (on of the amazing MarCom team members here at ExactTarget) growls at me when I come up with new, crazy ideas that require a bunch of work. So when I suggested these campaigns be implemented along with our attendance at mPlanet, she gave me her best snake eyes stare. But nothing gave me more pleasure than when Megan got started on implementation.
And I quote her here: "That's it? That was easy." I made her repeat it, louder, so that everyone around could hear her admission. Sure, I'm just joking with Megan, but the point is that you don't have to have technical resources to implement cool technology with SMS, voice messaging and email.
Looking forward to demonstrating these tools to you at the show!
I Just Called…To Say….That Voice + Email is Powerful Punch
With all the buzz around channels like Voice and SMS, it can be tempting to implement new programs just for the sake of doing what’s hot. And let’s face it, that’s not so hot for your subscribers. So if you’ve been searching for a meaningful way to incorporate Voice into your own marketing campaigns, bravo!
Truth is, we’ve been looking, too. Sure, ExactTarget offers the integrated one-to-one platform to make sending Email, SMS and Voice from a single user interface a snap. But we’ve been known as a leading email company for years, and our B2B environment often lacks the promotional and urgent nature that’s so conducive for some emerging media.
So when R.J. Talyor, one of our Product Marketing Managers and Voice Expert Extraordinaire, approached us about conducting a Voice test for the Email Marketing Intelligence Webinar Series we’re hosting with MarketingSherpa, I was a little apprehensive. Would it add value for our webinar registrants? Would they be receptive to new channels of communication from ExactTarget? Can Voice make a measurable impact on the event attendance?
In short, all findings point to YES. I’m pleased to report that the Voice testing results from the first webinar were extremely positive. I hope you find the following information both useful and encouraging when considering how (and when) to add Voice into your own marketing mix.
Webinar Reminder Testing Goal: To find the ideal messaging mix to drive webinar attendance via reminders
Testing Approach
Registrant list split into three random groups to receive reminders the day of the event.
- Email-Only Reminder Group
- Voice-Only Reminder Group
- Email + Voice Reminder Group
Test Findings
- Email + Voice reminders drove the highest webinar attendance (43%)
- Email-only reminder came in second (36.3%)
- Voice-only reminder drove fewest attendees (29.6%)
We’ll be continuing to test Voice for the next few webinars, so sign up to see them in action and stay tuned for further results!
Cheers,
Ashley Sales
Manager, Marketing Communications
ExactTarget Feed
Powered by Compendium Blogware