Business-to-Business Email Marketing

Here’s another great client I’ve recently had the pleasure of speaking with—Avvo, the web’s largest legal Q&A forum, directory, and marketplace. Connecting hundreds of thousands of consumers and lawyers every month, Avvo is both a B2C (consumers searching for legal assistance) and B2B business (lawyers looking to improve their online presence and lead generation).

• 16x increase in average email click-through rate
• 5...

What's the biggest challenge facing your email marketing?

If it's the quality of your email database, you're not alone. According to a new study by Econsultancy, 50% of surveyed marketers cited database quality as the biggest troublemaker in their email marketing strategies. Even more compelling, database quality has held that position three years running. So why is database quality such a big problem? 

Much like gourmet chefs working with spoiled ingredients, marketers working with outdated or unqualified databases have their chances at success handicapped from the start. If your database...

As the sun rises across each time zone, where do consumers start their online day? Your customers' activities first thing in the morning can reveal their priorities and motivations (whether those are business-, social-, or news-oriented), and also provide an indication of how and when to engage with them.

In our 2013 Global Executive Summary, we compare and contrast the findings of our award-winning SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS research series to bring you insight into what consumers worldwide are doing in the morning, as well as how they spend their time on multiple digital marketing...

Let's face it--we all need a little inspiration sometimes! With so many approaches to execute a solid B2B strategy--from demand generation and social media to mobile marketing, lead nurturing, and lead scoring--it's easy to get overwhelmed. What better way to be inspired than to network, brainstorm, and collaborate with your B2B marketing peers and industry experts on all things B2B?

At the B2B Inspiration Tour, you'll hear from leading experts in the space, like Lori Wizdo, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research. In her inspirational talk at the San Francisco tour stop, Lori will explore the...

As we head into the busy summer travel season, travel brands will be looking for ways to connect with consumers. Of course, brands are constantly chided to avoid over-communicating with their opted-in subscribers. Even after consumers have subscribed to your brand's email or chosen to "like' you on Facebook, your brand's connection with them remains tenuous, because they can break off the relationship at any time.

A major temptation for some brands is to over-communicate with customers, inundating them with offers, deals, product news, and just about anything else that marketers believe could...

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing guest articles from experts in the realm of content marketing. This week, Jeb Banner writes.

Jeb is CEO of SmallBox, an Indianapolis web design and marketing company. He is also a co-founder of the Speak Easy, a local co-working space. He is happily married to his wife, Jenny, and they have three amazing daughters.

I attended a local tech panel recently and was starting to space out when ExactTarget's CMO Tim Kopp said something that caught my attention: "Serving is the new selling." It reminded me of something my buddy Kevin Bailey from Slingshot...

According to a recent survey by Accenture, US home and auto insurance customers are choosing digital sources for insurance quotes and other related information more than ever before. While 76% of consumers prefer to set up and pay for their insurance policies in person with an agent, 58% indicated a preference for doing so via the Web. (Respondents were allowed to choose more than one answer.)

If consumers are seeking digital outlets and want to work directly with an agent, then why not make insurance agents’ jobs easier and give them the necessary tools?

How can insurance companies make it...

What does it take to build targeted emails that move from capturing customer attention to ensuring lifetime retention? Chances are, you already know a thing or two about lifecycle marketing. But let’s do a quick recap:

Marketers understand the challenges of limited time and resources that often compete with increased expectations. That's why we created this free lifecycle marketing how-to poster—considering all the lifecycle programs you could execute and providing you with strategic recommendations that will immediately impact your business, one step at a time.

Here's a sneak peek of the...

Hello fellow marketers,

I’m so excited to invite you to Connections 2013—the premier digital marketing event of the year. Registration is now open, so check out all the details and reserve your spot at exacttarget.com/connections2013.

In case you haven’t heard the buzz, here are the top five reasons you should attend Connections 2013:

1. The Theme: Lead From Within
   Whether at home, at work, or throughout the community, we all play a role in leading others. And no matter who or how you lead, the power to influence change starts from within. During Connections 2013, we’ll explore ways to discover your...

When it comes to email marketing in the B2B space, one of the hottest new trends is drip-nurturing campaigns created with marketing automation. With the adoption of marketing automation reaching as high as 76% in the most progressive industries, it is easy to see why nurturing is the new “black”. So let's look at one of the biggest mistakes people make when creating lead nurturing emails.

First, let's talk about what a nurturing program actually is. Whatever term you use--drip-nurturing, lead nurturing, email nurturing, etc.--a nurturing campaign is an email program that executes automatically...

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing guest articles from experts in the realm of content marketing. This week, Josh Miles writes.

Josh Miles is principal and founder of Miles Design, a branding firm specializing in branding and website design for professional services and software firms. Josh is the author of the new Content Marketing Institute book Bold Brand: The New Rules for Differentiating, Branding, and Marketing Your Professional Services Firm.

“It will look like you guys are on everywhere, even if you’re not.”

Our media buyer always had a way of helping our clients make the...

Last week I spent some time in Michigan where we teamed up with Adobe and Demandbase to explore lifecycle marketing from a B2B lens. Marketing Profs recently published an article on some of the issues B2B marketers face on a consistent basis, and our seminars really aimed to tackle two of these glaring issues:

• One major obstacle to measurement is poor data infrastructure. 34% say they do not have the right tools to collect and analyze marketing program data.
• Another challenge is a lack of understanding of the metrics needed at each stage of the buying decision. 22% cite this as a top obstacle to...

Each half-day session is packed with best practices and tips from fellow marketers. Take a look at the infographic below to find out more:

You can also follow the B2B Inspiration Tour conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #B2BInspiration.

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing guest articles from experts in the realm of content marketing. This week, Steven Shattuck writes.

Steven is VP of Marketing at Bloomerang. He is a featured contributor to Social Media Today, and has been published in Search Engine Journal, Business2Community and the Content Marketing Institute. Steven has spoken at national and local conferences, and is frequently interviewed by traditional media outlets in Indianapolis for his expertise in social media marketing.

There's no shortage of content marketing advice out there. Now that most marketers...

You’ve all read the stats and seen the infographics: consumers are awash with technology, and mobility is leading the charge. Many marketers already have mobile marketing strategies in place--but for those who don’t, now is the time to prioritise. It’s no longer a matter of just being mobile-friendly. You have to think mobile first.

Remember, you’re up close and personal

Consider how you use your phone. You keep it in a special case, use it to take and store personal photos and communicate with loved ones. You work with it. You play with it. Heck, most of us even sleep with it! The smartphone...

This May and June, Pardot (an ExactTarget company) is traveling the nation to help B2B marketers network with each other, listen to thought-provoking presenters, and get inspired to be the best B2B marketers we can be.

Just over one week remains until the B2B Inspiration Tour kicks off in Atlanta, GA.

You won't want to miss this free half-day event, and registration is filling up.

Check out the B2B Inspiration Tour site for all the info on who's speaking and what you can expect to learn.

You'll get up to speed on new trends and best practices in the B2B marketing realm. Some of the areas we'll...

Earlier this week, Gartner published a Magic Quadrant report and positioned ExactTarget’s Pardot marketing automation a “Visionary” in CRM lead management. This is a great accomplishment that we believe reinforces our position as the solution to help business streamline sales and accelerate revenue growth with a powerful, yet easy to use cloud-based application.

We believe this openness of our solution is essential to helping marketers unlock the power of data in their CRM, analytics and content management to power more effective marketing. We also believe that, as a part of ExactTarget, we are...

Pardot, an ExactTarget company, is excited to announce the premiere B2B Inspiration Tour!

Are you near Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, or Seattle? This May and June, Pardot will be traveling to those cities for a free half-day event that inspires B2B Marketers.

What's your marketing missing? Join Pardot as we make connections, network, and begin a journey to create a unique B2B community to be inspired by others.

Thought leaders and industry analysts will be offering presentations and discussion on new B2B marketing information and current trends. Network with like-minded marketers right in...

The first thing most aspiring marketers learn is the importance of identifying and subsequently engaging those beautiful people called “the audience” no matter where they live online. This lesson gains wholehearted acceptance from everyone in the marketing world. However, the execution becomes complicated, and soon we all learn that feeding something like a blog everyday just simply isn’t enough.

We must put ourselves on the customer's online path.

Think goals first, campaigns second and tactics third.

What’s the goal? Always start there. That’s what the university lecturer taught you a long time...