Direct Email Marketing

Live Blog: ExactTarget's API Vision and Roadmap - Past, Present, and Future

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Amanda Cross

As we wait to hear about the future of the ExactTarget API, 3 Par handed out a card inviting everyone to come by their booth in the vendor hall to register to win a Nintendo Wii. Too bad ExactTarget employees aren't eligible to win. :)

I can see the presenters setting up at the front of the room, and they aren't messing around with the expertise that they're bringing to the table. Our chief architect, Michael Ciancio-Bunch (known to his friends as MCB) and our CTO, Scott McCorkle are on the stage.

ExactTarget API: Past, Present, and Future
Scott begins the discussion by talking about how the Carbon initiative will lead the application to consume our own web service API. This "eating our own dog food" will ensure that the API has the entire breadth of functionality of the application.

MCB launched into the history of the API:

2002 - XML API was introduced
2004 - Bulk asynch API was introduced
2007 - Object Oriented Web Service API
2008 - Asynchronous web service API

Michael asked how many people were using the asynch WS API, but no one was, which inspired him to go into the benefits of the asynchronous model. It takes advantage of our multiple data centers to make sure that API calls are processed, allows you to indicate the order of API calls, and prevents accidental re-processing of the same calls.

Then Michael began talking about the features delivered or planned for 2009.

DISCLAIMER: all forward looking statements are subject to change. As MCB said, "we might have another John and Kate mess" and the distraction would push out development timelines.

Back to the list:

Support for compression (currently limited availability)
Streaming (in the works) - begins processing the "conversation" (collection of calls) before all of the content is received.
X.509 user authentication (in the works)
API exposed via AMPscript (already delivered)
Enterprise 2.0 user model - create roles, permissions, business units, etc. (scheduled for November release)
Retrieve improvements
Round out - things like template support and more capability to manipulate content areas

Currently, ExactTarget is processing 58 calls per second (150,000,000 API calls per month), including 28 triggered sends per second. The capacity and processing power of the ExactTarget infrastructure is truly difficult to conceive. It's like trying to understand how big the moon is or something.

Michael introduced the ExactTarget Platform Integration Framework - a set of tools (much improved over what we've provided in the past) to allow developers to use the web service API to create powerful apps. Here are the tools:

API
Landing Pages
AMPscript
Data integration tools (Import, extracts, and more to come)
Extensible UI
Programs
Enterprise
Packaging and provisioning
Community to support you

API
On the roadmap is:

A proper REST API (to be delivered sometime in 2010)
A file-based API, where you FTP a file that contains instructions and the ExactTarget begins processing those instructions as soon as we receive it (probably to be delivered in the spring)
Authenticated asynch API results callback - the ability for us to call back to you if something goes wrong in a call. Currently, you have to query for status, or have a rudimentary notification. This will be much more sophisticated and slick. (to be delivered sometime in 2010)

Landing Pages
You can use this feature to create customer-facing web pages, but you can also use it to create pages that you see within the ExactTarget application. For example, you could create your own custom wizards or customized data presentation pages. You can build them as landing pages and integrate them into our application for your ExactTarget users to see when they're logged in to the application.

Not only that, but you can embed landing pages within your own application. Landing pages can support AJAX, so you can gather information within your own app and feed it in to ExactTarget.

On the landing page roadmap:

Smart Page templates for common use cases, CSS, and the ability to tap into server and client side events for added customization
JavaScript as a server side language
Highly available landing pages

AMPscript
Michael made a bold statement that JavaScript will kill off AMPscript in the future (though he did suggest that we'd always support it). After that, the discussion became more about the future plans for JavaScript, such as an activity, (those things you can put in programs) for JavaScript.

I understand, but I'll be sad to see AMPscript go by the wayside. It's a really powerful scripting language.

Data Integration Tools
Roadmap items include:

Direct import from and extract to external systems, such as CRM, analytics, POS, etc.
File transformations
Sophisticated mapping functionality
Data cleansing services
Interfaces defined for custom integrations
Richer metadata around data extensions

UI Extensibility
These are some of the roadmap items:

The ability to define a custom home page. I think that this is already available to Enterprise 2.0 edition products.
Buttons can be added to toolbars and tabs can be added to the navigation bar. I've seen this demoed myself, and it's pretty cool. Really allows you to customize the experience.
Custom fields can be added to forms
Experience Builder - this is a really cool one, too. We saw some wireframes for this earlier in the conference, and it's going to be really awesome.

Programs
MCB says we're rewriting the program engine, and the new incarnation will support delays, notifications, and other stuff that's been requested. A programs dashboard and templates, along with better error reporting and error recovery, will make working with programs easier.

The "file drop" functionality that I mentioned earlier is a kind of ad hoc program, plus activities will be created to invoke web services and HTTP based APIs, so the lines between API and programs are getting blurrier, creating a lot more power and flexibility.

Enterprise 2

Granular permission model
Run as functionality for the API - this lets you use the permission level of a user with your API calls, so that tools you build with the API will only show users what's appropriate for them.
Ability to define custom permissions
Access to objects in multiple business units via the API - For example, you could query the records in a data extension in one business unit and write them to a data extension in a different business unit.

Packaging and Provisioning
We'll be allowing you to bundle up all your custom landing pages, data extensions, folder, UI customizations, program templates, and other elements to drop them into another account. This will allow you to do cool things like pre-configure new business unit accounts. Eventually, this idea will support an app-store-type tool where people could browse your package and purchase it and install it.

Community
MCB acknowledged that developers have not been happy with how 3sixty has replaced the old Developer Community. He talked about our dedication to improve the experience. We have developers within ExactTarget to answer questions and post content. He asked that everyone submit their requests for what they'd like to see, because we do want to make it better.

Q&A
Again, documentation is getting the shout out in the question and answer. I guess people actually like to know the technical details. w00t!

Live Blog: Automation Event Triggered Sends Using SOAP API

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Amanda Cross

The developer track continues with Automation Event Triggered Sends Using SOAP API.

Between sessions, the intrepid staff of the Westin brought in several more chairs, effectively ensuring that no one will be sitting on the floor this time. There wouldn't be room, even if they wanted to.

Ana Ng plays over the PA system while we wait for the session to start, and with a minute to go it switches to Particle Man as the room fills up. You can tell that we're gearing up for the They Might be Giants concert tonight, after the Second City performance. Indeed, I'm already wearing my wristband :)

Automation Event Triggered Sends Using SOAP API
ExactTarget Product Specialist Manager and general super brain, Dale McCrory beings the presentation by asking how many people in the crowd have used triggered sends before. This feature is one of the most powerfully compelling and commonly implemented functionalities available in the SOAP API. Triggered emails are perfect for things like password reminders, order confirmations, and welcome emails. You can also use them together with Web Collect forms, Reply Mail Management, and other parts of the ExactTarget system that automatically send response emails to subscribers.

He continues by talking about send classifications: marketing and transactional, and the differences between then. Basically, marketing messages are subject to CAN-SPAM regulation, while transactional messages are not, since they're might actually be required to be sent to subscribers, such as receipts.

Dale puts some code up on the screen to show the anatomy of a triggered send call. He talks about how the template, content, and all the look-and-feel stuff about the email are created within the application and are controllable by marketers. The API then references the triggered send definition using the external key and doesn't have to bother with actually creating the content of the email using the API.

Next, Dale moved in to the difference between synchronous and asynchronous API. A synchronous API call goes to the server, which responds. If the server is unavailable, there's no response, and it's on the ExactTarget customer's shoulders to retry. Asynchronous calls, on the other hand, are queued up, so even if they can't be processed right away, they will get processed when the server is available. He recommends that people starting new triggered send initiatives use asynchronous API, unless development is so constrained that synchronous is all there's time for.

High priority API calls can be processed immediately, even if one of the servers is unavailable, by using our multiple data centers. There are limitations on emails that can be sent this way (they can't contain info from data extensions...stuff like that) and it incurs an additional cost per send.

Dale ran a little short of time, but he'll be presenting again later in the day.

Intuit's Notifications Service Engine: A practical approach to facilitating customer notifications
Next Intuit's Gary Rittinger directed everyone to http://connect.intuit.com to check out the implementation that he'll be talking about.

His purpose is to provide Intuit's infrastructure and offerings the ability to send, monitor, and manage the notifications they send to customers in a consistent and reliable way. To do this, Gary uses triggered sends to send welcome emails, order confirmation, shipping conversation, and other transactional messages.

Intuit finds that it's difficult to get consistent programming from across its organization, so it uses "application adapters" to normalize the input. They're using ExactTarget accounts to let each product manager get in and see the status of email sends.

As a result of implementing ExactTarget, Intuit enjoys:

Better transparency into notifications deliverability.
Reduced cost and increased efficiency of customer notifications.
Improved enterprise SOA adoption through standard web service technologies.
Fewer of redundant apps that served the same purpose.
Improve governance and compliance.

Gary recounted the ease and smoothness of putting this process in place. He commented that they've recently been moved from the Indy data center to the Las Vegas data center--one of the first customer to be live sending out of that data center--and the move took only 90 seconds. He also said that rolling out the process took only a couple weeks.

During the Q&A, Bryan Wade (the emcee) is talking up the documentation wiki and the API content that's available on it. This is a topic near and dear to my heart <3

Success in Honoring Subscriber Requests

Monday, October 12, 2009 by Amanda Cross

Industries have their seminal moments that affect the direction of their development from that point forward. I see one of those happening right now in email marketing: the dialog between marketer and customer about what the customer wants to receive.

Powell's Books is among the pack leaders and is reaping the benefits, as this story on InternetRetailer.com describes:

Powell’s Books has been sending shoppers e-mail newsletters recommending books on subjects the recipients told the retailer they enjoyed. The e-mails were opened 70% more than generic marketing e-mails sent by Powell’s.

The campaign, launched in February, allows consumers to choose from 10 e-newsletters on various topics, such as romance or literature, and then sends the applicable newsletter via e-mail. “The Subject newsletters are proof positive that the more focused the content, the more likely customers are to interact,” says San Whitmore, online marketing developer.

Marketing email content driven off subscriber information has been and continues to be a powerful mechanism to get personalized content into the subscriber inbox, but when it's feasible and appropriate, asking the consumer directly is even better.

The Success of Behavioral Targeting: Earning Consumer Trust

Friday, October 9, 2009 by Caitilin Landrigan

A recent study performed by the Annenberg School for Communication, University of California Berkeley School of Law, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center reports that Americans believe marketers should not advertise to them based on preferences and behavioral data…But why? In a marketplace of abundant information and almost innumerable and varied products, why don’t consumers desire some assistance to narrow down their selection? Why don’t people appreciate that marketers want to provide them with relevant advertising? If I am going to see advertisements on a website…and there is no question that I will…I would much rather see advertisements that pertain to my interests. Wouldn’t you?

The Annenberg/Berkeley study reports that 66% of Americans do not want to see website ads that are tailored to their interests. This sounds discouraging, but I believe the information provided by this study offers valuable insight for marketers seeking to capitalize on relevant, 1 to 1 marketing efforts. This study’s stats highlight consumers’ desire for control and trust—observations that can inform behavioral web and email marketing strategy.

Advertising preference is not the only metric this study provides, as eMarketer’s article “Behavioral Targeting Misses Mark” points-out. There are several other, seemingly contradictory metrics this study reports that can help us solve this puzzle. For example, close to 50% of Americans would like websites to give them discounts specific to their interests. Hmmm…So you don’t want to see the ads, but you do want the coupons presented in those ads? Puzzling…let’s dig deeper.

eMarketer highlights another Annenberg/Berkeley metric: 67% of all Americans feel that they have “lost control over how their personal information is collected and used by companies,” and at the same time 54% of Americans believe that “existing laws and organizational practices provide a reasonable level of protection for consumer privacy.”

This issue is one of trust, not necessarily the failure of behavioral marketing. Consumers like discounts, but people feel as if they have lost control over their personal information, and no one likes to feel like they have lost control. As a Catapult at ExactTarget, I spent two days in Chicago with fellow Catapults, interviewing people on their marketing preferences. Overwhelmingly, people expressed that they felt their personal information was abused by spammers and companies they had no relationship with. Yes, there are “reasonable” laws regarding consumer privacy, but consumers ask, “Why do I get so much spam?!” “How did they get my email address? My phone number?”

When asked how they felt about tracking on “websites in general,” people stated that they felt behavioral tracking was creepy and “Big Brother-like.” On the flipside, when given a concrete example, like Amazon.com’s personalized product recommendations that appear when browsing the website, interviewees’ tone changed: “Yes, I find that helpful, but they don’t send me a million emails after I buy something and pester me all the time. And, I have a relationship with them.”

Lesson learned: people want to feel safe, respected, and protected. Amazon.com is not scary, because they have a trustworthy reputation. As marketers, we cannot neglect that relationships are the foundation for business. Leverage your landing pages, emails, voicemails, and SMS organically to build trust with clients, at point of sale, for example. In your emails, provide a reminder of how clients signed-up. Provide a link in your emails to a page on your website that explains how you use subscriber information. Perhaps you should only advertise on trusted websites. Finally, don’t be abusive: be cognizant of email frequency and content.

I encourage you to check out our whitepapers on building quality lists direct marketing channel preferences. Use our List Growth Advisor for custom recommendations on how to responsibly grow your subscriber lists so that you can leverage subscriber data respectfully and effectively. Behavioral tracking does not have to "miss the mark."

Indy Integrated

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 by Scott Dorsey

It’s never been clearer that the technology industry is thriving in the Hoosier state! Last week I had the opportunity to participate in Indianapolis’ annual Tech Point Innovation Summit and was elated to see the great high-tech Indiana companies ~~all~~ coming together to learn, grow and thrive as a collective team.

ExactTarget is proud to call Indiana home and partner with our fellow Indiana tech companies like Vontoo, Cantaloupe and Compendium to extend our world-class communications technology to their platforms via the ExactTarget Extensions Network. The great news is our list of Hoosier integrated partners continues to grow. Indianapolis-based FormSpring is now Extensions Network certified, making their easy-to-use web collection tools available to all ExactTarget users. The integration of FormSpring provides our clients a great way to add new subscribers and attributes directly to their ExactTarget account.

It’s great to be a part of the Indiana high-tech team and to partner to deliver technologies that are truly making a difference to clients around the globe.

Get Personal: One-to-One Marketing with Personalized Product Recommendations

Friday, October 2, 2009 by Joel Book

An article in the October issue of Internet Retailer, observes that “although the Internet makes it possible to personalize offers to shoppers, most e-retailers and other online businesses are failing to optimize web site content to improve the chances that shoppers will become buyers.”

Mike Chertudi, vice president of demand and online marketing for Omniture notes, “The majority of businesses aren’t optimizing their on-site conversion,” Omniture has teamed with Marketing Experiments to conduct the 2009 Online Conversion Benchmark Survey. The purpose of the survey, which began in June, is to help online marketers better understand best practices in onsite conversion, and know how they compare to their peers. Data is being compiled from more than 1,000 companies, of which more than half are retailers. Among the findings as of late August: About 80% of retailers don’t present personalized content based on shoppers’ interests suggested by analytics and clickstream data.

One-to-One Merchandising Works for Motorcycle Superstore

Proving that personalized product recommendations work, Motorcycle Superstore saw a 21.7% revenue increase in the first week after launching an email campaign on September 21st that incorporated personalized product recommendations.

Motorcycle Superstore uses behavioral data -- gathered with WebTrends technology combined with its e-mail marketing application from ExactTarget -- to send email messages with personalized product recommendations. These items appear as “Your Picks” in the lower part of the email and are based on the customer’s website visiting habits over the previous two weeks.

Commenting on the power of data-driven offer personalization, Erick Barney, vice president of marketing at Motorcycle Superstore, says “I believe this feature is so effective because rather than guessing at a handful of products to appeal to our entire customer base, we can merchandise products directly related to each customer’s historical interaction with our store.” Motorcycle Superstore is No. 223 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.

Learn more about combining precision one-to-one communications and comprehensive web analytics by integrating ExactTarget and Webtrends.

You will never believe who just called... Voice Marketing in the Entertainment Industry

Thursday, August 27, 2009 by Kristeen Hudson

What if your favorite artist called you personally to invite you to their upcoming show? I bet you would be a lot more likely to attend, right?! We know that popular artists are way to busy to call thousands of their fans and personally invite them to their shows. However, using 1-to-1 voice messaging an artist can record one message that can then be sent to hundreds of thousands of subscribers. After the artist is finished with their message the listener can then be directed to the ticket office where they can place an order while they are already on the phone.

Is that still not enough? Well, you can also offer a discount to the first “X” number of people who call to purchase a ticket.

Voice messaging can be easily intergraded into any one to one marketing plan. To learn more about voice marketing check out ExactTarget’s Voice Field Guide.

E-Coupons are HOT! (Even if the economy is not.)

Monday, August 24, 2009 by Joel Book

As reported in last week’s online issue of MEDIAWEEK, “8.6 million (or 8 percent) of U.S. households currently acquire coupons via text messages and/or email.” This finding is from a recent report from Scarborough Research.

The article noted that “a number of factors have contributed to the increasing use of text or e-mail coupons, such as the increased usage of cell phones and other personal communications devices, which allow consumers to access offers at the point of purchase. And because consumers must opt in to receive the coupons, they tend to be more targeted.”

Gordmans’ Birthday E-Coupon is a Winner

Email is the direct marketing workhorse for Gordmans, an Omaha-based retailer of ELP (Everyday Low Price) merchandise. The company, with 65 stores throughout the Midwest, uses e-coupons to “congratulate” its customers on their birthday by sending a bar-coded coupon worth $5 off their next purchase.

Results:
70.5% Open Rate
4.3% Conversion Rate (of delivered)
6.0% Conversion Rate (of opened)

Most importantly, the average sales receipt for customers redeeming the “Happy Birthday” coupon is 33% higher than average!

Looking for Retail Marketing Horsepower?

In today’s highly competitive retail environment, it’s more important than ever to employ a multichannel marketing program that includes digital one-to-one communications—and gives customers exactly what they want, when they want it.

Whether it’s implementing Personalized E-coupon Solutions, POS Customer Data Capture for Triggered Email Promotions, or using SMS to capture new email subscribers, ExactTarget can help.

Partner Network Builds Strategic Email Marketing Relationships

Thursday, August 20, 2009 by Kyle Schroeder

ExactTarget has a highly-talented team of people working with one objective in mind: developing strategic partnerships with referral, consulting, embedded, integrated, and reseller partners.

Why?

These partnership strengthen the abilities of the companies we work with and allow more people to utilize the power of ExactTarget’s one-to-one marketing software through email, SMS, and voice. ExactTarget is the perfect email marketing solution for many businesses looking to send direct email marketing campaigns.

Our partner page lists who we are currently aligned with and our program guide gives you detailed description of what it means to be a partner with ExactTarget, an industry leader in 1 to 1 Email Marketing Solutions that can develop effective email marketing campaigns across industries.

Interested in learning more? Download the ET Partner Program Guide PDF.

Kyle Schroeder
Slingshot Summer Intern

10 Ridiculously Cool Ways to Sell More on Your E-Commerce Site Using Email

Monday, August 17, 2009 by Bob Ullery

A show of hands: who isn't already using email in their e-commerce environment?

Even if you raised your hand, chances are you're using at least one form of email communication on your e-commerce site; Payment Confirmation. Most payment processing platforms give the customer a receipt via pdf download, confirmation email, or print option.

The premise of this post is to offer some other ideas on how to use automated email in your e-commerce strategy. I encourage you to browse some of my best email marketing agnostic ideas, like those I covered in 7 Awesome Ways to Wow Your Customers Using Voice on Your e-commerce Site. Those are communications that could easily be sent by email, sms, or voice. They include:

Send-to-a-Friend
Dynamic Couponing (I'll revisit this one)
Shipping Alerts
Product In-Stock Notifications
Subscription Renewal Reminders

O.K. the title of the post says 11 cool ways and I totally just listed 5 of 'em, but I've already covered how to leverage those using voice, and as is the case with multi channel marketing the concepts remain the same - only the vehicle changes. So hang on, let's stick with the payment confirmation email and see if we can't add some spice to it...

6. Payment Confirmation Email
I haven't met a person yet who doesn't expect to be given a payment receipt after a purchase whether online or in-store. In fact, it's one interaction that the customer needs and values. It's not optional, a receipt must be given.

The disadvantage of a paper receipt in-store is that the interaction ends as soon as the clerk slides the boring little ticket across the counter to the customer. Black and white, OCR text with nothing interesting on it at all.

The advantage of an email receipt is that it can be dynamic and leverage real-time data so that you can upsell and cross-sell more product to a customer who has already chosen to buy from you.

I'll go more in-depth on exactly HOW to do this in future blog posts. But in a nut-shell you can pull in the customer's past browsing data from your analytic provider, marry it with the customer's recent purchase data and show them products that relate to the purchased products and/or the categories for which they have shown an interest in. All within ExactTarget.

We have productized integrations with many analytic providers including Omniture, Google Analytics, Coremetrics, WebTrends and others.

Really, you can use cross-sell/upsell & product recommendations in EVERY email you send. Why not? Some of these next ideas you could easily mix and match into any of your sends.

7. Couponing / Live Offers
Did you know that ExactTarget can render 25 different coupon types including Codabar, UPC, EAN and MSI? Well we can.

Did you also know that we can manage your coupon redemption on a global or a per subscriber scale with data provided directly from your payment system? What that means is that we can make it impossible to redeem a coupon more than once if your concerned about sharing, OR, using our social network capabilities help make a single coupon viral.

8. CRM Integration
We have productized CRM integrations with Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM that not only allow you to send to reports generated in the CRM platform but allow you to pull in real-time data from the CRM vendor at time-of-send. That means you can pull in purchase data or account data (past due invoices, CRM campaign data) and show content according based on the subscriber.

These integrations have exposed AMPScript functions that you can use directly in the content of your emails to CRUD your CRM data.

9. Follow Up Email Drip Campaigns
With ExactTarget, you can automatically send an email (with dynamic content, product upsells, coupons, etc) on a set number days AFTER a purchase or notable site event. Some ways to leverage this capability are to ask for product reviews, checkout feedback, or to offer a coupon or promo code to return to the site and buy something else.

10. Abandoned Shopping Cart
Another powerful automated email that your ExactTarget system can send on-the-fly is the time tested abandoned shopping cart email. It goes something like this: 'we noticed that you put the following items in your cart, but didn't checkout. Was there a problem with your checkout experience? Click here to finish your checkout with an additional 10% off all the products that were left in your cart.'

There's More
E-commerce sites are perfect candidates for black-belt database marketing because of the amount of transactional and behavioral data they collect. Do you have any ideas on how e-commerce sites can use email in their marketing strategies? Post them in the comments below or come chat with me at our Connections User Conference this fall.

One to One Marketing is My Kung Fu - and It is Strong (Thanks to Landing Pages)

Friday, August 14, 2009 by Bob Ullery

One to One Marketing Kung Fu with Landing Pages

Hey all. Today I'll be discussing how to strengthen your e-commerce kung-fu by utilizing ExactTarget's Landing Page technology.

As you might have realized from browsing some of the other posts on our blog, targeted email marketing is only part of the story. A question to ponder is: 'Why personalize a customer's email only to send them to a non-personalized web page?'.

There often seems to be a disconnect in the minds of marketers when it comes to the partnership between email and their website. If you harness the power of one to one marketing for email shouldn't your website also present content to the user in a one to one manner? You've taken meticulous care to present precise product offerings in your email (driven by analytic data, purchase data, engagement data, etc), but when a subscriber clicks through they're shown the same content as everyone else. What?

The gap is apparent, but the remedy isn't always so easy. Each site is unique in both hardware and software, and implementing a true one to one strategy with customized content isn't always an option. There could be high development costs or long production runs associated with integrating this strategy into your current site.

But what if there was a middleware that could be skinned to look exactly like your site and could serve customized content as a stand-alone page or be embedded into your existing pages? Obviously there is or I wouldn't be writing about it:

Enter ExactTarget Landing Pages.

Landing pages are an easy way to spin up dynamic behavioral and/or profile driven web pages tailored to the individual. Often these can be spun up by marketers without involving their IT crew, and since they function as middleware you can consider them platform agnostic.

They can leverage the same Dynamic Content and AMPScript driven content areas that you already use in your emails, including those pre-created and stored in the system. You can even drag and drop them into the page when creating it just like when you create your emails in ExactTarget.

There's also a new(er) Smart Capture tool designed specifically for landing pages. With it, you can easily create forms that talk directly to your ExactTarget data, and optionally, your Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Salesforce.com data as well. You can visually create forms that add users to lists, send triggered emails, modify data extensions, and many other tasks. All of the HTML and required AMPScript is generated for you. All you have to do is drag and drop it into your page.

Landing pages can harness ExactTarget Live Content including Live Offers. With Live Offers, you can serve generic or subscriber specific promotional codes AND track the redemption of those codes so that they can/can't be shared or expire after a certain time.

ExactTarget has a productized Google Ad Manager integration that can also be leveraged within landing pages as well. Integrations like this help bridge the gap between your real site and your landing pages. You could show the same ads on your landing pages that you do on your site, simply by dragging them in, while your impression and click tracking stays intact. This integration can even show different ads based on profile attributes. Talk about a value ad to your advertisers! Real targeting!

Landing Pages as Mini-Apps

The beauty behind landing pages is that the entire ExactTarget platform is at your disposal. Think of a landing page as a mini application that can do almost anything that you can manually do in the system. Not only can you customize layout and content on-the-fly based on who the subscriber is, but using AMPScript and data extensions you could:

Create an out-of-stock reminder system
Interact with a user using SMS and/or Voice
Create a CMS application
Create a shopping cart with checkout system
Develop a user commenting system

Use your imagination. Literally, you could build nearly anything that you could on your own server. Data extensions are the databases and AMPScript is the programming language. Programs are the cron jobs that run your interactions.

Flexibility

The true power behind landing pages is that they can stand alone or be embedded via an iframe into your current site. I've even created AMPScript-only landing pages that I'll ping via ajax to do some processing for me and are completely hidden to everyone else. It's a way other than our API to do some really robust tasks and is useful when used client-side.

FYI, I built the ExactTarget Extensions Network entirely on Landing Pages.

Kung Fu
Like I said in the title of this post 'One to One Marketing is My Kung Fu - and It is Strong'. Now your Kung Fu can be strong too by using landing pages to bridge the gap between your emails and website to reach true one to one marketing nirvana.

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Follow me on Twitter: @bobbr

“This is Your Captain Speaking” Voice Marketing Campaigns

Thursday, August 13, 2009 by Kyle Schroeder

ExactTarget has a great tool incorporated into their powerful email marketing software that features voice messaging.

From promotional messages to appointment reminders, emergency notifications to direct marketing campaign follow-ups, Voice has emerged as a powerful addition to your one-to-one communication arsenal.

So as an airline, I might want to create a promotional campaign that pulls in the “pilot of the year”. A message could be recorded from him that encourages all the passengers that flew last year around the holidays to book their flights early. By using the code this message provides, the customer could receive a 15% discount.

The delivery and personalization of this message is unlike a TV commercial or flyer in the mail. It’s a direct message that is targeted toward previous customers.

There are also powerful tracking reports that can be generated with these campaigns. Comprehensive data tracking—including actual call receipt, ideal call times, number and duration of received calls, and call-to-action transfers—are recorded for your analysis.

The Tennis Championships that were held in Indianapolis this summer chose to use ExactTarget to use voice to connect with fans.

Have you considered incorporating the power of voice into your one-to-one marketing campaign?

Kyle Schroeder

Slingshot Summer Intern

Social Media Use on the Rise Among B-to-B Marketers

Friday, August 7, 2009 by Joel Book

A new report being unveiled this week at The B-to-B and ANA Conference in Chicago shows significant increases social media use by B-to-B marketers.

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.

Capturing Offline Audiences Using Landing Pages

Friday, August 7, 2009 by Kristeen Hudson

Typically landing pages are used in embedded links within an email, once an online ad is clicked, or in search engine results. All of these are great uses for landing pages, but landing pages can also be used to get users engaged from offline. One market that could really take advantage of their offline audience is the entertainment industry. There are many industries that have a large offline following such as television networks, newspapers, and radio. All these industries have to do is direct their audience to a short landing page URL and give them some incentive to go to that landing page.

By creating landing pages, and directing their audience to them, these companies will see many benefits. They can get their audience captured online by having them sign up for an email marketing campaign. The landing page can generate more search engine traffic to their website. They can also easily change the content of their landing pages to correspond with their current email marketing campaign.

ExactTarget offers a great landing pages tool that allows marketers to create dynamic content on the fly. The landing page tool allows for even more customizability than the sophisticated targeted email software. If you would like to know more about simplified landing pages from ExactTarget check out the products page.

One To One Marketing: Your Insurance Plan to Reach Your Audience

Thursday, August 6, 2009 by Amanda Berkey

One To One Markeing - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

With so many communication channels available between Twitter, RSS, Facebook, LinkedIn, SMS, Email, and not to mention broadcast TV, how do marketers cut through the noise and be heard by their audience? One To One Marketing is your insurance plan of choice. I'm a self-proclaimed Google Reader Junkie and find myself on Twitter throughout the day, but what do I actually read? I stop to read content that is aligned with my personal and professional interests. It's as simple as that. Email deliverability is essential, but so is getting the attention of your reader when they decide to open, read, mark as junk, or click through your message content.

As a marketer, if you have done your homework and performed audience segmentation and analyzed the demographics along with their behavior, why waste that valuable information without sending personalized and compelling content? When you create your integrated marketing campaign, I suggest that you begin with a strategy that covers all the key aspects from your toolkit: email, SMS, landing pages, and voice, all mapped out to maximize the user experience.

Content personalization takes your insurance policy to the maximum level. Beyond personalizing their name on the email itself, consider adding dynamic content that is meaningful to the recipient. This will help ensure that your direct marketing program is successful.

Web analytic data helps drive remarketing efforts, as well. Think of the marketing possibilities when you can segment your audience based on their interaction with your website within the last 5 days.

Check out our whitepaper "One-to-One Marketing Field Guide Set" that describes effective use cases and strategies to leverage a comprehensive marketing program with email, SMS, landing pages, and voice. That is what One To One Marketing is all about!

7 Awesome Ways to Wow Your Customers Using Voice on Your eCommerce Site

Thursday, August 6, 2009 by Bob Ullery

Start with this:
Txt ecommerce to 38767

Let's face it. The internet is saturated with other eCommerce sites selling the exact same stuff that you do. Maybe yours is higher quality or less expensive than the ones the other guys are selling. But ultimately, it's the same stuff to the customer.

Even though your customers have a wide variety of competitors to purchase the same stuff from, why do they buy from you? Sure, price is a usual suspect, but as any eRetailer will tell you, repeat sales often boil down to customer loyalty and first time buying decisions are often generated from the customer's first impression of YOU, not your product.

So, how do you wow existing customers so that they become a champion of your company? How do you engage potential customers so their first impression is positive? One way is to communicate with them on a personal level, in the format they want. It's called 1 to 1 marketing. You could send email, even a txt message, shoot you could send a letter - but wouldn't it be way cool if you could just TALK to them? You can - with ExactTarget's Voice Marketing platform.

This article covers 7 awesome ways that eCommerce sites can leverage ExactTarget's Voice Technology into their marketing and customer communication strategies. Wow!

1. 'Voice-to-a-Friend'
Your customers have all seen the standard send-to-a-friend form on product pages that sends information about the product to their friend. These are all-good by themselves, but what if we could type in our friend's phone number and have someone TELL them about the product? We can!

'Hey Bob, your friend Rob wanted to let you know that we have this new cool widget for sale on our site ______.com.'

But who should deliver the message? Read on.

2. 'Celebrity Product Endorsements'
Who better to tell your customers about your own product than someone who has no idea what it is!? We all know the power of celebrity. How cool would it be as a customer to receive a voice message from someone that I admire talking about how great your product is?

'Hey Bob, This is Michael Jordan. Buy these shoes and I think you could beat me in HORSE.'

What if we don't have any endorsement deals with celebrities? You could deliver the message from someone the subscriber could relate to. With ExactTarget segmentation technology, you could have a different spokesperson deliver the message depending on who the subscriber is. If the subscriber is a woman, she could hear a message spoken by a woman. You could even further segment by dialect. Californians could hear 'Hey bro'; Indiana - 'Hey dude'; New York - 'Capeesh'..... Capeesh?

3. Promo Code Via Phone
ExactTarget offers the only live offer engine in the industry. We can generate bar codes on the fly, mark an offer code as redeemed via interactions with your online payment systems, and even issue a unique code for each of your subscribers that tie directly back to them. That's all good, but we're talking about voice here people. Why don't you take those SAME codes, use our Text-to-Speech technology and excite your customers about receiving an exclusive code by calling them and telling them about it!

'Hey Bob. Use code ________ next time you buy something. You'll get 10% off.'

4. Shipping Alerts
'Hey Bob, your widget has just been shipped, just wanted to let you know personally.' - Nuff said.

5. Product In-Stock Notifications
Talk about awesome. You could leverage your inventory data, segment against subscribers who want to be notified when a product is back in stock, and send an email, sms or a VOICE message reminding them that they already made the decision to buy it:

'Hey Bob, remember that widget that you wanted to buy but wasn't in stock? Well, it's back in stock, and if you use promo code ________ we'll give you an extra 10% off if you buy today.'

6. Subscription Renewal Reminders
Personally remind your subscribers why they chose to subscribe to your offering in the first place:

'Hey Bob, your subscription for my thing is expiring next month. Are you planning on renewing? We sent emails to all of our non awesome customers but wanted to call all of the awesome ones personally.'

7. SMS to Voice (using voice and ExactTarget's SMS Application)
Here's a cool technique for offline conversions: SMS-to-Voice.
Your customers can text a keyword to your ExactTarget short-code and get a voice message sent to them instantly. In the middle there, ExactTarget can store their information, and even request for them to provide more of it via additional Text messages.

Many eCommerce sites market themselves on offline channels, but how can you convert those interactions? Maybe you can't convert them instantly, but you can start the conversation that does.

ExactTarget also offers a robust SMS API for custom integrations.

Automation
Did I mention that all of this can be completely AUTOMATED? Set it and forget it. Integrationless integration. It's a beautiful thing.

GIVE IT A SHOT
Txt ecommerce to 38767

So those were 7 awesome ways to wow your customers using voice. Do you have any ideas? Post them in the comment area below

Email Use Continues to Dominate Online Activity. More Evidence of Why Email Marketing is the Backbone of One-to-One Marketing

Wednesday, August 5, 2009 by Joel Book

According to an article on Mashable.com by Adam Ostrow, a new report from Forrester Research shows the number of U.S. adults who use email on a monthly basis is pegged at 165.4 million.

By comparison, social networking users have doubled since 2007. There are 55.6 million adults (about 1/3rd of the U.S. population) that visit a social networking site at least once a month (up 15% from 2007 to 18% in 2009). 54.3 million adults use SMS for instant messaging (unchanged from 2008) and 37.1 million read blogs (unchanged from 2008).

What this Means for Marketers

While email has solidified its reputation as the backbone of one-to-one marketing, I see more and more brands like Dreamfields Pasta, Papa John’s, Carharrt, and Powell’s Books using Email + Social Media to build communities of vocal and influential “brand fans.” This integrated approach is enabling brands to leverage the combined power of social networking and direct marketing to develop and retain customers.

Using email marketing software to deliver relevant and useful information to customers is smart. But, using tools like Social Forward 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 is one of the best things you can do to accelerate the performance of your email marketing program.

Email Design Tip of the Week: The Back of the Napkin

Wednesday, August 5, 2009 by Anna Meier

To add to the previous blog, Ideas from the Global Sales Meeting, Dan Roam also gave an inspiring presentation on Visual Thinking. The Design Team was privileged to hear Dan preach that “we can solve our problems with pictures”, a philosophy we were interested to hear.

Author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, Dan spoke about breaking down our problems into simple steps and questions. By answering direct questions and then drawing them with basic shapes and stick figures (on the back of a napkin), we can come to a better understanding of the problem and steps needed to come to a resolution.

In terms of email design, Dan’s philosophy reinforced the value of wireframing in our design process. Before ever creating content in ExactTarget, it is crucial to map your email in a wireframe, labeling each piece as it relates to the whole. This will allow you to analyze the visual hierarchy and make sure it makes sense and will allow you to meet your business goals. After completing this stage in your process, you’ll be ready to begin designing with a clear and purposeful content strategy. For more information on constructing your content strategy and wireframe, read the recent blog "Many Subscriber Preferences to Respect" by Melinda Baxter.

Thanks again, Dan, for driving home this important stage of email design and problem solving!

Email Design Tip of the Week: Understanding CSS Support for Email

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 by Justine Jordan

Creating a beautifully designed email that displays properly and consistently across email clients can be a stressful, headache-inducing experience, especially for those new to email. It doesn't have to be! You can plan ahead and anticipate display issues by designing and coding your email with this information in mind.

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is a powerful language that was created to allow web developers the ability to separate content from presentation in web pages. While CSS is a modern standard for the web, it’s history and support in the email world has been rocky at best. There are three different ways that you can use CSS to style your email: External, Embedded (sometimes referred to as Internal), and Inline:

External CSS: External styles are listed on one page or sheet, and the email links to the separate file to reference the styles.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css">

Embedded (Internal) CSS: Embedded styles are listed in the same fashion as external styles. Rather than the email linking to a separate page to reference the styles, internal styles are listed in the header (or <head> tag) of the email.

<style type="text/css">
a:link {color: #000000}
a:visited {color: #CCCCCC}
a:hover {color: #333333}
a:active {color: #333333}
</style>

Inline CSS: Inline styles are used directly within HTML tags by adding the “style” attribute. The style attribute can contain any CSS property, and will only affect the tag they are applied to.

<a href="http://www.exacttarget.com" style="text-decoration: none;">

Which CSS technique is best for email? To date, the majority of email clients support inline CSS, along with most basic formatting styles. Be mindful that many web-supported CSS properties aren’t consistently supported in email. Among the properties that are well supported in email include: font-family, font-size, font-style, font-weight, color, padding and border.

Remember these tips:

CSS-based layouts are only successful in the most compliant of email clients. Your design will render more consistently when HTML tables are used for layout. The use of embedded or external styles is not recommended for consistent display across email clients (Gmail only supports inline styles).
Many CSS properties popular with web developers have poor support in email. These include (but are not limited to) margin, line-height, clear, list-style-image, position, z-index, background-image, background-position and background-repeat. Avoid the use of these properties, or test thoroughly to ensure your email is displaying as intended.
Small changes in how web-based email clients support CSS occur often and without much fanfare, making a case for frequent and continued testing.
Know your audience. If you have data showing that all of your subscribers use Thunderbird to view their email, you'll have more flexibility in the types of CSS you may use. On the other hand, if most of your audience is using Outlook 2007, you may want to take a more conservative approach.

For more tips on how to design and code for email, download our whitepaper, "Email Marketing Design & Rendering: The New Essentials."

How Richmond American Homes Uses Email Marketing to Sell Homes

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 by Joel Book

Think selling homes in today’s challenging economy is tough?

In today’s special ExactTarget webinar, you’ll learn how Richmond American Homes uses email marketing as the backbone of a direct marketing strategy that is delivering a 5000% ROI!

If you want to sell effectively in today’s market, you need to attract the right customers to your website, understand their needs and preferences, and use email to deliver relevant messages that aid the buyer’s decision-making process. Working with ClickMail Marketing, Richmond American Homes is using this approach to develop strong relationships with homebuyers and realtors.

In this webinar, you will learn the strategy, tools, and tactics that are enabling Richmond American Homes to achieve amazing results with its email marketing campaigns. Among the things we will discuss are:

• How to grow your email subscriber list

• Creating relevant email content that aids the buying process

• Using Email to support local agents

• Reporting tools that enable fast, easy assessment of email campaign performance

Joining me to share this incredible success story are:

• Tracy Ritterbusch of Richmond American Homes

• Michael Kelly and Cameron Kane of ClickMail Marketing

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