Email Application

Email, Meet Social.

Saturday, March 6, 2010 by Dawn DeVirgilio

Last week was a tremendous week here at ExactTarget with the acquisition announcement of CoTweet. This acquisition sent a lot of buzz through the press (we really have been all-a-Twitter!), Twitter and even my inbox! I couldn't be more excited about the future of interactive marketing.

I've used CoTweet since the spring of 2009 to listen and engage with ExactTarget's Twitter conversations. Honestly, after going thru multiple processes and using multiple different applications - it is the only platform truly built for businesses to manage their Twitter conversations.

Email Marketing Meet Social Media Marketing
What's really exciting is that this is a huge statement in one-to-one communications. Consumers are demanding marketers to send them relevelant messages, in the way they want to receive it. Your customer may want a tweet for a discount code, a text message for when their purchase has been shipped and an email for recommending new products they might like based off of what they've purchased.

Who's geeked out? I know I am!

Want to learn more? Check out http://www.exacttarget.com/Connected for more info, great data on Social Media Trends and a video from both CEOs talking about the power of ExactTarget & CoTweet.

Your emails CAN do it all!

Friday, March 5, 2010 by Shelly Griffin

Everyone knows that I love to hear how our customers are using ExactTarget's application for their email marketing campaigns - especially when it is a great example of incorporating good design, call-to-actions, and cross sells - while still maintaining anticipated, relevant and personal content for subscribers. DineWise is a company that specializes in prepared gourmet meals delivered right to your door. They send both informational and promotional emails through ExactTarget. Check out this recent article on exactly what sets their emails apart.

Email Address Capture at Point of Sale?

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 by Al Iverson

According to this post on Eric Goldman's blog, it sounds like requesting an email address from a consumer at the point of sale during a credit card transaction at a brick-and-mortar retailer isn't allowed in California, according to that state's Song-Beverly Act.

The court found that the law's application to email addresses is not preempted by CAN-SPAM. It did not explicitly rule on whether the law applies to email addresses, but the law's definition of "personal identification information" (PII) is quite broad, and the court's analysis seemed to suggest it, so it would be wise to assume for now that it does count email address as PII.

The net here is that the law does seem to prohibit the offline collection of email addresses in California by brick-and-mortar retailers in the course of a credit card transaction. There may be allowable ways to collect email addresses or other information outside of the credit card transaction, but I'm not clear on what the options might be.

We're continuing to research the issue through various channels, and will be sure to share further information as it becomes available.

(Note that the Act does NOT apply to online transactions.)

Email Design Tip of the Week: Social Media in Email

Monday, March 1, 2010 by Andrea Smith

Should social media be used in email? Sure! But only if it makes sense for your audience. Decide if you will link to your existing social presence, enable content sharing, or both. Let’s take a quick closer look:

Link to your existing social presence. This can include a simple text or graphic link to your Facebook page, Twitter feed or LinkedIn site, driving traffic to your social presence. As with your email program and website, you’re simply encouraging interaction with your brand.
Enable content sharing through ExactTarget’s “Social Forward” integration. In other words, share an “item” with your network. This can include sharing the entire email or just a section of content. In doing this, you are allowing your subscriber base to evangelize your brand on your behalf. In the Florida Power and Light newsletter below, you have the option to share “Cold Weather Tips”.
Plan, test, repeat! While social media can bring value to your email program, make sure you’re thinking through the bigger picture. Social media is definitely an emerging technology that will someday be a part of standard brand practices, so it makes sense to give it a chance. Be sure to plan and design with the needs of your customers and subscribers in mind, then test, evaluate and repeat!

For more design advice and thoughts on social media, add @ETDesign to your Twitter feed and check out “Design Tip of the Week: Integrating Twitter to Your Email Strategy“.

Distributed Email Marketing (Build vs. Partner series)

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 by Dennis Hall

The process of implementing or replacing an email marketing module that will be distrbuted to your customers (and even your customer's customers) can be a daunting exercise, not only due to the complexity of developing functions like list management, content editing and tracking, but also because of the importance of factors outside the bits and bytes.

For example, deliverability (the rate at which emails make it to the subscriber’s inbox) is affected by the reputation of the sender not the quality of the code. Without the right policies and people to work with the major ISPs, the value of email (no matter how beautiful) is diminished.

To help you assess the magnitude of becoming your own Email Service Provider on behalf of your customers, we’ve put together a "top-ten" list of high-level requirements that our Partners have shared with us along with a bit of color.

1.    Reliability System availability and uptime are critical issues for email. As email volume grows, so must the system behind it. System failures will occur whether the system is in-house or 3rd party so management and recovery processes are constants.
2.    Deliverability Reputation and remediation capabilities are critical to ensure consistent, timely email delivery. Managing this process is one of the most expensive elements of email. To maximize delivery, the system must support a permission based, strong opt-in model as well as private (dedicated) IPs or domains.
3.    Security In addition to data protection standards (e.g. encryption/SMTP) to keep customer data safely behind the firewall, the system must maintain data integrity across multiple hierarchies and parent-child relationships.
4.    Transactional, operational sending Many ESPs do not support this capability within the framework or API. These types of emails, from loyalty programs to notifications, have become as effective as mass marketing emails in terms of driving consumer behavior.
5.    Relevance The ability to use subscriber attributes and external data tables to deliver tailored messages, including HTML, text, hyperlinks and images, has grown as a key differentiator for email marketing systems. Dynamic content is an example of innovation in this area.
6.    Performance List processing, send execution and tracking response are key metrics to be optimized. In today’s world of social media and instant buzz, customers want to know that there emails will be delivered in near real-time.
7.    User experience This category includes usability, look and feel as well as integration with external systems. The extent of control desired often dictates the go to market approach. An open, flexible framework will allow for a phased deployment.
8.    Tracking Access to opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, and conversion statistics are vital to measuring the impact of email programs. If this data is not available, it will become more difficult to justify cost from the user’s perspective.
9.    Unsubscribe options Support for campaign based or publication based management of unsubscribes is essential to building and sustaining subscriber lists.
10.    Multi-channel Though Email remains a red-hot market and will continue to be a major channel of communication (despite the NY Times opinion, marketers expect to utilize other established and emerging channels, such as SMS (Text), Voice, Landing Pages and Social networks. Supporting such channels within a single platform will enable you to satisfy demand as it grows.

Your list will no doubt be unique - containing more granular requirements on what is needed to satisfy customer demand in your market. We'd love your feedback on what features, functions and/or factors are most important to you and why...

Stay tuned for the next part of the series...The Partner Paradox.

Time to Take a break and Review Your Email Acquistion program.

Friday, February 5, 2010 by Shelly Griffin

Ok..I admit it, I am not making a great start to the year when it comes to keeping up with my blog. It is soo easy to get bogged down in the day to day, that I find myself at the end of each week wondering where it went. Poof! Another week gone by in the blink of an eye. And we're only in the second month of the year..not a good sign of things to come.

Talking to clients, this same phenomenon easily takes hold of their email programs. All the best intentions to prep, plan, test, target, review, revamp are diminished by the need to get the email out the door. Poof! Another send gone...maybe next time. We all need to set time in our weeks for reflection and planning. We need more buffers in our schedules.

The first priority in any email marketing program should be a review of your email sign-up and email acquisition. This time of year is the perfect time to take some time to review the sign-up forms, how you request permission, the expectations and anticipated content for each email. Last week Stefan Pollard from ClickZ featured an article on "How to Improve your Process for Acquiring Subscribers". Set some time aside to read, reflect and then revamp your own email acquisition programs.

Email Design Tip of the Week: Integrating Twitter to Your Email Strategy

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by David Hoang

Twitter has revolutionized micro-blogging and ways users share content in real-time. Some believe that social media is more valuable than email, but I beg to differ, as both are powerful platforms and are different mediums of communicating. A great solution is integrating Twitter into your email campaigns to reach out to both audiences.

Why Twitter? According to Mashable, there was an estimated 18 million users on the popular micro-blogging site in 2009. Even with 60% of users quitting within the first month, there are roughly 7.2 million active users; untapped and perhaps not an email subscriber of yours. That’s a lot of people to reach out to. Twitter is a way to reach out to new users to: a) communicate with them outside the reach of email b) compel them to become an email subscriber.

Integrating Twitter to your email marketing campaigns will expand your presence and is very simple to set up. Here are a few ways to integrate Twitter in your email strategy:

Twitter integration
Twitter integration is currently an iLab feature and will be available to all ExactTarget users in the future, which will automatically post your email as a tweet to your company’s Twitter account. This is a simple and effective way to broadcast your message further; with the opportunity for your followers to re-tweet and share your email message.

Add social forwarding on your emails
The ExactTarget application provides a simple way to spread your email message beyond your lists with our social forward feature. Social forward will include buttons in your email message (Twitter is included as a ShareThis feature) which easily allows your subscribers to share your message. You will reach out to users who are not your subscribers; opportunity for new relationships.

Start a #hashtag
It’s amazing what people will do if you simply ask them. If you’re trying to reach out to your audience on Twitter, consider asking them to be an extension of your broadcast by starting a hashtag. For example, if Northern Trail Outfitters wanted to start a hashtag on Twitter, they could send an email asking subscribers to tweet with the hashtag “#NTO.” This begins a searchable discussion of content tagged “NTO.”

For a great example, check out Style Campaign’s blog post on how HBO’s True Blood used Twitter in their emails. This is a great way to utilize email to leverage your Twitter campaign.

Post content on your company Twitter account
Your presence matters. Regardless of the size of your company, start a Twitter account and open dialogue with the Twitterverse. Consider posting links, re-tweeting useful content and speaking with your followers. Set up a search and see what people are saying about your company.

Link to your Twitter account on every email
Again, your presence matters. Put a link to your Twitter account on the footer of your email messages; could be a button or simple link. Let people know you are there.

I want to conclude with a few reasons to use email in your marketing campaign, that doesn’t quite work on Twitter:

Sometimes you just need more than 140 characters.
HTML email will allow you to send your message to your subscriber’s inbox.
Your Twitter posts can get lost in the timeline and be bumped out of the real-time stream.

When integrating Twitter into your email strategy, think about the differences between the two platforms, the people on them, then ways you can converge the two together.

For great insights on the rise of social media and its relation to email, check out our whitepaper, Expanding the reach of email with social networks.

Follow us on Twitter at @ExactTarget and @ETDesign.

Happy Tweeting!

Design Tip of the Week: Email + Video: Take 2: Connections ’09 Panel Recap, Part 2 (of 3)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 by Chris Studabaker

Last post, I discussed current support and delivery methods for email + video. This time we're going to focus on some of the benefits and concerns and finish with a few closing thoughts. As I mentioned last time, please note that this blog centers on the technological considerations around email + video—the strategy around sending video in email (or not) is another discussion!

Benefits of email + video

Strong emotional appeal
Highly engaging
Personal, even user-generated content

Video offers incredible emotional appeal and a personal, highly engaging form of communication. Online video and social media offer the additional bonus of user-generated content, an incredibly effective tool for brand recognition and even advertising when used properly. Volumes have been written on this subject, and I recommend further reading on video as an advertising medium.

Concerns regarding email + video

Development cost and time
File size and bandwidth
Frame rate inconsistencies
Deliverability

Video use does come with some concerns, the foremost being that video represents a considerable development cost and time investment. Integrating video with email requires first having the video! Creating video content then requires the same commitment to brand standards and quality that comprises the rest of your brand experience.

Moving to technical issues, browsers interpret animated .gif frame rates differently, so it's important to test and ensure your .gif appears as desired in all browsers. File sizes and bandwidth are also a concern. A typical HTML email message may be no more than 150KB, including images, but even a simple animated .gif can double the total file size. To carry this further, sending a 1 MB video to one million subscribers can demand significant resources, and adding send frequency to the equation means we must be cognizant of the effect video can have on web hosting and bandwidth. The lack of video standards also raises concerns with deliverability. ISPs and email clients have different standards when determining spam/junk/trash messages, and the lack of generally accepted practices makes testing even more important.

These concerns can certainly be addressed successfully, but these points show it's important to remember that adding video to an email program represents far more than simply a new content block to plan.

Conclusion

Remember the message's primary goal
Consider video in content hierarchy
Know your audience
Subscriber expectations

In the end, we land on a mindset you're very familiar with: Subscribers Rule! Whether it's text headlines or Hollywood-style full motion video, know your subscribers and provide relevant content. Crafting engaging calls to action, nurturing a subscriber-centric content strategy, and establishing strong subscriber relationships are still primary concerns to email marketers, and video is a powerful new tool we can begin to use in accomplishing those goals.

You can check out Part 1 of this series for info on current support and delivery methods for email + video. Part 3 will share some interesting customer experiences and discuss ExactTarget's animated and static .gif testing using Connections '09 emails.

More compelling emails are better than an incentive

Monday, January 11, 2010 by Phil Schott

I'm not a fan of offering incentives to entice folks to sign up for email programs. Why? Because you're bound to have folks sign up who are only, or more, interested in your incentive than they are in getting your email.

The subscriber signs up, gets the free swag and then they do one of the following:

1. Unsubscribe
2. Unsubscribe by hitting the "spam" button
3. Stay on your list, but don't ever open, click, or convert
4. Stay on your list and become the bestest, most engaged subscriber EVER!

One, two, and three are more likely to be the case, in my experience.

Admittedly, I don't have any data that definitively proves that incentives are a bad idea, but what I'm suggesting makes sense and I've seen incentives burn clients in the past. On more than one occasion I've seen correlation between incentivized sign up and higher than normal complaint rates.

I'm not saying that incentives are taboo or verboten, but their use should be considered carefully.

Offering incentives may be one way to help build a list, but a questionable method for building loyalty.

I'd be more interested in sending my email to a leaner, but more targeted, list of subscribers who are solely interested in the content rather than a list littered with subscribers who are interested in a freebie.

The goal should be to put forth an offer and content so compelling that no incentive is needed. The offer or email needs to be incentive enough for signing up.

Connections Extreme Makeover: Pier 1 Redesign

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 by Andrea Smith

Our previous blogs, Connections Extreme Makeover: AAA Ohio Redesign and Connections Extreme Makeover: MarketingExperiments Redesign covered the Design Solutions teams’ redesigns for AAA Ohio and MarketingExperiments. To finish up, we’d like to share our thoughts on our final redesign.

Pier 1 Imports is a retailer that focuses heavily on unique furniture, home décor and accessories. Based on our conversations with Pier 1, the bulk of their customer base falls around females in the 50-60 age range. High quality products are marketed through the channels of print, in-store collateral, web, and email. Though the use of email and web, Pier 1 uses these channels to drive brand recognition and encourage online browsing before driving the consumer to the store to make a purchase.   

With this in mind, the ExactTarget team took a very sophisticated and streamlined approach to the Creature Comforts email campaign, using warm, harmonious colors and existing brand elements to deliver value and increase engagement with the Pier 1 brand. Let’s break apart our strategy and check out the email:   

Preheader
Experience and testing tells us that this area of the email is very important, and can serve as a main driver to engagement. We deliver two strategic ways to view the email as a web page, forward the email, and connect via social media on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. As an added benefit, some email clients pull this teaser text into their inbox preview before the email is ever opened.   

Header
The header features the brand mark in prime email real estate and will link to the Pier 1 homepage. To the right, we’ve pulled out the three most strategic links to drive subscriber engagement based on past email performance metrics and value provided on the website. Room gallery is an important place to drive web traffic and engage the subscribers in furniture placements in different room settings. The Pier 1 Studio offers amazing design tips and ideas that will engage subscribers, and Special Values have proven to be of high interest based on past clicks and obvious savings.   

Feature
This feature uses a combination of on-brand fonts, text rendering and imagery to offer a clean look directly placed in the preview pane. This simple room shot will encourage click through to the website, focusing on a clean, simple, and sophisticated approach in line with the quality of the products offered. The design elements of line, color and quirky framing will help the Pier 1 brand stand out in the crowd.   

Body
Four products are dramatically outlined and provide a sleek way to encourage pre-shopping on the website. These products were strategically chosen from the images provided as they are highlighted in the campaign and artfully pull through the rich fall colors. Allowing subscribers to see the actual prices and pieces of furniture pulled out can help set brand expectations and encourage click through.   

Recovery Module
These three items provide even more value to the subscriber audience, giving them convenient access to savings through Pier 1 Rewards, ability to buy gift cards online, and finding a store. Metrics show that most subscribers already know where their stores are, but those that don’t can easily click through. 

 Footer
Main website navigation is important to include, but click data shows us that it does not necessarily require prime real estate in the email. Copyright, privacy, unsubscribe, and customer relations functionality are important (and some are required!) and can fall in one clean line as they are self explanatory. Disclaimers and CAN-SPAM compliant mailing address follow.

  While the results of the Makeover showed that Pier 1’s control design outperformed the redesigns in actual sales conversion, our team strove to stay true to the brand and add a new dimension to the email program that strategically reorganizes Pier 1’s offerings, allowing the true beauty and quality of the products to shine. It is highly useable and engaging, with strategic goals of boosting click-through, web traffic, and ultimately driving consumers inside the Pier 1 stores for more.

Thanks for reading some of the stories behind Extreme Makeover: The Email Design Competition! Look for more 1 to 1 marketing advice and Email Design Tips in our upcoming 2010 blogs.

Is 2010 the Year to Partner for Messaging?

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 by Dennis Hall

"Should we build or partner?” Executives around the world and across industries have to make this call on a daily basis. A little more than a decade ago companies routinely built their internal business applications, like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Inventory Management systems. I still have nightmares about a custom CRM application we deployed in the early 90s...

However, with the proliferation of technology, most notably open source code and software as a service (SaaS) applications, an executive would be thrown out of the boardroom today for suggesting a 6 or 7 figure project to build CRM over adopting salesforce.com, Siebel OnDemand or Microsoft CRM Online (and tens of other applications per vertical per industry!).

For commercial technology companies, this is a more acute (and contentious) issue. How can you justify acquiring technology from another company when building it is part of your core business? There are Engineers just sitting there waiting to build the next cool thing! Well, there is no question that developers can build most anything if given the time and resources, but these are finite commodities often overwhelmed by demands surrounding core product development and innovation.

At ExactTarget, we’ve built a business dedicated to partnering with technology companies in order to solve this challenge – ExactTarget Embedded. As Bryan mentioned in “2009 in Review”, we are seeing strong demand from technology providers, especially in the Computer Software, Direct Marketing Services and Commercial Printing verticals. The primary motivators for these companies include satisfying customer demand, achieving competitive advantage, increasing market share + revenue, and reducing COGS.

To support your decision process in 2010, we’ll share a series of articles around the topic of “build vs. partner”, including a deep dive into leading technical requirements, go to market business models and partner case studies across industries.

We welcome your input and look forward to an interactive discussion!

Dennis

NCDM 2009 Looks Like A Winner

Friday, December 4, 2009 by Joel Book

I’m really excited about the upcoming 2009 NCDM conference which kicks off Monday, December 7th in Las Vegas.

Attendance is up 20% over last year and the lineup of sessions and speakers is outstanding!

This year, the conference programming committee placed special emphasis on inviting speakers who are true practitioners of database marketing, and will share case studies of how they are using data and technology to sell and serve customers more effectively and efficiently.

For complete session details, download the NCDM 2009 conference brochure.

This year’s NCDM conference will feature several ExactTarget clients and partners.

Sean Mattson of Hitachi Data Systems will team with me to present a fantastic B-to-B marketing case study that describes how Hitachi uses email as the backbone of a global one-to-one marketing strategy that has made Hitachi Data Systems a world leader in data storage technology.

Dan Heimbrock of HyperDrive Interactive will discuss how Dreamfields Pasta has built a powerful and influential brand fan community of more than 400,000 consumers by using email marketing, social media, and word-of-mouth marketing to drive brand recognition and dramatically accelerate sales.

Augie MacCurrach of Customer Portfolios and Michael Enright of online gaming company, WorldWinner, will describe how WorldWinner uses customer playing behavior data to execute automated email programs that deliver personalized offers that keep players highly engaged.

For attendees looking for a practical and useful short course on techniques and best practices for effective email marketing, Jeanne Jennings of JeanneJennngs.com and I will be conducting a special pre-conference seminar on Monday titled Accelerating Email Marketing Performance and Profitability. It’s chock full of great examples of what to do, and how to do it right.

 If you are still on the fence about attending, I urge you to take advantage of a special offer which will save you $100 over the onsite price when you register in Las Vegas. You can also take advantage of this offer by registering online at http://bit.ly/3bq2aP. To redeem this offer, use code: ONSM when you register online.

  I hope to see you in Las Vegas for NCDM 2009, which promises to be one of the top conferences on tactics and techniques for data-drives sales and marketing.

5 Tips for Mobile Coupon Success

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 by Joel Book

Thinking about using mobile coupons? If you are, here are 5 things you absolutely must know about planning and managing a successful mobile coupon strategy.

1. Make the Offer Relevant to the Consumer. “Opt-in mobile marketing has an enormous potential if done responsibly and is specifically focused on the stores/restaurants that matter to each consumer,” said Alistair Goodman CEO of 1020 Placecast.

A recent study conducted by Harris Interactive of more than 2,000 adults measured cell phone owner preference levels and receptivity for opt-in mobile marketing messages from brick-and-mortar businesses. The study revealed that 51% of cell phone-owning men ages 18-34, and 34% of women in the same age group were interested in receiving opt-in shopping alerts on their cell phones.

The ability to deliver mobile coupons that “personalize offers” to the profile, needs or purchase history of the consumer is a huge advantage for marketers because it drives traffic to stores. But like all things in database marketing, the key is having the right customer data and the right mobile marketing technology to deliver relevant and timely communications.

2. Integrate “Front End” and “Back End” Systems. One of the cardinal sins (and death traps) of any direct marketing campaign is not having your back-end systems and processes in place to properly redeem coupons and capture customer data.

Integrating your “front-end” POS coupon scanning technology with your “back-end” marketing database, CRM, call center, and customer communications software -- such as email -- is an absolute must.

One company on the leading edge of systems integration is Cellfire, a San Jose based mobile couponing service provider. Cellfire has begun matching store loyalty card numbers with mobile phone applications in an effort to solve some of the back- and front-end IT integration problems, according to August Trometer, co creator at Yowza, which provides location-based coupons for the iPhone.

Cellfire’s software application lets customers scan mobile coupons directly from their phones at checkout. The company is currently working with Kroger in Dallas, as well as JCPenney in the Houston area.

Starbucks has also announced that it has begun using Cellfire’s application to test a mobile payment option that lets people buy products by swiping an on-screen barcode that is scanned similar to a plastic Starbucks Card. Sixteen West Coast Starbucks stores are participating in the test.

3. Use Smart POS Technology. Today’s smart phones are wonderful tools for delivering mobile coupons to consumers. But everything can fall apart if your POS technology cannot read the barcode and accept the coupon.

JCPenney has begun testing a new system from Cellfire at Houston area stores that lets customers scan mobile coupons directly from their phones at checkout.

The program, launched in late September at 16 JCPenney locations, is enabled through new imaging scanners installed at registers that can read the "2D" barcode coupons and save sales clerks from having to manually enter promotional codes for coupons.

"These mobile coupons are the ultimate in customer convenience, because there's no need to clip or carry around a printed coupon, and they can be instantly scanned from a cell phone. It's another way we're innovating to enhance the customer's shopping experience," said Mike Boylson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for JCPenney, in a statement.

4. Use Bar-coded Coupons to Track Customer Purchase Data. Using bar-coded coupons to capture the identity of the customer making the purchase, the promotional code, and the amount of the transaction is smart marketing. And we are about to see an explosion in the use of bar-coded coupons in the US.

Barcodes save time and eliminate errors in data entry. And for marketers focused on using customer purchase data to model customer product preferences and predict future product interests, bar coded coupons provide an ideal method for capturing the data needed for predictive modeling and offer targeting.

The key to using bar-coded mobile coupons is to use standard, familiar SMS, MMS and WAP technologies to deliver a scanable bar-coded message to consumers’ mobile phones.

Water Wheel Car Wash in California, uses mobile coupon technology from OzNet Systems, is to provide mobile coupons for their customers. The company sends bar-coded coupons to their customer’s mobile phones eliminating the need for customers to print out paper coupons therefore reducing waste. To get their mobile coupon, all customers have to do is Text WATERWHEEL to 84045. Customers can choose which product and coupon they desire from any location.

“We are a small business and we have to be conservative about our marketing dollars. As a small business you always have to be looking for something different,” says second generation Water Wheel Car Wash Owner, Alex Naber.

Users of the system can also pull an electronic report showing exactly how effective their marketing campaign has been.

5. Use Mobile Email Rendering Software. According to Len Shneyder of Pivotal Veracity, "The mobile smart phone market is evolving at a rapid tempo. Because the cost of smart phones, the most robust and powerful of the mobile market, is falling almost as quickly as the companies are innovating, the rate of adoption is skyrocketing. More powerful handsets mean more people accessing email on their mobile devices. More varied devices means there are more challenges for email marketers than ever to getting email to render correctly. "

For mobile coupon campaigns to be successful, you must have the right software to ensure your coupon offer and barcode appear the same regardless of whether the consumer is receiving the mobile coupon on smart phones from Blackberry, iPhone, or Palm.

What should you do? Check out eDesign Optimizer and the Design Guide from Pivotal Veracity. These design tools and guidelines will enable you to verify that your links and images work, validate your code, and visually ensure that your mobile email and coupons appear the same regardless of the mobile phone your customer uses.

The Takeaway

Jordan Cohen from Pivotal Veracity says it best, "What we are witnessing in the mobile space is unprecedented. Having the web in the palm of your hand is in demand like no other technology in human history, and it is fueling the biggest revolution in computing in at least 15 years. I've said it before, and now will say it again: The time to adopt a mobile email marketing strategy is now. Blink one or two more times and your competitors might just leave you in the dust."

AMPscript Tip: Links in a Data Extension

Friday, November 20, 2009 by Kristeen Hudson

Have you ever tried to pull a URL from a Data Extension and use it as a link in an email within the ExactTarget email application? If you have you have probably noticed that when your link is clicked it doesn’t work. Here is an example of what I’m taking about:

Note that in this example @link references a value from a Data Extension.

If you have done this then you know that instead of taking you to your URL that is stored in the Data Extension you get directed to a long URL starting with “http://cl.exct.net.”

The good news is there is an easy way to fix these links. There is an AMPscript function called RedirectTo() that must be used when referencing links in a Data Extension. So your new link would look like this:

<a href="%%=RedirectTo(@link)=%%">%%=v(@type)=%%</a>

If you want more information about the RedirectTo AMPscript function or about creating targeted emails using AMPscript there is some good documentation on the Documentation Wiki.

Drip Model Marketing– Is that a leaky faucet or your email marketing software?

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 by Kristeen Hudson

Phrases like “drip campaign”, “automated email drip”, “drip email program”, and “drip email” are thrown around ExactTarget a lot. This is because ExactTarget is in the business of sending email, especially automated email drips. However, everyone may not understand what a drip campaign is. Let me tell you a little bit about the basics of drip marketing.

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.

Excitement in the World of iLab

Monday, November 9, 2009 by Kyle Rechin

With the 135 release on November 6^th, iLab is rolling out new and exciting products and user interface updates. Not only does iLab let you be one of the firsts to adopt these products and features, we allow you to do so for free!!

New to iLab are the user interface updates Save Email as a Template and Streamlined Content Creation Tools. Save Email as a Template allows clients to quickly leverage their polished emails by creating reusable templates. Streamlined Content Creation Tools will simplify the ways in which templates, surveys and emails are created while maintaining the perfect balance between sophistication and ease of use.

We are also very excited to have released Twitter Integration on November 6th. This innovation allows clients to extend the reach of their one-to-one marketing programs to Twitter. With a single send, you will be able to reinforce email messages with a coordinating Twitter status or execute a Twitter campaign alongside an email program. The Twitter integration is the next messaging channel in ExactTarget’s expanding capabilities across email, mobile, social and sites. We are now recruiting current ExactTarget clients to help us test the all-new Twitter Integration, but do not delay because spots will be filled by November 11th.

Check out iLab today in ExactTarget’s 3Sixty to take advantage of all these new features, or search iLab to adopt other new innovations. Also make sure to join the iLab group on 3Sixty to get real time updates on what’s coming next.

Real Email Threat #2: The Specter of “Inbox Clutter”

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

There is a lot of talk about the sheer volume of email consumers receive. According to Forrester, 60% of consumers believe they receive too many email offers and promotions (Forrester, December 2008). Thus, it should also be no surprise Forrester also found 64% of consumers say they delete most email advertising without reading it and for them to conclude that consumers find marketing emails a burden.

According to MarketingSherpa, 32% of marketers see general inbox clutter as the biggest challenge to their success in email marketing (MarketingSherpa, Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, September 2008). In Customer Knowledge is Marketer Power, Forrester found that 90% of marketers who believe email will be less effective in 2 years believe the reason for this decline is “too much clutter in consumer inboxes,” while 59% believe “SPAM” will drive this decline.

Yes, inbox clutter is impacting the industry-wide success of email marketing. In fact, at the beginning of this year I the following prediction in our 2009 Marketing Almanac: “On average, we expect open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates will decline in 2009 as subscribers’ inboxes are flooded with bad email from marketers trying to stay afloat.”

The latest DMA figures suggesting that the ROI from email marketing slipped again this year, down 3% from last year to $43,62, support this prediction. However, recently release open rate benchmarks from Epsilon suggest my prediction was wrong. They say open rates have increased slightly in each of the past 4 quarters. From Q2 2008 to Q2 2009 they report an increase from 18.8% to 22.2%. That’s an increase of 18%!

Okay, so the DMA says ROI is down 3% and Epsilon says open rates are up 18% over the past year. At the end of the day, all this suggests is that even if inbox clutter is having a negative impact, it isn’t having much of one on individual marketers.

Consider the following information presented by MarketingSherpa. 31% of consumers indicate that one of the reasons they unsubscribe or disengage from emails is related to inbox clutter. However, this is the third most common reason identified in this survey. The relevance and frequency of YOUR emails are much more important.

Thus, I call this threat the specter of ‘inbox clutter’. It's simply another myth that your emails are being crowded out by junk. Unless you plan on running an average or below average email program, none of this matters for you! If your program delivers value, your program will continue to thrive. The problem is not “out there” as the specter of inbox clutter suggests. More and more, the challenge is to create an above average program.

Are Your Subscriber's Fan's For Life?

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Lindsay Niemiec

On my drive back from Chicago last week, I noticed a large billboard towering over the interstate. Of course, many billboards crowd every interstate, but this one was different. The advertisement for the Chicago Bears, read “if you’re not a fan, you’re a tourist”. What grabbed my attention was not only to how clever I though the ad was, but how applicable it is to the ExactTarget’s Subscribers Rule! philosophy. Everyone wants to be a part of something special, and marketers want their customers to feel as if they are special too. It starts with delivering 1 to 1 direct marketing of which subscribers are a fan.

Does your marketing program address what your subscribers want? Or do you blast out the latest news and hope for click-throughs? Do you dynamically target the content of your emails to your subscriber's preferences? Or do you batch and blast the same email to everyone, hoping they find it relevant? As the NFL season continues and the holiday season kicks off, the relevance of your email campaign programs could be the key component in making your subscribers true fans.

If you make your subscriber a fan, then much like a Bears fan, they're in it for life. If not, then they're just a tourist on your list for now waiting for the next best thing.

What is ExactTarget Embedded?

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Eric Hensley

As one of the newest members of the ExactTarget Partner organization, I am tasked with managing and growing relationships with ExactTarget’s Embedded Partners. On its surface, that sounds pretty straightforward. However, for the past several months, I have been trying to better define around what an “Embedded” partner truly is. There are multiple ways to define the topic, depending on who you ask.   And, in my experience, most of the answers I have heard are right in some way or another.

However, the official definition is that ExactTarget Embedded Partners are typically ISVs that go to market with messaging as a part of their platform. As an Embedded Partner, your software product's user interface contains features and functionality that enable your customers to manage the process of creating and executing email campaigns (as well as SMS and Voice). This is about the most comprehensive and accurate description I can come up with myself. But, with the growth in popularity of “Cloud Computing”, I believe it is and will be much more than that.

Cloud computing has garnered a lot of media attention in the past year or so as the next big technological breakthrough. But, in my opinion, the concept isn’t really all that new. Companies have always looked for ways to combine technology services in a more commoditized way to drive efficiency and cost savings. Amazon.com has been doing cloud computing within the company for a long time. Essentially, that is the exact same goal for cloud computing. I think the biggest difference with cloud computing is that the concept is getting turned outward to the Internet, hence the “cloud” tagline. As more companies sign on to utilize these services, the less they will be inclined to build internal infrastructure to support corporate applications.

Think of the advantages:

    *No capex/low capex to get started

    *Highly scalable with on-demand allocation of resources

    *Reliability of multi-location architectures

So how does messaging fit into the cloud? I see integrated messaging becoming its own service or platform in the cloud. Just like clients are looking to Salesforce.com to quickly and efficiently deploy CRM as a service, why not for marketing and other communications? It even makes more sense when you look at what the future of ISVs might be. More and more we are seeing a drive towards SaaS applications. Do you think it makes sense for a CRM or Print-on-Demand application provider to build their own messaging infrastructure? Probably not for several reasons, the most obvious being, it’s not their core competency. They will continue to be focused on what pays the bills. But, will they be eager to provide a marketing communication platform to their customers….absolutely. These companies will turn to partners that are similar to them…on-demand/SaaS/Cloud Computing…whatever the tagline of the week is. Why, because it provides the same advantages to them as to their clients, mainly low/no capex, highly scalable, and reliable service. This is where ExactTarget Embedded becomes the Messaging as a Service platform for the cloud.

Obviously the push towards SaaS and Cloud Computing is real.   As the industry continues to evolve, so will ExactTarget Embedded and our partners. Our robust and flexible integration capabilities will allow ExactTarget to become the industry leader in Messaging as a Service.

Real Email Threats #1 – It's Too Easy and Too Cheap

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

Last week I addressed several misperceptions about the future of email and provided a list of recent statistics showing that the future of email looks bright. I also mentioned that there are real threats to the future of email.

I had the honor of moderating a panel at Connections titled “Research Survey Says!” On the panel were three of the smartest folks one could have the pleasure of working with: Julie Katz from Forrester, Rebecca Lieb from eConsultancy, and Stefan Tornquist from MarketingSherpa. With the assignment of presenting “relevant research” and a stacked deck of panelists, my job was simply not to mess it up. My strategy? Leave the topic really loose. I asked two simply questions, “What are the perceived threats to email?” and “What are the real threats to email?”

To my surprise, there was nearly unanimous consensus about the real challenges facing email. In summary, email is so easy and so cheap that even when used ineffectively, it still gets results. And that is a big, big problem since it makes it easy to send bad email.

According to research shared by Stefan Tornquist, email programs that do not follow best practices (e.g., batch-and-blast) are becoming less and less effective. In fact, these programs were half as effective in 2008 as they were in 2002. In contrast, programs that do follow best practices (e.g., segmentation, personalization) are slightly more effective today than they were five years ago.

While email experts have been talking about relevance for a long time, I have not seen it presented in a way that makes it this clear. It is not enough to send email. It is imperative for marketers to deliver authentic value to subscribers--and that is not easy!

This point is further supported by consumer-oriented research:

58% of consumers say the primary reason they unsubscribed or simply stopped reading emails from businesses is because “emails were not relevant to me,” followed by 44% who said they “Received too many emails from the sender” (MarketingSherpa, Consumer Media Survey, Sept 2008)
54% say most of the email ads they receive don’t offer them anything of interest (Forrester, “Winning Email Subscribers in a Down Economy” Dec 2008)

Earlier this year, I asked a professional triathelete to coach me in preparation for a half-marathon (we'll see how that goes before I sign up for a full marathon). In that time I have learned that while nearly everyone can run, the majority of people do not run well. I find myself cringing at the sight of people clodding around my neighborhood and placing unnecessary stress on their feet and knees. Only six months ago, that was me.

Email marketing is similar. Since nearly everyone who tries it sees some degree of success, many mistakenly believe they have it figured out. "Why bother with all that stuff the 'experts' preach?" Because if you don't listen and apply what they say, your glory days are behind you. Your email program will grow less and less effective. It's all downhill from here.

This does not need to be the case. The success of your program is in your control. Commit your program to constant and never-ending improvement. Keep learning. Keep modifying. Keep delivering content your subscribers find valuable (not what you think is valuable). Do this and the value derived from your email program will continue to grow.

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