Email Marketing Strategy

Marketing is a contstantly challenging space, especially in the digital world where new channels continue to spring up without warning. Whether navigating social channels like Facebook and Twitter, or attempting to understand how mobile should be a part of 2013 strategies, connecting with the target audience is no easy task.

One company, however, has found great success in involving their young audience in the conversation. To learn more about how Cache was able to connect social and mobile at a key time in the year, check out the video below!

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

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

One of the more eye-opening and surreal experiences of my life came in 2007 when I sat in a pit road tower during a NASCAR event. The thunder of the stock cars as they rambled down the front stretch to start the race is a sound and a physical rattling you'll never forget.

Seeing the crews operate behind the scenes was also something to behold. Like the car they each worked on, the crew focused on optimal performance based on speed and precision. Each pit stop had to be prepared for: tires stacked and ready, the drill gun oiled with no kinks in the compression hose (or battery full with cordless...

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

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

Are you a digital marketer? Do you work for a travel brand? If you answered yes, then this blog post is for you!

ExactTarget recently released Reaching Today’s Digital Traveler, a compilation of tips and tactics that are critical for digital marketers in the travel and hospitality industry. Here’s the list of tactics, plus the questions you should ask yourself to keep your digital communication strategy on track.

1. Grow Your Subscriber list

To determine why your brand might be missing out on conversations with interested and ready-to-purchase travelers, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you...

When it comes to the marketing industry, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve. Not long ago, digital marketing was only a whisper within corporate marketing teams – now it’s here, it’s as competitive as ever and it’s completely changing the way we do business. Here are my predictions for what’s to come over the next year.

Smart, personalised content
It’s time to stop being oh-so-frightened of data capture and start taking advantage of the fact that personalised content makes browsing the web an absolute pleasure! Take Linkedin, for example – simply log in and you’re presented with the...

When the quirky and soulful independent hit Garden State was released in 2004, it captured the hearts of audiences around the world and helped creator and star Zach Braff gather a social following any marketer would salivate over. 

However, it is the way that Braff is utilizing this audience for his follow-up project "Wish I Was Here" that is really capturing the attention of marketers.

Braff took the unusual step of funding his new project through crowd-funding platform Kickstarter two weeks ago. The project has over 37,000 backers at the time of writing and over $2.5 million pledged already...

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

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

Here's a sneak peek of the...

The Harvard Business Review recently posted an article called "Act Like a Leader Before You Are One." It was perfect timing for ExactTarget and the theme of Connections 2013, "Lead from Within." The article gives great advice about showing leadership before reaching that level, and here are even more tips!

1. Set long-term plans: You probably write a to-do list for each day and week, but what about for this year? The next? Think about what you want to accomplish on individual, team, and company levels. Then break down the steps necessary to get there so you can make consistent progress towards...

Hello fellow marketers,

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

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

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

In the month of May, the entire city of Indianapolis is taken over by “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” – The Indianapolis 500. And for one weekend each year, this historic race captures the country’s attention. That short span of attention is the perfect opportunity for the sport to capitalize. In the digital era, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing becomes the greatest spectacle in social media.

In years past, the “500” – a race so famous it can be called by a number – has been criticized for its lack of enthusiasm around the social media arena. For an event this big, with so much attention...

It should come as no surprise that traditional advertising is no longer as trusted by consumers as it was in the Mad Men era. Today’s consumers are more skeptical than ever. Less than 50% of consumers worldwide trust TV advertising. So what do people trust? 92% of consumers around the world say they trust word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.

Brands are embracing new strategies and technologies, which allow them to connect and engage with customers in social channels. The most innovative brands are shifting their strategies from traditional...

Every industry is unique, with its own challenges and opportunities. But for marketers in the travel and hospitality industry, the pressure of delivering the right message, at the right time, via the right channel is truly next level.

To succeed in this heavily-saturated market, travel brands must create a seamless information-gathering and booking experience for their customers. If they don’t, they risk missing that very narrow window of time when travelers are ready to make their tentative travel plans become a reality (i.e., book the trip!).

In short, missing that elusive window of...

It's almost summer and, aside from school vacations and a turn in the weather, the prime indicator of this change in seasons can be found in the barrage of blockbuster films hitting the theaters. It's standard industry practice for major studios to save the most anticipated titles for the summer lineup, in the hopes that they'll break the bank with audiences eager to spend their well earned time and money in the cool, dark movie houses. But with the birth of social marketing came new tactics to build communities of eager fans long before a film releases. Success typically does hinge on opening...

“Leadership is no longer about your position. It’s now more about your passion for excellence and making a difference. You can lead without a title.”

–Robin Sharma, Author, Lawyer, and Leadership Expert

The theme for ExactTarget’s Connections 2013 conference is "Lead From Within." This theme speaks to the belief that all people, regardless of role or title, can be leaders. That’s because leadership works through influence, not through making decisions for other people.

I, for one, can relate to this theme. A year ago this past weekend, I graduated from college. A month later, I started my first...

If you’ve mastered marketing automation 101, and even tackled our 9 steps to go beyond the marketing automation basics, then you’re ready for a few of our expert tips. At this point, you should be delivering highly relevant and dynamic email content, sending out drip emails to nurture prospects over time, and managing your social profiles using real-time and scheduled posts.

Sound about right? If so, then read on to find out how you can continue to improve your marketing automation efforts with these 8 steps, inspired by the Mastering the Art of Marketing Automation eBook:

1. Don’t get lazy. At...

The ExactTarget team invites you to participate in our #ETCafe Twitter chat every Thursday from 11am-12pm ET, where we discuss emerging topics and trends from across the interactive marketing world. The virtual coffee chat is hosted directly on Twitter, hosted by @ExactTarget.

This week's chat is focused on data management. Interactive marketers are obsessed with data for good reason! Driving personalization, segmentation, and relevant campaigns are all backed by data. We're going to dive into the data that drives cross-channel campaigns. We look forward to your insights and questions!

Here's...