Each Thursday at 11 a.m. EDT, marketers from around the world
join the ExactTarget
Nexus partner ecosystem on Twitter for a conversation
about trends and campaign ideas across the interactive marketing
industry. We call the virtual coffee chat the Nexus Café.
Our guest for a recent #NexusCafe chat
was Joanna Milliken, Director Product Management for
ExactTarget Email. Joanna was one of ExactTarget's first
employees and has contributed to building the organization and has
served many roles throughout her tenure. She is passionate about
email marketing and working with clients. In the chat...
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Each Thursday at 11 a.m. EDT, marketers from around the world
join the ExactTarget
Nexus partner ecosystem on Twitter for a conversation about
trends and campaign ideas across the interactive marketing
industry. We call the virtual coffee chat the Nexus Café.
Our guest for a recent
#NexusCafe chat was
Rob Massa, Vice President of Sales & Partnerships at
Opt
Intelligence. Rob manages the company's growing direct
sales teams and is responsible for all revenue in the direct sales
division. In the chat we discussed challenges and sercrets to
success with email list growth. Here's a summary of...
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Here it is:
your big chance. Next month the company will be co-sponsoring the
industry’s largest trade show. Due to scheduling conflicts, your
boss is unable to attend and you will be attending in his place.
Your responsibility is to oversee all company events and booths in
order to walk away with a hard list of qualified leads.
As you consider your next steps, you inevitably look to your
right and see the crippling pile of business cards gathered from
the last trade show your company attended. Of the 500+ cards
collected, approximately 20 (being generous) belonged to
individuals who even...
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Earlier
today we launched SocialEngage, our next generation social media
management application that brings together the best of CoTweet and
new capabilities to further empower brands to engage with customers
through social channels.
Developed in our San Francisco Social Media Lab, SocialEngage
serves as the cornerstone of ExactTarget’s social media management
suite. It features everything you’ve grown to know and love about
CoTweet, and much more -- including features such as RSS
integration, editorial workflow and Facebook management, just to
name a few.
The beauty of SocialEngage is that...
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Each Thursday at 11am EDT,
marketers from around the world join the ExactTarget
Nexus partner ecosystem on
Twitter for a conversation about trends and campaign ideas across
the interactive marketing industry. We call the virtual
coffee chat the
Nexus Café.
Our guest for a recent chat was
Adam Evans, documentation writer
at ExactTarget. Adam is a regular contributor to the
ExactTarget
blog sharing insights and tips on how to leverage product
features. During our recent chat, we decided to take a tour of some
of his recent popular posts. We're always interested to hear how
our user community is...
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You’re busy, I’m busy, everyone is
unbelievably busy these days. And that’s why NOBODY has time
to sift through an email packed full of 5-10 news articles written
straight into the message. However, you probably DO have an
interested list of folks who want to hear from you. Want to
increase engagement and performance right away?
Here are a few steps you can take
using ExactTarget
Landing Pages to improve design and content and increase open
and click-through rates, highlighted by Barbara Ryan and Church
Pension Group (CPG):
1. Scale back the content in each news article, so the email...
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Here's what you MUST know about B2B Social Media and how
to measure its effectiveness.
Social media use by B2B companies increased substantially in 2011.
According to the Business Marketing Association (BMA), 89% of U.S. B2B
companies are now using some type of social media to attract and
engage buyers. But while some B2B companies are reaping huge
benefits from social media, others are struggling.
Some B2B companies have found that professional networking sites
like LinkedIn are an effective way to generate leads and influence
decision-makers, while other companies find Facebook, Twitter...
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The
ExactTarget Nexus
team invites you to participate in our
#NexusCafe Twitter
chat

tomorrow and 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
@ETNexus. Follow the
#NexusCafe hashtag
and be sure and add the hashtag to your tweet to participate.
This week's
#NexusCafe chat will feature Jordan Cohen (@jcohen808) to discuss
Mobile Marketing: Subscribers, Fans, and Followers Acquisition.
Jordan is the VP of Business Development at Pontiflex, an...
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Looking for innovative ways to drive engagement through your
Facebook Fan Page, a new way to fuel email list growth from
Facebook, or maybe just looking to get started and build your page
from scratch?
ExactTarget SocialPages is here to help – putting Facebook Fan Page
management in YOUR hands. It’s not enough to just have a fan page –
companies need an active presence to gain the attention of users,
drive consumer engagement, and increase brand awareness.
ExactTarget SocialPages provides a variety of tools to help,
including:
1.) SocialPages
Editor: You can build a branded presence on Facebook...
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It’s
one of the greatest challenges facing email marketers: How do I
grow my email list and gain new subscribers? This fundamental still
challenges marketers, as the need for cross-channel marketing puts
greater emphasis on integrating email with social, mobile and other
channels.
At Connections 2011, Eastman Kodak’s Entertainment
Imaging Division and
Catalyst
(Rochester, New York), a
direct and digital marketing agency, shared their story on how they
attracted new, high-quality email subscribers by focusing on three
elements:
- Organic Email Growth
- Cross-Channel Integration
- Ancillary Plan
Lora
Downi...
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A special thank you to everyone who listened in on our Canadian
Anti-Spam Legislation webcast on November 15th, with presenters
Neil Schwartzman of CASLConsulting.com and Mickey
Chandler, Senior Deliverability Consultant here at ET, and
myself, ET's Director of Deliverability.
As we mentioned on the webcast, CASL regulations are
still under development and subject to change, so stay tuned for
further developments. We'll be sure to update our clients via the
blog, additional documentation, and probably another webcast or two
as the CASL "go live" date for final regulations and
enforcement comes...
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In the past year
@ExactTargetUK has spoken to hundreds of companies
about their Social Media strategy and about social marketing.
It’s true to say that each conversation has been very
different and each company has their own unique views on how they
should be seen Socially. But there are an increasing number
of companies who realise that, whilst Social Media forms part of
the Marketing and Sales functions, all parts of their business have
something to gain from being part of this strategy. When we
discuss what Social media means to our clients, one of the first
point of call is what do...
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In the last post of our series, we’ll explore the vast array of
message types and the formats they take on. View my previous posts
to learn more about
Contact Strategy Development and
Message Personalities.
MESSAGE TYPES
A successful contact strategy will be a thoughtful combination of
the message types needed to meet unique business goals and
subscriber needs. Which make sense for your brand?
Newsletters
News / Editorial Feed
Welcome / Opt-In
Profile Updates / Preferences
Promotions / Cross-Sell
Retail Promotions
Rewards
Coupons |
Reengagement / Retention
Subscription Confirmations Alerts /... |
Read More »
Picking up from my last post on
Contact Strategy Development, we’ll continue to explore the
message personalities that make up successful contact strategies.
As our own human personalities set us apart as unique and special,
messages also provide the opportunity for a brand to allow their
unique voice to come through. Brands can set themselves apart from
the pack using clear communication, unique presentation and
outside-the-box thinking, and those results become more meaningful
when the value to the subscriber is apparent.
Message PersonalitiesWhen planning, each message that makes up an...
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As
we gear up for Connections UK, the
learning from Connections 11 in the US certainly continues.
Living up to Joel Book’s claim that B-to-B marketers are some of
the smartest marketers around, Laurence Rothman of Nationwide Insurance and Jeff
Robinson of the Indianapolis
Convention and Visitors Association led a lively, tips-filled
discussion on best practices for email marketing to dealers,
franchisees and sales agents. Here are five simple yet effective
ideas they shared during a packed session at Connections user
conference.
1.
From line.
From their own personal experiences, Jeff and...
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In the ever-changing inbox, it's critical for brands to have clear
goals and objectives when creating an email contact strategy.
Marketers are pairing a smart mix of strategy, user experience and
effective design to drive engagement and deliver relevant, timely
messaging.
Contact Strategy Development
Beyond the basics, it's important to address two vital components
in developing a good contact strategy. Focus on both your business
needs and subscribers needs, using a simple checklist:
-
Define your audience
To whom are you sending?
-
Determine business goals and set a clear value
proposition
What do...
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Each Thursday at 11am EDT, marketers from around the world join the
ExactTarget Nexus
partner ecosystem on Twitter for a conversation about trends and
campaign ideas across the interactive marketing industry. We
call the virtual coffee chat the
Nexus Café.

We hosted guest,
RapidBuyr,
a B2B daily deals site for small-to-medium businesses. They offer
discounted offerings for software, hardware, web development and
design services, IT outsourcing, events, SaaS offerings, and more.
During our #NexusCafe Twitter chat, the RapidBuyr team and our chat
participants discussed strategies for...
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At Apple, we all called him "Steve," even if we didn't really know
him or work with him directly. He was everywhere you looked and ran
Apple like a small, nimble, and innovative start-up. Simplicity and
beauty were paramount. He would labor over small sounds that apps
would produce, over shades of color, icons, and naming. To Steve,
applications were the
soul of the Apple experience. And he
was determined to make "hard" look and feel "easy."

I was fortunate to have
worked with Steve, and I'm extremely fortunate to now be working
for ExactTarget. In fact, I see a lot of similarities between...
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One voice that summed up a lot of
what I took away from this event was
Jay
Baer - The Power of Now. I'm a software engineer, not very
social (have never twittered my face in a book), not a marketer
(although sometimes I think I can be viral), just came to learn
what cool tech toys ET has coming that I can help our marketing
team leverage, and catch a Katy Perry concert - I mean "who doesn't
like cats". But listening to many of the speakers about "social"
over these last few days, I think I've either been brainwashed or
I'm starting to get this a bit. It's not about vanity or posting
what I had...
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With over 50 breakout
sessions during Connections 2011, interactive marketers had access to
hundreds of actionable ideas, proven strategies and success stories
in every room. One of the highlights for me was a session that
examined international email marketing campaigns.
Here are five of the great ideas fellow marketers shared with their
peers.
1. Make training easy. Sean Mattson of
Hitachi Data Systems stressed that robust
training is a key. When rolling out a global email marketing
initiative, Mattson found the best training tool was to create
short video clips to build a robust library...
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