Marketing Automation

What's the biggest challenge facing your email marketing?

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

Much like gourmet chefs working with spoiled ingredients, marketers working with outdated or unqualified databases have their chances at success handicapped from the start.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

Regardless of how long you’ve been using (or not using) a marketing automation tool, you should always be on the lookout for ways to improve your marketing efforts—whether it’s by implementing drip campaigns, exploring the wonders of dynamic content, or creating highly targeted email blasts for specific audiences. The point is, there are always new and exciting things to try, especially with all of the extra time that you free up by implementing an automation system in the first place.

But how do you know what the next step is?

The best way to make sure that you’re always progressing with your...

As many people do today, I subscribe to a multitude of different emails--from my favorite clothing store, magazine, daily deal site, etc.

While I was expecting my first child last year, I decided to opt-in for a number of different emails containing information, tips, and coupons related to pregnancy and parenting. With those types of emails, timing is everything. The information you send an expectant mother at 12 weeks of pregnancy is very different from the content you would send to a woman who is 32 weeks pregnant or a mother with a six-month-old at home. 

Just the other day I received an...

Unless you've been living under a social media-free rock, you've probably heard that there's a new Star Trek movie coming out today. The verdict is out on how favorable the fans' reviews will be, but it's a good excuse to revisit the nostalgia of one of the most popular science fiction franchises ever.

But even if you don't head to the theater, you can still witness a science fiction-esque transformation of technology within the very marketing technology that powers our digital communications. From email, social, and mobile to the new frontiers of marketing automation, the galaxies of marketing...

When people talk about the basic elements of a successful email marketing campaign, there are a lot of facets to consider—responsive design, relevant messaging, personalization, pertinent send time, and beyond. But one facet of a successful email campaign that many marketers regrettably overlook is deliverability. After all, no matter how great the email, if it doesn’t reach the inbox, it can’t be effective.

Which brings us to Sky Angel.

Sky Angel came to ExactTarget in 2007 after experiencing deliverability issues sending emails from their internal servers. As a faith and family television...

Marketers have some pretty bad habits.

From sending the occasional unqualified lead to sales to not segmenting email lists properly, there are little things we do everyday that we know we could be doing better. 

However, like the millions that make and break New Year's resolutions each year, we find ways to convince ourselves that these little slips are OK, that no real harm can come of them, or that nobody will notice. Unfortunately for the imperfect marketer, these excuses provide less protection for us every year.

We are operating in an age of marketing where more is expected of us than ever...

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...

Hello fellow marketers,

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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...

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

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

Earlier today, we announced that our Pardot team was named Atlanta’s “Best Workplace” for the second consecutive year in the small business category of the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s “Top 100 Workplaces” program. This is awesome - an outstanding honor and testament to the culture that Adam Blitzer and the team have built at Pardot.

Celebrating and cultivating company culture has always been a cornerstone of ExactTarget. This recognition is particularly special because the award was based on anonymous employee engagement surveys conducted in December - two months after ExactTarget acquired...

Mastered the basics of marketing automation? If the answer is yes, I'm guessing you've already begun reaping the rewards of your initial automation efforts. I'm also surmising that your CRM system is busy collecting plenty of customer and prospect data, and you're actively engaged on multiple social channels. At this point, you might even have a little extra time in your schedule to dive into your RSS feed, or take a longer smoothie break.

You're off to a good start.

That being said, there's always more to learn about the complex clockwork of marketing automation. Take your knowledge to the...

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

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

Marketing automation is the intersection of many useful features and functions. It's a proven fact that marketing automation software gives marketers full visibility into aspects of the sales cycle that were previously a mystery. But the sheer number of buttons and tools can seem daunting if they're not old-hat to you just yet.

As you begin to build an effective marketing automation program, you can begin to gain a holistic view of your marketing activities. From there, you can streamline traditionally manual processes (like customer segmentation, email marketing, and campaign management).

Start ...

As a kid my favorite question was "Why?" I'd ask my mother and father a hundred times a day, "Why this", and "Why that"?

They were good parents and would indulge my mindless questions. I never stopped asking questions, and as a marketer you should never stop asking that most important question: "Why?"

Marketing automation is a recent phenomenon and has made huge waves. Clicz.com reported 76% of the worlds largest SaaS companies are using marketing automation, and among these are some of the biggest brands in the world. The question you should ask yourself, is "Why?" Why are so many comapnies...

In my last post, "Are you Leaving Money on the Table by Manually Merchandising Your Site?", I explained how retailers can take a staggered approach to migrate from manually merchandising their ecommerce site to using automated recommendations.

Also in this last post, I mentioned the importance of not relying on “free” ecommerce platform add-ons. Today we’ll take this idea a step further and focus on how sophisticated product recommendations engines incorporate real-time customer insights with merchant rules to create a truly personalized experience for your customers. 

#5 Way Retail Marketers...

There’s a big difference between a first-class flight and a pedi-cab ride. Similarly, there are many differences between an ROI-optimized digital marketing strategy and a half-baked, unprofitable one. As a travel and hospitality brand, you’re tasked with creating a seamless booking process for your customers—or else you might miss that narrow window of time when they’re most likely to convert.

Our own Jeff Rohrs recently shared some tips for reaching the digital traveler in a blog post for Ataway Exchange, where he’ll be speaking next month. Here are five of the top tips from Jeff’s post and...