Avoid Repetitve Stress Injury - Automate!

Posted by: Jeff Middlesworth
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
doing more with less marketing automationWith the right marketing automation solution, you can automate both simple and complex marketing activities with just a few clicks from one-off to batch messaging, data movements, integrations, and report delivery.

No matter what your industry, marketing automation can simplify repetitive marketing tasks and drive more sophisticated uses of your customer data. For example:
  • Financial services: Back-end operations like account statements, low-balance alerts, and lifecycle marketing campaigns
  • Technology: Subscription renewal programs, interactive account reminders, and product updates
  • Manufacturing:...
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#NexusCafe Twitter Chat Recap: Capitalizing on the Holiday Rush with Targeted Marketing Campaigns

Posted by: Amanda Berkey
Thursday, October 20, 2011
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.
Metrics Marketing
A recent #NexusCafe chat featured our partner, Metrics Marketing, talking about targeted marketing campaigns during and after the holiday shopping season. Here's a snapshot of the conversation we had about smart strategies for interactive marketers to leverage this season.

@ETNexus: Tis the Season (soon)! Let’s first identify the most... Read More »

100+ Pages of Social Media Research Now In A Quick Read Format

Posted by: Kristeen Hudson
Monday, December 6, 2010
Quick Hitting Social Meida TipsWe know that everyone has loved our Subscirbers, Fans, and Followers Research. But, because marketers are short on time, we’ve reduced more than 100 pages of social media research from the first seven SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS reports into this digestible summary, which includes only the key social marketing tips and takeaways.

The SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS 2010 Executive Summary includes Graphical statistics, visually-appealing charts, and limited copy making the key findings easy to understand—especially for individuals who are short on time.

Here is a peek at what is inside:
  • Why...
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Deliverability tips for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Posted by: Jay Miller
Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Deliverability: Holiday Smackdown Edition

Cyber MondayThe holidays are the time of year when email marketing becomes a contact sport.  Retailers are notorious for cranking up the email volume during the holidays, especially around Black Friday/Cyber Monday (the weekend after Thanksgiving). Everyone knows that there's a delicate balance between pushing a few more emails and burning out your list with unsubscribes and complaints.  So what can we do to accommodate the extra emails, cut through the clutter that your competitors are so inconsiderately creating, and keep our lists healthy?

Some common holiday...Read More »

moneysupermarket.com Increases Followers 70 Percent with CoTweet

Posted by: Jesse Engle
Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Businesses are reporting real results after integrating CoTweet 3.0 Enterprise Edition into their social marketing strategy. moneysupermarket.com, Britain’s number one comparison site specializing in financial services, announced today it has increased Twitter followers 70 percent in one month using CoTweet. This is just one more example of how businesses can grow their following and increase sales by participating in social media.

moneysupermarket.com (@moneysupermkt) attributed this success to CoTweet's enterprise-class workflow capabilities enabling 14 employees across six business units to...

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Mission Critical Sending – Helping to Define It for Your Business

Posted by: Lisa Trifone
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The email marketing question of the day isn’t "Should we be sending email?" anymore. Instead, what you’ve got to answer for your business today is “What emails should we be sending?” That is, what emails are directly essential to the success of the business, and just how important to that business are they?


Mission Critical EmailsIf you can answer that, you’ve defined your Mission Critical sends.

In some industries, it’s simple to define what’s Mission Critical. Financial services have a pretty clear directive on this - it’s account alerts and updates – the email alerting a customer they’ve reached their credit limit...

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5 Reasons to Attend Connections 2010 (Like you need a reason…)

Posted by: Stefanie Jansen
Monday, August 30, 2010
Why am I excited for Connections 2010? Well, for one, I’ve never been to Connections before. (pause for gasps) I know, I know – it’s the largest interactive marketing conference in the world! It might also be because the first day of Connections is my birthday. (Go ahead, write it down.) But my being a Connections first-timer is probably the biggest reason why I’m so pumped. Here’s why you should get excited too:

5. Volunteer Day – NEW!
Before you start fueling the conversation, you can join in powering the communitytoo. With so many of our friends in town (i.e. you), we couldn't think of a...Read More »

Sharing Past Successes Can Lead to New Opportunities

Posted by: Spencer Abrams
Monday, July 19, 2010
One of my summer projects is to collect information on some of our most successful clients, and organize them into training slides for our sales team.  This will allow them to have access to a wide base of knowledge on how other salespeople have solved their clients’ most pressing needs.  Having access to this resource will make the sales team more prepared to know exactly which ExactTarget offerings will provide future clients with the best possible integrated digital marketing solutions.

Tasks like these are by and large my favorites, because they provide me great insight into what makes...Read More »

Design Tip of the Week: Designing Financial Services Emails

Posted by: Andrea Smith
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Looking to “go green” and dive into the world of email, or simply want to make your emails more effective? Here are some basic recommendations when designing marketing programs for the financial services industry.

Brand Synergy
It’s crucial to stay true to your brand and ensure that all media channels and programs have a consistent look and feel. With solid brand synergy in place, the rest revolves around delivering appropriate content that your subscribers want to read.

Transactional Design Recommendations
  • Position content front and center – keep it simple.
  • Don’t include too much cross-sell...
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Three Great Ways For Financial Services To Use Sites

Posted by: Jeff Cunning
Thursday, May 13, 2010

The best thing my bank has ever done for me is provide me with online banking. Sure it’s nothing new, but it is the epitome of the accessibility and visibility that I want from my bank. It endows me with the ability to be directly in touch with my financial information whenever I want and wherever I want. As the financial services industry and surrounding competition continue to evolve, any development in convenience or transparency will be deeply appreciated.

ExactTarget Sites offer a variety of ways to develop in both of these areas:

1.       Be Dynamic: You know a lot about your customers—use...

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3 Financial Marketing Stats that Might Surprise You – And Why Others Should Care

Posted by: Morgan Stewart
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
As marketers, we often look for industry specific marketing benchmarks and examples. As a consultant, one of the first questions I often get is, “What experience do you have working in our industry?” To which I generally reply, “Some, but my experience working with clients across a broad range of industries is more beneficial to you.”

Why? By knowing what works in one industry vertical we gain an understanding of the rules that govern our customers’ behavior that can be applied to other industry verticals.

Take financial services as an example. Here are three statistics we have uncovered in our...Read More »

Going Green (& Personal) with eStatements & Alerts

Posted by: Jeffrey Rohrs
Monday, May 3, 2010
Go Green (eStatements)!Nearly every week, there's one piece of snail mail I can almost bank (pun intended) on receiving--a letter from one of my financial institutions (banks, credit card issuers, investment brokers, etc.) enticing me to "go green" by opting-out of print statements in favor of email statements.

As a marketer, I appreciate the altrustic call-to-action since a large percentage of the population these days is moved to reduce their negative environmental impact wherever possible (and convenient).

My marketing genes, however, also allow me to understand the true motivation for the green financial services...Read More »

Tools for Re-Building A Financial Institution’s Brand: Email. Mobile. Social. Sites.

Posted by: Melanie Spilbeler
Friday, April 30, 2010

Bailouts, Big Bonuses and Fees… The financial industry has been plagued over the past couple of years with negative press. As a result, many financial institutions are or should be focusing on rebuilding their brands. Some have even reinvented themselves by creating a new brand (like GMAC has done with Ally). Here are some tips for financial institutions to rebuild their brands, take control and improve retention through leveraging the power of the following digital communication channels:

Email: During the financial crisis, many customers switched banks and moved deposits creating a huge demand...

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Getting in the Inbox for Financial Services

Posted by: Al Iverson
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Maximizing your deliverability can be tricky for somebody in the financial services space. There’s a lot of confusion surrounding best practices, what things you must do, or must avoid, to promote consumer confidence and prevent security or phishing issues.

My thoughts here are by no means going to be comprehensive for every single scenario; there are a lot of moving parts and different financials have different issues. But, at a high level, here are a few things that I think companies in this space should keep in mind when sending marketing or transactional email messaging.

Avoid Lead Gen or... Read More »

Banking on the Future

Posted by: RJ Talyor
Tuesday, April 27, 2010

My greatest frustration with my bank right now is that I can't set-up custom alerts.  I want to know when my balance is low, when a large check clears, when I'm about to go into overdraft-fee-land.  All I have right now is a daily balance email.  Sure:  that works;  but not the way I want it to. 

You're probably going to recommend that I switch banks.  But it's not that easy, is it?  With auto-billpay and direct deposits, I feel locked into my current bank. . .else deal with a bunch of new forms and paperwork that surround the financial industry.  For now, I'll have to stick with my...

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Financial Services: Missing Out on Cross Sell Opportunities?

Posted by: Ana Everett
Friday, April 23, 2010

How do you communicate with your customers about relevant and new products or services offered at your organization? I receive postal mail from every Financial Services company I have a relationship with on a weekly basis that I quickly turn around and recycle. Alternatively, I don’t receive any postal mail from any of my favorite retailers – instead, they send me emails.

Are you communicating with your customers via the best email marketing channel they prefer? If not, there are a lot of cross-sell and up-sell opportunities you may be missing out on. Consider the following:

1. Do you have an... Read More »

3 Tips to Transform Financial Services Marketing

Posted by: Mitch Frazier
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Marketing in the financial industry is not about cool commercials, bold advertising or slick emails.  Rather the most powerful marketing from banks, investment firms and insurance providers give customers a reason to remain engaged.  Let’s face it, the financial industry is part of the fabric of our lives.  We work, we get paid, money gets deposited, money is withdrawn, and we then start the cycle all over again.   Those financial firms that make that vicious cycle easier and more efficient are the ones that drive positive word of mouth marketing and create an immersive brand presence that...Read More »

Complexity Made Simple: Managing all of your departments with one platform

Posted by: Melissa Gindling
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
eCommerce Marketer 1: “Well, the Mortgage group sends out a weekly newsletter and they do NOT match our corporate brand!”

eCommerce Marketer 2:
“Is it true that they are only text and don’t include any HTML?!”

eCommerce Marketer 1:
“Pretty much. Also, I’ve noticed our unsubscribe rate has went up ever since they launched.”

eCommerce Marketer 2:
“How do we at least understand who they are sending to? We can’t bombard our customers even if they have signed up for multiple types of information – they don’t get that we’re on different sides of the business.”

eCommerce Marketer 1:
“I have no idea.”

...
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Three ways to keep your financial data secure and still have a marketing program

Posted by: Rob Wiley
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
I've been a customer of the same credit union for about 15 years, and lately I've been thinking about switching to a different bank that will reimburse me for my ATM fees.  I needed to get some cash before I headed out on a trip, and, being the cheapskate that I am, I went out of my way to find an ATM associated with my credit union's network that wouldn't charge me a fee.  Fortunately, it was nearby at a local grocery story. 

I got the money without a problem, but I was startled when I looked at the receipt.  You can see the words "Marketing Message" on the receipt; this placeholder was...Read More »

Financial Services: A Foundation for Success

Posted by: Teresa Becker
Friday, April 16, 2010
Financial institutions go to great measures to protect customers’ assets. They have vaults with steel locks, unbreakable combinations, and security guards. Finger prints and passwords are required, and only certain personnel are allowed to access information. These institutions are held legally responsible for protecting their customers’ important belongings, and they place a significant amount of trust in their Email Service Provider (ESP) to do the same.
 

Serving the financial industry is a big step for ESPs – one which not all can handle. When financial service companies select a platform...

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