Marketing to Seniors

My colleages and I have dispensed a lot of deliverability tips on this blog throughout the years. But wouldn't it be nice to have the most useful nuggets of delivery-related wisdom compiled for easy reference? Well, your wish is our command.

Over the next few posts, we will, ahem, "deliver" the top ten tips to get your email campaigns to subscribers' inboxes in today's email ecosystem Let's start it off with the first two tips ...

Tip #1 - Subscriber Engagement Is Critical to Email Success
In years past, permission was seen as the key to having mail accepted. But we know things are changing. As...

Interviewing our clients and hearing about their email marketing success firsthand is one of the best parts of my job at ExactTarget—especially when those stories are as compelling as First Midwest Bank’s!

I’ll make this quick, because I know you want to get back to your bracket and trying to figure out where it all went wrong...

According to MBA@UNC, more than a quarter of March Madness fans used mobile as their main viewing source during the 2012 finals—and more than two-thirds of consumers used their mobile devices in conjunction with watching the tournament on TV. See the specific mobile activity below:

Mobile Marketer confirms that mobile makes it even easier this year by giving fans 24/7 access to March Madness with live streaming. Turner Sports views mobile as a complement to...

Last week, ExactTarget had the opportunity to participate in one of our first tradeshow events in Stockholm, Sweden, home to our newest office location. Webbdagarna was a two-day event attracting more than 1,500 of the Nordic region’s interactive and web marketers--all keen to understand more about the future of cross-channel, how to implementeffective programs, and where to start in bridging the gap between offline and online channels.

ExactTarget Nordics recently opened its doors in Stockholm, Sweden, in the Östermalm business district. We’re excited to have a local team led by Henrik...

At ExactTarget, we place tremendous value on our employees’ career development. That’s why we’re so excited about the recent launch of our new ExactTarget Career Center. Not only does this online career portal provide employees with relevant career tools and training, it’s also a clear demonstration of ExactTarget’s commitment and investment in its most valuable resouce: OUR EMPLOYEES!

Career Development at ExactTarget
Acquiring, developing, and maintaining Orange talent is more important than ever before, as we continue to expand around the world and lead the market. We believe careers are...

As the new senior marketing manager for ExactTarget’s mobile and social products, I tend to be doing a lot of things for the first time lately – like attending the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin.

I don’t need to tell anyone reading this what an impressive gathering SXSW is, or how excited I am about going. The opportunity to meet other people in the industry and exchange ideas and best practices among them is very exciting. And the multitude of things to see and do is mindboggling for a rookie attendee! I have been studying maps, reviewing sessions, and trying to decide which...

State-of-the-art technology at your fingertips, two workout facilities with 50 inch flat screen television sets, and an unlimited supply of healthy snack and breakfast options are just some of the perks of working for ExactTarget. When I talk to my friends about ExactTarget, they wish they had some of these awesome benefits where they work. It's obvious why life at ExactTarget is awesome. Yet, all of those perks are just the orange icing on the cake. It's the people at ExactTarget that truly make it a great place to work.

As a member of the Global Recruiting Team, the one question I hear most...

The Super Bowl has come and gone. The lights have been turned on, turned off, turned back on, and turned off for the last time on the most popular American sporting event. In the social media marketing industry, Super Sunday turns into a weeklong analysis of well, just about everything: infographics, conversations, opinions, statistics, speculations, and conclusions.

One common theme to come out of the 47th edition of the “Big Game:” real time wins. (Oh, and senior citizens really enjoy Taco Bell but that’s beyond the scope of this article.) Oreo and Tide have garnered a lot of attention for...

Earlier this week the National Sports Forum hosted over 850 sports business professionals in Orlando for their annual conference. Representatives from sales and marketing for teams, leagues, properties, agencies, sponsors, and vendors were all on hand to network and share best practices in disciplines such as social media, marketing, senior management, sponsorship sales, business development, and ticket sales.

As sports business continues to evolve and teams look to market their products in a more relevant manner, it was no surprise then to hear phrases like “leveraging big data,” “driving...

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing predictions on the future of marketing from 25 industry thought leaders. These predictions have been compiled in our new whitepaper, Inspired Marketing Predictions for 2013. Today, our own Susan Marshall shares her thoughts.

Slimming Down, Shaping Up, & Getting Organized

It sounds like a New Year’s resolution that could easily go awry, but it sums up what will likely be a rude awakening for many marketers. Quality of fans and followers will matter more than quantity, and savvy marketers will begin to find creative ways to leverage social to drive...

Scrolled across the Bankers Life Fieldhouse concourse is this sentiment: "In 49 states it's just basketball, but this is Indiana..." There seems to be no better marriage between sport and region than that of basketball and Indiana. This weekend, the 2012 Close the Gap Crossroads Classic brought together four historically prominent programs from the basketball-obsessed state of Indiana. 

Bulter and Indiana met in the first matchup of the day, a game that featured the #1-ranked Hoosiers and the ever-lovable Bulldogs of Butler. While Indiana has been rebuilding, the Bulldogs have been to two of...

Marketing has become a data-driven science requiring insight and execution. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2017, CMOs will spend more on IT than their counterpart CIOs.¹

According to Gartner’s Adam Sarner, “digital marketing represents a shift in strategy and approach, not just in channels. Although traditional campaign management thinking involves executing campaigns directly to the customer, successful digital marketing must act more as a mutually beneficial journey aimed at satisfying customers’ wants and needs. This is a customer-focused strategy approach that will profoundly shift...

ExactTarget employees, clients and partners got an early start to Connections during Monday's Volunteer Day. Through partnership with Gleaner's Food Bank, volunteers helped meet the needs of hungry senior citizens and students in the community.

The volunteers, who are visiting Indianapolis for ExactTarget’s global client conference Connections ‘12, partnered with Gleaner's Food Bank of Indiana to pack and provide more than 2,000 meals to at-risk senior citizens and local students in grades K-6.

“Indianapolis has been a great city for ExactTarget and we want to give something back to help our...

We've got a fully loaded design track again this year on Wednesday, October 17th (Day 2) of Connections. Hear the latest and greatest straight from ExactTarget designers, customers and partners as we dig deeper into the world of interactive design and email marketing.

It's going to be big! Here are the sessions we're offering:

Ask the Design Experts I (8:30 - 9:25 a.m.)
Join a panel of email design experts as they discuss email trends of 2012, design collaboration and the future of email.

Email Design for the Age of the Mobile Inbox (9:40 - 10:35 a.m.)
2012 research shows that more people open...

So what's all the hype with mobile email lately? First, let's start fresh in our approach. Try not to refer to any email message as "mobile" - your audience will likely view a message on desktops, tablets and mobile devices. Unless there is a specific use case for a mobile-only email, it's best to approach optimization considerations that focus on overall experience, respecting all environments.



*These statistics represent industry averages, and results for individual audiences may have more or less for any particular email client. iPhone can commonly range up to 30-40%, Android is often in the...