Welcome to the third article in my series about the basics of social media. If you've missed any of the previous articles in this series, take a look now:

• Do Not Delete
• Remember, You’re Talking to People
• What’s the Reason for Your Social Media Presence?
• Your Customers are Talking. Listen to Them!

This time we'll be looking at one very important question: Why are you on social media?

I’ve asked this question many times and I generally get responses like:

• “To communicate with our customers” or
• “Everyone else is on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, so we should be too” or
• “We have to get onto social to show...

A few weeks ago, my friend Eric Smith from online retailer One Click Ventures asked me who “owns” conversion. At the time, I thought he wanted to know who I believed was responsible for establishing conversion rate objectives and measuring against them, so I replied, “Marketing.” Upon further thought, I think he was ultimately getting at who – in any given company – is “accountable” for conversion. And to that I have a very different answer.

I began my career in 1994 buying media for a large fast-food retailer we’ll call “Softee’s.” Mine was a five-state territory with a multimillion dollar...

1993? At this point you're probably wondering where the heck I'm going with this blog post.

In 1993, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers wrote “The One To One Future,” a revolutionary book about the idea of one-to-one marketing and its impact on the future of marketing. At the time of its publication, this book became the basis for many important marketing theories. Frankly, this book has been left on the shelf for way to long, as its relevance for modern marketing automation is immense.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to read this book, here are a few notable quotes:

“A mass marketer tries to...

Last week I sat down with Amy Bartner, engagement and utilty manager at The Indianapolis Star and indystar.com, to talk about social media and the day-to-day tactics that make it successful.

As we all know, the changing ways that people receive and consume news have necessitated a shift in how news media reach their audiences. The traditional method of assembling a team of reporters and photographers to publish a newspaper once, perhaps twice, daily became unsustainable, as the Internet and social media began to offer real-time updates from an infinite number of (sometimes dubious, but always...

This week, a handful of clients reached out to me and other members of the ExactTarget deliverability team, asking for our "official guidance" on Gmail's "new inbox." Truth is, I don't know that we can't provide anything official as of yet, as we're still digesting this change ourselves. I'm certain you'll hear more from us on this topic in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, here's what we can tell you.

Gmail doesn't seem to be enabling the new inbox by default. You have to click on the gear icon, and click "configure inbox" to enable this new functionality.

Mickey Chandler points out...

This is one in a series of columns exploring the examples and trends highlighted in The Best of the Email Swipe File.

IVCi

Type: Promotional email
Send date: Q2 2013
Subject line: IVCi conversation

“While most emails work best as HTML emails, we’ve found that drip emails are the most successful when they’re in a rich text format, which makes them appear as though they’re a one-to-one communication between a sales rep and a prospect. This email from IVCi is short, conversational, and includes a personalized signature to enhance the impression that the email is coming directly from a sales rep.”
—Mathe...

Digital marketers know that it’s all about the numbers. Every quality social media tool will have a powerful analytics platform to show CMOs (and their teams) how effective their social media strategies are shaping up to be. Hopefully, most CMOs also know that social media is truly an area of marketing where the numbers can craft a narrative. Although numbers can’t capture all the nuances of a brand’s voice on social media, the numbers do help to show how well the brand’s messages are being received by customers, and that’s a direct reflection of the strategy and voice as a whole.

As a CMO,...

1. Smart Phone Penetration Hits over 50%. In 2012, eMarketer estimates, "six countries—South Korea, Norway, Sweden, Australia, the UK, and the US—saw smartphone user penetration rates among users rise above 50% for the first time. In regional terms, only North America will boast average smartphone penetration rates above 50% in 2013 among mobile users, as Canada crosses the 50% mark this year. Western Europe as a whole will cross that boundary in 2014."

2. mCommerce and the Mobile Transaction. For the B2C brands, mobile payments have already revolutionized the way consumers pay for products....

Google recently announced that the Gmail inbox experience is changing, and significantly so.

Users will still be able to keep their "classic" inbox view if desired. However, if they move to (or are moved to) the new inbox view, they'll see their inbox contents divided up and grouped into four different sections represented by different tabs: Primary, Social, Promotions, and Updates.

The Primary tab appears to be the place where one-to-one email communication will be displayed.

The Social tab appears to be the place where notifications from social networking sites (like Facebook and Twitter) will...

In the first part of our series on deliverability tips, we talked about increasing engagement and reducing list fatigue. Here's the second installment in our Deliverabilty Top 10 List:

Tip #3 - Make Client Communication a Two-Way Street
Currently, many marketers view client communication as a one-to-many process. For them, sending an email is like standing before a crowded auditorium and giving a speech, without the burden of having to stop from time to time for applause. Marketers who continue to engage in this method of communication will likely find themselves marginalized at best, or more...

Email is the foundation of online communication—after all, according to recent studies, more than 90% of online consumers subscribe to a brand via email. (Stats come from the 2013 Global Executive Summary, part of the SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS research series that compares and contrasts the digital marketing habits of international consumers.)

But what are consumers hoping to receive in their inboxes when they subscribe to a brand’s email program? What brand messages are they most likely to open and read? When we look at the top “Motivations to Subscribe” across various countries, there...

I usually know whether or not I’m going to hire someone in ten minutes or less.

It’s not a superpower, and it’s also not a coincidence. After interviewing countless job applicants over the years as CMO of ExactTarget, Vice President of Worldwide Interactive Marketing for Coca-Cola, and even a call centermanager at a bank, I can gauge an applicant’s skill and potential almost immediately.

If you’re a recent graduate, I want to congratulate you. You’ve spent years studying hard, interning for long hours, and absorbing the valuable knowledge that will transition your life from college to career....

That is a familiar image, isn't it? The well-traveled, world-weary suitcase, littered with stickers from places visited from Alaska to Zimbabwe. The trusty suitcase that is lugged from state to state and country to country: it may be battered and bruised, but it serves its owner well as they globe-trot across the world.

I used to be envious of the owners of those suitcases. That image motivated me to have my own beat-up, decorated travel companion to visit far off places with.

I have been living outside of America for almost nine years now. I lived in Sydney, Australia for just under five years...

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...

Social media has impacted everything from daily friendships to business practices. But one of the most dynamic effects of social media is how it has blurred the lines between customer service and marketing.

As a CMO, you know that your brand needs to go beyond listening and start doing. When it comes to social media, a further examination between customer experience and marketing has led us to three essential truths that CMOs should know about the social space. (Read the full list of truths and background information in our free-to-download whitepaper.)

The first truth for CMOs to grasp is that r...

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...

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!

Wireframing is one of those mysterious steps of a web or email design project that can be tempting to skip. After all, once the site map and general architecture is established, everyone is eager to see those first beautiful mockups of the homepage complete with amazing photography, perfectly kerned typography and glossy buttons. 

However, taking the time to wireframe before jumping headfirst into Photoshop and mockups can spare everyone headaches down the road. Hereare a few reasons why:

Wireframing serves as a communication tool early in the design process
Developing a full mockup of an entire...

Twelve organizations - Best Buy, Ford, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts, JetBlue, Intuit, Meetup.com, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Robert Verdi, Inc., Rotary International, Sprint and Waterford Wedgwood USA - have joined an innovative program we’re calling the CoTweet Cohort.

During a six-month period, the companies will use the CoTweet platform as a primary tool for communicating through Twitter and will participate in an ongoing discussion regarding opportunities and best practices for leveraging social media to further business objectives.

The CoTweet Cohort allows participants to share...

ExactTarget provides our customers the ability to market through email, mobile, social, and sites—but why is that combination so powerful? The answer is the data and connectivity—which provides marketers the ability to communicate in a consistent, targeted, and branded manner across channels, while honoring consumer preferences.

There are many companies out there who specialize in Landing Page marketing—but ExactTarget Landing Pages are different because they are integrated with the same data and technology customers use to power the rest of the interactive marketing campaigns.

Consider taking...