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Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing guest articles from experts in the realm of content marketing. This week, Jeb Banner writes.

Jeb is CEO of SmallBox, an Indianapolis web design and marketing company. He is also a co-founder of the Speak Easy, a local co-working space. He is happily married to his wife, Jenny, and they have three amazing daughters.

I attended a local tech panel recently and was starting to space out when ExactTarget's CMO Tim Kopp said something that caught my attention: "Serving is the new selling." It reminded me of something my buddy Kevin Bailey from Slingshot...

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...

Design and content go hand in hand. With that, one of the biggest questions marketers ask is often about appropriate copy length. Let's take a look at the psychology behind decision-making and conversions to best inform what kind and how much content to use.

In a recent web clinic by MECLABS Marketing Experiments, Long Copy vs. Short Copy, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin walked through several great examples and principles, asking the following questions:

• Do customers prefer shorter pages?
• Are attention spans decreasing?
• Can long-copy pages be effective?
• How much information is too much, or too little?
• Is...

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...

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...

In my last post, "Are you Leaving Money on the Table by Sending Non-Targeted or Blast Emails?", I explained that sending the same offer to your entire database could actually be hurting your sales efforts and causing you to leave money on the table.

In this post, we will shift gears to focus on your merchandising strategy. By utilizing a "crawl, walk, run" strategy that leverages automation, you can actually increase AOV, boost your conversion rate, and provide your shoppers with an overall better shopping experience.

#4 Way Retail Marketers are Leaving Money On the Table: Manually Merchandising...

I'll start with a few simple words to remember: responsive web design is kind of a big deal. Even back in 2012, Mashable declared that 2013 would be the year of responsive web design, and it couldn't be more true.

I was able to attend a great webinar this week given by Josh Miles of Miles Design called the Responsive Design Revolution. He focused on why responsive design is becoming critical for websites, so I'll take a quick break from talking about email design and share his thoughts on web. For those that focus on email, remember that your message is only as good as the site that you're...

ExactTarget is excited to announce the launch of a new website across seven regions and a fresh brand experience. The vibrant new look, elegant navigation, and richer user experience reflect the evolution of our company’s growth over the past 12 years. A lot has happened since then and we’re excited to share new services, innovations, and partnerships that help marketers around the world connect with their customers across the spectrum of digital channels.

What’s New:

• 7 new sites spanning ExactTarget’s global presence in the US, Australia, Brazil, Germany, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
• W...

As a follow-up to the article I wrote for ClickZ the other day, I wanted to talk a bit more about the use of technology and the adoption of best practices in large B2B organizations.

My research for the ClickZ article looked at B2B companies on the Fortune 500* and their adoption of modern marketing tools. But when you look at the raw data, it becomes clear that there are three easy lessons for any B2B marketer.

Lesson 1: Technology is only the beginning

When adopting radical new technologies, the technology itself is often only part of the story. The other part is a shift in thinking or action....

What image formats are most appropriate to use when I’m building an email? Let's explore the three common image file formats appropriate for email: JPGs, GIFs, and PNGs.

JPGs

The file name .jpg stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It’s one of the most common image formats, allowing for compression adjusting to benefit speedy load times for web display. The format utilizes compression that is best for image slices that include photography and images that need a higher amount of data to show detail. When you save the image for web use (often referred to as "save for web" in Photoshop),...

Making your way through a shopping mall during the holidays can be like navigating your way through a maze. ‘Tis the time of year when stores are busy, crowded and noisy and sales associates seem impossible to come by. Still, there’s something fun and exciting about shopping at brick-and-mortar stores during the holidays, and many consumers still enjoy the overall experience. But with limited staff on hand, how can retailers provide enough sales support to usher customers to a sale this holiday season?

That’s where Guided Selling comes in. Consumers enjoy interacting with technology and...

As I discussed in my previous blog post, the right location makes all the difference -- not just in physical real estate, but in digital real estate as well. In this post we'll focus on the location and placement of Guided Selling Tools on a retailer's site.

Before we get stated, Let's review: What is Guided Selling?

iGoDigital’s Guided Selling Tools are designed to engage online customers who seek additional guidance, education, and direction for selecting the most appropriate product to meet their needs. These tools emulate your most knowledgeable, charismatic sales associates by offering a...

We’ve all heard the real estate mantra: Location, Location, Location. If your store is not located in a prime spot, you can expect to fare worse than your competitor who is located on the busiest intersection in town.

The same principle holds true in the digital realm. Like the location factor in physical real estate, it’s a must for marketers and merchandisers to consider how they are using their web real estate to market and promote their products, with an emphasis on maximizing ROI.

As a SaaS provider for third party recommendation solutions, we've had many opportunities to test and optimize...

According to Forrester Research, online retail sales will reach $278.9 billion in 2015. It’s no wonder then that over the past decade, eCommerce websites have become incredibly fine-tuned conversion machines. The best of the best optimize the performance of technology, design, and content in pursuit of the holy grail of online retail—a frictionless, online environment in which every visitor becomes a loyal customer.

During the Retail Touchpoints Exposed reasearch our intent in visiting the websites of the Hot 100 Retailers was to evaluate their efforts to build email, mobile, and social...

The ExactTarget team invites you to participate in our #NexusCafe Twitter chat this Thursday  and every Thursday from 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. 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 in your favorite Twitter application and be sure and add the hashtag to your tweet to participate. The person with the best tweets wins a Starbucks gift card!

For this week's, #NexusCafe chat we've asked a Jeff Rohrs, VP of Marketing at ExactTarget, to return to our...