The interviews are done, "cat chats" successful, and tours have been given. The Catapult class of 2010 can breathe easy now that Finalist Night is behind them. Yesterday, over 20 top graduates from all over Indiana came together for a night away from school. After 6 hours at ExactTarget's headquarters, they all left knowing a little more about one of the fastest growing 1 to 1 marketing communications companies in the nation.
One of the highlights for the current Catapults was at the end of the night where we kicked back, relaxed, and shared stories about our first year here. Yes, there were some embarrassing moments and lessons learned... just ask Isaac...
It's amazing to look back over a year and to realize how much we've learned about the industry - The inner workings of SMS, Voice, Landing Pages, Email... it was all a foreign concept a year ago.
Out of all of the very talented and deserving potential Catapults that we met yesterday, we will be extending offers to have the chance to work at the leading B2B Email Marketing company.
We are excited to bring on board the next class of Catapults who will represent ExactTarget!
As reported in the November 19th eMarketer Daily Newsletter, “There is a pronounced difference between open rates for e-mails that include a coupon offer and those that do not. Open rates of around 24% to 25% for coupon e-mails dropped to just 16% to 18% for non-coupon campaigns.”
The eMarketer article also confirms that “Higher open rates for coupon offers translated into higher click rates as well, though the difference was much smaller. emails with coupons that could be used online were most likely to be clicked, at 4%.”
As coupon use expands, I believe those brands that are able to personalize offers to the product needs and purchase behavior of individual consumers will have a distinct advantage over those brands that practice a “one-size-fits-all” coupon strategy. To learn more about technology that enables marketers to deliver relevant and timely offers – including coupons -- based on email subscriber data and behavior, check out ExactTarget Live Offers at ExactTarget.com
What About Mobile Coupons?
Are mobile coupons ready for prime time? Not quite, but we’re getting there fast – really fast. According to a recent Mobile Marketing Survey of 511 consumers by HipCricket, 83% of US consumers say their favorite brand has yet to market to them via their mobile phone, even though 37% say they would be interested in participating in a mobile customer loyalty program from a brand they trust.
This indicates growing consumer interest in mobile marketing and represents a significant -- but largely untapped -- opportunity for brands to connect with customers on mobile devices. “With consumer interest in mobile marketing continuing to steadily increase, it’s clear that now is the time for brands to launch and execute their mobile strategy and programs,” said Scott Debson, HipCricket’s VP of brand solutions.
It seems that brands are starting to listen. Ten million digital coupons were redeemed in the first six months of 2009, up 25% from a year ago, according to Inmar, a coupon-processing company. But they still account for less than half a percent of all coupons distributed.
Top Tips for Using Mobile Coupons
If you’re looking for practical insight on how to use mobile coupons effectively, check back here to see my next post, “Five tips for using Mobile Coupons to Drive in-store Traffic.”
Drip marketing comes from the phrase drip irrigation, which is where crops are watered in small amounts over a long period of time. This same concept is applied to marketing and is called drip model marketing. Customers or potential customers are given small amounts of information over a long period of time.The idea behind a drip campaign is that it takes between 3 and 30 impressions of a brand to make it sink in. When creating a drip campaign its important to have a consistent brand with varying messages to help develop the reputation of your company.
Drip emails are the most common type of drip communication, however there are other ways to communicate in a drip campaign. Some other options are - voice messages, SMS messaging, and direct mail.
Drip model marketing is a good way to help avoid always trying to sell a product and a good excuse to provide content that will engage subscribers. Think of this as a great way to nurture your potential clients. Drip marketing can be used for business to consumer or business to business email marketing solutions.
The good news is ExactTarget is one of the best email marketing software providers for creating automated email integration. To learn more about ExactTarget checkout their website.
I am really honored to have been nominated as one of the Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management in 2009 and would sincerely appreciate your vote.When I was notified about my nomination last week by Jim Obermayer, Executive Director of the Sales Lead Management Association (SLMA), I was humbled because the list of nominees includes so many of the top professionals in our industry – including ExactTarget’s CEO, Scott Dorsey.
Voting is open until November 13th. Both SLMA members and non-members can vote for up to five nominees. You can view a full list of finalists here.
Taco John’s and Scotts Highlight MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer
The recent MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer conference in Chicago attracted more than 300 interactive marketing professionals and was a huge success. Congratulations to Anne Handley and her team for producing a first-rate event.
Among the conference speakers were Renee Middleton of Taco John’s and Kip Edwardson of Scotts. Both joined me in presenting a special session to a standing-room-only audience titled, “Email, Social and Mobile. The New Triangle Offense of 1to1 Marketing.” Renee and Kip are on the cutting edge of one-to-one marketing, and discussed how they are using email in combination with social networks and SMS text messaging to attract consumers to their websites, convert them to email subscribers, and use email to drive consumers to retail stores. What they are doing – and the results they are achieving – serves as a great example of what’s possible when you match the right strategy to the right technology.
If you were not able to attend the conference, and would like to get a copy of our presentation, leave a note in the comments and we'll get you a copy!
However, the official definition is that ExactTarget Embedded Partners are typically ISVs that go to market with messaging as a part of their platform. As an Embedded Partner, your software product's user interface contains features and functionality that enable your customers to manage the process of creating and executing email campaigns (as well as SMS and Voice). This is about the most comprehensive and accurate description I can come up with myself. But, with the growth in popularity of “Cloud Computing”, I believe it is and will be much more than that.
Cloud computing has garnered a lot of media attention in the past year or so as the next big technological breakthrough. But, in my opinion, the concept isn’t really all that new. Companies have always looked for ways to combine technology services in a more commoditized way to drive efficiency and cost savings. Amazon.com has been doing cloud computing within the company for a long time. Essentially, that is the exact same goal for cloud computing. I think the biggest difference with cloud computing is that the concept is getting turned outward to the Internet, hence the “cloud” tagline. As more companies sign on to utilize these services, the less they will be inclined to build internal infrastructure to support corporate applications.
Think of the advantages:
*No capex/low capex to get started
*Highly scalable with on-demand allocation of resources
*Reliability of multi-location architectures
So how does messaging fit into the cloud? I see integrated messaging becoming its own service or platform in the cloud. Just like clients are looking to Salesforce.com to quickly and efficiently deploy CRM as a service, why not for marketing and other communications? It even makes more sense when you look at what the future of ISVs might be. More and more we are seeing a drive towards SaaS applications. Do you think it makes sense for a CRM or Print-on-Demand application provider to build their own messaging infrastructure? Probably not for several reasons, the most obvious being, it’s not their core competency. They will continue to be focused on what pays the bills. But, will they be eager to provide a marketing communication platform to their customers….absolutely. These companies will turn to partners that are similar to them…on-demand/SaaS/Cloud Computing…whatever the tagline of the week is. Why, because it provides the same advantages to them as to their clients, mainly low/no capex, highly scalable, and reliable service. This is where ExactTarget Embedded becomes the Messaging as a Service platform for the cloud.
Obviously the push towards SaaS and Cloud Computing is real. As the industry continues to evolve, so will ExactTarget Embedded and our partners. Our robust and flexible integration capabilities will allow ExactTarget to become the industry leader in Messaging as a Service.
True, there are dissenting voices. However, I have found none that are backed by credible statistical data. Since there is no statistical validity in personal anecdotes, I don’t care (except for the value they provide in forming hypotheses to be tested in future research). I care about what well-founded research tells us about the world at large.
Here is a list of the data sources I have located that reveal the truth about the current state of email use and email marketing:
Pew Internet & American Life: Online Activities Trends
- 79% of Americans use the Internet
- 90% of online Americans use email, making it the most popular online activity
- 57% of Americans check email daily
MarketingSherpa
- 78% of users email friends a link to information they wish to share with friends over the internet.
- 22% share through social media
- MarketingSherpa’s research directly contradicts research released earlier this year from AddToAny, which suggested people share information twice as often through Facebook as they do through email. However, there were serious issues with the AddToAny research.
USC Annenberg Digital Future Report
- How Many Americans Are Using E-mail? -- Almost everyone who goes online uses e-mail (97 percent of all Internet users).
- Regular Contact by E-mail -- E-mail users maintain weekly personal e-mail contact with an average of seven people in the current study, down from the peak of nine in 2006. Forty-nine percent of e-mail users said they maintain personal contact by e-mail on a weekly basis with five or more people.
Participatory Marketing Network
- Email (26 percent) and text messaging (26 percent) are the activities least likely to be "given up for a week," followed by TV (15 percent), talking on phone (11 percent), visiting social networks (nine percent), reading magazines (seven percent) and visiting non social network sites (six percent).
Pontifelx / Harris Interactive Survey
- 96% of online adults who have actually taken the step of providing brands personal information have shared their email addresses with marketers
- 12% of online adults have been willing to share information like their Facebook user name or their Twitter handle with a brand in exchange for information or promotional offers
SmartBreif on Social Media
While not nationally representative, this poll is interesting in that is suggests even social media professionals are not significantly curtailing their use of email.
- 59% of SmartBreif on Social Media readers (likely to have a heavy disposition toward social media use) report their use of email has stayed about the same despite the growth of social networks.
- 28% are using slightly less often
- 11% are using more often
- 2% of these readers rarely use email
ExactTarget – Is Email Marketing Endangered?
We asked a question similar to the SmartBreif poll, however, the question excludes marketers—so it is a better representation of the population at large.
- Net 25% of online consumers report using social networks more often over the past 6 months (42% using more often, 17% using less often)
- Net 23% of online consumers report using email more often over the past 6 months (29% using more often, 6% using less often)
- Net 21% of online consumers report using text messaging more often over the past 6 months (38% using more often, 17% using less often)
- 71% of smartphone owners report sending more PERSONAL email on their smartphones than BUSINESS related email—it’s not all business.
ExactTarget – 2009 Channel Preferences Study
- 57% of online consumers use email most often to send written messages to their friends, over text messaging (24%) and social networks (10%)
- 75% of online consumers prefer to receive permission-based promotional messages through email—up 3.6% from 2008—followed by 17% who prefer direct mail promotions and 4% who prefer text promotions.
- More than half of online consumers have made a purchase as the direct result of and email message they received, more than any other online communication channel.
Forrester Consulting – Customer Knowledge is Marketer Power
- 34% of marketers believe email will become more effective over the next two years, 19% believe it will be less effective
- Asked why marketers believe email will be more effective:
- 74% believe their email communications are getting more relevant
- 58% see email as an integral part of their multichannel activities
- 44% believe customers prefer email as a marketing channel
That is not to say there are not threats to the future success of email. Stay tuned for part two where I share insights from a panel I moderated at Connections last week where Julie Katz from Forrester, Rebecca Lieb from eConsultancy, and Stefan Tornquist from MarketingSherpa were asked to share their takes on the real versus perceived threats to email marketing.
I can hardly believe I work in a multi-national company.I mean, I've worked in multi-national companies before--my last company had an office in Exeter, England--but I wasn't there when it happened. Back then, it just meant that I had to come into the office early to get one phone calls with them and learn to drop the serial comma when I edited their documents. Now, it means I have actual friends there who will show me around if I ever get a chance to visit.
ExactTarget expanded into England via the acquisition of Keymail Marketing, already an established partner in Europe. Our application already supported multiple character sets for your email and landing pages messages in languages other than English, as well as sending SMS and voice messages to many different countries. But with this move, ExactTarget becomes an even better partner for your multi-national marketing campaigns.
Because we're there man.
As outlined in our recent whitepaper, Is Email Marketing Endangered?, Smartphones are a major force behind consumers increasing consumption of email. As such, the importance of mobile email for email marketers will continue to increase. While the solutions remain less than ideal, Mark Brownlow has done a wonderful job of summarizing the challenges of mobile email and linking to useful resources on the topic.But getting mobile email to work is only the first step. Assuming your email is successful in getting consumers to your site, they need to be able to actually do something. This appears to be a challenge. According to new research from Equation Research commissioned by Gomez Inc., end users are disappointed with their mobile web experience.
Among findings of the report:
60% of consumers have encountered a problem when accessing a website from their mobile phone during the past 12 months
* 51% experienced errors or crashes on the mobile site
* 45% had issues with the site functioning as expected
Among common formatting errors, the study identified content that is too large or too small for the screen, links that do not work, and overlapping or illegible text and graphics.
* 23% would be less likely to purchase from that company
* 19% would have a negative overall impression of the company
* 18% would be less likely to go to the company’s website on their regular computer
If mobile experiences impact consumers’ willingness to interact with companies at large, we can’t think of mobile as simply another channel. It is part of the communication landscape at large. It is not about developing mobile campaigns, it is about facilitating users ability to get the information they need at their convenience.
Thus, not only do optimizing mobile email and optimizing the mobile web go hand in hand, but both of these go hand in hand with optimizing our traditional email and web experiences as well. It’s all connected.
Take a look at the full report Why the Mobile Web is Disappointing End-Users.
Industry Standard Terms
- SMS = short message service, aka text messaging. It has a 160 character limit.
- MO = mobile originated = a message sent FROM a phone
- MT = mobile terminated = a message sent TO a phone
- short code = a 5- or 6-digit number that you buy from a carrier to send messages to your customers. http://www.usshortcodes.com
- vanity short code = a short code that spells something out, such as our, ETSMS
- random short code = a short code that doesn't intentionally spell anything. These cost slightly less.
- private short code = only your traffic goes through this code
- shared short code = a code that you share with other SMS users. Keywords differentiate your traffic from the traffic of other people on the shared short codes.
- MMA = Mobile Marketing Association http://mmaglobal.com/policies. A group that creates guidelines for United States mobile marketing.
- Aggregator = a third party company that maintains connections between the carriers and the content providers. When we provisioning a short code for you, we work with an aggregator to get you approved for all carriers.
You create JOIN, VOTE, HELP, UNSUBSCRIBE and other kinds of actions that subscribers use to send you MO messages to get in on your mobile messages.
Unfortunately, you can't create keywords or actions in the API at this point. You can initiate SMS sends through the API, however.
System Terms
- Subscriber key = unique identifier for subscribers. Allows you to identify subscribers by phone number instead of email address.
- Publication list = contains subscribers who opt-in using their mobile device
- Data extension = contains subscribers whom you import through the GUI or the API
- Keyword response - text in and receive a response
- Mobile capture - captures email address for list growth
- Vote and check vote count - submit your vote. poll the response
- Outbound (with opt-in) - a message from ExactTarget to the mobile device
- Custom campaigns
FanMail Solution
Dave DeVore - CEO FanMail marketing
Josiah Kaiser - Senior Operations and Solutions Consultant
Tim Kauble - ExactTarget product specialist and world-class AMPscript guru
FanMail Marketing is using SMS to capture email addresses. Initially they were asking subscriber to text their email addresses in this format:
krohn email@example.com to 88769
but they found that customers found this confusing and made errors that prevented the system from capturing their information. So for the next phase, they made it into a 2-stage process to make it more like a conversation. In the new setup, subscribers text in in this format:
stubbs to 88769
then the system sends back an text saying something to the effect of, "Thanks for your interest. Reply to this message with your email address to join our mailing list." When the subscriber responds with the email address, it is added to the email list. The customer gets an email immediately welcoming them to the list, and then any future mailings to that list.
The SMS message that was sent back after the first message included AMPscript to trigger the welcome email.
The first use case resulted in more errors than the second, and people weren't willing to try to sign up more than once. A limitation of both use cases is that it only captures people's email addresses, omitting other important subscriber information that would be useful for relevant messaging .
In the third phase of FanMail's SMS evolution, they integrated their SMS with landing pages to allow the capture of more subscriber information. People text in:
butter to 88769
The system responds with a message saying to respond with an email address. When the subscriber replies with the email address, the system sends them an email with a link to a landing page built with the Smart Capture feature. People complete the Smart Capture form and now the system has information to send really personalized information. For example, this band (Hot Buttered Rum) uses the subscriber's ZIP code to let the subscriber know about upcoming concerts in their area.
What FanMail discovered was that going through this process aggregated higher quality subscribers who were more likely to be engaged with the marketing campaigns and therefore higher ROI on their marketing efforts.
The future phases of this SMS evolution may allow subscriber to provide attribute information via SMS, such as ZIP code to empower the functionality above.
Another thing that FanMail has discovered is that subscribers are willing to send you SMS messages if they're interested in what you have to offer, but they don't like for you to begin the SMS conversation.
Custom Use Case
Tim Kauble took the stage for the final portion of this presentation. Poor Tim--his phone junked out on him this morning and his data connection didn't work, so we're seeing a modified version of his presentation. Typical of technology!
Tim talked about designing a system to allow him to manage his own tasks using text messages. He wanted to accomplish the following:
- Accept tasks
- Assign those tasks
- Assign priority, including deadlines
- Expose the tasks to landing pages so that he could see them all
- Support multiple methods of input, such a forwarding emails to an endpoint that generates a task with the content of the email.
Tim also brought up the landing page where we could see his lengthy task list--such is the life of the ExactTarget employee!
Today at Connections 2009, I spoke on an industry panel about how SMS Text Messaging fits into the one-to-one marketing campaigns. We had four customers on the panel share their mature SMS marketing strategies. Hearing from the US Navy, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Pier 1 Imports, and Hyperdrive Interactive, the attendees heard one common element throughout each story. In every case, text messages were used to improve subscriber engagement, marked with explicit permission. The reason why SMS mobile marketing is so successful is because people always have their mobile phones with them, but they may not have their computers handy. People don't leave home without their mobile phones. And as marketers are looking for ways to set themselves apart in the marketplace, SMS mobile marketing can help give them an edge.
Based on the 2009 Channel Preference Study whitepaper, consumers surveyed say they want to receive SMS mobile messages with expressed permission for companies to send transactional messages, time-sensitive alerts such as flight notifications, and operational alerts such as banking messages for suspicious account activities. The key learning for marketers to is understand which messaging channel their subscribers prefer for different types of messages.
A best practice to solve this challenge is to collect your subscriber's preference for marketing channels they prefer for various message types in the future. For marketers considering SMS text messaging, the first step is supporting inbound Text to capture new subscribers to your future drip marketing campaigns.
Capitalizing on real-time interest when you have prospects' attention at a live event or retail location, gives the marketer new possibilities. Seasoned marketers know that offering incentives to potential texters helps drive people to participate in these new campaigns.
When Pier 1 launched their first SMS campaign they captured new subscribers in a younger demographic for future email marketing campaigns. Subsequent drip marketing emails featured a message with a youthful tone and unique offers to help drive conversion. Read more from their story in Mobile Marketer. Texters were incented to engage in order to enter the sweepstakes to win a free Pier 1 Papasan Chair.
Text messaging is all over Connections this year, powered by ExactTarget Text. Check out SMS marketing program examples.
A recent study performed by the Annenberg School for Communication, University of California Berkeley School of Law, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center reports that Americans believe marketers should not advertise to them based on preferences and behavioral data…But why? In a marketplace of abundant information and almost innumerable and varied products, why don’t consumers desire some assistance to narrow down their selection? Why don’t people appreciate that marketers want to provide them with relevant advertising? If I am going to see advertisements on a website…and there is no question that I will…I would much rather see advertisements that pertain to my interests. Wouldn’t you?
The Annenberg/Berkeley study reports that 66% of Americans do not want to see website ads that are tailored to their interests. This sounds discouraging, but I believe the information provided by this study offers valuable insight for marketers seeking to capitalize on relevant, 1 to 1 marketing efforts. This study’s stats highlight consumers’ desire for control and trust—observations that can inform behavioral web and email marketing strategy.
Advertising preference is not the only metric this study provides, as eMarketer’s article “Behavioral Targeting Misses Mark” points-out. There are several other, seemingly contradictory metrics this study reports that can help us solve this puzzle. For example, close to 50% of Americans would like websites to give them discounts specific to their interests. Hmmm…So you don’t want to see the ads, but you do want the coupons presented in those ads? Puzzling…let’s dig deeper.
eMarketer highlights another Annenberg/Berkeley metric: 67% of all Americans feel that they have “lost control over how their personal information is collected and used by companies,” and at the same time 54% of Americans believe that “existing laws and organizational practices provide a reasonable level of protection for consumer privacy.”
This issue is one of trust, not necessarily the failure of behavioral marketing. Consumers like discounts, but people feel as if they have lost control over their personal information, and no one likes to feel like they have lost control. As a Catapult at ExactTarget, I spent two days in Chicago with fellow Catapults, interviewing people on their marketing preferences. Overwhelmingly, people expressed that they felt their personal information was abused by spammers and companies they had no relationship with. Yes, there are “reasonable” laws regarding consumer privacy, but consumers ask, “Why do I get so much spam?!” “How did they get my email address? My phone number?”
When asked how they felt about tracking on “websites in general,” people stated that they felt behavioral tracking was creepy and “Big Brother-like.” On the flipside, when given a concrete example, like Amazon.com’s personalized product recommendations that appear when browsing the website, interviewees’ tone changed: “Yes, I find that helpful, but they don’t send me a million emails after I buy something and pester me all the time. And, I have a relationship with them.”
Lesson learned: people want to feel safe, respected, and protected. Amazon.com is not scary, because they have a trustworthy reputation. As marketers, we cannot neglect that relationships are the foundation for business. Leverage your landing pages, emails, voicemails, and SMS organically to build trust with clients, at point of sale, for example. In your emails, provide a reminder of how clients signed-up. Provide a link in your emails to a page on your website that explains how you use subscriber information. Perhaps you should only advertise on trusted websites. Finally, don’t be abusive: be cognizant of email frequency and content.
I encourage you to check out our whitepapers on building quality lists direct marketing channel preferences. Use our List Growth Advisor for custom recommendations on how to responsibly grow your subscriber lists so that you can leverage subscriber data respectfully and effectively. Behavioral tracking does not have to "miss the mark."
If you're an ExactTarget client using SMS to enable targeted 1 to 1 communications you should have received an email on October 1, 2009, informing you of a change to industry regulations.
Here's what the email stated:
Beginning October 1, 2009, industry regulations state that the phrase "Standard Message charges apply" is no longer acceptable as standard messaging in SMS communications. For all digital advertising formats and message flows, one of the following phrases must be used in its place:
Message and Data Rates May Apply
Msg&Data Rates May Apply
Msg&data rates may apply
Msg&data rates may aply
View the ExactTarget SMS Regulation resource page for more information and helpful links to ensure that your Text Messaging campaign and communication programs are compliant.
With the third quarter coming to a close, and the holiday season approaching, it's about that time to begin making holiday vacation arrangements. Personally, every year I travel to Florida to spend the holidays with my family. So how am I getting down to the beautiful, sunny weather this year? When it comes to planning my trips, I always purchase my flights online - quickly and painlessly.
There certainly is a buzz right now around social media in the marketing world. eMarketer.com recently published the results of one of their surveys that analyzed the percentage of internet users that have been influenced by social media in making their travel/vacation decisions. eMarketer found that 23 percent of respondents, who happen to be U.S. internet users, have been somewhat or significantly influenced by social media when it comes to making travel/vacation decisions.
Although just less than a quarter of these people noted the effectiveness of social media in influencing their decisions, this still is an enormous audience that travel companies are reaching. As I've already pointed out, I fall into the 23 percent of people that have made or changed travel plans due to some sort of social media. A month or so ago I noticed an ad on Twitter that boasted cheap flights to Orlando, and within minutes had scheduled a trip across the country. I see this as a huge opportunity for the travel industry to offer travel deals that are specific to Facebook and Twitter, as both of these social networking platforms have such an enormous user base.
Large social media platforms also have the ability to use 1 to 1 marketing techniques by pulling travel locations from user info in order to provide users with more relevant content - for example, if I lived in Anchorage, Alaska, it is likely that I would be interested in going on vacation somewhere a little bit more like Key West. Once the user has purchased the trip, travel sites like Expedia.com send a confirmation email that contains the travel itinerary and purchase information. In addition, travel companies have the ability to take this one step further by instituting an SMS campaign that sends customers an SMS message letting them know if their flight is on time - I know this is something that many frequent travelers appreciate and certainly take advantage of.
As soon as you've identified your 23 percent and have built your subscriber list, you are now able to send automated email messages that every-so-often offer your subscribers different travel deals and opportunities. As I pointed out in my last post, email marketing is still the best internet marketing channel and is sure to be around for a good while longer.
To see another example of how social media has benefitted personal travel arrangements, check out Liz's post.
According to the “2009 ANA/MMA Marketing Accountability Survey” from the Association of National Advertisers and Marketing Management Analytics, “The No. 1 strategy for marketers who wanted to improve effectiveness without spending more, according to the June 2009 poll, was shifting from traditional to digital media. More than one-half of respondents also reported shifting spending away from brand-building initiatives, and 38% were putting more spending into lower-cost media.”
And as more marketers shift to digital media, the tactic that is seeing the largest increase in spending is email.
According to the “2009 Media Survey Results & Analysis” study conducted by Round2, “40% of US Marketers reported that they had increased spending on email marketing in 2009.
What This Means for Marketers
Increased dependency on email marketing means three things:
1. Email is no longer optional. It has firmly established itself as the #1 tactic for 1to1 marketing. And email has become the “go to” tactic for word-of-mouth marketing as brands empower email subscribers to “share” email messages and offers with their friends on Facebook, their followers on Twitter, and their connections on LinkedIn.
2. Email marketing will become more sophisticated as marketers move aggressively to integrate email with other tactics and technologies – like CRM, SMS, POS, Websites, and Social Networks -- that are used to keep customers connected to the brand. The cornerstones of effective email marketing will be Integration, Automation and Optimization.
3. ESP (Email Service Provider) selection will become a more strategic decision. Marketers must evaluate and select an ESP by their ability to provide “industrial strength” application functionality plus consulting services including 1to1 marketing strategy, email and landing page design, email deliverability, and application integration.
When students visit the ExactTarget booth they are given a costar that has a short code and a keyword that will allow the student to sign up for a SMS campaign (see picture). Once they sign up for the drip campaign they will receive a text message, voicemail, and an email detailing the positions available to college students. This same process can be used in other venues such as trade shows or special events. According to an interview of Patrick Moorhead, these types of extremely targeted campaigns create an unusually high unique click though rate. An SMS campaign cannot only separate your company from the crowd, it also provides your subscribers with valuable information.
For more information about starting a text campaign for your next big event check out the whitepaper Text Is Next.
Mike’s Express Carwash is a chain of 37 carwashes located across Indiana and Ohio. They recently announced that their email marketing program had enabled the company to boost online sales in June by more than 60 percent over June 2008 totals.
Email gives us a way to reward our loyal customers,” said Sally Grant, marketing director of Mike’s Express Carwash. “We’ve also been able to build a great list of highly-engaged customers and send them special offers and discounts to thank them for their loyalty and drive increased sales.”
What I really like about Mike’s is how they invite the customer to become an email subscriber.
Customers are invited to participate in the email campaign when they purchase a car wash. Every receipt includes a unique offer code and provides a link to the survey site (www.talktomikes.com). Customers log on to the Website, enter the unique receipt code and their email address and then complete a two-question survey. Once the survey is submitted, the data is immediately sent to ExactTarget’s Application Program Interface (API) which automatically triggers an email to the customer that includes a bar-coded coupon for a free car wash. To prevent multiple uses of the same coupon, the company uses ExactTarget’s Live Content feature to automatically generate a new bar-code for every coupon. Data from each coupon barcode is automatically uploaded to Mike’s Express’ point of sale system to ensure the code is only recognized once.
Does this email opt-in strategy work? You bet it does!
In August, Mike’s Car Wash ran a “Back To School” campaign that offered customers a free carwash in exchange for completing an online customer satisfaction survey and subscribing to its email marketing program. The 10-day campaign added more than 40,000 new customers to the company’s email subscriber list!
You Can Be Like Mike
Whether it’s implementing Triggered Email Promotions based on POS Customer Data Capture, or using SMS text messaging to capture new email subscribers, marketers like Mike’s Car Wash are proving that email marketing is smart. And successful email marketing begins with a well-planned subscriber acquisition strategy.
If you want to be like Mike, gives us a call. We'll be happy to help.
My wife and I are currently beginning the process of buying a house. Right now it consists of driving very slowly past any house that has a For Sale sign in the yard.As we were creepily driving past a house last night, I notice that the For Sale sign for this property was different. At the top of the sign it said “Virtual Voice Tour. Code #302” and it had a number to call. Of course I called it immediately as we sat parked outside of the house. We listened to the listing agent tell us all about this home via an automated voice message. I could picture the home in my head: the fireplace, three bedrooms, two bathrooms. Then the listing agent dropped the bomb of the price of the home and I hung up the phone.
Even though we were in a neighborhood that was a little too expensive for us, the Virtual Voice Tour was awesome. Why don’t more realtor agents do this? With ExactTarget’s Voice Messaging functionality it only takes a moment to record and setup these virtual voice tour messages. With just a little more work, a realtor could ask a potential buyer to text their email address to a short code before they listen to the virtual voice tour. The best part, all this can be done on the same One to One Marketing Platform.
Just like that, a realtor has captured a potential buyers phone number and email address. Check out our One-to-One Marketing Field Guild to learn more about Voice Message Marketing or use our Text is Next: Marketing with SMS whitepaper to get a SMS Marketing Campaign going today!
This week, we are excited to release Omniture Test & Target. And in iLab, it's not just another affordable email marketing solution--it's free! This new feature is a conversion product that allows marketers to test subscriber interaction with website design, content, navigation, and campaigns. Test results can be accessed in real time and used to target marketing offers, products, and content to different segments or individuals in order to create the most effective campaigns.
Whether it's B2B or B2C, access iLab today to sign up for Omniture Test & Target and take the next step in delivering the most relevant information to your subscribers!
As I am looking back over the 14 weeks that I have been here this summer, one of the biggest things that has hit me is that ExactTarget is not just an email marketing company. They are not just an email service provider. They are truly a one to one marketing company that has a full line of products to help increase the marketing ROI for a company.
Yes, we do email. We actually send some of the most intelligent and customer-driven email through our dynamic content capabilities.
But what else is in our product line?
SMS: We have the ability to develop and execute powerful SMS text message campaigns to engage customers on the spot.
Voice: We have a product that can send targeted and specific messages to consumers by telephone. Adding this personal touch moves a company way beyond simple TV advertisements.
Landing Pages: These microsites enable users of ExactTarget’s already powerful email software platform the chance to call customers to action through a targeted website, designed specifically for the particular action.
When a company uses all four of these tools together, they have the ability to become a very sophisticated marketer that engages consumers in a relevant way.
Kyle Schroeder
Slingshot Summer Intern
I took this picture last year during ExactTarget's Connections User Conference keynote presentation. 1 to 1 email marketing gurus can get pretty darn excited, as you can tell. And no wonder! Last year we launched our online user community, ExactTarget 3sixty, and our new partner community, Extensions Network. Dozens of breakout sessions gave attendees advanced email tips, email marketing best practices, SMS marketing advice, and more. It was crazy wicked...
OK fine, I lied. There was no mosh pit at Connections...but there may as well have been. The buzz coming out of the keynote was infectious. And this year, it's going to be even better.
As a member of our marketing communications team, I get to help build out the keynote presentation given by CEO Scott Dorsey and COO Scott McCorkle each year. Basically, that means I'm getting a sneak preview of all the cool stuff attendees will hear about in October. Jealous? I don't want to give anything away, but for those of you that heard last year's keynote, get ready. This year's going to blow it out of the water.
If you haven't already registered for Connections '09, get on it. The conference sells out every year - especially the pre-conference training - so don't miss out!
Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate
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