There are still lots of opportunities to win other great prizes at Connections.
- Connections Scavenger Hunt – The scavenger hunt that starts tomorrow. The winner of the scavenger hunt will receive a Micr...
SMS Now
We hope that everyone enjoyed the first official day at Connections
2011! It was an eventful day on the Connections hashtag #ET11 – be
sure to check that out. Out of all the engaging content on Twitter,
Instagram, and the ExactTarget Blog I had the difficult task of
choosing the most engaging content. The winner for the most
engaging content for day one is Trena Roudebush. See her tweet
below.
There are still lots of opportunities to win other great prizes at Connections.
There are still lots of opportunities to win other great prizes at Connections.
Text Messaging is unlike any channel before it. For most, it
is reserved for our inner circle of friends and family. It’s
for important updates and requests: ETA? / On way / Pick up milk
please. It’s for inside jokes, wry asides and
late-night musings. While many time-honored marketing
principles apply, we must appreciate this unique channel in the
context of human behavior. These basic practices lay a solid
foundation.
1. Start with the Value
Proposition. We should be asking, first and
foremost, “What value can I provide to my customers that is
important enough to warrant inclusion in...
Read More »
Each week, marketers from around
the world join the
ExactTarget Nexus partner ecosystem on Twitter for a
conversation about trends and best practices in the interactive
marketing industry. We call the virtual coffee chat the
Nexus
Café.Last week we had the opportunity to chat with Jay Jhun (@emailrocks), Director of Email Services at Engauge, an ExactTargetpartner. With 16% of smartphone users saying they’ve made a purchase as the result of a marketing message they received on their phone, we wanted to discuss how to capture that momentum to drive purchase behavior through innovative...Read More »
This is going to be a rather audacious post. The
reason? I hope to introduce a new term into the marketing
lexicon and prompt some discussion about our app-driven
future. Here goes:
If you're currently a smartphone user, I suspect that this new term
will be met with some head-nodding and smiles. Loading up
your first smartphone with tons of useful (Shazam), social
(Facebook),...Read More »
apptrophy
(app-trō-phee): a wasting away of a smartphone, tablet or
other mobile application due to disuse or abandonment. Most
commonly experienced by those apps pushed beyond the fourth screen
on my iPhone.
If you're currently a smartphone user, I suspect that this new term
will be met with some head-nodding and smiles. Loading up
your first smartphone with tons of useful (Shazam), social
(Facebook),...Read More »
I mentioned new SMS API
functionality in my last blog post, and this seems as good a time
as any to point out exactly what kind of functionality our
documentation describes.Take a look at the new page to see what's available. If you're a hardcore SMS API user, you now have the ability to:
- Capture information from an MO message, send an MT response, and add a subscriber to an email list
- Send a Triggered SMS message from a third-party web call
- Retrieve tracking information from SMS sends
- Send MT message to double opt-in subscribers
- Manage the status of SMS subscribers
Developers working with the
ExactTarget application right now are used to hearing exciting news
about what they can do. We're constantly improving our
email marketing API and
SMS API offerings, and as such we're constantly improving how
we convey information to those developers as well.I’ve already talked about our AMPscript reorganization a bit, so let me tell you a bit about how we’re applying those same organizational principles to our API documentation. We’re moving this information into its own section of our online wiki documentation, and we’re hoping you get the following benefits...Read More »
CMOs, Brand Managers and the agencies that serve them seek to
harness the power of social media. Whether they are dipping
their toes in the water or diving in head first, they know the
current is strong.
As Patou Nuytemans states in 21st Century Marketing:
Many focus on tactics, hoping to attract fans and followers with an if-we-build-it-they-will-come approach. Follow icon?...
Read More »
As Patou Nuytemans states in 21st Century Marketing:
Times changed, so have
consumers. Businesses have to accept that to survive.
Consumers' decision-making processes – whether to buy from you or from someone else - have shifted to a new, powerful peer-to-peer arena.
Consumers' decision-making processes – whether to buy from you or from someone else - have shifted to a new, powerful peer-to-peer arena.
Many focus on tactics, hoping to attract fans and followers with an if-we-build-it-they-will-come approach. Follow icon?...
Deliverability: Holiday Smackdown Edition
The 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 »
Facebook
announced their new messaging system today, incorporating
elements of SMS, instant messaging, and email messaging. The
"Social Inbox" is a big component of this new functionality, and
Facebook's goal is to make it feel like a conversation.
Facebook was careful to tell us, "This is not an email system." Email is a component, sure, but they aren't expecting everybody to go home tonight and shut down their Yahoo account. This is a new platform, Facebook tells us, to enable more direct IM-like one-to-one communication.
The Social Inbox is probably the feature that is likely to have the...Read More »
Facebook was careful to tell us, "This is not an email system." Email is a component, sure, but they aren't expecting everybody to go home tonight and shut down their Yahoo account. This is a new platform, Facebook tells us, to enable more direct IM-like one-to-one communication.
The Social Inbox is probably the feature that is likely to have the...Read More »
Over the past few years, as cell phones have gained more and more
popularity, we've started to see "no cell phones beyond this point"
signs outside libraries and hear "please silence your cell phones"
announcements in movie theaters, classrooms, and even church
services--but never will you hear this announcement made at
Connections.
Yesterday, in the "CMO Roundtable: Fuel for Thought" general session, ExactTarget CMO Tim Kopp made an interesting observation: in the past, speakers and presenters used to get offended by the use of cell phones during their speeches--but not anymore. Today, seeing... Read More »
Yesterday, in the "CMO Roundtable: Fuel for Thought" general session, ExactTarget CMO Tim Kopp made an interesting observation: in the past, speakers and presenters used to get offended by the use of cell phones during their speeches--but not anymore. Today, seeing... Read More »
After just a few weeks working on ExactTarget's integrated
marketing platform and sitting in on various product demos for
clients, I noticed a major section of the market that many
companies have yet to explore. Companies are missing the ball by
not doing more with mobile commerce. The playing field in marketing
has become more and more sophisticated as companies strive to reach
their customers with more relevant messages. The digital media age
is growing and companies need to explore mobile marketing further.
The use of smartphones has increased and opens up a
lot of mobile capabilities for...Read More »
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...
Looking
for a dose of inspiration to jumpstart your marketing program? Take
a few notes from Google's Marissa Mayer. She spoke
at Make/Think, the AIGA design
conference last October. For me, her points were the most valuable
of the entire conference. Focus on the user, value
simplicity, let the data decide and be unexpected.Focus on the user - Giving your audience timely and relevant information should always be your main objective. Google focuses on decreasing search latency through optimizing how their site is coded.
In your situation, this could mean developing an SMS opt-in program or...Read More »
New Zealand has
had enough of businesses and individuals not paying attention
to their anti-spam laws. They had been going with educational
efforts, but they're fed up now. Fines for spamming, either
via email or SMS, are $200,000 for an individual or $500,000 for a
business.
If you're a New Zealand resident and you're getting spam, you can
file a complaint with the
Department of Internal Affairs.
If you're sending to New Zealand residents, make sure you're
honoring unsubscribes or it can cost you up to a cool
half-million.
Countries all over the world are fed up. ET handles your
unsubs...
According to the Mashableblog, by 5:30pm EST Jan 14, only two days after the devastating
earthquake in Haiti, the Red Cross has raised an impressive $5
million dollars from their Text campaign. If you were on Twitter,
Facebook, or other social media sites this week, you may have seen
the outcries to donate $10 by texting "Haiti" to the shortcode
90999. If you do the quick math, that's 500,000 mobile subscribers
that have used text messaging to donate to the Haitian relief
efforts led by the Red Cross. The blog post also shows an SMS
message flow explaining how easy it is for a mobile...Read More »
Santa looked at his list, checked it twice and
probably thinks that I had been naughty not nice
lately...especially as it relates to blog entries. Like
everyone else during the holidays, time slips away from me like
grains of sand through my fingers. I can't seem to get a firm
hold on anything let alone get everything done in the time
allotted. This should be the time of year when we can slow
down and reflect upon our lives. Refresh, regroup and
reconnect.
This should also be the time when you can look at your email and
1-to-1 marketing programs - reflect, refresh and regroup - a
time to...
Thinking about using mobile
coupons? If you are, here are 5 things you absolutely must know
about planning and managing a successful mobile coupon
strategy.1. Make the Offer Relevant to the Consumer. “Opt-in mobile marketing has an enormous potential if done responsibly and is specifically focused on the stores/restaurants that matter to each consumer,” said Alistair Goodman CEO of 1020 Placecast.
A recent study conducted by Harris Interactive of more than 2,000 adults measured cell phone owner preference levels and receptivity for opt-in mobile marketing messages from...Read More »
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...
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...Read More »
Ratul Shah is the presenter for the first part of the solution
showcase. Unlike every other presenter that's talked in this room
so far today, Ratul is maneuvering through the crowd with the
hand-held mic. What a showman. :)
Industry Standard Terms
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...
