Last week our own Susan Marshall published an article on B2B Online entitled "Easy Ways to Combine Email with Social." In case you missed the original, I wanted to share this great content with our own blog audience.

Susan's article states that, while email continues to be the workhorse of digital marketing, savvy marketers are taking steps to integrate email with social media to improve their overall campaign performance. She shared three easy strategies that marketers can implement to grow their email subscriber lists, improve campaign relevancy, and build new audiences:

• Grow your email...

Social media has been described in a lot of ways--but when done properly, it can become an art.

Just a few years ago, a simple presence on Facebook meant a company was "doing social media." Without much strategy, rhyme, or reason, a company was “hip” if they were on the one social media channel. Now companies that are serious about social media have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Vine, and more. But with more and more companies entering these channels, brands have to do more than just "be there" to be successful. It takes some social creativity to break through...

I recently returned from Phoenix, Ariz. where I attended my first Direct Selling Association’s (DSA) Annual Meeting. Over 1,000 people gathered for three days of 110 degree weather for keynotes, breakout sessions, and networking. 

The overall theme for this year’s meeting was celebrating the direct selling industry. Executives from all over the world gathered together to celebrate both the achievements and opportunities of the direct selling industry. And there was a lot to celebrate this year! US direct sales increased 5.9 percent in 2012 to $31.63 billion. In addition, the number of direct...

Repurposing content can be an enormous time and sanity-saver for marketers struggling to scale content production. It takes a lot of pressure off non-marketers within your organization who aren’t natural writers, and ensures content relevancy when previously successful content is repurposed.

There are, however, a few common pitfalls that can get you into trouble.  Follow these guidelines to save time and avoid headaches when repurposing content:

1. Am I really repurposing?
It’s important not to confuse repurposing with reusing or redistributing content. 

A common trap marketers fall into...

Using video is nothing new. YouTube reports that they have 72 hours of content uploaded every minute, demonstrating just how crowded and noisy the video content area is. 

When you start creating videos, you’ve got to understand that once your video is out there, you don’t have full control over it any more. Sometimes a spoof of a video can take off and can really positively aid brand awareness. Then there are the other occasions where it can do enormous damage – is all publicity really good publicity? (Let’s leave that for another day!)

If your content is good, then it’s more than likely someone...

This week, ExactTarget launched the 21st research report in our SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS series: The Digital North. This cross-channel report covers the online habits and preferences of online Canadian consumers, through detailed analyses of the channels they check daily and the communication methods they respond to best.

If Canadian consumers are part of the target audience for your digital marketing campaigns, you'll want to download this free report to power those campaigns with critical statistics and numbers. But even if Canadians aren't a primary audience for your brand, the...

As you may have heard (probably through your News Feed) Facebook is introducing the use of  hashtags.

So now what? Well the social brand marketer in me and the social media consumer in me have varying opinions. 

As a social brand marketer: 

• I will leverage brand hashtags and keyword hashtags with the hope that relevant people will Like, post, and comment on our page based on those hashtags.
• I'm excited to do some serious targeting of Social Ads based on hashtags - since I'm already seeing success with this on Twitter.
• I'll need to be cautious when entering conversations of those using my brand...

There’s nothing quite like a classic combo. Dinner and a movie. Burgers and fries. Opt-ins and SMS? Yes, please.

Many consumers have long associated the act of opting-in as something to be done by email, for email. But today’s cross-channel world doesn’t just include email. Companies and organizations could find big success in acquiring new customers by adding a mobile component with SMS (short message service). There are two great approaches to this strategy:

1. Email opt-in via SMS
This one is a quick addition to reinforce the presence of your email campaigns, as well as how easy you’ve made it...

It’s a common misconception that SEO, social media, email, and other content distribution channels should reside in silos. There are numerous synergies to be had by launching campaigns that affect multiple channels of distribution. Strategic earned media is just one way to influence these channels simultaneously. When executed properly the social sphere lights up with buzz, landing page conversions increase and search engines take notice.

What a Strategic Earned Media Campaign Looks Like
Earning media has been a public relations (PR) goal for many decades – targeting newspapers, magazines and...

Earlier this week, salesforce.com Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff and I announced that we have entered into a definitive agreement under which salesforce.com will acquire ExactTarget. The response to the announcement has been tremendous, and it’s been great seeing so many share our excitement for how ExactTarget and salesforce.com will increase the value proposition for customers of both companies and deliver the marketing platform of choice for CMOs.

Since the announcement, I have received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from our clients and partners, and I wanted to follow up and...

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,...

Each Thursday at 11am EST, marketers from around the world join the ExactTarget user community on Twitter for a conversation about trends and campaign ideas across the interactive marketing industry.  We call this virtual coffee chat the ExactTarget Café. 

One of my favorite marketing campaigns of all time was the classic “What would you do for a Klondike Bar?” This classic pop culture campaign--launched in the 1980s and resurrected in 2006--is a classic example of "swell," where the final campaign took on a much bigger role than it was designed to. This swell concept is something all marketers strive for with their campaigns, so let's take a look at what we can learn from the Klondike campaign (and others).

The Klondike product was relatively new to the market, so the company used this campaign to launch into other geographic territories. As it...

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

Levi’s

Type: Promotional email
Send date: 4/9/13
Subject line: Denim Die-Hards‏

“Partnering with fashion website Refinery29 to get their interpretation of 501 jeans for the photo gallery presentation in this email is just the beginning of this social-driven campaign. Subscribers are asked, ‘What’s your interpretation?’ and encouraged to upload photos of themselves styling 501s, and ultimately asked to vote on a Pinterest-inspired landing page to determine which finalist is the...

Earlier today, salesforce.com announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ExactTarget. This is exciting news for the entire ExactTarget family!

Since our founding, we’ve been laser focused on helping marketers leverage data to create more relevant and effective digital marketing, and today’s announcement creates even more opportunity to execute on that vision with our clients and partners around the world. The combination of ExactTarget’s industry-leading marketing automation and campaign management capabilities with salesforce.com’s leading social marketing...

I'm excited to start a new series on the ExactTarget blog centered around the hottest digital marketing stories and trends of the past week. We will publish a new list at the beginning of every week. Just to be clear, this is a blatant rip-off of the BBC series. 

1. The Power Behind Waze and Mapping: Waze was on the tip of many tongues last week with rumored bids from Apple and Google. Why is there so much buzz about Waze? The company, which initially launched in Israel, provides crowd-sourced information. Users can wave their hands over their mobile device while driving to vocally report...

I'm proud to announce the release of the newest predictions guide from Australia. The guide features predictions for emerging trends across email, mobile, social, cross-channel and marketing automation from industry leaders, including Jeff Bullas, Chris Baumann and Iggy Pintado as well as thought leaders from Adobe, Direct Marketing Association, ExactTarget and Microsoft.

“The new year provides new opportunities for marketers to create innovative, customer experiences that build loyalty and deliver business results across email, mobile, social media and the Web,” said Lee Hawksley,...

At ExactTarget, we pride ourselves on empowering our clients to connect with their customers to drive engagement that builds loyalty and brand advocates. One of the highlights of my day is getting to spend time talking with our great clients and diving into their innovative campaigns across email, mobile and social.

One of Celebrity Cruises’ recent campaigns focused on transforming on-hold bookings into reservations with an automated email campaign. The campaign saw a double digit percent boost by triggering custom emails to potential travelers featuring their preferred destinations, cruise...

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...