Social Marketing Program

1. Foursquare's Awesome Virtual Map / Time Machine 

Kind of creepy, just not really creepy.

The animation flies you around all those haunts you've visited in times past, served up in a lovely 3D effect that you can autoplay to your heart's content. You can zoom in or out of its map showing all the places you've been, checking out each of your check-ins. The interface helpfully provides places Foursquare has recommended for you as well. (via Mashable) 

2. Apple is Back, Jack

- WDDC (Apple's Wordwide Developers Conference) was this week and it looks like the technology power brand has some kick...

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. 

Social media has been around for more than a decade, and most businesses have come to realize that social can (and should) be an important part of their marketing program. At the same time, marketers continue to struggle with with how to fully leverage—or even understand—the ever-changing world of social media marketing.

Finding and installing a social media management product isn't enough. You need a thorough understanding of how to launch, grow, and innovate your social media programs.

Look no further! ExactTarget Social Media Services can provide you with proactive support, a pragmatic...

“70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated.” —McKinsey

“55% of customers would pay extra to guarantee better service” —Defagto Research

Forrester Research, Inc., calculated the financial benefit that a higher customer loyalty score, as a result of improved customer service, would have on key industry verticals. Their study found that significant value is associated with improved customer experience strategy. Since social media amplifies the effect of any customer service activity, it plays a huge role in turning the potential value illustrated below...

Have you heard about the Social Media Domination Road Tour? It begins on June 13 in Philadelphia and seats are filling up! Jason Falls and Nichole Kelley from Social Media Explorer will work with you to develop and leave with a fully executable:

1. Social Media strategy
2. Content marketing strategy
3. Measurement strategy

If you ever had to justify a trip, this one is easy. Prices are low and after one full day of this hands-on workshop, you'll leave with a plan you can execute and meaure the very next day.

If that's not enough, here's a letter you can customize to win your manager's approval.

Register...

Success in most digital marketing channels can be proven by the numbers. As much as some marketers and communicators don't like to spend their time drowning in math, any truly successful social media program will have the numbers to prove it.

In his new whitepaper The Mathematics of Social Marketing, Jason Falls says that many companies have turned social media marketing into a thriving source of web traffic and revenue, while others still don't fully understand how to leverage the world of social media and business.

According to the report, 45% of small business CEOs do not consider social...

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. 

During this week's chat, we were happy to have to have Simms Jenkins (@SimmsJenkins) founder & CEO of BrightWave Marketing (@BrightWave) join us. Tied to the launch of his second book, The New Inbox, the focus of this week's chat was around the future of email, how to truly integrate social and mobile, and what trends and disruptions are...

The ExactTarget team invites you to participate in our #ETCafe Twitter chat this Thursday (and every Thursday) from 11am - 12pm ET, where we discuss emerging topics and trends from across the interactive marketing world. This virtual coffee chat is hosted directly on Twitter by @ExactTarget using the hashtag #ETCafe.

This week, we're excited to have Simms Jenkins (@SimmsJenkins) founder & CEO of BrightWave Marketing (@BrightWave). Tied to the launch of his second book, The New Inbox, this week's chat will discuss the future of email, how to truly integrate social and mobile, and what trends and...

When people talk about the basic elements of a successful email marketing campaign, there are a lot of facets to consider—responsive design, relevant messaging, personalization, pertinent send time, and beyond. But one facet of a successful email campaign that many marketers regrettably overlook is deliverability. After all, no matter how great the email, if it doesn’t reach the inbox, it can’t be effective.

Which brings us to Sky Angel.

Sky Angel came to ExactTarget in 2007 after experiencing deliverability issues sending emails from their internal servers. As a faith and family television...

If you’ve mastered marketing automation 101, and even tackled our 9 steps to go beyond the marketing automation basics, then you’re ready for a few of our expert tips. At this point, you should be delivering highly relevant and dynamic email content, sending out drip emails to nurture prospects over time, and managing your social profiles using real-time and scheduled posts.

Sound about right? If so, then read on to find out how you can continue to improve your marketing automation efforts with these 8 steps, inspired by the Mastering the Art of Marketing Automation eBook:

1. Don’t get lazy. At...

Mastered the basics of marketing automation? If the answer is yes, I'm guessing you've already begun reaping the rewards of your initial automation efforts. I'm also surmising that your CRM system is busy collecting plenty of customer and prospect data, and you're actively engaged on multiple social channels. At this point, you might even have a little extra time in your schedule to dive into your RSS feed, or take a longer smoothie break.

You're off to a good start.

That being said, there's always more to learn about the complex clockwork of marketing automation. Take your knowledge to the...

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 ...

Join us in San Francisco on May 9^th and Seattle on May 10^th for the launch of the Digital Mornings Breakfast Seminar Series. In this monthly six-part series we’ll gather together to discuss some of the latest research, updates and trends in cross-channel marketing over coffee and breakfast.

In the first session we’ll dig into an overview of the Cross-Channel Marketing Challenge, taking a look at how effective cross-channel campaigns can support the customer lifecycle: acquire, on-board, engage and retain. We will share best practices and case studies on cross-channel programs that incorporate...

Email list growth is a concern for many organizations--so you're definitely not alone if it's one of your concerns! In order to succeed in your email marketing efforts, you want your subscriber base to grow, not stay static. Fortunately there are numerous ways to build your email list.   

Depending on your industry, a web form may be the most effective way to capture more subscribers. Other options include social media tactics, mobile strategies, or even an offline approach. The possibilities are limitless.

Since this is such a popular topic and concern for marketers, there is plenty of informati...

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...

I’m excited to share the news that CoTweet has formed a partnership with Dachis Group to deliver social business solutions to enterprises.

Dachis Group is a new type of technology solutions firm. It was created in 2008 by Jeffrey Dachis to help large corporate enterprises unlock the value of social technologies to do business better. The firm takes a holistic approach to its client engagements, combining advisory services along with technology implementation across three practice areas: customer participation, workforce collaboration and business partner optimization. Today, Dachis Group...

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...