In the world of B2B marketing, there exists a Great Chasm.

On one side of the Great Chasm live the business owners of the Past. They believe that "marketing" simply describes the staff who oversee networking and sales proposals. On this side of the chasm, marketing is a series of tactics, tools, and a list of chores to be completed. Marketing is a necessary evil in this land, and it’s too expensive to be done any other way.

On the opposite side of the Great Chasm live the firms of the Future. These businesses are passionate about marketing. They see marketing as a way of engaging with clients,...

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...

A few weeks ago, my friend Eric Smith from online retailer One Click Ventures asked me who “owns” conversion. At the time, I thought he wanted to know who I believed was responsible for establishing conversion rate objectives and measuring against them, so I replied, “Marketing.” Upon further thought, I think he was ultimately getting at who – in any given company – is “accountable” for conversion. And to that I have a very different answer.

I began my career in 1994 buying media for a large fast-food retailer we’ll call “Softee’s.” Mine was a five-state territory with a multimillion dollar...

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...

As digital marketers, we tend to be laser-focused on generating more business and revenue for our company. But it's also important to have a content strategy in place, to ensure that you're providing your customers with truly relevant content and actively listening to what they are saying about your brand.

Social media is one important channel for businesses to interact with customers (and potential customers) in real-time.

Every compant is unique, and each company's messaging must be relevant and engaging to their unique audience. At the same time, it's important for social marketing efforts to...

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...

Last week I sat down with Amy Bartner, engagement and utilty manager at The Indianapolis Star and indystar.com, to talk about social media and the day-to-day tactics that make it successful.

As we all know, the changing ways that people receive and consume news have necessitated a shift in how news media reach their audiences. The traditional method of assembling a team of reporters and photographers to publish a newspaper once, perhaps twice, daily became unsustainable, as the Internet and social media began to offer real-time updates from an infinite number of (sometimes dubious, but always...

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...

There’s no question about it: email is the foundation of successful B2B marketing strategies.

In 2012, BtoB Magazine reported that 59% of B2B marketers rank email as the #1 tactic for generating revenue and predicted that in 2013 spending on email by B2B marketers would increase 65%. A big reason more B2B marketing budget is flowing to permission-based email is that 57% of marketers say email newsletters are their most effective tool for lead nurturing. (Source: MarketingSherpa 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report)

B2B Email Marketing at its Best
One brand that, in my opinion, is a best-in-class...

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...

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...

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

Zulily

Type: Welcome email series
Send date: Q1/2013
Subject lines:

1st welcome: Get shopping credit! Invite your pals to join zulily too
2nd welcome: Go ahead ... play favorites
3rd welcome: Anytime. Anywhere. Take zulily with you.
4th welcome: Calling all social butterflies
5th welcome: Smart shopping is your superpower

“With the vast majority of marketers still sending a single welcome email, Zulily is well ahead of the curve with this five-email welcome series that seeks a closer...

While the potential to generate high-quality leads through webinars has become more widely recognized over the past few years, the importance of pre- and post-webinar promotion is often underemphasized. Marketers can certainly accelerate their lead conversions using webinars, but without a promotional strategy in place, the webinars that they’ve worked so hard to create will just fall flat.

Here’s a quick rule of thumb when it comes to webinar promotions: to keep your hard work from going to waste, plan to start promoting four to six weeks before the actual date of the webinar. After the...

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...

Startup Helps Companies Such as Whole Foods, Starbucks, JetBlue, Ford, Microsoft and Others Manage Brand Presence on Twitter

San Francisco, Calif. — July 9,2009 — CoTweet today announced it has raised $1.1M in venture funding from a group of high-profile investors including Baseline Ventures, Founders Fund, First Round Capital, SV Angel, Maples Investments and Freestyle Capital - social media heavy hitters whose prior investments include Facebook, Twitter, Google, Digg and Yammer, among others.

CoTweet is a web-based collaboration platform that helps companies reach and engage customers in...