Adventures in Marketing

 

Sure, Connections is full of networking and education, but it’s also full of fun—starting with an ExactTarget twist on the traditional scavenger hunt! Our Social Media Scavenger Hunt is one of my favorite parts of the conference, and this year the stakes are high. If you complete the hunt, you’ll be in the running for a chance to win a $500 Best Buy gift card! So join today to put your sleuthing skills to the test as you navigate the tech-savvy clues throughout the conference.

Just text ET12 to 38767 to get started! If you've already joined, here's your next clue:

CLUE 2:  Head to the 1^st floor ...

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Mobile Marketing is a key component of our ExactTarget marketing mix.  From capturing new leads, to driving brand engagement and delivering SMS alerts to our clients, mobile increases our return on our cross-channel marketing programs, and even cuts operational costs.

Filling the Funnel with SMS

Leveraging mobile as part of our marketing mix at events remains our most common use of SMS.  The secret to success is simple – event attendees are concentrated, on the move, and almost always with a mobile device in hand (and often without quick access to a computer).

Over the past four years, we've...

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Subject lines, from names, and send dates and times all matter. There are ‘best practices’ for each of these email variables – many of which you’ll find in ExactTarget’s Email Marketing Design & Rendering report. But the very best practice is testing these variables to see how your audience is most likely to respond.

ExactTarget’s Email A/B Testing takes the guesswork out of your email campaigns – and it also takes away your excuses for not testing every email you send.

We’re always testing our own marketing emails, and as a result, I’m always learning. Results can vary from one audience to the...Read More »

Multiple Sclerosis is a progressive disease that can stop people from moving - and for several of us at ExactTarget, this disease hits very close to home.

Last month I had the honor of attending the National MS Society - Indiana State Chapter's Dinner of Champions.  ExactTarget CEO Scott Dorsey was honored at the event as this year’s recipient of the chapter’s prestigious Hope Award for his outstanding and innovative personal and corporate contributions to the Indiana community. 
 



Congratulations Scott!  It has been an incredible honor to participate in this video and increase the...

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5 Resolutions Marketers Should Make And Keep In 2011

Resolution #5: I Will Use Automation To Save Time And To Better Meets My Customers’ Needs

Once you’ve committed to make data the foundation of your marketing and market to your customers as individuals, it’s time to identify what’s working – and start automating!

Before you jump into the automation deep end, make sure you start with a process or campaign that works. Automation only saves time if it’s effective. And with tools like the Interactive Marketing Hub™, you can quickly pinpoint the recurring emails or campaigns that are taking up...

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I love mobile, because I’m always on the move. I love that I can get an updated flight status on my smart phone faster than at the gate in the airport, and during the holiday shopping craze, I could enhance my bargain shopping by quickly comparing prices at other stores using a barcode app. But mobile is still an ugly duckling for many marketers – it’s cool and different, but what should a marketer actually do with mobile?

I Will Use Mobile to Connect with My Customers is Resolution #2 in ExactTarget’s 5 Resolutions Marketers Should Make And Keep In 2011. Like anything new you try in your...

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I will market to my customers like the individuals they are is Resolution #3 in ExactTarget’s 5 Resolutions Marketers Should Make And Keep In 2011. What does this mean for ExactTarget’s own email marketing? It means we’re adding new preferences customized by you in ExactTarget 3sixty in January. Shape the content of the communications you receive from ExactTarget by telling us more about you! Are you a B2C design guru? Or are you a B2B executive just getting started with your interactive marketing program? No matter who you are, we want to know!

In January, we’re launching My InSight customer...

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Just like you, I’m busy planning for 2011 and I’ve been carrying ExactTarget’s 5 Resolutions Marketers Should Make And Keep In 2011 everywhere I go! This year’s guide includes space to jot down your notes about how you will incorporate each of these resolutions into your marketing plan. In most cases I’ve filled in all the lines and have notes overflowing in the margins!

So, what are my resolutions for ExactTarget’s email marketing program in 2011? I’m glad you asked.  Last month, I shared tips for using your data to create targeted email. This month I’ll share how I will stick to Resolution...

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Does just hearing the word data make you want to cringe? Or do you feel a rush of excitement with the endless possibilities that your data holds? Data can be overwhelming. It might be incomplete, it might not be squeaky clean, and it may not be consistent across all of the subscribers on your email list. But don’t let that stop you from creating targeted email messages.  

It’s no secret that Data is the New Creative of the real-time web. In fact, long gone are the days of “one-size fits all marketing” But this transformation didn’t just happen overnight, and architecting your data to react...

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Let me guess – you think you could do so much more with your marketing program “if only you had a developer” to build out your website and help support your interactive marketing initiatives. Am I close?

Well I’m here to let you know: you don’t need a developer. In fact, at ExactTarget, we build and use our own Landing Pages all the time – with no assistance from IT or a developer.  

We use Landing Pages for everything from a simple one-page list of resources to a full-blown microsite. Typically, microsites are used for larger initiatives, such as Connections, our annual user conference or other...

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This year in Insight, we’ve brought you our One-to-One marketing Field Guide Set, 2009 Email List Growth Study, Email Design Checklist and much, much more.  But is it what you really want?

I’m a one-to-one marketer just like you. With every email send, I’m glued to the results to see how many opens I’m getting, and what links receive the highest clicks. When open rates on a new subject line top the charts, I get excited thinking about what I can come up with to beat those results the next time around. I learn a lot from testing elements of our communications and analyzing the results.  As...Read More »

I had myself a little chuckle this week with the uproar around the White House asking people to email 'fishy' information regarding health care reform to a designated White House email address.  The biggest question mark in this controversy circles around what the White House is going to do with the information they collect from this exercise -- which could potentially result in a list of email addresses or IP addresses of Americans expressing their opinion or providing information. 

This was a nice reminder from our Nation's leaders that collecting email data under false pretenses is no...Read More »

I was very excited to read Andrew Kordek's review of our InSight newsletter this morning:

http://thescrappyemailmarketer.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/exacttargets-newsletter-almost-perfect/

We received a 9.95 rating, which is the best possible rank in my book.  Why not a perfect 10?  As Andrew pointed out, there are still things we can do better.  The assumption of perfection is often followed by complacency, and with the speed of change in email marketing, there is no time to sit back and relax, thinking everything is just right.

We've said it over and over again, but the key to successful email is...Read More »

In February, we tested which Customer Webinar reminder garnered better webinar attendance: Email or Voice.  This month, we put the choice in the hands of our customers to decide the type of webinar reminder they wanted to receive. 

The Results?

Email Only: 86%
Text Only: 2%
Voice Only: 0%
Email & Text: 4%
Email & Voice: 2%
Email, Text & Voice: 6%

Email is still leading the pack, but a hearty 14% of our customers chose at least one other medium for the webinar reminder.  The big surprise? Nearly half of all customers venturing beyond the boundaries of email selected to receive a reminder from...Read More »

I find there is always more to get done than I can accomplish in a day’s work, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. Between my never-ending to-do list and a calendar packed with meetings, budgeting time to attend webinars that interest me can be challenging. Even if I find the time to sign-up for a webinar, there is a good chance I won’t attend simply because I forget about it with everything else I have going on in any given day.

Knowing that I’m not the only marketer who is an occasional scatterbrain with a busy schedule, I decided to run a test with one of our customer webinars, Five Things...

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