Do you know the number one reason people “like” companies on Facebook? Are mobile campaigns more effective than online advertising? Which day is the best day to send an eNewsletter out to clients?
Answers to all of these questions – and more – reside in “A Year in Numbers” Top 10 Marketing Charts and Research Articles of 2010, a very interesting compilation of articles by Ann Handley, the chief content officer of MarketingProfs.
I believe there is a “healthy” amount of images for email newsletters. Nixing them all together makes the email boring. Using a beautiful single image design or many images scattered throughout the content may be visually appealing on your screen but isn’t guaranteed to translate well.
I had the opportunity to attend Connections 10, ExactTarget’s email marketing and social media conference in Indianapolis. The conference was an excellent chance for me to learn about ExactTarget’s new features, hear interesting case studies from marketers and meet fellow ExactTarget partners and clients. I came back with a lot of valuable information and look forward to implementing new strategies with Parthenon’s clients.
On a typical day, my Gmail inbox is filled with eight shopping or dining offers, four event promotions, three publication newsletters, one car insurance “important notification” and, if I’m lucky, a personal e-mail or two.
Do I read them all? No, I delete most of them.
Yesterday, several of us got to go to the “So Fresh” Social Media conference here in Nashville. We had the opportunity to hear from amazing speakers about a wide array of subjects, but of course my favorite session was about how email and social media are merging together.
Greg Cangialosi explained that it’s important to not ignore your email marketing program, since it’s the “work horse” of your social media campaign. By integrating social media into your email marketing programs, you have the opportunity to convert your loyal audience into faithful fans.
Are you a subscriber to our monthly eNewsletter, Parthenon Post? If not, I encourage you to take a few seconds and sign up. Why subscribe?
The exponential growth of internet adoption among businesses and consumers provides tremendous opportunity for marketers. According to Forrester Research, advertisers will spend $25.8b on interactive marketing in 2009, and that number is expected to rise over the next five years to $55b, representing 21 percent of all marketing expenditures. The primary reason for this massive growth is that interactive marketing provides more efficient ways to reach prospective customers than more traditional advertising vehicles.
Challenges always accompany opportunities, however, and interactive marketing is no exception. Here are five steps to successfully plan your interactive marketing for 2010:
1. Understand. Before you develop and execute your interactive marketing plan, embark on a mission to understand who your target market is and how they behave online. Create a few prototypical customers and create a quick model about the
Including and utilizing links within your email marketing campaigns is important to guarantee that your links are working for you — that they are investigating what your readers like and helping you generate new content — all while maintaining your email’s charm.
Once you’ve crossed the biggest hurdle of getting someone to open your email, continuing to keep their attention is facilitated by the quality of the content and the information provided within external links. (For more information about the Five Stages of Viewing an email click here)
One of the most touted benefits of using email to communicate with customers is the ability to measure recipients’ interactions with the email, via extensive tracking systems. And the first statistic most companies look at is the open rate. Big mistake.
No matter how brilliant the message you created, it is likely that less than half of your email recipients will actually open it. With those odds, you need an attention-getting strategy.
Email inboxes are more crowded than ever, so be sure your email stands out among all the others. Emails need to be succinct and compelling every step of the way. Even worse than being ignored, is being pegged as spam, since you won't get any future messages through.
More and more people are checking their email on BlackBerrys, iPhones and other mobile devices. Like the automobile and television set before them, smartphones will likely become more popular and affordable until almost everyone has one. The question on many marketers' minds: how is the mobile trend affecting our business and marketing emails?
