Responsys New School Marketing Blog

Impressions from MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013

2013-02-27T19:18:19Z

Last week I attended the MarketingSherpa Email Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada. Overall it was a good conference with lots of good tactical content for attendees to take back with them and implement in their own programs. Some of the content served as great reminders that making some minor adjustments, and what may seem as obvious changes, can make big performance improvements that drive real results. One aspect that stood out to me was that from an email marketer's perspective it's critical to make sure you not only develop great content for your subscribers, but put the right tools in place to analyze and measure what happens post-click.

Here are a few more takeaways:

The biggest eye-opener for me was that over half of respondents to MarketingSherpa's Email Benchmark 2013 Report haven't analyzed their emails for mobile and tablets. With so many articles and discussions occurring around responsive design and mobile usage, this stat seemed much higher than I would have expected. It goes to show that we must continue to educate on the importance of improving experiences for customers accessing our emails on mobile devices and what that experience is like post-click.

One other eye-opener was that 82% believe their list is growing slowly or not all. This shows the importance of continuing list growth efforts, but also ensuring our contact strategies are aligned to be customer focused in order to reduce list fatigue and churn. Without putting the customer first and continuing to send everyone the same message, we are only setting ourselves up for failure in the future as we have fewer and fewer customers who will want to hear our message.

It was an honor to present the award for Best in Show to the folks at NFL.com. It was exciting to hear how the NFL.com program moved to a customer first approach last year. They used dynamic content based on what the customer wants in order to "build" the email (stats, articles, video, etc) and as a result they saw 121% increase in opens and 26% increase in click-throughs. This customer first approach made sure that fans weren't getting content related to a team rival or stale content. My only gripe was the session was too short! I wished there was more time to hear them talk about how they handle the off season as well. With such a long period of time where customers won't be as engaged (or content is minimal), it would be great to hear how they handle communications to their fans and keep them engaged (opening / clicking) and ready for the kick off to the next season.

I also led a speed-roundtable (think speed dating but with 10 people at one time) during one of the breakouts. My topic was on the usage of social data to improve relevance in email programs and moving beyond the 'like.'

It was great to hear how some companies are either already using this data or already researching how they can leverage this data for their marketing efforts. Being at an email focused conference and a relatively new concept, I was a little nervous that the content might not resonate but each session was a sell out and the feedback was positive. Thank you to all those who attended the roundtable!

As marketers move away from a channel specific approach to a more customer centric approach, it will be interesting to see how conferences centered around a particular communication channel evolve. Very exciting times to be involved in digital marketing! Thank you MarketingSherpa and see you all next year!

6 of Your Burning Deliverability Questions Answered

2013-02-26T18:38:46Z

Thank you for all of those who attended our recent deliverability webcast, Winning Deliverability Battles in 2013 from the Responsys "Need to Know" webcast series. If you missed this one or want to listen to any of our recent webcasts again, click here.

We really enjoyed presenting the topics as well as the great discussion and feedback it generated. Since there were more questions than we could address during the allotted webcast time, I wanted to follow up and answer some of those excellent questions and continue our dialogue here on the blog.

Q: There are numerous small blacklists out there. Should we be tracking all of these? What is the impact of these various lists?
A: There are hundreds of blacklists being operated by numerous anti-spam activists and organizations. Blacklisting essentially means your IP has been flagged for sending unwanted traffic and the followers of that blacklist (i.e. ISPs) may decide to block your emails. We can narrow down the significance of a blacklist based on its ISP footprint. For example, Spamhaus is an organization that has a vast majority of ISPs subscribing to their blocklist. Upwards of 80% of a B2C marketer's list could be blocked as a result of being blocklisted by Spamhaus. On the other hand, a very small blacklist may only cover a few private domains with only a handful of subscribers from your list. This blocking impact of this would be much less noticeable, though the root of the issue should still be corrected and mediated if at all possible.

Q: Can you please explain the difference between blocking, bulking and blacklisting?
A: There is a very common misunderstanding between these three terms so it is important to distinguish and point out the differences. Blocking occurs when an ISP takes action and refuses to accept your emails. Bulking happens when an ISP accepts your email, but routes the messages to BULK or SPAM folder vs routing to the INBOX. Blacklisting is the act of being flagged as a sender of unwanted email and while ISPs can operate a blacklist, this is most commonly done by independent blacklisting organizations such as SORBS, Spamcop, Spamhaus.

Q: Any tips for protecting reputation of transactional IP?
A: ISPs factor sender reputation the same way for both transactional and promotional IPs. The message (content) and relevancy to recipient are what can make the difference in positive or negative reputation. Successful transactional messages are those which the recipient has specifically triggered through a specific action (i.e. purchase, password reset, etc.). In fact, if they don't receive the message they may be prone to pick up the phone and call your customer support.

Q: Is ISP remediation still effective these days?
A: ISP mediation is still very effective, but the definition of what mediation means has changed significantly. As with everything, technological advances and smarter consumers have combined to have a major influence on the email industry. Gone are the old days of calling up an ISP postmaster before a big launch so he or she can let your mail through with no questions asked. As the amount of email volumes kept growing, it became too much for the large ISPs to manage manually. The postmaster departments have been downsized and replaced with sophisticated, automated filtering systems. These filters are constantly monitoring all traffic and adjusting based on the ISP specified reputation scoring formulas. They react in real-time to block, bulk or accept messages and the same formulas apply to unblock requests. We still maintain contacts with ISPs and follow all established protocols for mediation as needed. The control an individual postmaster has over their systems is minimal compared to years past so the goal of mediation is always to establish root cause by finding out what caused the deliverability issue. Then we help our clients address that issue so it won't happen again and trigger more blocks. Machines don't play favorites and ultimately the senders following best practices are the ones who are rewarded by the ISPs with good deliverability.

Q: We have the most trouble delivering to mid-tier ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, Cableone, etc. Why is it so challenging to deliver to these addresses?
A: One of the main differences with these ISPs is that they are all paid services whereas the majors like Yahoo!, Gmail, and Hotmail are all free services. This means that once an individual discontinues their paid subscription with a Comcast, Verizon, etc. their address is no longer valid. Over time if the marketer continues to send to these expired addresses, they will have a higher hard bounce rate and could also be sending to addresses that have been turned into spam traps. This results in blocking by the ISP and a constant battle to get back to the inbox until the root cause is addressed. This a common learning experience for many senders who do not use engagement based filtering. Our recommendation is to always have a filter that will suppress addresses with no opens or clicks within the past 12-month period...which leads us to the next and final question.

Q: What's your view on cold storage? Should we have a strategy for permanently retiring inactives?
A: ISPs are placing more weight on subscriber engagement to determine sender reputation. This means you need a strategy for older addresses that are no longer actively opening or clicking before they start to hurt the deliverability of your active subscribers. Addresses without open or click activity beyond 12-months should be considered for a re-permission campaign as a final attempt to reactivate the subscriber. If the address still does not respond and opt-in, they should be marked as permanently opted-out.

Have more questions you'd like answered? Please leave a comment.

Do People <3 Symbols in Subject Lines?

2013-02-20T22:35:33Z

If your inbox looks anything like mine, you probably saw quite a few email subject lines that looked like this around Valentine's Day:

Symbolically speaking, the hearts within the first two emails fit within the context of the subject line, and one could argue are enhanced ever so slightly by the heart symbols. The third subject line, while personalized with my name, falls more into the marketing gimmick category, since if it wasn't for the upcoming holiday there would be no other reason to throw a heart symbol into that subject line. In fact, the placement of the heart symbol breaks up the flow of the entire subject line so it doesn't read easily, hurting the subject line instead of helping it.

As digital marketers, our first attempt to break through the inbox clutter is with a solid attention grabbing subject line. We know that more people are reading email on their mobile devices and that the email clients on those devices are symbol-friendly. Having symbols like the above hearts within a subject line can draw more visual attention, but just because someone can see the symbol within their inbox does not necessarily guarantee an increase in traditional email metrics, such as open or click rate. Plus, if every company out there began using symbols in their subject lines, the idea of symbols helping to break through the clutter of the inbox would be negated. In his Return Path blog article, "Symbolically Speaking - Hard Facts on a Soft Approach" Guy Hanson shows some very interesting analysis which demonstrates how symbols within subject lines can actually add value to the recipient's user experience, as opposed to just being a marketing gimmick, and how traditional subscriber metrics may not communicate the "full performance picture for email marketers." Therefore, it makes sense why the trend of whether or not one should use symbols or emoji in subject lines has continued to be hotly debated.

So where does this leave us? Symbols within subject lines can enhance your message, but don't just add symbols to your subject lines because you can or your audience will view it as just another marketing gimmick. Instead be strategic in your use of symbols, engage your audience in a way that fits within your company's brand, and always remember to test! For more information about using symbols in subject lines, check out this previous blog post, "Pros and Cons of a Growing Fad."

How Open Table and UrbanSitter are Targeting Valentine's Day Procrastinators

2013-02-12T00:13:07Z

For online retailers, Valentine's Day promotions typically comprise the highest volume of email sends in the first quarter of the year. For a look at the Retail Email Blog's past Valentine's Day Season Finales, click here. In addition to the many retail-related Valentine's Day emails that have been hitting my inbox over the past few weeks, I've noticed several hospitality companies taking advantage of the holiday with smart messaging encouraging people to make this Thursday a date night! A couple of highlights below:

From: Open Table
Subject Line: Table for Two?
Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2013

From: Open Table
Subject Line: Love & Dinner
Date: Saturday, February 9, 2013

The first of these Open Table emails (Jan. 29 send) was forwarded by a reader of the Responsys Retail Email Blog, who informed me that its timing saved his bacon. Open Table to the rescue! Email #1 from this series was sent with barely more than two weeks left before Valentine's Day, when securing a restaurant reservation can be a panic-inducing situation. The final email came with less than a week before the big day! For procrastinators everywhere, these emails must have been a very welcome time-saver, narrowing down the selections to places with availability and therefore eliminating the need to try making reservations at many spots that would already be fully booked. Open Table clearly knows that many of its subscribers are likely to be on-the-go, and has done a nice job of optimizing their email campaigns for mobile users. The emails in this template are just 500 pixels wide, and the font size is large enough to be easily read on smaller screens. Further, the top navigation has a link to the Open Table mobile site.

From: UrbanSitter
Subject Line: Book Your Valentine's Day Sitter!
Date: Tuesday, February 5, 2013

As a busy, working parent, I can be overly swamped for time, and usually wait (or forget) until the last-minute to get a sitter. With just 9 days left, I would have assumed that all the sitters in town were already booked, and just resigned myself to a cozy, at-home Valentine's celebration. For those like me, this UrbanSitter email was a perfectly-timed. Additionally, the secondary restaurant recommendations are nice touch... although, coming from a restaurant background, I'd wager that at this late in the game, it will be quite challenging to secure a Valentine's reservation at any of the SF Chronicle's Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants listed. Maybe next year UrbanSitter should consider partnering with Open Table. :)

Congrats, Baltimore Ravens! But What About Those Commercials?

2013-02-08T23:29:43Z

Well, another Super Bowl has come and gone and tens of millions of dollars have been spent to capture our attention and wallets. But in this customer-first world, how did the advertising stack up? At $4 million for just 30 seconds of time, who took advantage to extend the experience beyond the big game? Did anyone take advantage of the second screen? Who missed the mark? Let's take a look.

As Nielsen reported, 91 percent of consumers planning to watch this Sunday's game are also looking forward to watching the commercials. That's a huge audience (2012 saw 111 million viewers) with full attention on your 30 seconds. With most viewers watching with a tablet within reach and a mobile phone in their pocket, how did this year's ads do at using that attention to start building a relationship and further the conversation through the digital channels (mobile, social, email, web, and display).

First, CBS was the biggest advertiser, with more than 32% of commercials dedicated to CBS shows, sports, or local news. That's either a sign of desperation to get people to watch your shows, or a sign that they didn't sell as much advertising to fill the time. Either way, I'll be happy not to see another CBS show ad about them being #1. OK, on to the good stuff.

The biggest loser this year over last was Shazam. Last year several advertisers used its listening technology to extend their 30 seconds. This year only one advertiser used this method. This implies that listening tech was not successful at bringing the customer online as some assumed it would be last year, otherwise we surely would have seen more advertisers using it again.

Websites were back this year. This was the most common tactic used to get people to continue the conversation. Some used custom domains like CokeChase.com or SteerTheScript.com, while others promoted their actual site (or page on their site like Blackberry.com/z10). I'm glad to see this coming back as it's a great place to capture email addresses, mobile numbers, fans, etc. Each advertiser did not leverage the quick sign-up method, but a most had some way for visitors to stay in touch.

Hashtags were also a big win with 19% of ads using a custom hashtag to promote their message. About 10% used Facebook or Twitter as the call-to-action. We also saw Oreo promote Instagram as a place to follow along.

Both Coke and Axe body spray had the most urgent call-to-action of any ads. Coke was asking people to vote before the end of the game to determine which of their characters would win (no spoilers, but visit CokeChase.com to see it all). Axe was asking people to enter before midnigh to win a trip to spacet.

The biggest moment in my opinion wasn't the advertising that was on the TV, but Oreo's quick thinking to create the graphic related to the power outage. This was retweeted and shared by many. Tide also promoted the outage online with a clever graphic, as well. This was a fantastic way for brands to inject themselves into the conversations around the game using social to power their efforts.

I'm looking forward to the analysis on chatter around all the hash tags, as they seemed to be one of the biggest calls-to-action this year. With so many, it will be interesting to see what (if any) were used. Until next time!

4 To-Do's for Australian Digital Marketers

2013-01-31T22:47:09Z

2012 was an exciting year for the Australian digital marketer. The rise of mobile and social has created a raft of new opportunities to engage with consumers in more relevant and meaningful ways, meaning campaigns can now be more targeted and generate a higher return on investment. So, as we make headway into 2013, how can marketers leverage all they have learned over the last 12 months to make 2013 their most successful yet? Here, I reveal the top considerations for marketers to include on their 'digital to do lists.'

Mobile will become the leading communications platform: Over half of all Australians now own a smartphone and as penetration rises, and consumers increasingly use their phones as their desktop and inbox, smart marketers have realised the need to optimise their communication using responsive design. Given that Australian smartphone penetration is the second highest in the world, Australian marketers have an opportunity to lead globally when it comes to best practice in mobile and those not already upping their game need to make mobile a key focus in 2013.
ROI more important than ever: The Big Australia Report revealed that half of marketers (49%) expect digital marketing budgets to rise next year, 70% intend to execute a higher volume of email campaigns and 64% are planning to send more individual emails. With this in mind, establishing and planning for the value of the bottom line and return on investment from every campaign will become even more important next year.
Use of social data will become mainstream: Marketers used to talk about building social communities, but now it's all about how to integrate social data into campaigns and engage your audience. Platform integrations like Facebook Connect will become increasingly important for marketing teams looking to leverage consumer insight and increase ROI.
Automated and programmatic campaigns will become the norm: Over the course of the next year we expect to see an ever increasing shift in the sophistication of campaign planning. Marketers will move from the overwhelming effort of continually building manual one off campaigns to automated and programmatic communication. Common occurrences like welcome programs or reactivation programs will be expanded in their remit and become a much more powerful part of the marketer's tool kit.

What are your predictions for the digital marketing industry this year? I'd love to hear what you have in store for 2013.

Setting SMART New School Marketing Goals for 2013

2013-01-30T16:00:00Z

Now that we're 30 days into January, it's time to ask yourself, where are you at in setting your 2013 goals for becoming an even better New School Marketer. Seriously. Where are you at?

The problem most of us have with goals is that, like Ron Popeil's famous rotisserie oven, we often set goals and then promptly forget them. What's worse, we might have vague, nebulous, or completely unattainable goals or have a hard time tracking our progress toward achieving them.

In a former role, I learned a solid framework to set my team's goals for the year. That framework is called S.M.A.R.T. Goals. It's not new, in fact it's been around since 1981, and I've found it to be very effective in setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. (Yes, another acronym for you to remember.)

Take a look at your 2013 goals and see if they meet each of the characteristics of S.M.A.R.T. goals. If they do, you're well your way. If not, or if you still haven't formulated those goals yet, try using this framework as a starting point:

Specific: What will be accomplished? Who is responsible for it? Why is it important?

Measurable: Are we improving or declining? How will I know when I have achieved the goal?

Attainable: Is it realistic? How can it be completed? Do we have the right skill sets required?

Relevant: How does it align with our company/department goals?

Timely: How soon can it be completed? Where can we be in 1 month? 6 months? 1 year?

Here are a few S.M.A.R.T. New School Marketing goals that, if they aren't on your list, you might consider adding:

Increase [in-store/offline] permission capture for email by [XX]% each month compared to last year.
Begin to gather permission for SMS text communications and integrate text alerts into [2 or 3] hyper-relevant lifecycle touch-points by October 2013.
Improve the relevance and revenue per email of promotional campaigns by [XX]% by testing major elements of at least [2, 3, 4, or X] campaigns per month (subject lines, offers, dynamic content, personalization, responsive layout, segmentation, etc.) and incorporate key findings and takeaways to optimize future campaigns.
Develop 1 new lifecycle triggered email campaign every [month, 2 months, or quarter]. Make it multi-wave and include cross-channel components of social, mobile or display.

There are so many well-intentioned goals to choose from, obviously it is important to narrow your possibilities down to those goals that are going to deliver the most value for you, your program and your company. So once you've got your list, be sure to prioritize them from most important to least important or even not important at all.

What are your New School Marketing goals for 2013? Please share them by commenting below.

Content Marketing And E-Commerce Tops Digital Marketers Priority List For 2013

2013-01-23T15:05:47Z

It would appear the content marketing bandwagon is still taking on fans as when asked to identify their biggest digital related priorities are for 2013, marketers selected content marketing - as well as conversion rate optimization (turning more web visitors into more web customers) - as their most pressing of needs.

The results are from a survey conducted by Econsultancy and in addition to the above results, also reveal some other telling figures.

You can see how content marketing and conversion rate optimization are at the head of the class. We all know that content marketing of course has become the new darling catchphrase of many marketers and rightly so. And mix in the fact that eCommerce sales in the U.S. are expected to reach $327 billion by 2016 according to Forrester and you can see why the need to convert so many website visitors to customers is so paramount.

But there are some other findings that as I mentioned, are telling.

First off, the fact that mobile optimization actually went down, albeit slightly, in terms of priorities. To be honest I find it more than disconcerting that the percentage is not significantly higher for mobile optimization or quite frankly, anything to do with mobile. Perhaps, as I wrote not long ago, mobile marketing is indeed The Elephant In The Room For Marketers.

My colleague Michael Della Penna wrote in a recent piece for ClickZ that "There is little doubt that mobile marketing has become the dream channel for marketers." Well perhaps for other marketers it's more of a nightmare than a dream.

The next finding that caught my eye was the fact that brand building has decreased year-over-year from 2012 to 2013. Could this tie into my recent query Is Brand Loyalty Dying A Slow And Painful Death? Perhaps marketers realize that more and more consumers are mostly interested in cost and are forgoing brand loyalty?

The last of the findings from the above chart I want to make mention of is the low number associated with video marketing. Down nearly 50% from last year, I do not understand the apparent loss of interest or priority when it comes to video marketing.

In fact the findings of the Econsultancy survey fly in the face of those I wrote about in When It Comes To Content Marketing, Seeing Is Believing where I made reference to another survey which revealed 95 percent of marketers believe visual content is very important for online marketing.

Actually I lied, there is one more finding that caught my eye and that is the what I consider to be dramatic decrease regarding social media analytics. Do you get the feeling that more and more marketers are throwing their collective hands up as if to say 'We give up. We have no idea how to measure social media?'

What's It All Mean?

Well not knowing exactly whom was surveyed - according the Econsultancy site it was "around 700 business respondents, mainly from Europe and North America" it's hard to draw a definitive conclusion.

Were the 700 respondents from B2C, B2B, or both?

I don't know but even without that knowledge I think you can still glean some high level conclusions, at least I think you can based on the findings of surveys I have seen and that is that a) content marketing remains very high on marketers' lists and b) mobile marketing - despite the fact that's a "dream channel" continues to confound and confuse many marketers.

Source: MarketingCharts.com, Econsultancy

How Feedback Loops and White Lists Play a Role in Your Deliverability

2013-01-22T01:03:28Z

There are two types of ISP offerings that truly assist us in achieving and maintaining stellar deliverability - Feedback Loops (FBLs) and White Lists. Both are critical to our success, though each plays a completely different role.

Feedback Loops
One of the greatest tools we have in managing reputation and overall deliverability is feedback from our recipients and many ISPs provide us with just that via Feedback Loops. Feedback Loops provide a path used by the ISPs to relay information (feedback) they receive from our recipients back to us. When a subscriber clicks on a "spam" or "junk" button, reporting an email as spam, this information is then recorded by the ISP and provided to us through the current Feedback Loop set up.

Feedback Loops are offered by many of the well-known ISPs, with the exception of Gmail. Below is a current list of participating ISPs.

AOL
BlueTie
Comcast
Cox
Earthlink
FastMail
Hotmail - offers the JMRP program
RackSpace
Road Runner
Synacor
Terra
United Online - offers a Trusted Sender List
USA.net
Yahoo!
Zoho

At Responsys, we set up Feedback Loops on behalf of our customers prior to their initial on-boarding. This means that as soon as you start sending on Interact, we allow you to have transparency into who among your subscribers may be clicking that button and reporting an email as spam.

Given that this information is available to us, monitoring the complaints received through Feedback Loops is an invaluable tool for keeping up with deliverability. A periodic review of campaign-specific complaints will offer true insight into which segments and/or acquisition points may be problematic, as well as who is most likely to complain in the future.

White Lists
Today, there are two major ISPs offering White List inclusion, AOL and Yahoo!. Both of the ISPs require a significant mailing history along with proper authentication prior to approval. Unfortunately, neither ISP White List offers guaranteed Inbox delivery, instead ensuring that only certain levels of filtering or rate-limiting may be bypassed with approval.

Responsys requests White Listing approval on behalf of our customers during the on-boarding process, once IP warm up is completed. Maintaining White List status depends solely on positive reputation; low bounce and complaint rates, frequency and consistency in mailings, the absence of spam trap hits and continued engagement with your subscribers. At any time White List status may be dropped by the ISPs (without notice), so it is important to monitor performance and maintain a positive reputation in order to remain on their list.

Overall, Feedback loops and White List status offer true transparency into what the ISPs are seeing as a result of your mailings. Utilizing the information available through these offerings will contribute greatly to the deliverability success of any email program, in addition to overall deliverability health. The emphasis here should be on using the information provided to us by the ISPs to improve mailing practices and increase engagement with subscribers.

Join our deliverability webinar on Jan 31 at 10 AM PT for tips on getting your brand's messages into the inbox. Register here: www.responsys.com/webcast/need-to-know-01-2013?cid=70150000000gDKOAA2

Get Up Close and Personal With Your Customers

2013-01-14T20:34:03Z

At the end of every year, executives and pundits put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) to project how their industry will change in the months ahead.

Some years that change is downright incremental. In others, there's a significant shift in how people do business, reach their customers, and make money.

2013 is one of those years.

Companies that succeed this year will focus on the digital channels - email, mobile, social, display, and the web - to forge lasting, individual relationships with their prospects and customers.

Why? Consumers are opting-in their personal information for a reason. They want to be contacted with the right information, at the right time, and on their preferred channel.

Digital marketers must adapt to drive increased engagement, retention and revenue. As we head into the "relationship era," here are five trends to keep top of mind.

Relationship marketing gets more budget love

Today a relationship is the prerequisite for doing business. So why do so many marketers still pour most of their budget into anonymous mass marketing programs, hoping to convert people they simply don't know?

Marketers will increasingly focus their efforts on first building a relationship with a consumer and then starting to think about how to drive conversions.

By shifting the focus away from mass marketing, campaigns will not only be more relevant, they'll also provide more opportunity to engage again and again.

Digital gets corner-office attention

Marketers like to reference the Gartner stat that CMOs will soon eclipse CIOs when it comes to technology spend. While these two roles will continue to work more closely together, the emerging stakeholder for digital marketers is the CEO.

Why? Happy, engaged, repeat customers are the lifeblood of most companies - whether B2C or B2B.

As digital marketing becomes increasingly integral to maintaining long term customer relationships - and can provide the metrics to prove success - we'll see the CEO become more involved in a company's digital marketing investment and strategy.

Display becomes the new relationship channel

Display used to be all about acquisition. Buy a bunch of impressions and hope that someone you know nothing about clicks through.

It doesn't have to be that way anymore. New technology allows marketers to start thinking about display in a way similar to email or mobile messaging: a tool to send highly individualized messages timed with key customer lifecycle events.

Marketers have a huge opportunity to start using customer data such as purchase history, browsing history, or category interests to target customers on third-party sites with display messages targeted especially for them, like customized discounts or special offers.

The risk-to-reward ratio for mobile marketing increases

Mobile phone are incredibly personal devices, so while the opportunities for mobile marketing are immense, it's critical for marketers to take the time and effort to design and build great permission-based mobile experiences for their customers and prospects.

Many marketers may think that mobile is an incredibly risky channel. It doesn't have to be - if you take a relationship-based approach. Doing mobile marketing right requires a deep understanding of customer needs and interests, as well as the ability to deliver relevant messaging throughout the purchase process.

Size doesn't matter when it comes to big data

Big data promises to offer a unified view of data patterns that will translate into actionable insights.

That's a big promise. Companies today are still drowning in data and, as a result, are missing the opportunity to make smarter, data-driven marketing decisions that boost engagement and ROI. Marketers need to stop obsessing over big data and start being strategic about leveraging the right data.

And most of the time that data is a rather small subset, relative to the amount that's being stored, staged, and left unused. Leveraging the right data has a big role for marketers who want to drive value from more personal, one-to-one relationships with their customers and best prospects.

Please note: This article originally published on Econsultancy's blog

Nearly One Third Of Online Consumers Trust A Stranger Over A Brand

2013-01-10T14:53:42Z

It is not often I get to infuse a former 80's pop star's name in one of my columns but Rick Springfield - who in addition to trying to woo "Jessie's Girl", warned us to "Don't Talk To Strangers." Well it would appear that a sizable chunk of online consumers who may not be "talking" to strangers, are surely valuing their opinions.

According to an infographic from DKNewMedia with data culled from Forrester, 32% of online consumers trust a stranger's opinion on public forums or blogs more than they trust branded advertisements and marketing collateral. This is just one stat from a far-reaching content marketing infographic and I will share the entire thing with you below - but after reading over the entire thing, this one stat jumped off the screen.

Even with the fact that we're dealing only with online consumers, the mere fact that nearly 1/3 of them of would rather take the word of a complete stranger over a brand is pretty telling, is it not? Do you think there's a bit of a trust issue at play?

Do you get the feeling these 32% feel they've been misled in the past by a given brand, so much so they'd rather take the word of someone they don't know?

Obviously it would be extremely helpful and insightful to know more about the 32% i.e. which brands in particular do they not trust and what it is about them that makes them rely more on the word of a stranger.

Prizes And Pictures

Two additional findings reflected in the content marketing infographic deal with two issues I have raised in the past - most recently in my piece just this past December When It Comes To Content Marketing, Seeing Is Believing in which I spoke to the need for including videos and images in your content marketing mix.

I referenced a survey done by PR firm Matter Communications who surveyed marketers on their thoughts on video and images in content marketing:

95 percent (of marketers) believe visual content is very important for online marketing
89 percent are already using or plan to use visual content in social media
87 percent believe visual content is critical for traditional marketing
80 percent plan to budget for production of visual content in 2013
96.7 percent believe that visual content engages best on social media

All of the above ties in perfectly with the finding from the infographic from DKNewMedia:

And for the record, no, I am not the model in the above image. That guy's much too clean-shaven.

Then there is the matter of incentives or prizes or enticements or whatever word you want to use to get people to like, follow, share, hashtag, and/or repin your content.

In December 2011, I wrote a piece entitled The Major Disconnect Between Brands and Consumers When It Comes to Social Media. Essentially the article spoke to the differences between why a consumer follows, likes, etc. a given brand via social media vs. why marketers think they do. Results are from a survey done by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and Lithium.

Here's what consumers said:

Here's what marketers said:

See the disconnect? 65% of consumers follow/like a brand because they want something in return but only 33% of marketers realize it.

Now fast-forward to today:

Looks like a pattern is forming doesn't it? People want something in exchange for them liking, following and so on your brand, so give it to them!

Then keep giving them valuable and trust-worthy content and if you include any form of email marketing in your overall marketing strategy, you definitely want to factor in responsive design to make sure your customer or prospect gets your message in the same manner regardless of which device they are on

Here's the full infographic:

Source: contently.com

Behold The Untapped Big Data Gap

2013-01-02T20:27:01Z

As we say farewell to 2012, one topic that got a lot of "airtime" in 2012 will surely stay on top of many marketers minds as we enter 2013: Big Data.

The title of my article is a paraphrase of sorts as it comes directly from a study done by IDC which revealed, among other things that in "2012, 23% of the digital universe would be useful for Big Data if tagged and analyzed. However, currently only 3% of the potentially useful data is tagged, and even less is analyzed."

The "even less" part comes out to less than 1%, 0.5% to be precise.

Now obviously all the data that's being generated - the "IDC projects that the digital universe will reach 40 zettabytes (ZB) by 2020, an amount that exceeds previous forecasts by 5 ZBs, resulting in a 50-fold growth from the beginning of 2010" - is not all related to advertising, marketing, branding, social media and all that good stuff.

And while I don't know the exact amount of data that is applicable to those who live and breathe in the aforementioned industries and mediums, you can bet your next brand essence statement that a significant portion of does apply to "our world."

So Why Such A Huge Gap?

Well in an article I wrote back in early October entitled Marketers Continue To Struggle With Big Data, I made reference to some findings of a study done by CEB of nearly 800 marketers at Fortune 1000 companies which revealed:

On average only 11% of the decisions marketers make when it comes to consumers is based on data
Over 50% of the marketers surveyed said they rely on past experienced and/or their intuition to make decisions
In a list of what they rely on to make decisions, marketers listed data dead last after engaging with their co-workers, seeking expert advice and data last on their list -- trailing conversations with managers and colleagues, expert advice and one-off customer interactions.

So perhaps the 0.5% is indicative of marketers relying on their own past experiences and plain old fashioned gut instincts as opposed to the actual data that is more than readily available. The aforementioned article touched on the importance of using one's gut instincts and as Christa Carone, the CMO of Xerox, told me back in October, there absolutely is compromise to be had

"I wouldn't want to give up the data that helps us make fact-based decisions quickly. But I fear that marketers' access to and obsession with measuring everything takes away from the business of real marketing," she told me. "It's impossible to measure 'squishier' meaningful intangibles, such as human emotion, personal connection and the occasional 'ahhhh' moment. Those things often come with a marketer's intuition, and they deliver big-time. To me, this means trust your gut even while as you're trying to embrace Big Data."

Then There's The Who

No, not the rock group but the who in terms who will manage, oversee and pour over the mounds and mounds of data. That is also a potential reason for the 0.5%.

In a piece I wrote back in February for CMO.com How To Rein In The Riches Of Big Data, Denny Post, the CMO of Red Robin told me they use external vendors to handle their data but outsourcing comes with a price of sorts or trade-off.

"We rely on outside suppliers with the technological capability and analytical know-how to provide guidance in a short enough time frame to act in a meaningful way. We all keep outsourcers in business, but are we giving up a critical, potential point of competitive advantage in the process?"

Lay Down The Law

Another possible reason for the low use of big data has to do with possible legal ramifications. In a piece I did back in January entitled Why CMOs Need To Get Real About The Policy Implications Of Big Data, I spoke with Scott Vernick, a partner at Fox Rothschild LLP in Philadelphia, who has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies advising them on issues related to cyber security, privacy and data breaches.

According to Vernick far too many companies are simply unaware of how to handle big data from a legal standpoint telling me he is "never cease to be amazed at how many businesses don't know what their organizations are doing what it comes to cyber security and data protection."

What Are You Doing About Big Data?

So what is your company, your brand doing, if anything, when it comes to big data?

Are you among the 0.5% who are actually analyzing and using the data?

Are there legal, manpower and other issues preventing you from tapping into the supposed gold mine of data?

And finally, I want to wish everyone a fantastic and prosperous new year!

Sources: CMO.com, MarketingCharts.com

Looking Back, Looking Ahead - CMOs Weigh In

2012-12-21T18:15:26Z

This is such a great time of the year isn't it? I mean with all the parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow. This time of the year is also time for fearless forecasts, the ones where everyone dares to boldly go where no man, or woman has gone before.

Or something like that.

What I am referring to of course is it's the time of year when people make predictions for the coming year about this and that. And while I wanted to pen such a piece myself, I wanted to put a little different spin on it - I am a big fan of spinning, as it were.

So I decided to reach out to a group of CMOs (including our own Scott Olrich) and other high-level folks across a wide array of industries to, yes, get their thoughts on 2013 - but to also get their take on the year that's coming to a close.
My esteemed panel consisted of the following: (in alphabetical order of last name, in case you curious)

Julia Carcamo, Vice President of Brand Marketing, Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. (JC)
Christa Carone, CMO, Xerox (CC)
Steve Fuller, CMO, L.L. Bean (SF)
Scott Olrich, CMO, Responsys (SO)
Denny Post, CMO, Red Robin (DP)
Randall Rozin, Global Director, Brand Management and Marketing Communications, Dow Corning (RR) (Randall wins the award for longest title)
Will Seccombe, President & CEO, VISIT FLORIDA® (WS)

So quite the eclectic mix for sure which is good as I wanted a diverse group to speak to and cull and glean info from as they look back on 2012 and ahead to 2013.

Ok without further adieu here's some of their thoughts looking back on the year 2012:

Was there anything in 2012 that going into the year you thought was going to happen but did not?

(RR) "I thought the number of high quality leads generated from social media platforms would be much higher."
(CC) "Stronger economic improvement in the United States and a leveling off economic declines in Europe. I'm an optimist; now I'm more of a 'cautious optimist.'"
(SO) "I thought this would be the year people would stop over investing in search marketing."

Conversely did anything happen that you did not see coming?

(JC) "I didn't see our customer base using so much more social media and accessing our content through mobile devices."
(CC) "From a social marketing perspective, I did not expect LinkedIn to transition so quickly from a resume-posting social community to one that has increasing relevance for B2B relationship building through relevant content sharing."
(RR) "The popularity of social media curation via sites like Pinterest and the resurgence in direct mail."

In 2012 mobile marketing was very much on many marketers minds yet so many still found it hard to put into practical application. Did you use mobile marketing as part of your overall strategy?

(JC) "We kind of stumbled onto it in 2012, but now that we have a better handle on the tools and on the needs/desires of our customers, I think there will be a much clearer path in 2013."
(RR) "I 'd say we've dipped our toes into the shallow end of the pool this year."
(CC) "Our initial focus is optimizing our content for all screens and taking deeper data dives to understand how, where, when and why business decision-makers access our information and engage with us to inform their purchasing."
(SF) "We've seen mobile (pads and phones in this definition) explode. And it's amazing to think that the bulk of the traffic is being driven by a device that wasn't even invented until early 2010."

Misc 2012 thoughts...

(SF) "2012 was a little different for us because it was our 100th Anniversary. Lots of new marketing activities and good lessons, but a few really stick out. While customers are especially 'careful' in their shopping since the recession, it's amazing how much they enjoy 'new and unique.'"
(WS) "We undertook a massive transformation in 2012 to position the organization to best create and add value for industry partners and travelers worldwide."
(SO) "Social media continued to be a great engagement platform but not necessarily a revenue platform."

Looking Ahead To 2013

If not already, will mobile marketing play a role in your overall marketing strategy?

(RR) "Definitely. For me print is fast becoming like Jan Brady from the Brady Bunch, but instead Print is saying 'Mobile, Mobile, Mobile.' Mobile will be more important than ever in 2013 in users' consumption of information, including video, but will also be important as an outreach platform from search to display."
(DP) "We currently employ two mobile apps - one for our very popular loyalty program and the other to guide guest menu choices known as the 'Customizer.' We will be expanding access to both applications next year and exploring other forms of mobile marketing to connect with our guests at just the right times to keep Red Robin top of mind."

What impact, if any, will the reelection of President Obama have on your overall marketing/advertising strategy going into 2013?

(CC) "None."
(SO) "Not much."
(RR) "Post election there is definitely more media inventory available. Also interesting to note there will be neither an Olympic event, nor any FIFA World Cup in 2013. There is an opportunity for other creative brand activation and sponsorships."
(SF) "Not really. We share everyone's concern for the 'fiscal cliff' and the impact on consumer confidence, but nothing relating specifically to Obama's reelection."

What are the three biggest trends or predictions you see for 2013?
(DP)

Multi-platform marketing - as I sit here watching on-demand TV with my iPad in my lap and my Blackberry at my side, I am know damn well I am one of many surfing, viewing and emailing all at once. Which marketers will be first to reach me in all three with relevant, connected messages?
Economic recovery gains momentum - I am an eternal optimist. We're due.
Fast retailing gets faster. The pace of innovation and imitation is dizzying and only getting faster. It has become harder and harder to hold a competitive advantage. Success coming to those who are ready to move fast and move on faster.

(CC)

Data + Creative Content + Relevance: The role of B2B marketing shifts from sales enablement strategies and tools to communication-based, data-driven stakeholder engagement.
The priority becomes less about promotion and more about creating, curating and sharing relevant content to connect with decision makers in ways that give them more confidence in our brand and more reasons to be advocates of our technology and services.
Content really does become king -- in subtle, creative, engaging and really relevant ways.

(RR)

Content marketing is the new black of B2B marketing campaigns. Goes with everything.
Greater balance between mass customer marketing and account-based marketing. Investing in those accounts that spend more.
More B2B marketers will adopt marketing automation as a core competency, especially lead scoring and nurturing.
Social CRM will move from 'hype to heaven-sent' for integration.
Social media marketing will move from experimental to accountable. B2B winners will emerge and others will be culled more quickly.
Knowledge management, corporate security, HR and legal will be forced to embrace social media within their firewalls and employees seek to connect at work.
Further fragmentation of media - Media will continue to become even more fragmented, meaning it will be more and more difficult to reach your target audience in mass. This means content management and distribution will be even more important to effectively reach your target audience and growing your business.

(SO)

We will see the beginning of what I refer to as "the relationship era" whereby marketers will move away from an acquisition first mentality to a relationship first one. Marketers will focus more on the entire consumer experience to build and foster a long term relationship with a consumer as opposed to just that initial purchase phase.
We will see a transition from big data to the right data. Marketers will realize that there's plenty of data to go around but it's finding the right data that will have the biggest impact on their ultimate program success.
Digital overtakes physical. Digital marketers and ecommerce marketers, etc. will begin to influence and drive more revenue than their bricks and mortar counterparts.

Misc 2013 thoughts...
(WS) "We will continue to increase investment in content and in international marketing and multicultural marketing."

(SF) "We are worrying about the Postal Service. The role of the catalog has changed dramatically over the last decade, but it remains a valuable advertising vehicle. The Postal Service's continuing financial issues and possible impact on deliverability, etc. are a concern. And while I can't say that I like the term "big data," there are a number of intriguing services popping up in that space that facilitate advertising, better omni-channel service, etc."

When It Comes To Mobile Marketing, Integration Is Key

2012-12-20T19:21:36Z

As a long-standing proponent of marketing integration I can speak to the fact that many marketers still have difficulty in putting it into practical use, including many chief marketing officers which was the basis of my Forbes piece aptly titled The Eleven Letter Word That Continues To Elude All CMOs And Marketers.

Based on our recent research it would appear many in the mobile marketing space would be wise to integrate their marketing messages, especially this holiday season and in particular across two specific mediums. The research reveals some very interesting and intriguing findings and shows a clear correlation and opportunity for mobile marketing folks.

According to the research almost 40% of consumers who previously opted in to receiving promotional emails from a retail marketer are also interested in getting promotional messages from these same retailers via SMS or text messaging. The findings alone would be significant but when you factor in that this past Cyber Monday saw an increase of 96% in mobile sales year-over-year from 2011 according to IBM, plus mix in the the fact that the percentage of emails being read on a mobile device are growing steadily literally as we speak - you can see why in the press release announcing the findings were the words "...marketers will have a massive opportunity to drive online and in-store purchases this holiday season and beyond through smart cross-channel marketing."

Making Spirits Bright

Michael Della Penna, our Senior Vice President of Emerging Channels - who recently shared his views on the Papa John's saga over on Forbes What Mobile Marketers Can Learn From The Papa John's Lawsuit - says retailers and marketers can have a ho, ho, ho happy holiday season if they take advantage of some good old fashioned multi-channel marketing.

"The holiday season is a great time for marketers to experiment with mobile as part of their integrated cross-channel marketing strategy given consumers are traveling, out shopping and on high alert for discounts and offers from their favorite retailers," said Della Penna. "For example, offering information about an invite-only discount or a reminder that gift wrapped packages are ready for pick-up are effective ways to engage customers who have opted-in to receive mobile messages from your brand."

As to what specific types of promotions consumers prefer to receive via text message:

42% prefer location-based offers
39% like general discounts, offers and deals
37% want to hear about in-store sales and events
32% are into gift guides and product recommendations

In terms of age breakdowns, 64% of younger adults (18-29) prefer to receive the location-based offers but not far behind were 30-39 year olds (50%) and 40-54 year olds (42%). All of this lends credence to the fact that the use of mobile smartphone technology is growing across many generations.

Source: Responsys, Google Images

A Sweet Campaign from See's Candies

2012-12-19T16:00:51Z

When it comes to holiday promotions, See's Countdown to Christmas takes the cake ...and the chocolate caramel. While it's a holiday sweepstakes with an acquisition goal (to enter, you give See's your email address), it stands out by putting customer engagement before acquisition. Not only is the grand prize deliciously fun - who doesn't want a lifetime supply of chocolate? - but the user experience provides meaningful content beyond the prize.

When users click on a cute "daily chocolate" after entering their email address, they find out right away whether or not they won, and then they're offered a screen with a holiday tip, craft, recipe or other fun message. So even those who don't win still walk away having enjoyed a nice holiday treat from See's. Some of my favorites so far have been the step-by-step list of tips on "how to host a cookie swap" and the "Scotchmallow Rolls Recipe" - YUM.

The design also delights with tasteful holiday touches, and the copy sweetens it up even more. For example, if subscribers try to click before entering as I did at first, they get a playful "Bah-humbug" pop-up message with instructions on how to get in on the action.

See's approach to this acquisition sweepstakes not only provides positive brand experiences, but it may also mean that See's gathers email addresses from a higher caliber of customers - from people who actually like their brand and want to engage with it on an ongoing basis. I'm not the only one who loves this campaign: it's already driving a lot of Pinterest engagement, suggesting that See's investment in this campaign could pay off with a lifetime supply of active email subscribers.