MarketingSherpa Blog

One thing I really enjoyed at Email Summit 2012 was being able to walk around and talk to the email marketers of the world about the tactics they’re using. For example, I learned about marketers’ experiences with sales and marketing automation for small businesses over breakfast and European privacy regulations over lunch.

If you weren’t able to attend (and even if you were), I hope this blog post can serve as a proxy for that experience. During some of the general and breakout sessions at Email Summit 2012, we conducted a live poll using Acxiom technology where attendees could text to vote. (Full Disclosure: Acxiom was an Email Summit 2012 sponsor.)

In this blog post, I’ll share some of these results, along with some resources to help you act on these tactics.

Please keep in mind that I don’t intend this data to be regarded as statistically valid, rather view it the way you would anecdotal information you would attain from networking.

There are many validity threats, including the fact that the sample we surveyed (Email Summit attendees) is likely a skewed sample and much more active and experienced than the average email marketer since they invested the time and money in attending Email Summit. So the average email marketer is even less likely to be using these tactics.

That said, let’s jump right in …

How are you deploying mobile in your marketing strategies for 2012?

In research conducted for the MarketingSherpa 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, mobile was identified as the most challenging channel to integrate with email.

So it’s not surprising that only a handful of email marketers considered themselves advanced at deploying mobile in their marketing strategies.

• Advanced (3 respondents, 7.31% of all respondents): We currently deploy advanced tactics to reach our mobile audience (e.g., geo targeting, mobile apps, SMS outreach, email optimized for mobile)
• Basic (16, 39%): We have optimized our website (or) our emails for mobile
• Considering (19, 46.3%): We are considering mobile marketing, but have not yet decided upon a strategy
• Unconvinced (3, 7.31%): We do not believe that mobile marketing is the right fit for our audience

Some resources to help you with mobile marketing:

• B2B Marketing: A discussion about integrating mobile, email and social
• B2B Marketing: 7 mobile and social media tactics
• Email Summit: Mobile marketing panel on the complex sale

Have you used SMS and/or QR codes for email list sign-up?

We asked this during a session I moderated with Ryan Amirault, Digital Marketing Manager, Whole Foods Market.

[whole foods]

Ryan’s team saw some impressive results — generating more than 2,000 email subscribers from SMS and QR codes. Ryan’s advice:

• Place QR and SMS in strategic locations. For Whole Foods, that meant table tents, meat/deli/seafood scales, bathroom stalls, registers, cafés, grocery aisles, eating areas and guest services
• Test QR codes before deploying creative materials

However, 67% of Email Summit attendees have not tried this tactic at all.

Here are a few resources to help get you started:

• Mobile Drives Email List Growth: How to use SMS and relevant content to add opt-ins
• Direct Mail and SMS Combo Lifts Rewards Program Membership 5%: 5 Steps
• Consumer Marketing: 3 mobile tips for consumer marketers

How are you designing your emails to fit into your mobile marketing strategies for 2012?

There was limited response to this question, which is not surprising considering that we learned in the first survey that a minority of marketers are really engaged in mobile tactics.

• Relevant (7 respondents, 15.5% of all respondents) – We deploy emails targeted for relevance in the mobile environment (e.g., geo-targeting)
• Responsive (6, 13.3%) – We have designed our emails to be responsive for a handful of mobile operating systems (e.g., iOS 5)
• Visible (14, 31.3%) – We have added a “view on mobile device” link at the top of our emails
• Considering (18, 40%) – We are considering integrating email with mobile marketing, but have not yet decided upon a strategy

Here are a few resources to help you with your mobile email design:

• Mobile Marketing: Get your audience’s attention – wait till they’re bored
• Location-Based Email Marketing: 6 tactics to leverage social check-in to grow email lists and improve engagement
• Email Relevance: 8 tactics for leveraging timing, segmentation and content

Do you optimize email landing pages for specific devices?

Let’s get a little more granular, and instead of talking about mobile as a big picture, look at how marketers handle devices …

• Yes, iOS – 5 respondents, 6.17% of all respondents
• Yes, Android – 1, 1.23%
• Yes, multiple devices – 23, 28.3%
• No – 48, 64.1%

If you’re thinking about getting device specific, here’s some help:

• Mobile Email Marketing: iPhone-targeted landing pages boost conversion rate 40% for Ritz-Carlton Destination Club
• Mobile Marketing How-To: 9 tactics for improving ranking in Apple’s App Store and the Google Android Market

With regard to email testing, which of the following best represents your organization’s efforts?

While mobile clearly is a hot topic for marketers, let’s look at a more tried and true tactic – email testing.

• Basic testing (14 respondents, 21.4% of respondents) – Subject lines, personalization, copy
• Average testing (11, 37.2%) – Templates, timing, automation
• Advanced testing (4, 17.3%) – Validated tests, multi-varied options
• Expert testing (2, 23.9%) – All aspects have been tested and optimized

Some inspiration and ideas to get you started testing or give you new ideas for future tests:

• Copywriting Contest: Write the best-performing subject line and win
• Email Research: The 5 best email variables to test
• Email Marketing: Triggered emails that target the conversion funnel boost revenue
• Research Update: The state of email marketing testing and optimization
• Headline Writing: How a junior marketer beat the CEO’s headline by 92%
• Email Messaging: How overcoming 3 common errors increased clickthrough 104%

What do you think will have the biggest impact on email marketing in 2013?

At the MarketingSherpa Email Summit, we focus on what really works. However, sometimes you have to look past what is already proven, gaze into the crystal ball, and try to make strategic decisions today to position your company for the opportunities (and threats) of tomorrow.

So what will tomorrow bring? Let’s take one extra spin on the email marketing carousel of progress and take a look at what your peers think will have the biggest impact on email marketing in the near future.

• In-line Video (15 respondents, 10.7% of respondents)
• Social Data/Content Integration (48, 34.2%)
• Privacy Legislation (29, 20.7%)
• Dynamic Content (48, 34.2%)

As you try to peer over the hill for your own marketing efforts, here are a few resources that may help:

• Great Scott! 5 Email & Social Marketing Tips from the Future
• Email Newsletters: Social media integration yields 135% more traffic for New York Public Library
• Online Behavioral Advertising: How to benefit from targeted ads in a world concerned with privacy
• Email Marketing: HP uses dynamic email content to drive 300% open rate and 600% clickthrough increase

B2B marketing has always been complicated, and has only become more complex over the last few years thanks to evermore empowered buyers, new technologies, a difficult economy and growing international organizations that make navigating potential buyers and influencers in target companies harder by the day.

So, I sat down with Jen Doyle, Senior Research Manager, MECLABS, for a look at her recent discoveries from her 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report to see what marketers are telling us about these challenges …

Here are some of the research discoveries Jen and I discussed in the video, along with the source charts: Read more…

What are we really talking about when we’re discuss cutting-edge marketing topics like mobile, social media and Priority Inbox?

These are just technologies. Zeros and ones dancing around in some magic box in the sky. In this interview with Jim Ducharme, Community Manager, GetResponse, I lay out my argument for where you really should focus your efforts in the year ahead, and it’s not on technology …

What is the most powerful way to improve your search engine optimization?

“Content creation works the best, but takes the most work,” Kaci Bower, Research Analyst, MECLABS, said. Take a look at the data from Kaci’s research in the MarketingSherpa 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – SEO Edition.

Click to enlarge

“Content creation stands apart in the cluster of tactics, both for its difficulty and its effectiveness. Good content creates buzz and attracts links,” Kaci said. “For this reason, marketers who commit to the effort required in creating quality content can improve their SEO positions.”

So what makes good and effective content?

This is one of the most common questions I’m asked by marketers. Keep in mind, mine is a skewed sample. If I made plumbing fixtures, I would probably always get asked, “What makes good and effective plumbing fixtures?”

So I was very interested by Kaci’s data that, yes, marketers really do struggle with this. I’ve noticed that, when they become aware of this opportunity, marketers tend to fall in the same common trap — they focus on things, like blog posts or Facebook pages.

Instead, let me suggest you …

  Read more…

With MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2012 coming up next week in Las Vegas, we wanted to take a moment to take a look at a common email question.

It’s a touch-and-go economy, are my competitors still investing in email marketing?

The answer is a resounding yes, according to research from MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report by W. Jeffrey Rice, Senior Research Analyst, MECLABS.

Click to enlarge

As you can see in the chart above, nearly one-fifth of email marketing budgets are set to increase more than a whopping 30% in 2012.

And if your budget is decreasing, I’m sorry to tell you that you are in an exceedingly small minority — we found 67% of organizations expect to increase their email budgets in 2012 with only 3% indicating that a decrease is in the works. Read more…

I remember you wrote about press releases from the viewpoint of the publication/writer. I think you could write a similar one, for the subject of an interview. What do journalist look for when they interview someone for an article, case study, how-to etc.?

I recently received the above question, and I think the answer could be helpful to many marketers as they reach out to the traditional press, websites and bloggers to promote their products and services through those extremely valuable “earned mentions.”

Much of this blog post is going to skew a bit acerbic (hey, it’s human nature to complain about those who comically make your job more difficult), so I first wanted to let you know, and I’m sure many journalists feel the same way, that I genuinely love interviewing you.

And not just for work. At a party or on an airplane, I’m naturally curious about what people do for a living and always want to learn more. I’ve learned an invaluable amount of in-depth information about various industries and jobs from the interviews I’ve conducted, and on a personal note, have extremely enjoyed those discussions.

I know there can be a lot of pressure when you interview (especially for your first interview), and I just want you to be rest assured in knowing that we really look forward to talking to you and hearing what you have to learn.

That said, like with any other job, some sources do just drive us up a wall.

At the end of the day, you want an article or blog post that makes you and your company, product or service look good. But we’re the gatekeepers. So let me help you avoid these five things that drive journalists crazy …

  Read more…

Sales were up 80% in 2011! Congratulations!

Except, well, now you have to repeat that feat in 2012 (or at least hold the line). So, how exactly did you lift sales?

Not only that, but your team is 80% bigger this year, and many of them weren’t even working with you when you initiated many of the changes that got you the big success in the first place (nice hypothetical problem to have, right?). Still, it begs the question …

How do your replicate your success?

Or how do you avoid making the same mistakes? Well, first you have to discover why you succeeded and failed. And then you need to spread that new business intelligence throughout your team and your organization.

I recommend forensic reporting. That’s a term I like to use to explain what our reporters do here at MarketingSherpa, and how we write the case studies that appear in our free marketing newsletters. (While our case studies are meant for external consumption, this is something I used to do internally as well for companies like IBM and BEA Systems to spread effective tactics inside the company, so I can see how the same principles apply.)

First, you have to understand these case studies don’t just exist somewhere. Marketers and teams go about their jobs and do various things. From these actions, they bring about successes or failures. But the reasons why and how they did it, which is the case study, is never prepackaged.

As the name “forensics reporting” connotes, you have to investigate and dig pretty deep, because often the entire picture of what led to the success or failure isn’t even immediately obvious to the people that helped make it happen.

Here’s a very simplified, six-step process to get your started …

  Read more…

Now that 2012 is upon us, we wanted to share what marketing thought leaders and practitioners have identified as some of the biggest B2B opportunities for the upcoming year.

If you’re familiar with MarketingSherpa research, I must warn you that, in this case, the data gathering was completely unscientific. MECLABS A/V Specialist Luke Thorpe and I simply wandered around the networking event at MarketingSherpa B2B Summit 2011 in San Francisco, and thrust a microphone and camera into the face of every willing participant.

Many speakers and attendees were kind enough to put their drink down, pick up a mic, and share insights with you. Here are a few of our favorites …

So what’s on the horizon for B2B marketing in 2012?

• (00:38) Jay Baer, President, Convince & Convert, and author of “The Now Revolution,” discusses multimedia for B2B
• (1:34) Tracy DeMay, Marketing Manager, CenterBeam, talks about leveraging social media
• (1:53) Ge Moua, Senior Demand Generation Manager, Unify, shares her thoughts on the importance of tools
• (2:23) Beth Toeniskoetter, Product Marketing, ReadyTalk, thinks deciphering which new technologies to invest in is key
• (2:39) Tony Doty, Senior Manager, Research & Strategy, MECLABS, reminds marketers of the importance of segmentation
• (3:21) Pamela Markey, Director of Marketing and Brand Strategy, MECLABS, sees a huge opportunity for content in this new year
• (3:42) Karen Hayward, EVP and CMO, CenterBeam, urges marketers to slow down so you can go faster
• (4:30) Kristin Zhivago, President, Zhivago Management Partners, and author of the book “Roadmap to Revenue,” wants you to pick up the phone and interview customers
• (5:00) Michelle Mogelson Levy, Associate VP, Marketing Programs, ECI Telecom, discusses revenue marketing

Related Resources:

B2B Marketing: Top “Aha moments” of 2011 from your peers

B2B Marketing: 7 tactics for implementing marketing automation from a fellow brand-side marketer

Social Media Marketing: Why B2B marketers need to care, by the numbers

MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summit 2012

B2B Summit 2011 DVD Combo

The landing tab for the MarketingSherpa group on LinkedIn is called “Discussions.” Except, it was pretty much false advertising because there wasn’t a lot of discussion happening. It was mostly social spam … blatant self-promotion.

And this self-promotion went far beyond pushing products or special offers, it was promotion of blog posts, webinars, articles, etc … not quite as bad as promotional offers or the SEO phishing we get from comments here on the MarketingSherpa blog.

But still, it prevented conversation. So, Bethany Caudell, Customer Service, MECLABS, and I sat down to discuss the right approach forward. Beth manages the MarketingSherpa LinkedIn group, along with the MarketingExperiments Optimization group on LinkedIn.

Social media shades of gray

When it comes to managing social media communities, there are always shades of gray as to what, exactly, is appropriate. Then, once you set ground rules, the social media platform changes on you (ah, innovation).

For example, the challenge I’m talking about here only arose because LinkedIn did away with the “News” tab in its groups, leaving members with no dedicated place to post links they thought were newsworthy. So on the one hand, I did feel for them.

On the other hand, again, all of this “news” was killing the true point of the tab – discussions.

So at the end of the day we bit the bullet, sent out a warning letter about the new change, and Beth whipped out her virtual machete and started cleaning the groups of all that social spam. I expected some negative kickback, but I was extremely surprised when the feedback was overwhelming positive (in case you have to clean house yourself one day, you can see copy for the letter I sent using that link as well).

So the question arises … how do you combat social spam? How far should marketers go as policemen and women for their LinkedIn Groups, Facebook fan pages, and the like? These social media pages, originally meant for discussion, can be easily filled with junk thanks to a self-promoting audience … or simply inappropriate content.

Below you’ll find a very basic six-step process to help with your own efforts.

  Read more…

The holiday shopping season is upon us – the proverbial golden goose for consumer marketers. I’m sure you’ve planned thoroughly throughout the year, and just have to focus on how to execute, execute, execute in these last remaining days before December 25 rolls around.

But, it’s too late to make impactful changes to your plans, right?

Right?

Well, I’ve been listening to one of those “challenge the model” books on tape (you know, the ones that tell you, “Burn the status quo! The only rules that exist are the ones we impose on ourselves!”). So, I’m understandably pretty worked up. All the same, I say we take on this beast. Let’s try to make a few last-minute shifts and move that needle.

If you can spare a minute away from your daily transactional data, let’s brainstorm a few last-minute ideas to help you get an extra bump in sales this holiday season (and I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments section, as well). After all, anything’s possible. As long as you commit.

– Read more…