Whenever a new technology or channel emerges on the marketing landscape, debate inevitably follows over its impact on traditional tactics. Not surprisingly, the rise of social media marketing has sparked questions over whether these channels will diminish the importance of email as a means to reach customers and prospects.
I recently raised the topic with Sergio Balegno, one of MarketingSherpa’s senior analysts and the author of our 2009 Social Media Marketing & PR Benchmark Guide. Sergio also moderated a panel discussion on Tuesday, March 17, at Sherpa’s Email Marketing Summit, titled “Long Live Email: Enabling the Continued Success of Social Marketing.”
Here’s his take on the issue:
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I recently participated in an email marketing webinar with Al Iverson of ExactTarget on the subject of email . As we discussed the importance of email reputation, an attendee sent a note saying: “I wish my boss could hear this…”
Pressed for more details, the attendee noted that his boss thought the marketers’ concerns about spam and reputation were overblown, and that they didn’t need to be as diligent in maintaining the integrity of their opt-in process and email preferences. Read more…
The standard email marketing rule is that shorter subject lines are usually better than longer ones. But like all rules, this one has its caveats and exceptions.
A new white paper from marketing services firm Epsilon analyzed subject lines from more than 568 million client emails to determine the influence of length, word order and content on open rates and clicks. The major takeaway:
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Some search marketers have been complaining for a while that Google’s expanded broad-match program is sometimes *too* broad. They’re seeing ads matched to irrelevant terms, which drives up costs without boosting conversions.
But if you’re currently running special holiday-themed PPC ad groups, it’s particularly important to see whether broad-match miscues might be affecting your traffic. Read more…
The team at HP Labs’ Social Computing Lab recently released a study that analyzes Digg and YouTube submissions to determine the best time of day to post a link to Digg’s social bookmarking site to maximize exposure and popularity.
The complete report contains lots of formulas and charts for analytics experts to chew on. But we saw a quick takeaway for any publisher looking to use the two sites to promote their content, drive traffic or boost search engine visibility:
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Even though more B2B marketers consider a role for social media in their marketing strategy, I still hear them express confusion about measuring the impact of creating blogs or participating in social networks. Typical questions:
How do you measure engagement? What’s the value of one Twitter follower? What’s the direct ROI of that blog post you wrote?
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Are you recording the telemarking calls made by your in-house or outsourced lead nurturing team? If not, you could me missing an important resource for:
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The shaky economy looks like it’s having an impact on B-to-B magazines. Revenue declined 6.59% in the first half of 2008, and ad pages fell 9.36%, according to the latest Business Information Network report from American Business Media
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Google made news again this week when the search giant released Chrome, its first Web browser. We’ll be following Chrome over the next few weeks, and will report back soon on what impact the new browser might have on your search marketing campaigns.
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Last week, we invited 35 MarketingSherpa Members to a virtual roundtable discussion to tackle a question we’ve been hearing quite a bit about recently: “Are white papers still effective?”
From our standpoint, the answer is a resounding “yes.” Data show that white papers are still an integral part of the business buying cycle:
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