MarketingSherpa Blog

Few things in life worth having come without risk and hard work — and marketing is no different.

Social media marketing can give your brand a stronger, more personal connection with customers. This is accomplished by spending time interacting (hard work) in a public arena (which heightens risk).

Old Spice made its brand relevant to a new generation of consumers through a bold multi-channel viral video marketing campaign. “Bold” is nearly synonymous with “risky,” and the jaw dropping rate at which this team churned out videos must have been exhausting.

In a final example, MarketingSherpa published a case study today describing how the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s marketing team systematically asked email subscribers to re-opt into its newsletters. Those who opted out or did not reply were removed from the database (see case study for details).

The initial result was an email database approximately 4.1% of its original size.

“It was small, but the beautiful thing was that it gave us a really strong foundation to build from,” says Mark Newman, VP, Marketing and Communications, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. “We were now getting people who really wanted to get emails from us. These are engaged people.”

Newman described the effort as “a scary thing we were embarking on” but knew that it was the correct approach to establish a valuable email marketing program.

“Early on, I felt we were trying to prove the theory right. And I feel good about where we are because we’re seeing our list grow,” he says.

And grow it has. As you’ll see in the case study, Newman’s team grew the list by more than 500% from this low point. It is now a powerful channel for improving sales. By accepting some risk and hard work, the team achieved great results.

If your team ran a fantastic email marketing campaign this year — send it into MarketingSherpa’s 2011 Email Awards. We want to see how your team took risks, rolled up its sleeves and achieved great results. Deadline for submissions is Friday, Dec. 3 — so hurry!

About Adam T. Sutton

Adam T. Sutton, Senior Reporter, MarketingSherpa
Adam generates content for MarketingSherpa's Email and Inbound Marketing newsletters. His years of experience in interviewing marketers and conveying their insights has spanned topics such as search marketing, social media marketing, ecommerce, email and more. Adam previously powered the content behind MarketingSherpa's Search and Consumer-marketing newsletters and carries that experience into his new role. Today, in addition to writing articles, he contributes content to the MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa blogs, as well as MECLABS webinars, workshops and summits.

Prior to joining MarketingSherpa, Adam was the Managing Editor at the Mequoda group. There he created content and promotions for the company's daily email newsletter and managed its schedule.

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Categories: Email Marketing Tags: Email, Marketing, social media