Comments Off on Online Privacy: Information from the EU and Capitol Hill
Dennis Dayman, Chief Privacy and Security Officer, Eloqua, has been a hands-on participant in the ongoing online privacy debate in Washington, D.C.
After his recent trip to the Capitol, I interviewed him to give MarketingSherpa blog readers an inside look at the current political process involving proposed privacy regulations here in America as well as find out about some conversations he had with officials from the European Union.
Frankly, I was surprised how much behind-the-scenes information he revealed.
The White House and the Federal Trade Commission have publicly supported the self-compliance efforts promoted by the Direct Marketing Association, the Council of the Better Business Bureaus, the Digital Advertising Alliance and other groups.
And, for marketers either based in Europe or conducting business on the continent, the EU directive should become much simpler very soon, according to Dennis.
In the U.S., a number of legislative actions will probably reach the floor for a vote, but are not likely to pass.
Dennis has been lobbying the lawmakers on Capitol Hill. His position is that security is an issue worth addressing, but that privacy — right now — is better handled at the enterprise level. The playing field just simply changes far too fast for any effective legislation, Dennis says.
Comments Off on Mobile Search [Infographic]: 72% of smartphone users look for information on the go
I’m a fan of gallows humor. So, as a Borders shareholder (until it went bankrupt), I love the sign a Borders store employee posted as the chain was going out of business …
Sorry
No Public Restroom
Try Amazon.com
It’s hard to deny that e-commerce has significant advantages over the traditional brick-and-mortar store:
Lower overhead and inventory costs
Open 24/7, often to any customer in the world with a connection
High gas prices that convince customers to drive less
No sales tax (although that playing field will likely level in the near future)
The ability for customers to easily find what they’re looking for, comparison shop, and respond to offers
But now it’s time for B&Ms to fight back … at least when it comes to that last advantage. As this infographic created by Kaci Bower, Senior Research Analyst, MECLABS, shows, 72% of smartphone users look for information on the go.
Bluewolf’s very innovative usage of Pinterest did not fit into the case study, so I wanted to use this blog post to show what you can learn from its efforts.
Pinterest’s user base is only 7% of Twitter’s, but the platform sends more total referral traffic than Twitter
With a mere 1% of Facebook’s user count, Pinterest sends 13% of the traffic that Facebook does
At the moment, consumer marketers are making more use of this platform than B2B marketers. However, Bluewolf offers a great blueprint on how B2B marketers can take advantage of Pinterest.
Bluewolf’s main Pinterest page shows the variety of boards the company is sharing on the platform.
Corinne Sklar, VP of Marketing, Bluewolf, says the company found a natural home with Pinterest because the platform is very visual and is also suited to sharing content, two areas where Bluewolf’s marketing is very invested. She adds that Pinterest also encourages viral sharing of that content. Read more…
Comments Off on Email Marketing: New tactics for display ads, segmentation and discount promos
I interviewed a variety of email marketers at Responsys Interact 2012 last week and learned about more tactics than I could ever fit into a blog post. That said, here are three insights I pulled from some of the best interviews I had last week (Full Disclosure: Responsys sponsored my attendance of this event).
Display will rise again
Now that companies can target display ads to individuals across a variety of websites, display is poised to make another comeback, says Scott Jones, General Manager of Display, Responsys.
The reason, Jones says, is that marketers can incorporate display into cross-channel and lifecycle marketing programs and use it to send a targeted message to a single person. He sees display ads improving results for email marketers in the following three ways:
What I found to be truly interesting about this chart is the third most effective tactic: posting content on company branded/managed blogs. In other words, the time I’m using to write this blog post would actually be better spent building one-to-one relationships with social influencers in our space.
Of course, because we believe so much in delivering true value to our readers, I’m sticking this one out.
But the chart does leave us asking a question:If building one-to-one relationships with social influencers is so important to a social marketing strategy, how do we do it?
Comments Off on Email Marketing: Dollar Thrifty generates 47-times higher ROI, O’Neil doubles CTR
Most email marketers still batch and blast their audiences, sending one email to everyone in the database, said Responsys CEO Dan Springer yesterday at Responsys Interact 2012. Springer spoke during the event’s kickoff session in San Francisco, and noted that not every marketer is guilty of batch-and-blast (Full Disclosure: Responsys sponsored my attendance of this event).
“For all of you that are already innovative, if you want to maintain your innovative status, you are going to need to keep pushing,” he said.
Where you should push is toward integration, Springer said, which he called the future of digital marketing. Yesterday’s sessions were loaded with examples of how companies are integrating email marketing with other channels. Here are two that stood out:
I bet you could get a lot more actual work done without meetings, eh?
An example of this is David Meerman Scott’s answer to the question, “How are you so prolific?” He lists several reasons, but my favorite is, “I don’t have to sit in any damn meetings (unless I want to).”
However, you are probably not like Mr. Meerman Scott. If you are the average marketer, you have to sit through many, many meetings. Let’s take a look at how to make your meetings more effective and efficient (and feel free to pass this advice anonymously to the biggest time wasters in your organization).
The problem – unorganized meetings
Of course, this isn’t the only problem, but one major issue torpedoing many meetings is that they are unorganized and the facilitator put in little prep work on the front end. This is why so many meetings are ineffective, underutilized, unnecessary and just plain, well, time wasters.
To help you improve your own meetings, here is a free meeting agenda template. It’s what we use here at MECLABS. Feel free to replace our logo with your own if you use it internally or externally.
Let’s walk through the elements of the template. This advice isn’t based on research or reporting, simply what I’ve personally learned in my career. And I’d love to hear what you’ve learned as well.
Comments Off on Marketing Research in Action: 65% of B2B marketers are not nurturing
So I’ve got this old friend from college. At first, we had fun. Now I only hear from when he needs something. Then after I help him out … he disappears again.
“The goal with nurturing is not just always be closing or always be selling,” Brian said. “It’s really, always be helping.” Watch the above video to see what other insights Brian shared. Here are a few key pieces of information that may help you: Read more…
For last Tuesday’s SherpaBlog post, I covered some of our own MarketingSherpa research. This post is about an e-book from Google – Winning the Zero Moment of Truth – by Jim Lecinski, Managing Director of US Sales & Service and Chief ZMOT Evangelist, Google.
What is the Zero Moment of Truth?
Google defines the zero moment of truth, or ZMOT, as the decision-making moment of online shoppers.
Here’s how the process that leads to ZMOT is described on the e-book’s landing page:
Today we’re all digital explorers, seeking out online ratings, social media-based peer reviews, videos, and in-depth product details as we move down the path to purchase. Marketing has evolved and modern marketing strategies have to evolve with the changing shape of shopping.
Jim describes this process as something that “changed the rulebook” on “where marketing happens, where information happens, and where consumers make choices that affect the success and failure of nearly every brand in the world.”
That is a pretty bold statement, but as practicing marketers, you probably have to agree that digital marketing and the power that consumers (for B2C marketers) and clients (for B2B marketers) have in terms of finding the information they want, and not necessarily what you want them to see, has been a true game-changer.
Here are the elements of ZMOT:
Not surprisingly for an e-book published by Google, Lecinski says that ZMOT happens online, usually started by a Web search via Bing, Google, Yahoo!, YouTube or another search engine
It happens in real time – any time of the day or night
The consumer is in charge and pulling information, not consuming a pushed message
It’s satisfying an emotional need of the consumer
The conversation involves many parties: the customer, marketers, friends, strangers, websites and experts
Comments Off on Help us improve MarketingSherpa.com and get a free 30-Minute Marketer report
We want to serve you better, so we’re conducting a quick survey to determine the best way. We’re interested only in aggregate needs and preferences, so individual responses are anonymous. Every respondent will, however, earn a free copy of a MarketingSherpa 30-Minute Marketer report – How to Integrate Social Media with Email and SEO.
And if there’s anything we learn from the survey that we think you might find valuable, we’ll publish it.
Infographic: How to Create a Model of Your Customer’s Mind
You need a repeatable methodology focused on building your organization’s customer wisdom throughout your campaigns and websites. This infographic can get you started.
