Example: Email on Mobile - ExactTarget Blog 'Mobile Design Tips'

The second quarter of 2013 is well underway, and marketers have had the opportunity to observe the trends that are emerging and slowly defining marketing this year. With the sharp upward trend in mobile usage last year and the increasing popularity of content marketing, video, and social media, we know we are in for some big changes and exciting innovations in every marketing discipline. When it comes to email marketing, what are some of the major trends we should keep in mind as we attempt to stay current and connect and engage our customers? Let's explore...

1.       Mobile Email Marketing

• Number of users relying on mobile devices for email are higher than ever
• Around 80% of people are now using their smartphone for email
• Responsive Email Design is a great solution for mobile needs

2.       Triggered Campaigns

• Many marketers still have not instituted any sort of triggered campaign series, specifically a Welcome Email Series when their customers sign up for email
• Welcome emails are important because that is when a customer is at their highest engagement level
• Great examples for content in triggered campaigns: Welcome emails, Anniversary Reminders, Birthday Emails, Abandoned Cart Emails

3.       Personalization/Dynamic Content

• Many marketers now avoid sending generic sales emails
• Connecting with your customers is critical
• Most customers are no longer satisfied if they aren’t seeing personalized messages
• Pros to this are higher click through rates as well as conversion rates

4.       Social

• Encourage interaction through your social media platforms
• Send Social Media specific emails to bring your customers to your pages
• A good example for Social Interaction is to run a giveaway that leads you to Facebook or Twitter and the only way to enter is to either Like the page, follow the Twitter account, retweet, etc. 

5.       Video

• This has been an evolving trend over the years because until recently there wasn’t an easy way to embed video in email
• HTML5 video has now been a way to present video in email and many marketers have started to slowly integrate this

What are some other email marketing trends you've noticed so far this year? What are your predictions? Share your ideas in the comments.

The New York International Auto Show opened its doors this weekend to the public and we were on-site earlier in the week with the Synaptic Digital production crew to support General Motors during the press days.   We conducted two satellite media tours for GM, with their spokesperson James Bell speaking to the media about the state of the auto industry and how the new GMC cars are equipped to handle safe pet travel.

The media relations team booked the interviews in advance for TV, radio and online media networks to get the scoop live from the floor of the show.  The video packages of b-roll, sound bites and other assets were then published to the General Motors media center and the distribution portal for journalists TheNewsMarket.com.

It was at the show that we met pet expert Charlotte Reed, who we then invited to our Atlanta office to meet our office dogs at a special Canine & Human happy hour! Be sure to check out the photos on our Facebook page. GM's big reveal came around lunchtime when the press gathered at the North Pavillion to see what's new....and the Camaro Z/28 rolled onto the stage to a big round of cheers and applause.  Other hot cars included the 2014 Corvette Stingray, the Cadillac CTS and the Buick Regal.  

Kia brought the KIA Soul hamsters with them as well as the whole Marvel crew with a Green Lantern car, Batman car, and Wonder Woman car.

Other auto brands at the show included Bentley, Rolls Royce, VW, Lamborghini, Lexus, Toyota and BMW.  You can see some more photos in the slideshow below.

I take exception to the term "TV Everywhere," and no more so than when it comes to news.

There is no doubt that television news is being consumed in new ways as people are finding and effectively utilizing multiple screens (2nd and even 3rd screen applications). But in the case of news it's just as important to distribute content everywhere in "every" way! Management will say that a news organization, to be truly global, must have a "TV everywhere" strategy to survive today, but as I say, a "content everywhere" strategy is essential for success. There is far more to it than just TV.

Radio (terrestrial and satellite), print (newspapers and magazines), online services like aggregators, point of purchase and out of home distribution outlets (airplanes and taxi cabs), PR, news releases and distribution; entrepreneurial techniques such as the Red Touch Media download stations, gaming, and most assuredly social media (from Twitter to Vine, Facebook and even FourSquare)--these are just some of the ways to accomplish extending the reach and frequency of message (in this case, the news). All of these tools can leverage content that will reach those consumers who have found new ways to view content on their many screens.

Expertly using all of these tools in the toolbox (and also the ones I haven't mentioned here) is the only effective way that information distribution can function in modern times.

And while this isn't a wholly new concept, it is one to ponder as everyone talks about "TV Everywhere." Millennials are moving faster and faster and using multiple new methods to consume far more content and data than their predecessors, if for no other reason than they are surrounded by more distribution devices than ever before. They all have televisions, sure, but they have their own smartphones and iPads. That's way more than "TV" Everywhere. Maybe "Screens Everywhere" is more accurate, but that still doesn't cover all the bases.

Additionally, all of this assumes that the news is being vetted by people who can vouch for the fairness, accuracy and context of the content. Oh yes, one very important final thought...if the content sucks, none if this matters.

I'm just sayin'

Frank J. Radice

@fradice

As the saying goes, "A picture is worth ten thousand words."  And in social media, no truer words were spoken.  With a plethora of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, the power of visual marketing is abundant.  In fact, Facebook has more photos uploaded than Flickr, Instagram and even the Library of Congress.  So how can brands harness this power and gain more brand affinity and engagement through visual marketing?  The truth is, most marketers are missing the point. 

We have a lot of bad habits from our traditional media practices that we hold onto that are really ineffective in this new medium.  It seems like mass media, but the rise of social networks and digital media has created an opportunity to create real and meaningful dialogue with our audiences on a one-to-one level through technology.  That technology has become ever-present and critical component to everything we do.  But while the technology is key to distribution, the story is what matters to the audience.  And this is something we must not take lightly.  Combine that with the right visuals in photos, videos, infographics, and you're onto something.

So how to you get there?  First you have to uncover the underlying motivations of why people share in the first place.  To give value and entertainment to others, to provide a sense of who we are, to stay connected and build relationships with others, to create personal involvement and stay connected with others, and to persuade others to care about what we care about.* 

*Source: NYTimes Customer Insight Group study

It's the content, in the right context, that will ultimately drive conversation. The intersection of where you (as a brand) can share what you want to say and what they (as your audience) are interested in consuming.  Relevance is key to great content.  Timing is also extremely important.  You must consider how the consumer is bombarded with content and navigate the right communication path to ensure your content gets seen, heard, read and shared.

To address which visual platforms would work best for your brand, it would be best to ask yourself these questions - What are your brand's goals? What are your brand's resources? Where is your brand's audience?

Then you can decide which platforms make the most sense for your brand's content.

Here's the lowdown on the platforms:

Pinterest: Reflects aspirational desire and "want" - intent to purchase with aethesthically beautiful photos.  For Brands - huge opportunity to express brand ideals, authenticity and style. 

Instagram: It's about art, not ads.  Be the brand, not the product. Fuels into other networks so use as an opportunity to cross-promote.

Tumblr: Blogging platform; social network; content distribution platform - use when you are trying to young adults.  Most popular with 13-25 year olds.  "Facebook is where teens and young adults connect with family and friends - Tumblr is where they connect with like-minded people about topics they care about" - Tim Peter

Key Takeaways:

You can get the full presentation on slideshare and watch a video recapping the presentation below. 

I had a great time representing Definition 6 at B2B Camp this past Saturday at the Georgia Tech Research Institute Conference Center, and I learned quite a bit about marketing and social automation. B2BCamp, known for being an "unconference," encourages participants to give a 30-second pitch in a competition to see who will get the opportunity to host a session, be it a presentation, panel, workshop, or roundtable. After voting, 4 sessions take place at once throughout the day, and participants choose which session to attend based on which topic is most intriguing or relevant.

Our Twitter account has a great timeline record of my day on Saturday, and includes which sessions I chose to attend and who hosted them. The topics that most caught my attention throughout the day were video marketing, content strategy on LinkedIn, social drip, and how to read people. 

The keynote speech by David Cummings of recently sold Pardot, shared 7 secrets to the success of his company. Many unique differences in his entrepreneurial approach led to his success, including filling a need--not a want, working with the customer's timeline (not forcing them into a long-term contract), and, most importantly, corporate culture wins. Cummings stated that "everything you do involves being held accountable to your standards of corporate culture."

In "The Ideal Social Drip Strategy," a panel from Insight Pool discussed how the term itself is brand new, and therefore presents those armed with knowledge about traditional marketing drip programs to create opportunities with new marketing automation technologies available today. Key takeaways from this session: 

-Amidst the many different ways to measure success in social, the most important metric is executing a strategy that gets your audience on social to come back to you and engage with you.

-A drip campaign is personalized and reactive--the recipient decides to continue being a part of the knowledge circle. 

-You cannot always focus on just targeting direct prospects. When you engage influencers, they will syndicate content, and more people will see it--including prospects.

Be sure to check out the slideshow below of my day at B2B Camp. 

Every Thursday, ExactTarget encourages insightful marketing discussions on Twitter, called the #NexusCafe chats, and recently I co-hosted with them to talk about brand unity and connecting people to the brands they love - a perfect fit for the inclusion of Definition 6.  Below are some key takeaways from the discussion. 

·  With so many channels of media today, knowing your target audience is critical to a successful campaign. Figure out where they are engaging and use insight to prioritize the rest.

·  Listening to social channels is the first place you should look for a brand-fan connection. Analyzing metrics for visits, engagement, and conversion will help to quantify this connection.

·  Internally, every department (even developers) should see themselves as content creators and truly want to learn new skills that will stretch their knowledge. Content is still king, and it is the lynchpin to creating the connection and uniting people with your brand.

We have put these insights to the test with our work on a Facebook Application for HBO's True Blood, an application with interactive content that engaged fans and their friends. Additionally, content like online video, such as our work with Coca-Cola on the Happiness Machine, serves to engage fans online and spread the brand message. 

Involving your community early on in the process will pay off. If you share brainstorming and allow for fan/follower buy-in, they will engage more with your brand. 

You can view the whole discussion on the ExactTarget blog.

http://www.shutterstock.com

We’re excited to announce Definition 6’s acquisition of Synaptic Digital. This video explains more about the deal and the evolving communications model.  You can read the full press release on our website.

Michael Kogon:

“It’s all about content.  Now, more than ever, brands need to find compelling ways to tell their story, to connect and engage with their audiences, and do it within the right context.

That’s why we’re excited to announce Definition 6’s acquisition of Synaptic Digital, an earned media and strategic content distributions company.

I’m Michael Kogon, CEO of unified marketing agency Definition 6, here with Nick Abramovich, CEO of Synaptic Digital, to let you know a little bit more about our newly combined companies and why this is unlike any offering you’ve seen before.

This will enhance Definition 6’s content marketing capabilities, nearly doubling the size of the agency, with global expansion in Europe and Asia.

Synaptic Digital excels in content marketing and has created an incredible platform to help brands and PR agencies gain exposure for their content. Combined with the digital marketing and brand storytelling capabilities we already have in place at Definition 6, our arsenal for content creation and distribution is even more robust.

Being a unified marketing agency, this acquisition aligns with our strategy for creating content for brands, in the right context, at the right time.

With consumers being able to access content from virtually anywhere, on any device, it’s increasingly more important for brands to tell their own stories in order to connect with their consumers.

The key is not only to create a brand message, but to place that content within the context of the audience.  That is where the magic happens.  

We help brands recognize the market opportunity, help them to create the right experiences for their consumer, strategically across the right channels, which leads to increased interactions and transactions.

This drives the conversation between consumers and helps spread the brand’s message – the heart of our unified marketing approach.

We’ve seen this model work for top brands like Coca-Cola, Mitsubishi Electric, La Quinta Inns & Suites, Facebook, HBO – where it’s not just about getting your message out, but it’s about establishing that personal relationship - emotional connection - with your consumers, at the right time.

By adding the distribution network TheNewsMarket.com, our agency’s clients will have more opportunities to distribute their message across traditional, digital and social media channels effectively.”

Nick Abramovich:

“We’re really looking forward to bringing together the strengths of our two companies.

Combining first class production and technology capabilities, marketing and PR disciplines improves our ability to create relevant content and distribute the content in the right context and ultimately to serve the marketplaces’ needs. 

For our brand clients, having the digital marketing and high-end post-production capabilities of Definition 6 in tow, we’ll be able to deliver impactful content packages like never before.

For our PR agency clients, we’ll be leveraging Definition 6’s social media and digital expertise to better serve our agency partners and expand upon our offering beyond broadcast PR services.

The communications model is evolving. Understanding the earned, paid and owned media mix is critical, and more and more success is dependent on companies having the ability to create amazing content and enable distribution.”

Michael Kogon:

“Brand storytelling is at the heart of what our companies do, which makes this acquisition beneficial for both. We can continue to create award-winning work for more brands, better, more efficiently and at a greater scale.

Content marketing is going to continue to be a growing factor in the coming years.  And we’re preparing an agency equipped to help our clients succeed with a unique offering.”

#Marketers, are you forgetting something?

Twitter:

                Branded Background – Check

                Monitoring – Check

                Posting more than self-promoting content – Check

                Engaging with followers and influencers – Check

Facebook:

                Brand Page Created – Check

                Polls, Surveys, Contest – Check

                Analytics Reviewed – Check

                Specials and Advanced Information Shared – Check

Mobile:

                Works on iPhone and iPad – Check

                I have an App – Good for you

                I’m running mobile ads and paid search – Check

                My CFO just got rid of his Blackberry – Congrats! Better than most people can claim

YouTube:

                Brand Chanel Designed – Check

                Regular Video Content Provided – Check

                Curating Video for Sharing – Check

                Embedding content into other channels you control – Check

Blogging:

                Regular Publishing Cycle – Check

                POV consistent – Check

                Comment and Blogger Influencer Strategy – Check

                Traffic Driving Metrics – Check

E-mail:

                List Maintenance Protocol – Check

                Subject Line Testing – Check

                Offer Testing – Check

                Optimizing Deliverability and Readability – Check

                Trigger Based, Segmented – Check

But how’s your website? When was the last time you focused on it for a week or so? Does it say what you want it to say? More importantly, with all the learning from above, what have you done to update your website? Does it serve as the hub of activity or is it like a forgotten capital of an ancient empire?

I have found in the past year most people have not thought about their website nearly enough. Its look has not been updated, the learning from off-site and on-site analytics has not been implemented, and technically the underlying system looks like a 5^th grade science project. In my experience, the companies that remember to invest in site updates every quarter, and major overhauls every 18-24 months are always ahead of their competitors.

How much content have you created over the last few months? Do you enough call to action items on each page?  What about video? 

I encourage you to look at a basic website redesign project over the next few quarters, and if you still need convincing, look at your competitors site today vs. what it looked like when you last re-did yours; it might be all the reason you need to get on with your next website redesign.

All across the internet today websites are taking a stand against censorship. Resources such as Wikipedia, Google,  Reddit.com, and Craigslist are all blacking out  content in protest against the SOPA and PIPA  acts. Washington, DC has already begun to buckle this week towards the public outcry, but that hasn’t stopped a whole lot of people from making a voice for themselves today.

Paul McClay, Definition 6's director of strategy and media, recently spoke to Mark Ragan on the topic of content curation through video.  He emphasizes the greater ease we are seeing in recent years in producing and distributing video, and how brands have found success reaching their audiences by bringing new and interesting content to them, at a lower cost than traditional TV advertising.  Having more distribution channels in social media, like YouTube, is one way that his process became easier.  To learn more about this topic, watch the full interview here.




 

 I’m just back from spending a week in L.A. for the 2011 Spring Digital Hollywood Conference…my first time attending the show.   So many panels, fascinating people, and great topics of conversation.  The biggest crisis that seems to be facing this industry is one of identity…when I can get content anywhere on any device any time I want it, can I still say I am in the TV business? 

Having been raised on the digital side of this equation, I found it fascinating to see what an internal struggle this issue has become.  In my mind, production of good content continues to be the real source of value.  Good content will usually rise to the top.  Technology has simply increased the number of opportunities to consume that content, as well as the number of opportunities to monetize that content.  It also has introduced measurement into the equation.  Measurement puts pressure on the content providers to prove they are delivering the audience advertisers want and need.  You also hear a lot more about how targeting is so important…why waste advertising dollars on the people who aren’t buying or will never buy your product?  Well, in my opinion, reach still matters because everyone has the opportunity to be an influencer.  Whether or not you buy my products, you can still help influence someone else who does. 

One of the biggest things I took away from the event was a quote from Adam Carolla, who noted following one panelist’s description on the state of the industry, “Do we really need ‘wild, wild west?’ Doesn’t one ‘wild’ really encapsulate everything we want to say?”  The second biggest take-away was a quote from Stan Kurnit of AdKeeper and founder of About.com -  He said, “It’s not that consumers don’t like advertising, they just don’t like how we are doing it.”  With the changes in technology and content distribution, consumers have choice. They have control.  That doesn’t mean they don’t want or even sometimes enjoy advertising…it just means we, as advertisers, need to do a better job at creating ads that add value, that entertain, and that truly inform.  It’s easy to say consumers aren’t impacted by advertising anymore, but that is far from the truth.  They just aren’t impacted by bad advertising anymore.  The expectation has been raised significantly.  There are plenty of interesting examples of companies doing it right now.  But the industry definitely continues to evolve at the intersection of content and context.

This past week I had the opportunity to present at the Business Development Institute (BDI) Social Consumer event in New York City and speak about one of Definition 6’s great customer case studies and success stories. The event was attended by over 300 people that work in marketing and media and come from a great variety of big companies including MTV, McGraw Hill, American Express, Citi Group and many others. I’m pretty sure I was one of very few people in the room that works mostly on the tech side of things.

It was a great event. The speaker from Unilever, Senior Communications Marketing Manager Stacie Bright (@Dove), has me honestly considering trying out Dove Body Wash for Men, and Senior Brand Manager Juliet Wilson from Kotex and Organic’s Julie Lee (@julielee75) showed off some truly game-changing work they are doing and even had the entire audience in various stages of discomfort reciting the word “vagina”. But the most energetic speaker by far was Bonin Bough (@boughb), the Global Director of Social Media for Pepsico who delivered a fantastic keynote speech and showed off some very innovative work they’ve done while talking about the importance of having Digital Fitness throughout an organization.

Of course, this made it a bit ironic that my presentation, which followed Bonin’s, essentially focused on some of the great work we’ve done over the past year or so with our customer Coca-Cola. So what’s a tech geek from Atlanta whose company does work for Coke supposed to do in this situation? Well… mostly just try to do his best to represent and share a little Happiness. You can view my presentation which is about 20 minutes long and judge for yourself. I think it went pretty well with the exception of a little technical glitch at the end where the presentation laptop froze up, though I think that happened because I was making jokes about IBM’s Watson at the time. Enjoy.

At every conference I attend, the statement always arises about which reigns supreme: Content?  Context? Conversation?

While at South by Southwest, I posed this question to Barry Diller, CEO of IAC. 



I shared more of my thoughts on this in a recent blog post for MediaBizBloggers.com.

What do you think?

A blog can accomplish a variety of interactive marketing goals, such as:

a.  Personalize your sales team by having them blog on case studies
b.  Validate your tech team with highly technical blogs about product development
c.  Turn an internal expert into an industry thought leader
d.  Expand your corporate image with executive blogs
e.  Become a resource by collecting relevant articles
 

Whatever your goal, here are tips that will make it a dynamic read:

1.  Include genuine, heartfelt content that is useful; be brief and informal
2.  Regular updates are needed to be active and successful.
3.  Your viewpoint must have an innovative focus
 

I hope this helps you decide how to jump into blogging and what is called 'conversational marketing.'
 

If you want to read the full article entitled Craft your Blog for Maximum Impact:  3 absolutes to make it a must-read, here's the link to MarketingSherpa, a resource that I use often:
www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30805&pop=no

And, of course, Definition 6 can help you maximize your blogging efforts!

Lynn Moss
Def 6 Client Manager