By
08 Mar 2012
Video insights from the MarketingSherpa Email Summit
Just a few weeks ago, I attended the MarketingSherpa Email Summit in Las Vegas. I brought along my trusty camera and interviewed most of the speakers and several attendees. Needless to say, these interviews resulted in some great insight on a range of email marketing related topics.
GetResponse ran a contest encouraging our customers to arm me with questions to fire at the influencers at the event. Here I've selected four great (common) questions from average email marketers and four great answers from the videos. I've also created a transcript of the answers for you to scan.
You can view all of the videos here.
Does email still work?
John Caldwell of Red Pill Email answers the question: "Why lately are email marketing campaigns not working as well as they should?"
“It’s not…
Case study: KLM's 'Meet & Seat' initiative
In the latter part of 2011, international airline KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced its new 'Meet & Seat' programme. Participating passengers could view each other’s Facebook or LinkedIn profiles and use this information to choose who to sit next to during a flight. I always find it interesting to review how KLM are using social media since they're definitely an innovator rather than a laggard. These often aren't just campaigns, but integrate with KLM services.
Source: Wikipedia
This idea might be good for KLM's PR, but can it succeed? And what lessons can you take back to your business?
KLM's previous use of social media to personalise service
KLM is no stranger to social media. In November 2010 it launched 'KLM Surprise'. This test involved flight attendants searching passengers' social media profiles and meeting…
Are free press release websites worth using?
The question of whether to use free press release websites is a common one amongst many hands-on marketers trying to get a benefit for SEO and PR... Quickly followed by how many of these should we use and is it worth paying?
To help answer this question, Vitis public relations conducted a month long trial which investigated the value of free PR Websites from different angles. I'm alerting readers to it since it's a fascinating and immediately valuable / actionable for business and clients. The point to stress in all of the comments below, is that I am referring specifically to free PR websites, not the more quality controlled paid for services. The report shows the best sites you can use based on different criteria.
What are Free PR websites?
Such websites exist as content hubs for press releases from all manner of business. View them as a press…
5 recommendations for delivering effective social media customer service from Frank Eliason
Frank Eliason is widely regarded as one of the innovators for delivering customer service through social media from his work at Comcast, initially delivered through the @ComcastCares Twitter handle. Eliason shows the importance of the intersection between social media and customer service when he says:
“The customer now has control of your brand, and if you really want them to share your marketing message, you must fix the overall customer experience”
“Many would say customer service has always been marketing, but the fact is the companies had a much larger control of the message than they do today. Social media has changed that and the customer has gained that control".
Now at Citibank, Eliason has continued to give great advice on how to apply social media for customer service, and is author of the book …
How E-retailers can make a sustainable ‘price match promise’ to grow business while protecting margins
As recession continues to bite, forcing even well known and loved names into receivership, we all know it’s essential to keep customers buying from us. And, in order to achieve this, you have to be absolutely certain you are offering the best price around.
Of course in any market sector, there are many online retailers, all competing for the same customers and, more importantly, their money. To triumph in the face of such intense opposition you’re going to need an angle or edge; something to make sure you’re ahead of the competition and that allows you prove it too.
This is where services like Competitor Price Watch (CPW) can help. In this post I'll describe the concept behind these services and finish with three…
It's not all about you, you, you
Marketing offers, hooks, lead generation or calls-to-action, whatever language you use, are fundamentally not about you. Although there is a LOT of discussion of page layout and call-to-action testing, for me this is the biggest block to get over. What I've observed in many companies is a tendency to lean towards what are most often disguised sales promotion tactics (often believed to be marketing offers) that are only designed to entice transaction with buyers today.
Marketing offers on the other hand are designed to data capture in order the marketer earns permission to sell at the right time tomorrow, next month or even next year for large ticket items.
Three key differences between sales promotion and marketing offers
Sales promotion is about you incentivising me to buy something from you as soon as possible - they're effective…
By
01 Mar 2012
A new adoption framework for social media strategy
There are now enough examples and evidence to know which social media marketing strategies and tactics work and which don’t. Enough for organisations to move beyond the baby steps of adoption that typify where about two thirds of the UK remain today.
The board of directors is usually culpable
The key issue in most organisations, particularly at board level, is they are still being held back by their failure to gain a fundamental understanding of the medium. Neither, perhaps as a result of this failure in understanding, are they recruiting the right calibre of skills into digital and new media roles.
I have interviewed and worked with scores of organisations concerning their plans for social media. Many say they now want to make social media strategic.
However, they put their hands up and say the issue is they don’t know what ‘strategic’ means when it comes to…
Google Analytics have rolled out their latest change to the tool's user interface. This post explains 8 of the changes they've made, along with screengrabs comparing old vs new.
If you've used Google Analytics for any length of time, you'll know that these updates usually take one of 3 forms:
A large series of user interface tweaks, all at once.
Introduction of individual (or small groups of) functionality changes.
Both together.
This time the change is largely user interface tweaks, though there is also a couple of neat little functionality changes.
Change 1: Left Navigation
The left navigation (the main way of accessing all reports in Google Analytics) has been updated. All of the categories within this are the same, but the layout is a little cleaner, and they've added icons here:
This is purely a visual thing, and there is no recategorisation of reports within this area. 'Advertising' still…
10 tactics for effective Facebook pages you can implement by 30th March
Value/Importance: [rating=10]
Recommended link: Facebook’s Pages intro
With just one month before switchover to a completely new page layout for companies on Facebook, we’ve rated the impact as 10 out of 5, although that depends on how important Facebook is for your business...
If you’re short on time, I recommend you go straight for the new Facebook pages FAQ for a succinct summary. What Facebook won’t tell you are the marketing tactics that you lose and gain through the new update, that’s what we’ll summarise here, using examples to illustrate the new features.
With an update to a web service, you usually start by looking at what’s new, but with Facebook’s new business pages, what’s most striking is what’s missing since…
