Marketing Chatter

Time-Sensitive Email Offers Drive Flash Sales

2010-06-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

Flash sales are getting a lot of media and retailer attention. Limited-time campaigns are an effective tool in the social commerce arsenal. Hard deadlines compel users to take action. Combined with a sense of unique opportunity and exclusivity, they drive campaign results. Companies such as HauteLook, Gilt, Rue La La, ideeli, and One Kings Lane built their entire business model around members only, limited-time offers.

Email is a great way to make customers aware of limited-time offers. Time sensitivity, however, creates a unique challenge for this type of campaign. The best way to run these campaigns is to deliver email to the entire, large target list within a short time span measured in minutes. Many email platforms work with large lists. However, it is common for larger campaigns to be sent out over a number of hours or even days - not minutes. In many cases, companies have limited control over when precisely their emails will be sent. In multi-tenant ESP environments, clients compete for the same computing resources, making precise scheduling highly challenging. The bottom line – email platforms have not been the most effective in supporting time-sensitive offers.

This has changed with StrongMail’s addition of email burst capabilities to the Message Studio platform. With these new capabilities, Message Studio has been speed-tested to deliver 2MM+ emails in less than 5 minutes. Just to be clear, we are writing here about permission-based emails received by consumers who registered to gain access to compelling offers.

Customers such as HauteLook are very effectively using StrongMail technology. You can find more details about how HauteLook uses email to drive flash sales on the following industry publications: MediaPost, Internet Retailer and DIRECT.

Social Media CMO Summary Dashboard

2010-05-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

Social Direct, social media campaign management solution we developed at StrongMail, is big on reporting and analytics. Results of marketing campaigns are after all what matters the most, and to understand results and impact of marketing efforts you need effective analytical tools. One of the recent additions to Social Direct is a new CMO Summary dashboard report consolidating results of all campaigns managed through Social Direct. This helpful view gives you a good understanding of the overall impact of campaigns run on Facebook and Twitter.

The report analyzes campaigns in three dimensions:

Reach – It is a gauge of how many people your campaigns and posts have touched. It is equivalent to a number of impressions used in the world of advertising. A big difference is the viral component of social media campaigns. Reach is calculated not only by including people directly connected to the brand and thus exposed to its posts (Direct Audience), but also adding those who have been exposed to brand messages re-tweeted or reposted by others (Extended Audience).

Engagement – It is a measure of consumers’ interactions with campaigns. Clicks on links included in the campaign posts, sharing activity (re-tweeting and reposting), as well as comments and 'Likes' associated with Facebook campaign posts are aggregated across all campaigns.

Conversions – For Direct Marketing campaigns, this is the most significant measure of campaign success. Conversion events (purchase, subscription, lead capture, etc.) are tracked on the landing pages that consumers are driven to by the campaign posts.

The CMO Summary dashboard report provides an executive-level snapshot and allows you to answer big picture questions on the impact of social media marketing efforts.

StrongMail Influencer Unites Email and Social Media for Next-Generation Referral Campaigns | StrongMail

2009-10-20T14:19:00.001-07:00

"Spreading the news about our product."

StrongMail, a leading provider of online marketing solutions for email and social media, today announced a new version of StrongMail® Influencer™ featuring integration with the company's flagship email marketing solution, StrongMail® Messag

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Mint.com Gains Thousands of New Users with StrongMail Influencer | StrongMail

2009-09-16T13:30:00.001-07:00

"This is not necessarily the reason why Intuit purchased mint.com:-) Nevertheless we are pretty happy with the results of campaign launched using our technology."

You can download the case study at: http://www.strongmail.com/pdf/sm_casestudy_mint.pdf.

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StrongMail Embraces Social Media with PopularMedia Acquisition

2009-07-22T10:22:00.001-07:00

"PopularMedia has been acquired by StrongMail. Here is the latest StrongMail newsletter - posted to my blog using SocialNotes."

StrongMail has acquired social media marketing leader and longtime partner PopularMedia – and that's good news for StrongMail customers...

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Announcing Influencer Ads

2009-02-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

We have just launched at PopularMedia a new, online, dynamic ad product which ads social interactivity to display ads. Online ads have not kept up with changes in how people use Internet, at least until now. We believe we have an answer to marketers needs of taping social interactions.

Here is how Mark Walsh described the product:

"Here's how the platform works: When someone clicks through on an Influencer Ad, they are prompted to invite friends to participate in a promotion. They can share offers via email, social networks like Facebook and MySpace and personal blogs or Web pages. Friends who respond have to complete a campaign-related action--watching a video, taking a survey, getting a subscription or buying a product--before being asked to invite others.

Along the way, users can check updates on their sign-ups and other information on a Web page that resembles a profile page. Advertisers, meanwhile, can track campaign activity through a dashboard and adjust creative elements on the fly based on PopularMedia's predictive analytics technology."

You can read Mark's full article by clicking here: PopularMedia Expands Social Ad Options

You can also check out Influencer Ads Value Proposition I put together, DMNews article by Mary Elizabeth Hurn PopularMedia launches social online Influencer Ads, iMedia blog posting Brand Summit in Florida Day 1 - Metcalfe's Law Revisited from their conference where we announced the product by Tom Deierlein.

Instead of just reading about it, you can try the product for free by signing up at http://www.popularmedia.com/website/order_influencer_ads.html.

What's your impact on the planet?

2008-10-13T14:16:00.001-07:00

"We are very excited to see this campaign launched using PopularMedia technology."

Calculate your carbon footprint in seconds—and find out what you can do to REDUCE your impact and save energy.

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Every Website Should Facilitate Social Interactions

2008-07-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

PopularMedia SocialNotes makes it easy. It allows site visitors to share thoughts, get feedback and start conversations with their friends directly on the web page that hosts the content being shared or discussed. It supports sharing through social networking sites, email and blogs. Configuration and deployment can be done in minutes. And it is available for free.

To try it out simply click on the “Share With Friends” button on the right hand side of this page. To view feedback functionality click here. You cannot miss the yellow sticky note.

You can check out reviews by Tom Abate/San Francisco Chronicle, Rafe Needleman/CNET and Roost, a SocialNotes client.

Configuration process is described at PopularMedia Client Center.
To start using it simply fill out a short form here.

Instantly Add Social Interactivity to Your Site

2008-07-25T17:39:00.001-07:00

"PopularMedia has just launched SocialNotes, a free web-based widget that allows site owners to add social interactivity to any page on their web site."

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