The ExactTarget Blog | ExactTarget Email Marketing

The Basics of Social Media: Do Not Delete

Derek Harris — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:15:00 +0000

Over the next several weeks, I will be publishing a series of posts about the basics of social media. These aren’t in any specific order, but if followed they will help you to monitor and respond to your fans and followers effectively. The posts in this series will be:

Do Not Delete
Remember, You’re Talking to People
What’s the Reason for Your Social Media Presence?
Your Customers are Talking. Listen to Them!

Do Not Delete
You might be tempted to delete negative posts from your Twitter and Facebook feed, but don't do it! It might seem counter intuitive, especially if you have a plethora of negative comments coming in, but allowing these comments to be seen in the harsh light of day is actually a good thing. Each negative comment is an opportunity for your organisation to solve a problem for someone. And you’ll be solving it in front of all your fans.

This is what customer service people do every day, so engage with them on how to respond to negative comments on social media. Also, make sure that the response is timely--ideally within 24 hours, but the quicker the better. If you’re using SocialEngage, you can assign the post to your customer service team for follow up and track the time taken to respond.

In addition to resolving an issue, allowing negative posts to remain on your social sites can also help you avoid additional complaints. Removing content that someone has spent time writing shows that the organisation doesn't care what its customers and prospects think. It would be like hanging up on a customer who was unhappy with your product or service. When this happens, the customer has very little recourse but tell all of their friends about the issue.

Of course, you might get posts that are just plain inappropriate. In these cases, ensure that you have a clearly defined set of rules for posting, such as no foul language, no abusive or hateful content, etc. If objectionable content does appear, refer the poster to these rules. If this happens repeatedly, explain that you are going to block them and use the blocking feature for that channel. Deleting content of this type is completely reasonable.

The key takeaway here is to accept criticism. All brands get it, but it’s how you handle this criticism and respond to it that can turn an annoyed customer into a brand advocate.

Looking for more tips to connect with your audience through social? Check out Social Media Quick Plays.

Up next: Remember, You're Talking to People!

Which Stage of Marketing Automation Are You In?

Jenna Hanington — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Regardless of how long you’ve been using (or not using) a marketing automation tool, you should always be on the lookout for ways to improve your marketing efforts—whether it’s by implementing drip campaigns, exploring the wonders of dynamic content, or creating highly targeted email blasts for specific audiences. The point is, there are always new and exciting things to try, especially with all of the extra time that you free up by implementing an automation system in the first place.

But how do you know what the next step is?

The best way to make sure that you’re always progressing with your marketing automation tool is to constantly be aware of which stage of marketing automation usage you fall into: beginner, intermediate, or advanced. From there, you can start implementing the appropriate automation tactics to ensure that you’re heading in the right direction. Let’s take a look at some profiles of marketing automation users in each stage of use, as described by the new Mastering the Art of Marketing Automation eBook:

Beginner Stage
You’re just getting started with marketing automation and want to learn how you can use it to strengthen customer relationships, improve lead generation, and boost ROI. At this stage, you probably have an email marketing solution in place, and you’ve likely dipped your toe into the social media pool. You may be capturing some customer and prospect data in a database or CRM system, and you might even be trying out web analytics and keyword monitoring tools like Google Analytics and Google AdWords. But you haven’t really put all the pieces together—yet.

If this describes you, then check out some next steps in our 10 Steps to Pass Marketing Automation 101.

Intermediate Stage
You’ve mastered the basics of marketing automation and have begun reaping the rewards of your initial automation efforts. But chances are, you’re feeling increased pressure (either from your boss or from yourself) to improve your automation efforts. At this stage, your triggered and auto-response emails are going out like clockwork. You’re actively engaged on multiple social channels, and your CRM system puts customer and prospect data (collected through website tagging and web analytics) at your fingertips. You’ve streamlined your marketing efforts by integrating all of your email, social, search, CRM, and web analytics systems into one platform.

Think you’ve mastered the basics of marketing automation? If so, take a look at our Streamlined Sophistication: 9 Steps to Go Beyond the Marketing Automation Basics to learn how you can take your automation efforts to the next level.

Advanced Stage
You’re approaching guru status when it comes to marketing automation. You’re already using relational data to deliver dynamic and highly relevant email content, and your drip campaigns nurture prospects to sales-readiness over time. You have several employees actively engaging in social media conversations, and your social posts alternate between real-time and scheduled posts to maintain consistent levels of engagement over time. With fully integrated CRM, web analytics, and marketing automation platforms, you can profile each prospect based on individual activity and target him or her with an appropriate campaign.

If this sounds like you, then congratulations! You’re a marketing automation expert, but that doesn’t mean your job is over. Take a look at our 8 Steps to Mastering Advanced Automation for a few more ideas, like experimenting with dynamic content and more robust SPAM and deliverability testing for your emails.

Want some more tips to help you master the art of marketing automation? Download the full eBook for free here.

Accurate Data Makes for a Happy Email Subscriber

Julie Brown — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:30:00 +0000

As many people do today, I subscribe to a multitude of different emails--from my favorite clothing store, magazine, daily deal site, etc.

While I was expecting my first child last year, I decided to opt-in for a number of different emails containing information, tips, and coupons related to pregnancy and parenting. With those types of emails, timing is everything. The information you send an expectant mother at 12 weeks of pregnancy is very different from the content you would send to a woman who is 32 weeks pregnant or a mother with a six-month-old at home.

Just the other day I received an email with the subject line “Getting ready for your baby!” and the first sentence of the email was “Your baby’s on the way!”. Clearly this email was not for me, since my baby arrived nearly five months ago! I do not need to read about how to prepare for maternity leave since I am already back to work from my leave. That information is irrelevant to me. The email would have been useful to me if it linked to an article on what to feed a six-month-old rather than a “to do” list to help prepare for my baby’s arrival.

I was tempted to unsubscribe from the email because I was highly confused and felt this organization did not know and understand me as a subscriber. Plus, I do not want my inbox cluttered with emails that are not relevant to me. I decided not to unsubscribe, at least not yet. But if I receive another email with content not geared for me, I will most likely unsubscribe.

As a marketer, you do not want to send out unrelated information to your audience and risk them unsubscribing. So how can you be sure the content you are sending out is the right content and is sent at the right time? There are a number of different things to consider:

It begins with your data. Be sure your data is organized, accurate, and up-to-date.
To help capture and organize that data, be sure to create Profile and Preference Attributes.
Data Extensions can also help with organizing your data relationships.
Make sure your subscriber data is up-to-date by encouraging your subscribers to fill out and update their information in the Profile Center and Subscription Center.
Put your data to work for you and simplify your email sends with marketing automation.

Does your organization rely heavily on delivering emails that are for very specific audiences at very specific times? How have you managed your data and content? Share below in the comments!

Modern Marketing: A Bold New Frontier #Infographic

Heike Baird — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:45:00 +0000

Unless you've been living under a social media-free rock, you've probably heard that there's a new Star Trek movie coming out today. The verdict is out on how favorable the fans' reviews will be, but it's a good excuse to revisit the nostalgia of one of the most popular science fiction franchises ever.

But even if you don't head to the theater, you can still witness a science fiction-esque transformation of technology within the very marketing technology that powers our digital communications. From email, social, and mobile to the new frontiers of marketing automation, the galaxies of marketing technology have truly expanded, leaving marketers with a fleet of possibilities to reach their customers on the most relevant and individualized wavelengths possible.

We've put together this infographic to highlight a few ways that modern marketing has traveled lightyears in terms of quality and capabilities.

And for more ways to take your marketing into the next galaxy, download the free eBook, Mastering the Art of Marketing Automation.

Embedded from Pardot

#ETCafe Twitter Chat Recap: Data Driven Campaigns

Amanda Berkey — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:00:00 +0000

Each Thursday at 11am EST, marketers from around the world join the ExactTarget user community on Twitter for a conversation about trends and campaign ideas across the interactive marketing industry. We call the virtual coffee chat the ExactTarget Café.

During a recent chat, we dove into data how engagement data and testing can lead to more successful marketing campaigns. Our guest was Justin Bridegan, senior marketing manager for MECLABS (Marketing Sherpa). Justin oversees the product marketing for all conferences, events, and publications for MECLABS. He has over eight years of experience in marketing to the software training industry, printing industry, and marketing professionals.

One of my favorite concepts from this chat was that every send should pass the "so what" test. Justin shared that each email is a conversation about engaging subscribers. We covered a lot of concepts about optimizing campaigns.

Here's the list of questions we discussed and scroll through the Storify feed to check out the responses. Hopefully, you can find some new interactive marketing contacts to follow from this conversation.

How are your marketing campaigns designed today?
How do you approach the discipline of testing with campaign planning and execution?
How do you perform live testing?
What are some guidelines on audience or segment sample size?
What are tips for data-driven and optimized email copy?
What are some quick wins with improving campaigns based on reading data?
Where do you prioritize testing in your campaigns? Copy, Graphics, Experience, Cross Channels?

Please join us each Thursday at 11am EST on Twitter!

[View the story "#ETcafe Twitter Chat Recap: Testing and Data Driven Campaigns" on Storify]

Email Marketing Success? Bank on it!

Devon McGinnis — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 +0000

Interviewing our clients and hearing about their email marketing success firsthand is one of the best parts of my job at ExactTarget—especially when those stories are as compelling as First Midwest Bank’s!

Faced with the challenge of reducing operating expenses without sacrificing the frequency or quality of its communications, First Midwest Bank saw an opportunity to shift toward digital marketing. With an email marketing team of one, First Midwest Bank began sending general promotional offers to its client base.

“They looked great, but we weren’t initially segmenting or targeting our list,” says Jack Nick, Senior Vice President, Internet Marketing Manager. “As a lifelong marketer, you always think ‘we could do this better.’”

Fast forward to today—First Midwest Bank runs targeted lifecycle marketing programs tailored to customers’ geographic location, recent interactions, and banking history. The ExactTarget Email marketing solution that First Midwest implemented has racked up impressive results, including:

80% savings in direct marketing spend
6x increase in customer conversion

Want to know more? Download the complete case study or check out the video below!

Email Marketing: Back to Basics (i.e., Deliverability)

Jennifer Rhine — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:15:00 +0000

When people talk about the basic elements of a successful email marketing campaign, there are a lot of facets to consider—responsive design, relevant messaging, personalization, pertinent send time, and beyond. But one facet of a successful email campaign that many marketers regrettably overlook is deliverability. After all, no matter how great the email, if it doesn’t reach the inbox, it can’t be effective.

Which brings us to Sky Angel.

Sky Angel came to ExactTarget in 2007 after experiencing deliverability issues sending emails from their internal servers. As a faith and family television provider, the company had traditionally invested marketing dollars to provide programming updates and special offers to customers and prospects. It added email to its marketing mix in the late 1990s, but fell into an all too common cycle of not regularly cleansing data—a trend that was especially prevalent in the early days of email.

Fast-forward to the mid-2000s and the company began experiencing email deliverability issues and challenges keeping their email lists up-to-date. The marketing team knew they needed to find an email service provider (ESP) equipped to help them through their immediate issues, and capable of growing with them as their digital programs evolved. This is when they turned to ExactTarget Email.

Today (more than five years later), the Sky Angel team is not only consistently achieving 99% deliverability across eight email programs, but they’re also:

Engaging at higher-than-industry-average rates
Using automation to trigger welcome emails
Launching cross-channel campaigns that reach customers across email and social

Want to hear their full story? Watch their video or download the Sky Angel success story. You can also get tips and advice to help you hit the inbox in our Deliverability Guide.

Why Global Consumers Decide to "Like" Your Brand on Facebook

Heike Baird — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Facebook poses unique opportunities—and challenges—for marketers. It’s an inherently social channel where consumers are open to interacting with brands. But because consumers typically think of Facebook as their “personal” space, marketers have to tread lightly with hard-sell messages.

To complicate this balancing act further, consumers have a variety of reasons for “liking” a brand. Overall, however, consumers’ top reasons for becoming Facebook fans are similar to their reasons for subscribing to email. These statistics from ExactTarget's 2013 Global Executive Summary tell the story:

For consumers in the UK, Brazil, and France, the top reason for “liking” a company on Facebook is the same: “To receive discounts and money-off promotions.” This reason was #2 among Germans and Australians.
The opportunity to receive “free stuff” is also a strong motivator to “like,” ranking first among Australian consumers, second among Brits and Brazilians, third among the French, and fourth among Germans.
Consumers consistently expressed an interest in product-related updates and “exclusive content”—these information-based motivations appeared among the top responses for each country we studied.

So what is each country's motivation to "like"? These charts show the numbers for France, Germany, UK, Australia, and Brazil.

While consumers around the globe are clearly looking to receive promotional discounts and freebies through Facebook, there is also a significant appetite for information to help them stay up to date with brands and products. Facebook is first and foremost a place for socializing, so always approach consumers in a way that's consistent with the overall tone of Facebook. Keep your actions fun and entertaining, and consumers will be happy to engage with your brand.

For more global insights on how international consumers use social media, download the free 2013 Global Executive Summary, part of ExactTarget's SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS research series.

Fix Your Bad Marketing Habits With Marketing Automation

Matt Wesson — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Marketers have some pretty bad habits.

From sending the occasional unqualified lead to sales to not segmenting email lists properly, there are little things we do everyday that we know we could be doing better.

However, like the millions that make and break New Year's resolutions each year, we find ways to convince ourselves that these little slips are OK, that no real harm can come of them, or that nobody will notice. Unfortunately for the imperfect marketer, these excuses provide less protection for us every year.

We are operating in an age of marketing where more is expected of us than ever before, from both inside and outside our organizations. Consumers are handing over more and more personal information with the expectation of tailored and personalized campaigns. Budgeting managers are handing over less and less budget with the expectation that marketing be accountable for every dime spent. Marketers need to revise, calibrate, and perfect their campaigns all the time to meet these goals.

And meeting these goals is nearly impossible if we keep slipping into our old marketing bad habits.

Fortunately, among its many other advantages, marketing automation can help you break your bad habits for good and become the marketer you've always known you can be. Here are a few ways marketing automation can help.

Stop Batch & Blast Emails

Deep down, I suspect every marketer knows we shouldn't be sending low value mass emails to thousands of people at a time. Our marketing messages need to be personalized and well crafted to provide value to our many audiences. But who has the time?

Marketing automation allows you to personalize these messages without adding any additional time or headaches to your existing workflow. Automatically segment new leads as they come in based on a number of different criteria. Fill your emails with dynamic content that will change to suit the attributes of each lead. You can also set up autoresponders and nurturing campaigns to ensure prompt response when a lead takes a certain action or reaches out to your company.

Stop Subjectively Qualifying Leads

Sales reps are notoriously wary of the leads they receive from marketing. Reps often prefer leads they've generated themselves because they believe they are more qualified--and often times they’re right. So how can you fix this long-standing miscommunication?

Marketing automation scores and grades your leads based on the criteria and behaviors that your marketing and sales teams designate most important, without you having to lift a finger. No more sales reps grumbling over unqualified marketing leads and no more marketers complaining about their leads going to waste. Automation allows you to work from one definition of a successfully lead and put the tedious lead qualification process on autopilot.

Stop Guessing at Your ROI

Marketers have an infamous reputation for never knowing the return on our marketing investments. This lack of accountability is through no major failing on the part of marketing departments. Marketing operations are simply more subjective than other departments and harder to track, but that is changing as well.

Marketing automation allows you to tag incoming leads with the campaign that they first interacted with. With this information, marketers can finally have access to the true ROI of their campaigns and more transparency into how their campaigns are running.

Although marketing automation won't turn you into an all-star marketer overnight, it certainly has the tools to correct some of the most common bad habits and lay a fine groundwork to launch you into marketing stardom.

Want to learn more about what automation can do? Check out our free ebook, Mastering the Art of Marketing Automation for even more information.

6 Awesome Mobile Design Resources (Plus A Few Web Design Bonuses)

Andrea Smith — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:30:00 +0000

Whether you're just getting started with mobile optimization or you're a pro and need some tips to share with your colleagues, here are our top mobile design resources for email.

Report: Designing for the Mobile Inbox
Get strategic and practical advice to help you deliver content that’s easy to consume on any device in this new report on mobile optimization.

Case Study: CareerBuilder's Responsive Email Design Results
Learn how CareerBuilder optimized their email design and saw increases of more than 20% in click-through and more than 15% in open rates.

Quick Guide: Design Tips: Mobile + Email
This short guide shares quick tips for designing for small screens and touch interfaces.

Video: Designing for the Mobile Inbox
Still not sure if mobile optimization is right for you? In a world where smartphone penetration in the US has reached 55%, marketers can no longer afford to think of email messages in terms of “mobile” and “non-mobile.”

Video: 7 Responsive Email Design FAQs
Join Kristina Huffman, Design Practice Lead, as she discusses and answers seven common questions about responsive email design.

Examples: Email Swipe File on Pinterest
See great examples of responsive responsive design in action, curated by ExactTarget's own email design experts.

Responsive Web Design Bonuses
Since your email is often a vehicle for driving conversion and website traffic, be mindful of a subscriber's experience on your website and landing pages as well. Here are some excellent resources on responsive web design:

Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte

Why 2013 Is the Year of Responsive Web Design

The Responsive Design Revolution

Responsive Design for a Mobile Audience: Improving the User Experience

If you're still curious, you can also read more about taking a mobile first approach and learning the time-saving importance of wireframing. For additional interactive marketing tips and advice, follow @ETDesign on Twitter. Cheers to providing great experiences on desktop computer, tablets, and smartphones!

#ETCafe Twitter Chat Preview: Lifecycle Marketing

Amanda Berkey — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:45:00 +0000

The ExactTarget team invites you to participate in our #ETCafe Twitter chat every Thursday from 11am-12pm ET, where we discuss emerging topics and trends from across the interactive marketing world. The virtual coffee chat is hosted directly on Twitter, hosted by @ExactTarget.

This week we're focusing the chat around our #ETcafe around lifecycle marketing, as part of our launch this week for mid-sized businesses which helps them discover their digital marketing potential. We'll discuss the four key stages of lifecycle marketing: acquire, onboard, engage, and retain.

Download the Path to Lifecycle Marketing Success resource for ideas and share your experiences around lifecycle marketing campaigns. The document includes a useful poster that you can keep at your desk too!

Here's the list of questions we'll discuss on this week's #ETcafe chat.

Are there any lifecycle marketing campaigns that are working well for you right now? Why?
What is the most challenge lifecycle stage (acquire, onboard, engage, or retain) for you right now? Why?
What are the best channels or techniques for you to acquire new subscribers? Did you learn this via testing?
How do you onboard new subscribers through the welcome process? Is it different based on acquisition source?
What are creative techniques for engaging subscribers with relevant communications?
What are your challenges or wins with subscriber retention?
How do you incorporate cross-channels in your lifecycle campaign experience?

Please join us this Thursday for an exciting discussion with dynamic interactive marketing professionals! Follow the #ETCafe hashtag in your favorite Twitter application and be sure and add the hashtag to your tweet to participate.

Travel Marketers: To Reach Your Customers, Ask Yourself These Important Questions

Jennifer Rhine — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:15:00 +0000

Are you a digital marketer? Do you work for a travel brand? If you answered yes, then this blog post is for you!

ExactTarget recently released Reaching Today’s Digital Traveler, a compilation of tips and tactics that are critical for digital marketers in the travel and hospitality industry. Here’s the list of tactics, plus the questions you should ask yourself to keep your digital communication strategy on track.

1. Grow Your Subscriber list

To determine why your brand might be missing out on conversations with interested and ready-to-purchase travelers, ask yourself these questions:

Do you promote digital engagement on your website with high visibility email opt-ins, social sharing buttons, and real-time promotions and updates?
Are you asking for travelers’ email addresses at the point of sale?
How easy is it to find your email opt-in form on your website, and how quickly can an interested traveler complete it?
Do you include an email opt-in form with ever first purchase?

2. Deliver Relevant and Timely Messages

To avoid overwhelming or irritating your subscribers, ask yourself these questions:

Do you generally see a substantial number of unsubscribes after you send a message to your subscribers?
Has your deliverability rate been falling?
Are your social media messages (i.e., tweets and Facebook status updates) being heard? When you ask an open-ended question, do fans and followers actually reply?

3. Personalize Your Interactions

Be better than just relevant—be personal. Consider these questions and how they relate to your personalized customer interactions:

Does your social media manager have regular, personal interactions with your social media fans and followers?
Does each person who asks a question on social media or via email receive a personalized reply? What about those who have a complaint, like a delayed flight or a cruise calcellation?
Are you constantly collecting new data about your customers?

4. Automate the Travel Customer Lifecycle

Are you taking advantage of these opportunities to keep in touch with your travelers? Ask yourself:

Do travelers receive automated communications according to their travel preferences at every stage of their buying cycle?
Would a prospective customer receive any retargeted messages from you about the hotel packages or travel destinations they were browsing, or would your brand fall off their radar screen when they leave your site?
Do you have a shopping cart abandonment strategy? (Follow-up question: Is it effective?)

5. Increase Customer Loyalty

Evaluate your current customer loyalty status with these questions:

Are you currently rewarding return customers with airline points, free hotel stays, or another perk relevant to your industry?
If so, are you giving away these perks often? (If not, it’s an indicator that your customer loyalty is declining.)
Do social media comments often start with, “I’m a longtime fan/customer of [your brand name here]…”?

The complete report, Reaching Today's Digital Traveler, contains lots more information that travel marketers can't afford to miss! Check it out now.

Stop Selling, Start Serving: Marketing According to @JebBanner

Heike Baird — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing guest articles from experts in the realm of content marketing. This week, Jeb Banner writes.

Jeb is CEO of SmallBox, an Indianapolis web design and marketing company. He is also a co-founder of the Speak Easy, a local co-working space. He is happily married to his wife, Jenny, and they have three amazing daughters.

I attended a local tech panel recently and was starting to space out when ExactTarget's CMO Tim Kopp said something that caught my attention: "Serving is the new selling." It reminded me of something my buddy Kevin Bailey from Slingshot said recently--that modern marketing comes down to one simple sentence: "How may we help you?"

In recent weeks, I have been unpacking these two statements, accepting them as fundamentally true, and considering what they mean for web marketers. So...

How do we create content and experiences that truly serve prospective customers?

Too often, as marketers, we get stuck in yelling mode. We bombard our prospects with low-grade content, tossing every type of bait we can find into the water until someone bites. Once we get a lead (usually only 1-5% of the "fish" going by) we then segment and bombard them yet again with more content until they finally relent and buy something from us or unsubscribe/unfollow in a fit of fatigue.

Most marketers do not have a servant mindset. Service is something that is left to the account managers and customer reps. Marketers focus on hunting, finding a handful of ideal prospects, putting them in the funnel, and moving on. So what's the problem with that?

Consider this: what if hundreds or even thousands of people walked into your office lobby, read your literature, stood there looking lost, and then turned around and walked out without asking a question. How would you respond to this? You would freak out, right? You would put people in the lobby to greet the visitors and make sure they were being helped. But this happens all day, every day, on most company websites. Out of sight, out of mind.

Here's the problem: we don't see our website visitors as real people until they "convert." This needs to change. We must move from selling to serving. From shouting to listening. To do this our content must be curious, not boastful, in nature. It must go from "We're great" to "How may we help you?"

We also need to infuse our digital experiences with real people from our organization. Every employee, as much as possible, should be empowered as a brand ambassador. Real people serving real people. Not just a website that wins and converts traffic. We must make our digital lobbies as real as possible.

I propose that we rethink how we design, build, and maintain our websites. Fresh, dynamic content is no longer enough. Winning search and social only gets us eyeballs, and we need to win hearts. We must start putting real people from our organizations in our digital lobbies to greet the real people visiting them. Service remains one of the few things human beings can do better than computers. Computers can capture and parse information, complete a transaction, display content, and so on, but they aren't very good (yet) at serving. (Just spend an hour with Siri if you need convincing.) We must leverage our human capital to create a full-service experience for all that come our way. So how do we do this?

Perhaps a business could assign each website visitor a "sherpa" from their organization, someone to guide and educate, to serve. The sherpa would be available to live chat, take a call, answer an email, direct message via Twitter, and serve in other functions as needed. They would be encouraged to engage in any way the visitor wants to engage. Organizations could have dozens or even hundreds of these sherpas, give them training on the tools, and then trust them with representing the brand. This would change how the employees think of the work they do, making the impact of their work much more tangible. It would also greatly increase opportunities for that business, yielding more chances to serve.

This scenario presents us with tech and HR challenges. Scaling will be a real challenge. But I believe that those who commit to creating these types of experiences will have the chance to serve a slew of new customers.

Do you agree? Should marketing begin with serving? Should we see sales as a byproduct of that service?

A New Way To Drive More Traffic To Facebook Tabs (For Free)

Jeff Cunning — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Andrea Vahl (@AndreaVahl) wrote a great blog post about How Your Business Can Use the New Facebook Cover Photos. While she goes into much more depth, the two primary items to keep in mind are 1) cover photos may not include more than 20% text, and 2) cover photos are no longer disallowed to incorporate calls to action, websites, or address information.

Marketers should definitely keep #1 in mind to ensure they don’t go through official Facebook reviews like I mentioned in my last blog post. Meanwhile, #2 provides some great new opportunities in taking advantage of your Facebook presence. Even though the “Default Landing Tab” feature has been gone for quite some time, the new freedoms in the cover photo allow marketers to call out promotions, request new"Likes", and encourage users to click on custom tabs.

Andrea cites some great examples in her blog post of companies driving traffic to tabs with Qlixite and Inbound Zombie. How will you take advantage of these new changes?

Design Tips: How Wireframing Can Help Your Email and Web Designs

Lindsay Siovaila — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:15:00 +0000

Wireframing is one of those mysterious steps of a web or email design project that can be tempting to skip. After all, once the site map and general architecture is established, everyone is eager to see those first beautiful mockups of the homepage complete with amazing photography, perfectly kerned typography and glossy buttons.

However, taking the time to wireframe before jumping headfirst into Photoshop and mockups can spare everyone headaches down the road. Hereare a few reasons why:

Wireframing serves as a communication tool early in the design process
Developing a full mockup of an entire website, let alone a single email, takes time and isn't something that can be turned around in an hour. When you have ideas to sell to clients and stakeholders in the company, you need a quick way to communicate your thoughts that's easier to understand than trying to explain it verbally. Wireframing serves as that communication tool when you're in the beginning stages of a project and need to pass something around to managers, clients, and fellow coworkers in the company to get buy-in.

Wireframing forces you to think about content
The line between content and design blurs when you jump straight into mockups. Wireframing strips all of the subjective things out of the site and forces you to think about content, plain and simple. Besides, you can't have a great design without some sort of idea about content anyway, so why not start by thinking about content first?

Wireframing is a great time to think about content hierarchy, navigation, menus, and the main focus of the page you're building. It's also the perfect opportunity to map out your calls-to-action and determine if the flow of the page leads you to them. Without drop shadows or patterned backgrounds to fuss over, the only thing left to discuss is whether or not the content on the page makes sense.

Wireframing makes iterating on the layout easier
While wireframing adds some extra work up front, it can save loads of time down the road. Since wireframes take relatively little time to create compared to high-fidelity mockups, it is less painful to iterate and move things around if there are changes to content and structure. Tweaking and experimenting is faster and easier with wireframes and makes on-the-fly iterations possible during team meetings or discussions with clients. When you're developing a responsive layout, wireframes can also help you think about breakpoints or how things will move as the screen size changes.

So, why not try wireframing the next time an exciting web project rolls around? Here's some examples of wireframes I have created in the past. You'll notice that some of these are more complex than others. You will have to decide how complex you want your wireframes to be, but the important thing to remember is that a wireframe is not a design mockup, so it's okay if your wireframes aren't pixel-perfect:

An early wireframe for ExactTarget.com's homepage. I chose to add some colors here and there in this particular wireframe.

A wireframe for an ExactTarget microsite:

Some email design wireframes for various campaigns:

Need some tools to get started? I suggest simple pen and paper for starters, but Illustrator can also be a great tool for wireframing. There's also wireframing programs available such as Balsamiq and OmniGraffle, for starters.