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4 Ways To Energize Your Email Marketing Campaigns

December 16, 2010 by Antarctica Digital

There is a lot more to an email marketing initiative than one would first think. Keep in mind the following the next time you integrate email into your sales and marketing mix:

  • Be sure of your target demographic. Selling to the right person will inevitably increase the chances of a future conversion.
  • Think of creative ways to engage with your audience. Consider a unique contest or promotion to grab the attention of your prospect.
  • Don’t ignore your other marketing channels. Make sure to include your messaging in all of your other initiatives that are focused on generating inbound leads. For example, your ads should be in sync with what you are doing now.
  • Have fun! Your audience knows when you are not being sincere. Provide them with something of interest. Make it happen!

Consider expanding your current marketing strategy to include permission-based email marketing because it is simply more targeted and cost-effective.

Happy Marketing!

Social Media Initiative managed by captivate | social

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Email Marketing Budgets Increasing in 2010

December 29, 2009 by Antarctica Digital

Did you know that 87% of marketers are planning to maintain or increase their email marketing budget next year?  In a recent survey by Silverpop, many goals were identified by email marketers:

  • 52% are looking to increase customer loyalty
  • 51% want to drive incremental revenue
  • 84% plan to integrate social media
  • 37% see deliverability and inbox clutter as a big challenge
  • 38% plan to integrate SMS

How are your 2010 goals shaping up?  What were you looking to do last year but didn’t have the budget or resources to accomplish?  Could you achieve them if you were able to automate the grunt work behind developing solid email-based campaigns?  Or are you hindered by the lengthy manual work that’s involved with deploying new campaigns?  Click here to find out more about automating your email marketing.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Top 10 Signs Marketing is Running Halloween

October 28, 2009 by Blake Kadatz

10. You see 10 kids go down the left side of the street, 10 kids down the right side of the street, then all the other kids go down the best performing side.

9. If you’re not home on Halloween, you’re automatically revisited 24 hours later.

8. Before saying “Trick or Treat!” kids ask if you’d like to take a survey at the conclusion of their visit.

7. Houses with really long driveways/walkways are skipped due to poor ROI.

6. You find your house is ranked and scored based on your candy budget.

5. Kids wearing bizarre combinations of face masks, capes, pants, and tops indicates that multivariate testing is being used to find the best costume.

4. You find a sign on your lawn that says “Johnny and 23 other kids liked the candy at this house”.

3. An inflatable fail whale is left at houses that don’t give out candy.

2. Kids use a fishbowl to collect candy.

And the #1 sign marketing is running Halloween:

1. You discover your house has its own hashtag on Twitter.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

Internet Marketing Conference Vancouver 2009

October 5, 2009 by Antarctica Digital

It’s hard to believe it’s been only two weeks since the Internet Marketing Conference!  I hope you had a great time and were able to pick up lots of great tips for improving your own company’s marketing strategy.

In the spirit of improving your marketing, here are some tips that our team thought were quite interesting.  As we kick off the last quarter of 2009, I hope you find these useful:

  • Make sure your marketing doesn’t suck
    Avinash Kaushik’s keynote speech was universally enjoyed and provided an often amusing look at how online marketing can sometimes suck and what to do about it.  Avinash talked about usability, navigation, and pay-per-click that actually works!  Make sure you’re tackling the fundamentals before going too deep.  Even the big companies fail in this.  More information on Avinash’s blog at http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/
  • Which way works best?  Form a hypothesis!
    This was touched on several times by various presenters including Avinash Kaushik and Widerfunnel.  Sometimes it’s the least obvious solutions that work the best.  Form a hypothesis stating how a change you want to make will result in an improvement, then run tests to see if you’re right.
  • Leverage social media
    Focus on providing value to your audience.  By helping others succeed first, the relationships that you build today will yield results for you tomorrow.  This is an obvious extension of the adage “you reap what you sow”, but is often overlooked by many people jumping into social media.  When you leverage social media, make sure you do it in a way that embraces the community you participate in.  Antarctica has a free guide on engaging via social media: http://bit.ly/1wjVWv
  • Marketing to women
    When interacting with women through your website, in social media, or through other marketing, make sure you incorporate female communication style.  While both genders have many commonalities, it’s the subtle differences that can have a profound impact on effectiveness.  More information on Holly Buchanan’s blog: http://marketingtowomenonline.typepad.com/
  • Real-time search: it’s here to stay
    Your current SEO tactics aren’t going away, but you’ll need to adjust those tactics to also include more places users will find you and the topics you market.  What’s your Twitter search strategy?  How often do you appear for a given hashtag?  Is it too much or too little?  More information at: http://bit.ly/F7ej1
  • Friends & followers?  That’s not relevant anymore
    Today, the measure of authority in social media isn’t how many people read what you write, but how often what you write gets shared.  Deliver value first and foremost and others will retweet, reshare, and repost your content.  How’s your influence?  http://www.viralogy.com/
  • Watch TED videos!
    Many commented how they love watching these videos for inspiration.  TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design… but it has expanded beyond these roots and introduces interesting topics from the thinkers and doers in the world.  I’m sure you’ll be inspired too: http://www.ted.com/
  • Plan your campaign execution
    Nothing derails a great online campaign like poor planning and execution.  Make sure your online campaigns include engaging elements designed to bring people back, refer their friends, and meets the organization’s objectives.  As Avinash might say… make sure your campaigns don’t suck!

Did you learn any other valuable tidbits you’d like to share?  Leave a comment below!  We’ve also posted some pictures of the event on our Facebook page.  All the best in your marketing efforts!

Posted in marketing, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The modern talking pad

August 31, 2009 by Blake Kadatz

Seth Godin discusses an interesting shift from an “I talk, you listen” presentation to an interactive working session through the use of what he dubs a modern talking pad.  The nutshell is that you take an existing presentation you have, remove some information from each slide, then print it out on a yellow legal pad, and have it bound.  When you present to your prospect, you go through each slide — and here’s the key point — and fill in the information in front of them, interactively.

So if you have a slide that talks about how much money your product will make or save your prospective client, don’t show them an already-made slide with that information pre-populated.  Rather, work out the numbers with them right in front of their eyes.  Then when you’re done presenting, instead of leaving behind a boring pre-printed presentation, you can leave behind the workbook.  Having worked over the numbers with you and having seen you (and them) write in the workbook, it transforms from being a sales brochure into a snapshot of their personal experience.

Next time you’re presenting to a single person or a very small group, give it a try.  Then let me know how it went for you.

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Your email investment strategy

August 25, 2009 by Blake Kadatz

If you were looking for financial advice, would you go to a professional who recommends the exact same investment strategy to every client?  Of course not!  Your situation isn’t the same as everybody else.  When it comes to investing, what may be appropriate for a single 22 year old may not be appropriate for a couple who are saving up for when their four kids go off to college in ten years.  The right message for each person depends on their unique situation.

The same is true when you’re nurturing your prospects through email.  The email you send out to the CEO of an automotive company should be different than one you send out to the Sales Manager at a technology company.  They are in different industries and have different roles, and you need to align your communications to their way of thinking.  Similarly, if a prospect has never been on your website, target them with a different message than a prospect who has been on your website a dozen times last week.  Take a longer-term nurture approach with the former and ensure the prospects who frequent your site receive content relevant to them.

Automating a nurture program is the first step toward putting your marketing on intelligent autopilot.  To take it to the next level, customize the message so that the content and timing of your communications is personal and relevant to them.

Posted in email, marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

PPC Revenue Tracking

July 16, 2009 by Chris O'Neill

I’ve been speaking with a number of customers recently about PPC campaigns and how to measure actual sales revenue generated. They tell me either there’s no tracking of individual search keywords or they’re unable to attribute which paid ads resulted in closed sales.

Many companies will use tools like Google Analytics togather aggregate traffic numbers, which certainly have value in optimizing the website. However, this falls short of what needs to be tracked in order to have actionable reporting on PPC campaigns.

Simply measuring which keywords or ads drive more traffic to a website only gives you part of the picture. The most popular ones could generate a significant amount of traffic, but no new customers. Less popular keywords may bring less traffic, but perhaps better quality leads that actually convert. The only way to know is to measure individual prospects from search keyword through to closed sale.

Here are some tips on getting started with this approach.

  1. Identify which keywords or ads brought visitors to your website. This can be done by adding tracking tags in the link or creating a separate landing page for each.
  2. Follow individual user behaviour through your site, while still retaining which advertisement or keyword brought them there.
  3. As visitors to your website convert into customers you should review the PPC performance to see which keywords or ads are providing the most business.
  4. For website visitors that don’t convert, behavioural tracking will indicate which users show buying signals based on what they do on your site. This will allow you to pass hot leads to Sales and allow Marketing to specifically nurture the rest.

This kind of solution has been a hot item lately, especially for B2B marketing and B2C with larger ticket items such as real estate or travel. After working with clients in various industries to implement click-to-close tracking, I’m convinced more than ever that it’s time for companies to evolve beyond standard analytics and take the next step in better informing Marketing and Sales of measurable and proven revenue drivers.

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Chris O’Neill is the Business Development Manager at antarctica|DIGITAL. He works with marketers and agencies to develop successful B2B and B2C campaigns that engage people online. You can contact Chris by clicking here.

Posted in marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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