Develop original contentMake sure you show value to your customers by providing original, useful, or at least fun and entertaining content via your feed(s).  Sales announcements, store openings, new items, causes supported, service outings and restorations - all of these... More

Develop original content
Make sure you show value to your customers by providing original, useful, or at least fun and entertaining content via your feed(s).  Sales announcements, store openings, new items, causes supported, service outings and restorations - all of these are great, proactive ways to communicate with your followers.  Remember to be brief (obey the 140 character limit!) but not too brief.  Leave the "gr8" abbreviations for SMS whenever possible.
 
Include links to relevant content
140 characters isn't much space to work with, but you can and should include relevant links to website content in your Tweets. To save space you can shorten URLS and track clicks for free using services like bit.ly
 
Track response
Twitter response tracking is limited, but you do have some important success metrics you can monitor.
 
Yesmail Enterprise will help you track:

• What you tweeted
• When you tweeted
• How many were following you when you tweeted

Additionally, you can track:

• Follower trends - are the number of followers increasing with your marketing efforts? Increases and decreases in follower trends can also be tied to engagement and relevancy of your content.
• Clicks - how many clicks are you getting on the links in your Tweets? How many clicks do you get on email content promoting Twitter?
• Conversion - if you have revenue tracking codes as part of your URLs you can track website visits and revenue generated by your Tweets.

With patience, perseverance, and an open mind, you can make Twitter a core component of your marketing strategy and improve the results of your email initiatives as well.

Catch up on Part 1 to learn more about how Yesmail Enterprise allows you to centralize the management of a single marketing campaign across many channels. Less

This week we announced our new Twitter Campaign Management feature available in Yesmail Enterprise. This is exciting news for marketers, because now you can save time by centralizing the management, coordination, and analysis of a single marketing campaign across many... More

This week we announced our new Twitter Campaign Management feature available in Yesmail Enterprise. This is exciting news for marketers, because now you can save time by centralizing the management, coordination, and analysis of a single marketing campaign across many channels (email + social + mobile) within one tool.

It only takes three simple steps to execute your Twitter campaigns in Enterprise:

1. You set up your account
2. Create your content (up to 140 characters)
3. Schedule and send

Not sure where to get started? Twitter crosses many of the boundaries of social, email, and SMS and requires its own approach to be truly successful.  Here are some best practices to keep in mind as you develop your Twitter marketing strategy.

Promote Twitter in your emails and on your website
Make sure your customers know how to find you and what benefits they will get from following you on Twitter. Will you send special discounts or give them early notice of new products or sales? Will you keep your followers updated on the latest events?

Dick's Sporting Goods sent their email subscribers an invitation to follow them on Twitter with a nice Free Shipping incentive.  The message did a good job creating visibility and outlining the benefits for followers.

Integrate Twitter with your email program
Twitter can be used to announce special sales and promotions, or to create viral buzz for new marketing campaigns. With Twitter Campaign Management you can schedule tweets as teasers or chasers for email campaigns, or send out special "twitter only" deals. Your  Twitter strategy should complement your other marketing channels, not be a stand alone.

Buy.com's Tweet 'n Seek campaign is a great example of a multi-channel strategy.  They promoted a "social scavenger hunt' via email and website banners. Clues were tweeted to followers, and then the community posted their answers on Buy.com's Facebook page.

One Twitter feed may not be enough
If you have a large company, several customer-facing departments, or varied products or services, you may need more than one Twitter feed.  Don't try to cram several disparate message streams into one account if you don't have to; create individual feeds for specific topics or customers to drive more value to the end user. For example, you could set up one Twitter feed for Customer Service, and a second Twitter feed for Marketing.

Stay tuned next week for Part 2 and learn about developing original content, including relevant links, and using Yesmail Enterprise to track responses.
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Last week I participated in a webinar with HiveFire sponsored by Online Marketing Connect. Our topic for discussion: Integrated Marketing & Communication. I specifically spoke about integrating email and social marketing to deliver on your marketing goals. Thanks to everyone who joined us! More

By Julie Valenti

Last week I participated in a webinar with HiveFire sponsored by Online Marketing Connect. Our topic for discussion: Integrated Marketing & Communication. I specifically spoke about integrating email and social marketing to deliver on your marketing goals. Thanks to everyone who joined us!

We had nearly 500 registrants and when polled, most folks indicated they hadn't started integrating social into their marketing mix and/or were in the planning stages. This is not surprising. As the channel solutions are shifting and evolving quickly, we're all trying to get a handle on how to harness it's power to help achieve our marketing goals. I mentioned the recent study by ForeSee Results, in which only 25% of the top 100 online retailers have a formal Facebook presence and of those, 25% have less than 10k fans. This is despite the fact that there are 400M+ Facebook users and more than half of all online shoppers use Facebook. So, if you feel behind, don't. But that said, it's time to get going!

I broke the discussion into three components: 1) Weaving social media tactics into your email marketing programs, 2) Feeding your email marketing programs via smart social initiatives and 3) Mapping your integrated digital communications plan. There were lots of good questions, and some we couldn't get to so I've provided some additional information here.

1. Social Media Policy - I recommended drafting a social policy so that the social media experts across your organization are on the same page and you can encourage employees to retweet and promote company happenings. Here's Coca Cola's 3-page social media policy (via viralblog). Andy Sernovitz, a personal favorite of mine, interviewed Adam Brown, head of Social Media at Coca Cola and imparts his own wisdom on SM policies.
   
   
2. Resources for Social Media - we discussed budgetary and resource restrictions when developing social strategies; most often, I'm talking with managers already responsible for email or online media, and social/mobile tactics are simply added responsibility (for now). Our research shows less than 10% of companies have dedicated staff. We see maybe 250 community managers employed today. Our strategic partner, R2i advises to be successful, you need a community manager who can handle online PR situations. Per Page Sands at R2i, "this field will remain small until there is a clear tie between community building/management and ROI." He further add that to build the business case for community, connect the role to the following:
   • Increase in Web traffic (page views, referrals, etc)
   • Reduced lead-to-conversion time
   • Increased distribution of your value prop
   • Higher quality, customer centric products, that get released faster
     
     
3. Targeting high-income, luxury via social - Jetsetter and Gilt Groupe are two examples of how luxury companies have used web, email, social and mobile to target luxury goods to the higher-income bracket. They use Facebook and mobile friendly apps/sites to target customers. Further Gilt Groupe offers a $25 credit for references and accepts members by invitation only (though anyone can obtain an invitation); they have taken the viral component to the next level, all while keeping their product line exclusive. Both heavily use email to target new deals, offering unique daily discounts on high-end goods.

NOTE: for the few of you finding proven success with your integrated digital strategies, I'd love to hear from you! The social mindset is all about sharing and I'd love to swap stories over a virtual beer.

If you'd like to learn more, contact me at interactive@yesmail.com and join the Online Marketing Summit's upcoming conference later this month.

PS - I'm working on a separate post regarding B2B companies and their approach to including social media in their digital communications. Check back soon!
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We are proud to announce that we have won the Gold Marketing Sherpa Award for Best Dynamic Content or Personalized Email for the Microsoft Enhanced Hotmail and Messenger Launch. Background: Microsoft recently launched enhanced mobile versions of its Windows Live... More

We are proud to announce that we have won the Gold Marketing Sherpa Award for Best Dynamic Content or Personalized Email for the Microsoft Enhanced Hotmail and Messenger Launch.
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We are proud to announce that we have won the Silver Marketing Shepa Award for Best Opt-In or List Growth Message (B2C) for the My Coke Rewards Community Invite. Every quarter, My Coke Rewards reaches out to a select few... More

We are proud to announce that we have won the Silver Marketing Shepa Award for Best Opt-In or List Growth Message (B2C) for the My Coke Rewards Community Invite.

Every quarter, My Coke Rewards reaches out to a select few of its members to join the My Coke Rewards community.  Community members have a chance to regularly share ideas, opinions, and other feedback with the My Coke Rewards team to make the program better for all members.  As noted in the email, "community members' feedback this year helped give mycokerewards.com a bold new design that's faster to use and easier to get around," among other great ideas and recommendations.

Other recent creative awards and recognitions include:

• 2009 Creative Media Awards - Best Email: Hewlett-Packard's "HP Monster Sale"; Finalist Coca-Cola / Vault Double Points
• 2009 Internet Advertising Competition Award - Best Computer Retailer Email message: "HP Mini 1000 campaign"
• 2009 Ad: Tech Awards Finalists - HP Mini 1000: The Perfect Mobile Companion & HP Voodoo Monthly Newsletter

Congratulations to our Creative Services team! They continue to deliver break-out email design that drives engagement and delivers results.

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