Marketing Insights

I’ve been hearing a familiar refrain lately from the marketers that I work with: “My email response rates have been dropping.” If you’re singing that same tune, I have a some helpful ideas for you that I’ll be sharing over the next few weeks. Our first one: Do You See Dead People?

If your marketing database is more than one week old, you definitely have contacts that are no longer valid. In 2005 (ages ago!) Marketing Sherpa produced a chart that showed that database health declines by twenty-five percent each year. So if you started last year with 100,000 contacts, only 75,000 of those are still valid. Ouch. As those email addresses die off, they become dead weight in your marketing metrics. If your response rates have been slowly dropping over time, it is most likely a correlation to the natural aging of your database.

How can you address this? Split up your database! Ideally your marketing automation system should be able to help you understand who has been active in the last six months or so, and who hasn’t visited the website or opened an email during that time (inactive). Create two groups and send your next big email blast, such as a newsletter, to each group separately. Chances are that your response rates with the active group are still doing fine.

Now you have to get firm with that inactive group. Try a two touch re-engagement campaign specifically targeting those folks and for those that don’t re-engage, quarantine them in your database and stop sending to them. I know, I know… I can hear you freaking out right now. But trust me, you’re not really losing anything. In my next post on this topic we’ll talk about why these dead people are not just dragging down your response rates, they’re also hurting your deliverability reputation. Stay tuned….

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Thanks to Joel Rothman for today’s tool: Paint.net. He summed it up nicely when he said, “It’s free and it’s awesome.”  If you’re tired of the limitations of the clunky Paint program that comes with Windows, but you don’t have the budget for Photoshop, this is a great alternative. It has the concept of Layers (pioneered by Photoshop), unlimited Undo, and some built-in special effects (such as drop shadows). And did we mention that it’s free and awesome?

Do you have a software tool that you just can’t live without?
Tell me about it: heather dot foeh at eloqua dot com.

Today’s Marketing Master is Christie Flanagan. Christie is the Manager of Marketing Programs and Operations at Fatwire.

How/why did you get into marketing?
While interning as an editorial assistant for a magazine during college, I found myself more and more interested in how the publication actually brought in new business. After all, you need to sell a page of advertising to justify having a page of editorial in the first place.

What campaign have you seen recently, that really blew you away?
The story of TOMS Shoes is pretty interesting. You have a small maker of casual shoes with a marketing strategy that hinges on generating publicity and building communities around their unusual business model – for every pair of shoes they sell, another pair is donated to a needy child. This approach has garnered a strong following among celebrities and ordinary consumers who are attracted to both the shoes’ laid back style and the company’s “conscious capitalism.” As the company’s sales have increased, so have their charitable efforts, which in turn broadens the appeal and reach of TOMS’ message even more.

What’s interesting in marketing right now?
Never before have marketers had so many tools at their disposal for executing increasingly targeted and personalized campaigns. And while buyers certainly benefit from more relevant marketing, I’ve recently been reminded through both personal and professional experience, that there is a point where a marketing message is so relevant that the recipients can’t help but be aware that they’ve been targeted because of their online behavior. This is not always a comfortable feeling. It will be interesting to see how marketers best leverage this wealth of knowledge in ways that facilitate sales and are truly helpful to potential buyers without raising privacy concerns.

What enewsletters, websites or blogs do you regularly read/visit to get ideas and inspiration?
I subscribe to a lot of RSS feeds. Some of my favorite feeds are the B2B Lead Generation Blog for practical marketing tips, Freakonomics Blog for questioning the conventionally held wisdom of just about any topic and Psychology Today for really interesting insights into human behavior.

If you were a font, which font would you be?
I don’t know. Haven’t taken the Facebook quiz. At work, I am Calibri by default.

Please share a nugget of your marketing wisdom for our readers.
At essence, a marketer’s responsibility is to facilitate the acquisition of profitable business for the company. Marketers who do this successfully will earn the respect of sales, finance and the C-Suite.

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In this short video, Laura Cross shares quick tips to ensure your email does not get ignored. Watch it now!

Click to watch now! (2 min)

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Today we’re featuring Teresa Almaraz as our Marketing Master. Teresa is the Channel Marketing Manager at Bella Pictures.

How/why did you get into marketing?
I got into marketing when I was a senior in college. I was a supervisor at the student store and I was in charge of marketing and promotions for school supplies. I had direct access to my customers, since I was on the sales floor the majority of the time, and could tell right away whether a promotion was successful or not.

What campaign have you seen recently, that really blew you away?
I am always impressed by the zipcar.com campaigns. They are great at executing integrated marketing campaigns across social networks, emails, and transit stations. Their sidewalk marketing campaigns are genius.

What’s interesting in marketing right now?
I have seen some cool integration stuff between social media and CRM systems. Having the ability to centrally manage social media platforms and measure marketing campaign activity for social networks is really powerful. I am excited to learn more about it.

What enewsletters, websites or blogs do you regularly read/visit to get ideas and inspiration?
I read ClickZ Experts on a regular basis. They always have great articles about email marketing optimization and also news about the industry. Digital Body Language is a great blog for Eloqua tips and ideas. I use Eloqua on a regular basis, so I am always looking to see how others use the system. I also just discovered Linked in Groups which are great for collaborative discussions.

If you were a font, which font would you be?
I would have to say Verdana. It’s a simple typeface that is very readable on computer screens. As a marketer, I know how important it is to get your message across in emails and websites; a legible font is key!

Please share with us a nugget of your marketing wisdom for our readers.
When starting a new promotion or a new marketing campaign, send it out to colleagues or friends and ask them to explain it back to you. It’s easy to get caught up in creative brilliance, and you may be missing the simple point of who you are and why customers should buy from you.

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Today’s tool is PDFCreator and it was recommended by my colleague Adrian Azcurra. This is helpful tool if you don’t have access to the full version of Adobe Acrobat for creating PDFs. You can use it from any program that has a Print function because PDFcreator installs like another printer on your computer. It can also combine multiple files into one PDF, which has come in handy for me several times when producing my expense report. Enjoy!

Do you have a tool that you just can’t live without? Tell me about it: heather dot foeh at eloqua dot com

Anyone who can leverage a hair band as part of their marketing campaign has to be interesting, right? Next up on our roster…

Kris Shorter: Marketing Manager at Roche Diagnostics

How did you get where you are today?

4 Words – Path of Least Resistance

What’s interesting in marketing for your space right now?

The entire Life Science Research Community is trying extremely hard to capture as much of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds coming from the NIH as possible. Companies and institutions that do a superb job of this will have a giant advantage over their competition.

How do you get good ideas and inspiration?

I constantly ask myself, “What would Jack Bauer do?”.

What campaign have you seen recently that really blew you away?

Samsung LED TV Series campaign.  Samsung’s recent television ad portraying a digital  humming bird is extremely interesting from a creative and visual standpoint.  I also think their messaging does a nice job of trying to distinguish themselves from the competition.  When you visit their website, they maintain the same look and feel of the ad and have a very cool and dynamic product selection guide.

The Clip

The Web Site

If you were a font, which font would you be?

Chiller.  Because it sounds cool.

Please share with us a nugget of your marketing wisdom for our readers.

It is very important to understand and be able to stratify your current customer base – as well as the prospects that you are either not working with or do very little business with.  I always try to develop a contact strategy based on these segments and then allocate a higher percentage of budget towards the top prospects and less towards prospects with low potential.  For instance, a high-end direct mail campaign with telemarketing follow-up may be utilized for top prospects and a simple nurturing email campaign may suffice for those prospects with low potential.

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I haven’t met Aaron in person. Although I hope to soon as we both do live in the fine city of Austin, TX. I have always been impressed with the quality of content that his marketing team at Powered delivers to its audience.

I also have been following Aaron on Twitter for some time and have really enjoyed his insights and blog posts.  So well, in fact, I am blatantly stealing his idea with this Marketing Masters series. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and so I see it only fitting that Aaron is featured first on our humble imitation.

Aaron Strout: CMO at Powered Inc.

How did you get where you are today?

Well, for an old guy like me, that’s a “bigger than a breadbox” type question. But in fairness to your project, I’ll give it a shot. It all started with waiting tables and bartending. That’s where I learned a TON about customer service and multitasking. I taught myself what I know about the Web back in the early 90’s (which had roots back to my dad’s computer programming career in the 70’s and 80’s). Fidelity Investments taught me nearly everything I know about marketing. And then in the early 2000’s, I took the people skills I acquired from aforementioned waitering/bartending jobs and started down the online “social” path with LinkedIn and Facebook. Oh, and then along came Francois Gossieaux who taught me a ton about marketing 2.0. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention Barry Libert, my last boss, who taught me how to properly channel my thought leadership skills.

What’s interesting in marketing for your space right now?

The intersection of “social” and “marketing.” There are two keys to this phenomena… a) great content and b) measurement and insight. Social marketing in my mind is the future of business.

How do you get good ideas and inspiration?

From a number of different traditional and new media-esque sources like NPR, marketing blogs and Twitter. Most importantly though, getting together with friends like Dave Evans, Kyle Flaherty, Bryan Person, Peter Kim, David Armano, Jim Storer and Tim Walker – along with my super smart colleagues at Powered – helps me distill these new ideas into “implement-able” tactics.

What campaign have you seen recently that really blew you away?

Hmmm, I’m not sure there’s anything that’s blown me away. However, I’m a big fan of what smart CMO’s like Jeffrey Hayzlett of Kodak and Barry Judge of Best Buy are doing. Those guys are good people to watch.

If you were a font, which font would you be?

As boring as it sounds (love the question though), probably Calibri. It’s simple, clean but easy to read. I always try and keep things simple and make any of my recommendations to others prescriptive.

Please share with us a nugget of your marketing wisdom for our readers.

I’m a huge believer in Karma. To me, that means that I try and do nice things and be respectful of anyone and everyone, irrespective of what they might offer back to me. What I’ve found is that in the grand scheme of things, this always pays back in spades. It also makes people happy and grateful which are nice traits to see in people. I also am a big fan of work/life balance although I’m not always as good at practicing it as I would like.

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[Photo Credit: Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com and bub.blicio.us]

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the interview responses from Aaron Strout’s experiment this year – Experts In the Industry: 45 Interviews in 45 Days. While his focus was on those predominantly involved in “online community, social media or social marketing” – I thought it would be great to extend this concept to those professionals that focus more on demand generation and accelerating demand into revenue.

I have found networking with other marketing and demand generation professionals one of the best sources of ideas over the years. And, in the age of slashed travel budgets – figured Aaron has provided us with a great format to translate this experience online. I am going to call our series – Marketing Masters: An exchange of ideas and inspiration for the progressive marketer.

So, the questions for our series include:

(1) How did you get where you are today?

(2) What’s interesting in marketing for your space right now?

(3) How do you get good ideas and inspiration?

(4) What campaign have you seen recently that really blew you away?

(5) If you were a font, which font would you be?

(6) Please share with us a nugget of your marketing wisdom for our readers.

I will keep this page updated with a complete list of responders as they come in and we post the responses. Of course, it is only fitting that we feature Aaron as our first Marketing Master.

Happy Networking!

1. Aaron Strout: CMO at Powered, Inc.
2. Kris Shorter: Marketing Manager at Roche Diagnostics
3. Teresa Almaraz: Channel Marketing Manager at Bella Pictures
4. Christie Flanagan: Manager of Marketing Programs and Operations at Fatwire
5. Barbara Ware: Director of Marketing at BravePoint
6. Rebecca Hagen: Director of Marketing at Lumeta
7. Larry Stein: Director of Marketing at KACE

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[Photo credit: Chad Baker/Ryan McVay via Getty Images]

When I polled my colleagues for their recommendations on productivity tools, Snagit was on everyone’s list and it’s definitely at the top of mine. I use Snagit approximately 8,456 times per day on average (okay, maybe not quite that many…) and I find it indispensible.

What is it? It’s screen captures on steroids. You can highlight areas of your screen, combine two captures into one, make notes with the text tool, and much more. The new version 9 also has excellent image tagging and library functionality which have been a lifesaver for me.

As marketers, much of our work life is visual and Snagit makes it easy for me to share those images easily with my clients and coworkers.

BONUS: I encourage you to sign up for the free 30-day trial of Snagit because they have a masterful follow-up campaign. On the confirmation page for the download (right here) they only ask for one piece of info: email address. Then over the course of 30 days you learn how to use many features of the software through their drip campaign. There are some great lessons here for marketers!

Do you have a productivity tool that you can’t live without? Tell me about it: heather dot foeh at eloqua dot com.