Even if an average email user stopped sending any messages, they'd still get inbound messages from their healthcare providers, retailers, entertainment companies, and any other business they are a customer of or expressed an interest in. How did we get here and where is the industry going?
It all starts with Gary Thuerk. He was a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp. tasked with promoting the company's new T-series of VAX systems in 1978. With hundreds of interested customers, Thuerk had to devise a way to communicate to all of them at the same time. The birth of spam In 1976, the same year Apple Computer was founded, DEC decided to extend the PDP-11 architecture to 32 bits with an addition of a complete virtual memory system. The result was the VAX architecture, or Virtual Address eXtension. The first computer to use this computation architecture was VAX-11/780, referred to by DEC as a “superminicomputer.” The company's newest model of this superminicomputer would be the T-series. Thuerk needed to figure out a method to alert the company's customers, a technology that would allow him to garner the attention of east coast and west coast consumers at the same time. Rather than write messages to each customer, the marketing manager had his assistant, Carl Gartley, type up a single email in all capital letters for an informational event about the T-series and pressed “Send” to 400 customers. The result, according to Thuerk in an interview with Computer World in 2007, was the sales of $13 million or $14 million worth of DEC machines through the email campaign. Thuerk admitted, “complaints started coming in almost immediately,” but paled in comparison to the positivity. The term “spam” would come later. (The origins of how the word spam became linked with email marketing are as muddled as the origin of email itself. Some believe the term was derived from a 1970 Monty Python skit, others are under the impression it comes from the first real time multi-person shared environment, MUDs [multi-user-dungeons]). Thuerk's decision revolutionized the functionality of email immediately and marketing strategies forever. Companies were now capable of blasting unsolicited emails and/or malware to an unqualified list of recipients. How did Hormel Foods, creator of the original SPAM food product take this? At first,not well, but have accepted the reality as long as spam is kept lowercase. The Internet Opens, Marketers Enter In 1989, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee started to create html, http and the world's very first web pages at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). The organization would go on to published a paper two years later called “The New World Wide Web Project,” which is considered many to be the “birth” of the internet. For the first time in human history, a global service existed at the fingertips of the people. Anyone was able to participate. Everyone was capable of contribution. With the advent of the first free email service, Hotmail!, in 1996, the world could communicate. And brands wanted to talk. Corporations blasted ads through emails about quicker loans, faster cars, easier diets, cheaper pills and everything in between. Best of all? It was free for a brand to send as many emails as they could. On the surface, this seems like a bug rather than a feature. Electronic mail was taking the place of physical postal mail, which required a stamp to get to the intended destination. Free email, however, is the quintessential “genie back in the bottle” problem. Though often discussed as a thought experiment, no serious proposal for an email toll hasgotten close to implementation. Perhaps the most famous email marketing campaigns in 1996 was by the software product company Xoom. In December of that year, six million internet users were sent an advertisement about the “Email Robot.” The new package of software, also known as the spam to kill all spam, was designed to block all spam emails from a user's account. The result, unfortunately for Xoom, was more recognition for the actual stunt than the product itself. Two years later, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland developed the Data Protection Act which defines the processing of data on identifiable living people. The legislation governed the protection of personal data in the UK by stating an express or opt-in consent would be required for any direct marketing communications, such data relating to ethnicity, politics or medical conditions. In the months prior to 2000, computers users and the public alike was introduced to the term Y2K. The Millennium bug, as it was also known, was an assumed computation issue associated with the last two digits in the year, whereby a variety of issues would arise from incorrect display of dates to inaccurate ordering of automated dated records. Spam emailing marketing took full advantage of the public's fear. Most notably, EarthWeb launched an email marketing campaign called the Be Prepared Sweepstakes. To celebrate the launch of Y2KInfo, a news and discussion site, the company announced it would give away a grand prize of $10,000 in gold coins. New Millennium, New Laws, New Tools The CAN-SPAM ACT was signed by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2003, in an effort to establish the country's first national standards for the sending of commercial email. It required the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce the three basic types of compliance defined in the CAN-SPAM act: unsubscribe, content and sending behavior compliance. However, no restrictions were placed toward companies emailing their existing customers. Companies realigned their emailing marketing strategies by avoiding spam triggers. Automatic email spam filtering occurs when the email includes trigger words, text in all caps, exclamation points, attachments, a disproportionate email image to text ratio, different colored fonts or a low open rate. In addition, consumers can select an email as spam. AOL created a program to deliver feedback to some email service providers in 2004. For the first time, marketers were able to see what their consumers thought of their email. The same year, Hotmail and Yahoo developed similar programs, thereby broadening the scope for marketers and their metrics. In response, a variety of internet service providers introduced a range of methods to protect customers from “unwanted” email. Windows Live Sender Reputation Data gave recipients the opportunity to decide whether an email is spam or not. Hotmail Sweep and Google's Priority Inbox, both launched in 2010, were designed to help email users de-clutter their inboxes. These programs forced companies to become more strategic in their email marketing campaigns if they wanted to get noticed. For instance, in 2015, Tory Burch began to add animation to their ads, JetBlue timed the release of ads with specific anniversaries and Amazon provided personalized deals. The result continued to make email marketing a viable tool to reach consumers. Email marketing, according to Custora E-Commerce Pulse in 2015, drove 25.1 percent of orders on Black Friday. The Future Email marketing has never been more alive. As a result, the trend appears to be email marketing campaigns geared toward hyper-personalized ads through marketing automation vendors. Hurdles remain for marketers, especially considering the clash between global commerce and national and regional data protection laws. On the horizon, the European Commission will introduce the General Data Protection Regulation in May 2018, which is intended to strengthen and unify data protection for individuals within the European Union. As history has shown, email marketing will evolve. Source: http://www.dmnews.com/email-marketing/the-evolution-of-email-marketing/article/516187/ 53% of Singaporean marketers use social media for brand communications.
As consumer behaviour and people become more connected via digital channels, social media monitoring has overtaken more traditional metrics for marketing strategy. According to TNS's Marketing Monitor study, noted that among the people who use internet, 96% use social networks, making it easy for businesses to target potential consumers. Gone are the days when businesses only rely on market share data and information from media agencies. Now, marketers use social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to monitor and evaluate their campaigns and marketing activity. "This mass adoption of social provides marketers with an array of sources when it comes to developing strategies and evaluating the effectiveness of their marketing activity. As the digital ecosystem evolves, we will continue to identify new ways to build insights," TNS Digital Director Zoë Lawrence said. While majority of marketers use social media channels for brand communications, a huge chunk also utilize the said platforms for customer service, sales channel, providing insights to inform product development, amplifying other marketing activity and mining for customer intelligence. The study also reported that social media plays a big role in e-commerce strategy, as 42% of the businesses use social media in their advertising and 32% utilize social media buy buttons. The results of the study follows the trend observed in the whole of Asia Pacific region, where 92% of wired consumers access social media. Source: http://sbr.com.sg/media-marketing/more-news/businesses-shift-gears-social-media-platform-marketing-strategy
Q. What’s one highly effective marketing tool that my smallbusiness might not be using? Their best answers are below:
By Liesha Petrovich On August 16, 2016
What business owner doesn't ask themselves the following questions about any new technology: Does my current technology do the same thing?
As marketing automation continues to grow, it's important to not to jump into buying a new service just because it's new. Dave Chaffey, from Smart Insights, says that "marketing automation is one of the biggest trends for businesses this year, following content marketing and big data." But there are too many apps, platforms, gadgets and now trends that promise to help you succeed. To take your business to the next level. As business owners, we should never buy stuff just because it has some shiny new feature. How many times have you bought a must-have product or service for your business and either lost money or never achieved the promised results? So the real question should always be: Will this help me reach my business goals? What is Marketing Automation? Marketing automation refers to software that allows businesses to set up a customized workflow for their marketing efforts. Instead of blindly sending out sales info, you can create a unique sales funnel for each potential customer based on their actions. For example, a special offer would be sent the next day (or within a few hours if you wanted) if your customer didn't open a specific email. Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/is-online-marketing-right_b_11527928 Digital transformation in marketing is simply the application of information and technology to bolster marketer's performance. The marketing technology landscape has exploded in the past 3 years, with 323 marketing tech startups fetching over $11 billion from venture capitalists in 2015 alone. The unprecedented growth in marketing technology landscape is overshadowed by the massive growth of information and business related data production and consumption. We are in the age of the customer, where everyone is mobile, social, data driven and almost always connected. According to Pew 2016 research, 1 in 5 U.S. adults (50 million) are almost always online. In the digital economy, customers and prospects are well-informed and expect personalized, and always available delivery of services that lead to meaningful engagements. Only advanced marketing organizations are well positioned to meet the ever growing expectations of digital customers.
To better understand modern marketing and advanced marketer's use of technology to best position their companies to develop differentiation through customer experience, Salesforce partnered with Harvard Business Review Analytics Services to find out how organizations are adopting to business disruption as it pertains to marketing. A total of 556 global respondents completed a global survey, representing executive management, board members and middle management across key industries (technology, financial services, manufacturing, etc.) and geographies. How important is sales and marketing alignment in the today's age of the customer? Do marketing organizations have access to the right tools to effectively support and enable sales growth, while engaging with the mobile, social, data-driven and almost always connected customer? How does the modern marketer drive digital business transformation, balancing the science and art of marketing, to deliver on the brand promise while proactively finding ways to connect with customers in a whole new way? The need for marketing automation, mobile and social collaboration technology and advanced analytics like machine and deep learning advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) are critical tools in the digital marketer's tool box. To learn more about the research methodology and participants profile, you can visit here: High-Value Marketing: Connecting Customers Through Technology, Analytics, and Collaboration Advice, Self-Assessment Guide Marketers with Early Stage Loyalty Marketing
DENVER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Customer Communications Group, (CCG) the full-service loyalty and marketing agency, offers five steps to keep businesses on track during the first two years of their loyalty marketing program. The CCG Loyalty Marketing Self-Assessment -- a free, 5 minute self-quiz that grades loyalty marketing programs -- will help businesses gauge where they are and how to take their loyalty marketing to the next level. “First, we help clients figure out where they stand, which is why we created the Loyalty Self-Assessment," said Sandra Gudat, president & CEO of Customer Communications Group. “Next we determine the steps that will push them up the loyalty marketing continuum, like these five steps to help businesses rev up young programs to customers.” 1. Big Changes Coming Marketers should expect to see big changes over the next 24 months as more members join and a greater percentage of transactions are represented by loyalty members. There may still be some kinks in operationalizing your program and that’s par for the course. 2. What Percentage Loyalty? If loyalty transactions are 25% of total store transactions, that's a decent start, especially by the end of the first year of the program. However, by the time the program is two years old, member transactions should account for closer to 40% of all transactions. If they are not, marketers may need to reevaluate the program value proposition and benefits to ensure they are relevant and enticing to customers. 3. Know the VIPs Many retailers report that the top 25% of their customers represent nearly 70% of total sales — that’s a lot of revenue tied to a comparatively small group of customers. It’s a smart move to have a strategy in place to recognize them. 4. Talk it Up Consider what additional customer-facing communications — such as FSIs, promotional emails and social media — can incorporate at least a simple description of the program. Reinforce to customers the rewards ($, members-only sales events, etc.) if they spend a certain level. Whenever feasible, include customers' account status to show how close they are to their next reward. 5. Be Flexible Suppose 0% – 10% of members earn the program's primary reward within a 12-month period. If the program is brand new this may not be a concern. But if the program is closer to two years old, members may consider it too restrictive and, as a result, many may have disengaged out of frustration. Change it up. Is your loyalty program best in class or merely so-so? How does it stack up to other retail loyalty programs? Discover strategies and steps to build loyalty specifically for your business and boost the bottom line; Take the CCG Loyalty Marketing Self-Assessment Here. Customer Communications Group (CCG) is a full-service customer relationship marketing (CRM) agency that helps Fortune 2000 retailers and financial institutions improve their bottom line by improving their customer relationships, loyalty and retention.www.customer.com Source: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160815005021/en/CCG-5-Steps-Boost-Loyalty-Marketing-Program The Airbnb Of Marketing: Ray Cao Explains How Exact Media Is Trying To Reinvent Direct-Mail8/15/2016 By Susan Adams On AUG 8, 2016 Ray Cao, a serial entrepreneur at age 29, says he made numerous mistakes before starting Toronto-based Exact Media in 2013. The company puts marketing flyers and product samples like Crest White Strips and L’Oreal cosmetics inside e-commerce packages that already contain other goods, collecting revenue from the sample providers and paying e-tailers to deliver the samples. It has 29 employees spread between Toronto and an office in Cincinnati and expects $10 million in revenue this year. Cao [pron. “chow”] says his first two ventures, a company that sold software to law firms and a company that sold beauty-sample boxes by subscription, brought him no satisfaction. The software venture wasn’t ambitious enough, he says, and the subscription business ran into stiff competition. In this interview, which has been condensed and edited, he talks about why he thinks Exact Media can be a billion-dollar business.
Susan Adams: Tell me about your background. Ray Cao: I have a Chinese tiger mom. She treated me as if I were in the math and science military. When I was three years old, I was forced to learn the times tables. My father was an entrepreneur who owned restaurants and travel properties. A lot of Chinese entrepreneurs don’t focus. They own a bunch of different businesses based on opportunity. Adams: When you were in college, did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur? Cao: I studied engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada. I was fortunate that it had a co-op program. I thought I wanted to be a trader and I tried working at Barclays Capital in New York and hated it. I also worked at [Blackberry maker] RIM. I looked at those places and asked myself, would I want to work there 10 or 15 years from now? The answer was no. Adams: Tell us about your first company. Cao: We made enterprise software for lawyers that helped them do things like document sharing. We were making money but I quickly realized I felt like I was working on Wall Street again. It wasn’t helping me get up in the morning. Adams: How profitable was the business? Cao: We charged $20,000 to $30,000 per client. It was good money. But I had zero interest in building a small business that just had a stable income and good predictability. Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestreptalks/2016/08/08/the-airbnb-of-marketing-ray-cao-explains-how-exact-media-is-trying-to-reinvent-direct-mail/#34e5e13b7293 August 8, 2016 Posted By Joydeep Bhattacharya The digital domain is a rapidly evolving marketplace. If you are using interesting text to attract users, that's good. If you are using infographics, even better. But if you are not using video marketing, you need to make a change in your marketing strategy. Video marketing is hot. Videos are fun to watch and easy to share. An interesting video gets your message across with ease. Ninety percent of users say thatproduct videos help them in making decisions to buy a product. Additionally, one in four consumers will lose interest in a company that does not incorporate video content on any of their channels. But even without the statistics, you know that video marketing is the next big thing. Video marketing, quite simply is incorporating videos in your marketing. The concept is simple; make an interesting video about your product or service and upload it to a hosting website. Post the link or better still embed the video at relevant pages and wait for the user to engage with it. If your video succeeds in generating user’s curiosity, you have favorably turned a visitor into a potential customer. Factors That Shape a Video Marketing Campaign 1. Targeting Audience Your marketing should not be a one-size-fits-all approach. You need to tailor it according to the needs of your consumer. A video marketing company Eye view was able to generate 6X ROI to a home improvement retailer by implementing a one-to-one video marketing approach. They delivered over 180,000 “personalized” videos to more than seven million visitors. For a more efficient targeting of customers, remember:
Undertake an exhaustive pre-production research about your audience, their needs, and online behavior. Use data science to do a behavior analysis of your audience. Include the language and regional references that reflect your target market and resonate with them. Try to gauge what makes them “click”. Fire online and offline surveys to your current customers as well as your target market to know about their preferences. 2. Message and purpose While you might have overall marketing campaign goals in your mind, but every single video must have a unique purpose. When developing the script everything must relate to that “unique purpose”. Do not jump to start making a video before answering strategic questions like the message of video, business objective, desired response from the viewer etc.
Cost is a major factor to drive your campaign in any type of marketing. SMBs generally skip digital marketing efforts, especially videos, altogether in fear of incurring heavy costs. Opposed to popular misconception, it is fairly affordable to create an appealing video these days.
Here comes the main part. You have successfully created a video, now the important step is to promote it to let people know that your video exists. In order to create an effective video marketing campaign your video needs to be seen by a huge audience. Promote your video extensively for users to discover it as below:
After you have successfully implemented the video marketing campaign, your work is still not over. You need to review your video’s performance using a video marketing analytics tool. YouTube provides a decent analysis about your engaged visitors’ details and demographics.
Source: http://www.business.com/video-marketing/how-to-leverage-video-to-double-your-marketing-roi/ |
Marcus Guiliano
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