RPM Blog » Email Marketing

ExactTarget Connections Session | Email + Social: Relationships Amplified

RedLine — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:58:22 +0000

One breakout session that a few of the members of the RPM Interactive Team were fortunate enough to sit in on was Email + Social: Relationships Amplified. It was a packed room as one can imagine. Social Media is hot right now, there is no way around it and leveraging a cohesive social strategy with an Email Marketing solution can help brands achieve one-to-one marketing success. Panelists for this session included Bill McCloskey of Email Data Source, Tim Schigel of ShareThis, and Jay Baer of Convince & Convert. All panelists were excellent but for this post we’ll look at Tim Schigel’s presentation on Sharing.

Sharing is of great importance to email and social media marketers. Unfortunately, sharing doesn’t get the glamourous attention that it deserves. Sharing is no longer about just copy and pasting links. It is posting to Facebook, Forward to a Friend, ReTweeting, or Posting to Digg. Sharing is of great value to marketers.

Everyone shares.

But it is important to note that People only share what matters. Tim said, “69% of adults say that email is top for finding new content.” Also, “81% share to help someone that could benefit from the info.” How can we as marketers leverage this?

Know Your Audience
Make content worthy of sharing
Use the appropriate medium for them to share

Maybe most important quote from Tim Schigel was equating a value to what sharing traffic is worth. He acknowledged that sharing traffic is 2 to 5 times more valuable than those that come in from search links. And it does make sense, people are sharing content with those they know and trust so people are more likely to view the shared content as trustworthy and valuable.

One panelist noted that – “Sharing Knowledge is Power.” So true.

Update: Jay Baer’s Slides from this Panel Discussion

Right Place Media at ExactTarget Connections ‘09!

RedLine — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:28:16 +0000

You can track us and others at Twitter #Hashtag #ET09. Our interactive team made the journey to Indianapolis for this great event about Email Marketing and so much more.
You can always follow Right Place Media on Twitter @RightPlaceMedia for updates and we’ll have pictures posted to our Flickr account soon.

Email Marketing ≠ Spam

RedLine — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:36:54 +0000

As the newest member of the Right Place Media team, part of my transition to a new job involves informing friends and acquaintances of my new position and what it is exactly that I do. Saying “Email Marketing Specialist” isn’t sufficient for most people, so usually I then explain in a few sentences what it is an Email Marketing Specialist does. I have found that no matter the audience (self proclaimed “techies” and late adopters alike), the question I usually get in return is “Oh, so you are a spammer?”

I read an article lately that postured that the general public isn’t necessarily wrong to have this perception as long as WE as email marketers continue to use pejorative language to describe what we do. Words that may seem harmless like “blast” to describe a large list send actually sounds to the general public (aka email recipients) like spam. An “email blast” throws a message in the subscribers’ faces haphazardly and hopes to resonate with a few of them, while an “email campaign” has thought, segmentation and strategy. Even though email marketers who use the term “blast” may know the difference between an email campaign and spam, just using such terms causes email marketing to lose credibility.

Email marketing may not seem difficult because almost everyone has sent an email at some point in their life. However, much like people who think of themselves as “social media marketers” because they have a Facebook page and use Twitter to tweet about what they had for lunch, just because you use it doesn’t mean you use it correctly (for business purposes at least). Email marketing is considered one of the hardest “easy” marketing tools out there. Without any knowledge of best practices or forming a relationship with your list, your “blasting” hurts not only your customers, but ours as well by reinforcing negative perceptions.

What do you think? Does using words such as “email blast” hurt email marketing’s reputation?