Email is Alive

26Mar/101

Guest Posting on KyleLacy.com

I was privileged to be asked to post an article with Kyle Lacy on his website. Without further adieu - "E-Mail's Role in Social Media"

I really appreciate the openness of the interactive marketing community and being able to share knowledge through other sites as well as my own. Big thanks to Kyle for having me on his blog as a contributor.

28Feb/101

Rising Stars in the Email Marketing Community

Just a few days ago I was honored to be listed in John Caldwell's list of 'Rising Stars' in the email marketing community. I have to say, coming from such a knowledgeable and seasoned veteran in the industry - it means a lot. I've worked hard to understand the value of email within the marketing efforts of a company: learning from mistakes, successes, others advice and a ton of testing. While this hasn't been a walk in the park, it has been thoroughly rewarding and receiving recognition for all those laborious hours of work is a great blessing.

This incredible list of Email-Geeks are wonderful people to interact with on a daily basis. I find myself chatting them up quite a bit on Twitter, it's great to hear about and share what we're all working on. I'm hoping that I'll get to meet all of them personally, face-to-face. Here are my fellow 'Rising Stars':

Luke Glasner, Glasner Consulting

Jennifer Harstad, Online Marketing Manager, Frederick’s of Hollywood

Frances Dugan, Email Marketing Analyst, Permanent General Companies

Scott Cohen, Marketing Copywriter, Western Governors University d

Remy Bergsma, Senior Email Marketing Specialist, Blinker

Chelsea Warfel, Email Marketing Manager, AutoAnything

Amy Garland, Marketing Manager, Blue Sky Factory

Kari Hiscox, Email Marketing Specialist, eHarmony.com

A congratulations goes out to all here on this list, I'm proud to say that I'm one of you. A big thanks to John Caldwell for letting me chat with him for hours about all things Geek and making me sound smarter than I really am.

Viva la Email!



1Nov/090

Social Media and the Corporate Attack Plan

I’m an avid Tweeter, Emailer, Facebooker and I love everything – Internet. My daily world consists of multiple social applications running, Exact Target glaring into my face and Google Analytics giving me more data than my brain can handle. I’ve learned to multi-task on a level that would make chefs jealous using a myriad of alt+tab and precise mouse clicks – it’s my life.

Through this submersion into everything online I’ve come to appreciate and understand the purpose of each social community; I’m careful not to tread heavily in certain arenas due to the receptive nature of each community. However, the value of each community is still equal to one another, just not applicable to the same tactics – i.e. Twitter and Facebook are both of equal social importance, but not equal in receptiveness depending on the tactics of the campaign. Some would argue in the B2B space that LinkedIn is the vehicle to channel due to its corporate focus; I would say that’s not always the case. (But I’ve been proven wrong before) Point being; each social channel has its benefits and can be leveraged in tandem with other to create a strengthened presence online. To limit a company to one would not only be a narrowly focused attempt at social marketing, it would create a one dimensional approach to a multi-dimensional problem.

So, you say, “How do I implement a strategy that encompasses more than one channel?” I’ll tell you; find the voice of your company within each of the channels and actively pursue the users in that space with relevant engagement. You say, “HOW?” Well, that depends on the channel, right? Right.

Think of it like this. Facebook is a ‘Friend-based community’, approach these people as ‘friends’ and treat them as such. Don’t think that you can get away with a sales pitch to your friends, it won’t work. However; you can provide them information that may profit you – as long as it profits them too. i.e. – A brewery gives up information on a new seasonal beer and the date the beer becomes available. “Why is this relevant? It’s not selling anything.” Au contraire mon frère – The brewery just gave valuable information to it’s ‘friends’ about beer they may be interested in. Therefore, they go out and buy it. The brewery didn’t need to say, “Buy our beer”. It simply updated its ‘friends’ on a new release.

A different approach should be used for Twitter; this community is ‘Follower based’ allowing the ‘Followed’ to apply more implied direction than Facebook. The followers are more engaged in what’s said, BUT are looking for valuable information. Twitter is a real-time micro blogging platform that’s most valuable when leveraged multiple times a day, creating an active feed worth following. A once a week/month Twitter account isn’t going to receive as much attraction due to the nature of the community – it’s fast and furious with an unquenchable desire to consume. The more you Tweet relevant data – the more followers you’ll receive, giving the account more authority in the Twittersphere.

Using the appropriate approaches in each community is the key to the effectiveness of the campaign. Social media is exactly what is says, social. A company can’t  insert itself into a community without making friends and playing by the rules and expect to succeed. The community decides who’s welcome. Respecting the community and applying marketing efforts appropriately to the attributes of the people involved plays volumes in growth and viral affect of the campaign as well, adapting to the community is where the most value is found. The community won’t adapt to the marketing, it’s vice versa.

To conclude; take the time to evaluate who in the organization would be best for these efforts. There are natural online socialites that will carry these efforts without skipping a beat. Forcing unsaavy marketing employees to update Twitter 10x a day isn’t the right approach, choose someone already involved in the community and who has already established a following or a friend base (They may even be in Accounting – I know, scary right?). These people are priceless for corporate insertion into the online social world – they know the rules, they know the people and they like to do it. Why not pay them for it?

8Oct/090

Omniture Vs. Google Analytics

Understanding the tools needed for the job can reduce the amount of work needed to complete that job - drastically. The evolving battle between Google and Omniture is one of those things that can no longer be ignored. Understanding what each analytics solution provides can make the difference between ease of task at hand or hair-pulling report generating. It can also make a difference between a budget line for an analytics solution or a free service just as robust as the paid solution.

I've toiled over this for a while now; each client/business has different needs which leads to different configurations of software and solutions. I've also struggled with evangelizing a cost-based solution (Omniture) that provides no more relevant data that a free solution (Google Analytics). While Omniture provides, "custom reporting on the fly" it has a terrible time configuring with PPC campaigns; Omniture has "real-time" tracking and actionable analytics while Google lags 3/4 of a day or so.  Google can automatically sync one's PPC campaigns (Google Based) into GA's reports while Omni needs click tags for each PPC url; Omniture does high level aggregate trending for multiple domains (50 - 500), but most companies can't even dream of managing that many domains.

While I can concede to saying that each solution has great value respectively; I can't say one is better than the other - yet.

Here are a few articles that will help you get an understanding of what may be best for you.

http://www.haiensheng.com/blog/analyzethis/2009/jan/omniture-sitecatalyst-vs-google-analytics

http://www.bartgibby.com/2006/10/14/omniture-sitecatalyst-vs-google-analytics/

http://actionable-analytics.com/2009/05/google-analytics-vs-omniture-site-catalyst/

http://www.evisionworldwide.com/blog/2009/09/30/google-analytics-omniture-winner/

There are tons more articles out there; these seemed to capture a lot of the chatter around the topic.

Contact Carlyle Inc if you'd like to learn more about how one of these solutions can help you.

17Jul/090

Nice Whiteboard Friday by Rand Fishkin

This is a good video to how different SEO tactics can be leveraged depending on competition and target market.

Nice post Rand.