linking online marketing to offline sales

RKG = thought leadership

This blog post walks us through 4 ways to measure digital marketing resulting in brick-and-mortar success. Here is one email component:

POS & Survey Integration

We can also take a similar approach without capturing an email address at POS. By providing a link to a customer experience survey at the bottom of their receipts, retailers can connect the online ad dollars with the store sales dollars for those customers who go to the survey and submit their opinions.

tips: optimizing email for mobile devices

Quick YouTube video by Hank from iContact
Optimizing email for mobile

• Get content within the first 200 pixels: that's the new "fold"
• Subject line should be >/= 25 characters
• Limit navigation bar to 3-4 items
• Use font size > 12-pt

facebook can augment email campaigns

Email marketing can work great in tandem with Facebook.
Many, like Laura O'Shaughnessy of SocialCode, argue to line up email and Facebook programs. Both are low-cost, broad reaching and give you the ability to track ROI.
However, I believe that email is the more direct and more valuable customer list because:
1) Email can be segmented in a way Facebook cannot: pick your objectives, pick your messages, pick your groups, execute.
..But email can also certainly drive social engagement ... if social engagement is your KPI (rather than a financial transaction, for example).
2) Email can directly link the online and offline worlds.  Flash coupons, price checking and loyalty programs affect my bottom line long term more than sharing photos and voting for new product names.
Thoughts?

email is about direct, pertinent content.

In email, it's the relevant content that matters.  And the prevalence of mobile devices makes email even more important. Think about a restaurant example: your phone pings you with a lunch offer on your way to an 11am meeting ....you know where to go right after it.
Check out this insight from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

..."Kristy Amy, director of digital strategy at Smart Business Network, said despite the growing social media numbers in a mobile world and reports from people who say they don't read most of their e-mails, she said if you've got the right content, and you're targeting people who want to hear from you, it's a viable tactic that supports all of the more modern offerings.

Besides, it's the foundation, for all other mediums. If you need to reset passwords of social networks, you're going to get it through an e-mail or text, she said."..

tech definition: mosaics

Mosaics are complex HTML tables that impersonate images.

How can a table "impersonate" an image? The HTML table has so many rows and columns, each cell having a background color, that it can really look like an image. The benefit? They can be dynamic, updating data and also changing shape/size based upon the display space.  Images are static.  Great tool for email.
This is RESPONSIVE DESIGN.

multivariate testing 101

One step up from A/B testing is multivariate testing (also called multi-variable testing).

A/B tests are straightforward: try two scenarios, determine the better of the two content variations.

Multivariate testing can theoretically test an infinite number, though you need to keep in mind the need to maintain a statistically significant number of results to determine a performance difference between scenarios.  It's best carried out via a dynamically generated website: visitors are served proportionate but random variations of content to test a hypothesis.

Smashing Magazine artfully explains: "There are two principal approaches used to achieve multivariate testing on websites. One being Page Tagging; a process where the website creator inserts Javascript into the site to inject content variants and monitor visitor response. The second principal approach used does not require page tagging. By establishing a DNS-proxy or hosting within a website's own datacenter, it is possible to intercept and process all web traffic to and from the site undergoing testing, insert variants and monitor visitor response. In this case, all logic sits server rather than browser-side and after initial DNS changes are made, no further technical involvement is required from the website point of view."

To read more, check out:

Marketing Experiments

SiteSpect

email market leader ExactTarget in the news

IT is about direct marketing, and email is leading that.
Size of ExactTarget deals & scope of this industry :
Read about it at Bloomberg BusinessWeek

• ExactTarget can charge a 50% premium for its email and social media customization services
• It's revenue is projected to grow 126%
• Best asset? Customization of online experiences based on consumer behavior