Top 20 Best Practices for Marketing

Your Presenter: The Partner Marketing Group is a marketing consulting resource for Microsoft partner organizations. Virginia Weinstein Virtual Marketing Director

Why Marketing Why Marketing? 1. can be tracked, forwarded, linked and measured. 2. Obtain a higher response rate than print advertising 3. Economical

Permission is not optional. Think of your list into two parts Opt-in Names: Opt-in mail that is explicitly requested by the recipient. You have obtained their permission to them. Raw names: address that your company has in its possession but the person associated with that address has not given you permission to send them marketing communication. In other words they have not subscribed. The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business 7 Main Requirements see them here

Guest Speaker: Exact Target is on-demand marketing and one-to- one digital communication platform. Scott Roth Director, Integrated Partners

Why do You Need A Subscriber Acquisition Strategy?

INTERACTIVE MARKETING HUB

“The mix of media channels has shifted from a one-way broadcast model to a set of dynamic two- way media forums.” Source: Booz Allen Hamilton HD Marketing 2010: Sharpening the Conversation

“Those who buy products marketed through spend 138% more than non- readers of .” Source: Forrester Research “ Marketing Comes of Age.”

“Service is the new currency of selling. And is the #1 tool for serving customers.” Joseph Jaffe

SUBSCRIBER ACQUISITION: BEST PRACTICES Attract – Use SEO (Organic) and Paid Search to attract potential subscribers – Leverage social networks Engage – Design your landing page to make opt-in simple – Provide a “reason” to subscribe Convert – Send Welcome to confirm registration – Provide “Thank You” offer for new subscribers

WHAT’S WORKING, WHAT’S NOT

TARGET YOUR TACTICS TO YOUR AUDIENCE

LIST GROWTH TIPS

PROMOTE YOUR NEWSLETTER: WEB SITE Promote on: - Landing pages - Confirmation s

PROMOTE YOUR NEWSLETTER: TO LEADS Goal: identify when to send promotion to leads Test: segment based on age of the lead - Less than 2 weeks - 23 to 28 days - 1 year

PROMOTE YOUR NEWSLETTER : TO LEADS Results: - 23 to 28 days > 5% conversion - All other age segments <1%

ENCOURAGE SHARING

PROMOTE ACROSS NETWORKS Marketing Spend Continues To Shift Toward Digital Channels – Track It With Microsoft Dynamics CRM Call-to-action: - Attend The TM Group’s Vision 2010 Conference - Download the ExactTarget Marketing Budgets in 2010 Report

PROMOTE ACROSS NETWORKS Marketing Spend Continues To Shift Toward Digital Channels – Track It With Microsoft Dynamics CRM Results: - The TM Group – increased exposure for Vision ExactTarget – New leads from the white paper download

“BRAND FANS” ARE NOW YOUR BEST MARKETERS “BRAND FANS” ARE NOW YOUR BEST MARKETERS EXACTTARGETinACTION.com www.

THE FAN-CENTRIC presents FANMAILMARKETING.com www. 22 SERVE 1. SERVE INDIVIDUALS EXACTTARGETinACTION.com www.

THE FAN-CENTRIC presents FANMAILMARKETING.com www. 23 HONOR 2. HONOR THEIR PREFERENCES COMMUNICATION CONTENT FREQUENCY CHANNEL EXACTTARGETinACTION.com www.

THE FAN-CENTRIC presents FANMAILMARKETING.com www. 24 DELIVER 3. DELIVER TIMELY, RELEVANT CONTENT THAT IMPROVES THEIR LIVES EXACTTARGETinACTION.com www.

Scott Roth Director, Integrated Partners

Be prepared for churn. Fact: 30% of addresses churn each year. Make sure you keep your list engaged.

Design for the Inbox. Test sample messages Try putting you company name in the FROM line for fast recognition Use a “Grabber” subject line – 50 characters or less Use teaser text and HTML colors and layout rather than an image so readers can get an immediate “preview” of your even if images are disabled Put in the important content – the offer, call to action, newsletter contents - at the top of the for immediate viewing.

Define your value proposition (EVP) Your EVP should: Be unique to your company and tie back to your company’s business and/or marketing objectives Clearly define the value your message brings to subscribers

Be prepared for mobile devices and social media B2B Marketing: Most messages will be viewed on mobile devices – and your carefully designed HTML will look like gibberish on most of them.

Integrate into your complete marketing mix Design keyword-rich landing pages that will help with SEO efforts Promote newsletter content across multiple marketing points Use social media to increase opt-ins to your s Remember mobile marketing

Metrics Open Tracking s that are “opened” are tracked by hosting images on a server and embedding the hosted images in the body of the . Click Tracking When someone clicks on a link in your , you can track the link. Forward Tracking Forward tracking is when someone forwards the through the HTML code. Hard to track forwarding if you forward using Outlook. Unsubscribe Tracking When someone wants to be removed from your list. SPAM Tracking When someone reports your as SPAM.

Tie into Web analytics 1. Better and more robust ROI tracking 2. Link Placement 3. Effective targeting of prospects 4. Integration with other sources of information

Allocate necessary resources marketing is different than it used to be. You must allocate adequate budget, resources, and know-how to do the job right and achieve ROI goals.

Showcasing Technology Want to become your own marketing guru? If you text DYNAMICS and your address to you can see the program in action.

Thank you to Exact Target and Scott Roth for being a guest speaker during this webcast and helping partners grow their opt-in list. Scott Roth

For more information: For more information please Virginia Weinstein at Don’t forget to sign up for our monthly newsletter on our website!