'Net Features : silverpop

What Small Biz Can Learn from Big Biz

Amberly Dressler — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 20:15:00 GMT

And how big businesses learned from them.

Sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is Small Business Saturday, a day dedicated to supporting small businesses nationwide, and the brainchild of American Express. Aside from all-important holiday revenue, participating small, local businesses have much to gain in the way of digital growth.

This is because American Express provides participating businesses with free online marketing materials, such as digital banners to place on their websites promoting their participation. Small business owners also receive sample tweets, Facebook posts and emails to use. By utilizing and understanding the importance of these resources, as well as taking a look at how big businesses use them every day, small businesses can truly establish or grow their Internet presence.

And, although it’s estimated that more than 50 percent of small businesses are operating without a website, the following tips on what small businesses can learn from big businesses, is made with the assumption our readers are also website owners or workers.

Social Media

For many small business owners, it may seem like an uphill battle to participate (let alone compete) in the digital realm. Their worries, however, don’t diminish the importance of doing so. Consumers, especially young ones, want a best-in-class experience at all times – across all channels (e.g. mobile, social, website, in-store). And, there is no better way to begin meeting their demands than through social media.

Example: Nordstrom’s number one goal has always, and always will be, to improve its customer service. And, the 100-year-old-plus company looks at its social media pages as an extension of its customer service. Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct, even said that at one point the company’s Twitter account was shut down due to sending out too many tweets answering customer’s questions.

“The customer is completely in control,” said Nordstrom. “The retailers who are embracing that are going to thrive.”

Additionally, Nordstrom has stern and even out-of-the-box social networking guidelines for its employees. Among the latter is “be humble.”

“Our number-one goal is to offer each customer great service, but we're certainly not perfect and we do make mistakes. Let's stay focused on working to deliver great service instead of bragging about it.”

Lesson Learned: Small businesses should heed Nordstrom’s example, as it is not enough to create social media pages and post about company-related topics, but it also important to actively respond to customers. Additionally, small businesses should set its social media guidelines to include ones that are in-line with company goals and ethos. Don’t type something on a social media page that you wouldn’t say directly to a consumer, in-store. A business’s customer service hat should never come off, even in the comfort of the digital space.

Online Advertising

Eighty-five percent of consumers search online for local businesses, according to Local Consumer Review Survey (2012). That said, business owners not advertising online and employing SEO tactics are also not raising awareness about their business, they are not encouraging repeat visit and they are not generating sales (or conversions). They are also likely losing out to their competitors, as according to e-Marketer.com, next year’s spending predictions include a $7 billion increase in online ad spending. But, even those who are spending the most can still struggle.

Example: SEMrush estimates Groupon’s search engine traffic (the cost of purchasing the same number of visitors through ads) as $1,014,508. Clearly, Groupon makes significant investments to acquire subscribers through online marketing initiatives, such as search engine marketing, display advertisements, referral programs and affiliate marketing. But while this may have worked for the company’s original goals, which was to acquire new subscribers, the company now has to leverage different promotions (e.g. discount codes) to achieve its current goal, which is to activate subscribers (get those who have subscribed to actually purchase). Groupon, however, doesn’t go at their online advertising alone. According to BuiltWith.com, Groupon uses Google’s DoubleClick.net for online advertising assistance.

Lesson Learned: In the virtual world, businesses (of all sizes) have to be flexible with strategies and goals. Being open to change, as well as virtually asking for help, by employing agencies or seasoned professionals, can improve the bottom line and improve a customer’s experience.

Email

The long-standing relationships that many small business owners are able to create and sustain with their customers are only in the dreams of many large enterprises. The former’s face-to-face interactions, not only give consumers a face, but merchants are also on hand to customize their customer service approach and promotions to them. However, many small businesses are missing out on using that information for future communications, such as email.

Example: UGG Australia uses a combination of marketing emails with a segmentation strategy based on interest, triggered actions and personalized communication based on browsing behavior. In order to ensure all of its email communication with the consumer is effective, the company leverages consumer data, sales trends and product interaction to reach a positive return on investment. Additionally, the majority of its email communications goes through a third-party email service provider, Silverpop. The company also leverages Demandware’s native functionality for transactional and back-in-stock emails. Its personalized email communication comes from integration with MyBuys.

Lesson Learned: Again we see that third-party providers increasing a company’s digital prowess and improve customer experience. There are plenty of available email marketing solutions that can help small businesses. For 50 of them, visit Website Magazine’s 50 Top Email Marketing Service Providers article.

The true lesson learned for any business – both small and large – is to put customers/clients first. And, while small, local businesses don’t often (if ever) make news for quality customer relations, it is to them large, digitally responsible companies turn to and try to emulate. We see that through Nordstrom’s use of social media, Groupon’s online advertising and UGG Australia’s email practices. Let us not forget who is driving our success, and ask for help when needed. Innovation is happening all around us and plenty of digital companies – covered every day at WebsiteMagazine.com - can accelerate digital growth.

And as a final note for small businesses looking to reap benefits of Small Business Saturday, look at how American Express uses the same design elements, logos, banner ads, etc., in all the event’s marketing collateral and try to emulate a streamlined experience of your own, long after Small Business Saturday closes.

2012 Local Holiday Marketing Guide

Allison Howen — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 19:30:00 GMT

It is time to get serious about the holidays, because as of today, merchants only have a month to prepare for the busiest shopping day of the season – Black Friday.

While most merchants are putting the finishing touches on their 2012 holiday marketing plans, there is one strategy in particular that shouldn’t be overlooked, which is location-based marketing. This marketing strategy has become of utmost importance due to the growing use of mobile – especially among shoppers who use these devices to locate nearby stores.

In fact, a new report from online advertising network Chitika reveals that a quarter of Google searches are local, and 16.37 percent of those local searches come from a mobile device. This means that more and more consumers are using their devices as a tool for discovering nearby services and businesses, and this number will most likely increase during the busiest shopping season of the year.

In order to take advantage of the mobile mania, merchants should use location-based marketing tactics to help bring in more traffic at their brick-and-mortar locations. To do this, merchants must first claim their venue on some of the Web’s most popular listing websites, such as Foursquare and Yelp. (Check out Website Magazine’s “Get Listed – Merchant Marketing for 2012” for a full list of discovery websites.)

Not only will listing a business on these sites provide retailers with more visibility on the World Wide Web, but many of these sites also offer tools that can help merchants connect with their customers, as well as can be leveraged to implement location-based marketing campaigns. So once your site is listed, check out the tips below for bringing in more local traffic to your stores:

Launch Local Advertisements

Since many consumers discover nearby locations through search, it is a no-brainer that merchants should spend time and money on increasing their local visibility within the search engines. While the best way to do this is by making sure your business is listed on popular discovery platforms like Google Places, merchants can obtain additional local visibility by starting an advertising campaign with Google AdWords Express. This service helps small businesses get discovered by customers who are looking for specific local services both on the Web and on their mobile phones. To run an advertisement, merchants simply need to set their budget and provide the business information that they want their customers to see. Then, the ad is displayed either above or below relevant search results, and the merchant’s business is also marked with a blue pin on Google Maps so that consumers can easily identify its location. Additionally, it is important to note that with Google AdWords Express, merchants only pay when someone actually clicks their ad.

Run Foursquare Specials

Merchants must provide consumers with incentives for shopping at their business on busy shopping days like Black Friday. Luckily, Foursquare makes it easy for merchants to do just that. In fact, once a venue on Foursquare is claimed, merchants have the ability to run free promotions, including discount specials, freebie giveaways and loyalty rewards. For example, last year, Sports Authority offered $25 cash cards for customers that checked-in with Foursquare and spent $100 or more. That being said, merchants can also consider using a flash special in their Black Friday Foursquare promotions. This is because a flash special enables merchants to set a number of specials that can be unlocked per day. Similar to a door buster sale, merchants can use the flash special to reward a specific number of customers on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Target Local Fans

Merchants can captivate the attention of their local fans by launching promotions and advertisements on Facebook during the holiday season. In fact, a recent Marin Software study revealed that launching a Facebook advertisement campaign during the holidays can provide merchants with a high return on investment (ROI). This is because many consumers search the popular social network during their hunt for deals around Thanksgiving time. Merchants can take advantage of this by using Facebook’s targeting features to narrow in on a local audience when creating a social holiday ad campaign. However, that is just one way that merchants can leverage the world’s most popular social network to target a local audience. Aside from running display ads, merchants can also run daily deals through Facebook Offers, which allows merchants to create a promotion or deal and send it directly to their fans’ newsfeeds. These deals can also include barcodes, which makes it easy for customers to redeem at in-store checkouts.

Get Help with Yelp

More than 78 million people visited Yelp in Q2 2012 to make purchasing decisions, which makes this a very valuable platform for local businesses. Not only should a merchant make sure their business is listed on Yelp, but they should also use the platform’s tools to connect with their customers. One way that merchants can do this is with Yelp Deals, which, similarly to Facebook Offers, allows merchants to offer discounts to their customers. The deals are displayed on the merchant’s business page, and customers can purchase the voucher directly on Yelp. It is important to note that although there are no upfront costs with these deals, Yelp retains 30 percent of the price for each deal sold. That being said, these deals can be a good way to bring in more local traffic during the holiday season. However, merchants can also target local customers by launching an advertisement campaign on Yelp. Ads can be set up to be placed on Yelp’s search result pages or on related businesses’ pages. For instance, the search ads are displayed above Yelp’s natural search results to users who are searching for businesses in a specific area, while the related business ads take direct aim at the advertiser’s competitors. This is because these ads are placed on the business pages of the advertiser’s biggest competition, which can lure the traffic out of a competitor’s door and directly into your store.

Seek Professional Assistance

Although merchants can implement all of the aforementioned local marketing techniques by themselves, they can also seek out the services of a professional platform, such as Geotoko or Silverpop’s PlacePunch. These platforms not only help merchants launch location-based marketing campaigns, but also provide analytics for monitoring the campaigns. For example, Geotoko helps merchants build and launch location-based promotions on Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter, as well as provides real-time analytics and insights that can be leveraged for optimizing strategies. Conversely, PlacePunch helps merchants launch local offers and contests as well as loyalty programs, which allow customers to earn rewards through frequent check-ins.

Just Do It! End Shopping Cart Abandonment With Email Today

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:30:00 GMT

Website Magazine's upcoming feature story for December 2012 focuses on the rapid innovation occuring today in the email marketing space. Despite a historically bad repuation, significant strides have been made in the past few years in terms of useful and practical development including integrations with analytics, CRM, marketing automation and you guessed it - email marketing services.

The benefactor of all this amazing development and innovation of course is the business user - and there's case studies galore (here's one from Listrak, and another from SilverPop) to prove it. UK retailer Appliances Online for example experienced a 50% increase in purchase recovery rates after implimenting ExactTarget's interactive (email) marketing solutions.

"We not only capitalized on the opportunity to re-engage customers with abandoned shopping cart emails but also received insight on why they left our site without completing their purchase,” said Russell Cordingley, Appliances Online’s head of customer retention. “Through our cart abandonment campaign, we have increased our recovery rate, directly fueling our sales results and customer base.”

So what are you waiting for? Any email service provider that is worth using at the enterprise level should have purchase recovery (cart abandonment) features in place.

Collect Email Addresses via Social Sign-In

Allison Howen — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:47:00 GMT

Collecting email addresses just got a whole lot easier, especially for B2B marketers.

Silverpop is to thank. The company announced an enhancement to its Social Sign-In feature, which is built through a partnership with social identity and user management solutions provider Janrain.

The enhancement gives Silverpop customers the ability to collect email addresses when an individual registers for an offer using existing LinkedIn credentials. This is an especially valuable feature for B2B marketers, who are more interested in interacting with potential buyers via their professional email than a personal account, as well as for marketers who want to target communication based on recipients' professional backgrounds.

"Social Sign-In benefits both buyers and marketers, making registration processes simpler, thus decreasing the possibility of form abandonment while also getting the marketer closer to the social behaviors of each contact" said Bryan Brown, director of product strategy at Silverpop. "For B2B marketers, while the information collected from social networks like Facebook and Twitter is certainly valuable, the likelihood of attaining a contact's business email address is low. With LinkedIn accounts, individuals are more likely to include their business-related information. Having this capability is a giant leap for B2B marketers in general, and Silverpop customers in particular, as they can take advantage of this enhancement right out of the gate due to our existing strategic partnership with Janrain."

Social sign-in is becoming an increasingly popular feature because many people are too frustrated by online registration processes to create new user accounts, or simply don't want to remember another password. However, Janrain has found that companies can achieve an increase in conversion rates when they provide users with the option to "sign in" using social credentials.

"The increase in form completions and conversion rates has an obvious benefit to marketers, but so does the ability to connect users to their social profiles, providing additional, highly valuable insight about their site visitors," said Tore Steen, vice president of business development for Janrain. "Through Janrain technology Silverpop customers now can collect verified emails and other permission-based profile data only available from LinkedIn for use in their email and marketing campaigns."

Open Rates Falling, CTR Rising

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:25:00 GMT

Silverpop has released results from its 2012 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark study, which examined email messages sent in 2011 and the first quarter of 2012 from over 1000 brands.

Perhaps the most interesting data in the report concerns open rates and click-through rates. The bad news is that open rates keep falling – from an average of 21.3 percent in2009 to 19.9 percent through the first quarter of this year. The good news, and yes, there is good news, is that click-through rates are rising – averaging 5.4 percent in 2011 and 2012 which is up from an average of 4.5 percent in 2009. There is an immense amount of data, useful to those in the report including the following statistics:

- ‘Computer Software” was the only industry that ranked among the top three verticals for open-rate, click-through rate and clicks per clicker.

- Companies in the top quartile generated click-through rates three times higher (16.6 percent) than the average (5.2 percent).

- Unsubscribe rates for the bottom-quartile companies were three times the average and 50 times that of top-performing companies.

"These findings confirm that response rates vary widely based on the approach that is taken and the content that is delivered," said Loren McDonald, vice president of industry relations for Silverpop. "Companies that focus on helping recipients by providing behavior-based content that is meaningful, personal and relevant rather than just firing off one-size-fits-all promotions are far more likely to find themselves in the top quartile."

Location-based Marketing with Silverpop

Allison Howen — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:00:00 GMT

The acquisition of location-based marketing platform PlacePunch, from Web-based solution company Silverpop, will add a new dimension to the company’s Social Connect Strategy — which is designed to help marketers drive revenue by being where their customers are at all times.

Recently, location-based offers have been gaining momentum among consumers — with a location option now incorporated into Facebook, as well as a recent study from Prosper Mobile Insights that reveals 67 percent of consumers somewhat/strongly agree that location-based coupons are very useful and convenient.

Location-based marketing can increase customer loyalty, brand affinity and extend the reach of marketing messages. With PlacePunch, businesses can engage with customers through location check-ins that are incorporated into multi-channel campaigns.

Furthermore, the suite of marketing programs from PlacePunch works across all major location-based social networks, such as Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. Some of the featured components include:

Rewards program- Delivers incentives to customers that check-in at particular locations.

Check-in Contest- Drives customer visits, brand engagement and social media buzz.

Location-based offers- Increases traffic to specific locations by automatically sending offers to nearby customers.

Check-in Messaging- Drives email opt-ins, promotes new products, and thanks customers for visiting specific locations.

Reporting and Analytics- Evaluates location-based campaigns.

Big List of Marketing Automation Software

Administrator — Tue, 17 May 2011 18:35:00 GMT

Marketing automation software is here to stay. No longer an emerging trend or the domain of a select few savvy businesses, these software platforms streamline sales and marketing departments by replacing high-touch, repetitive manual processes with automated solutions. Sounds good, right? But what do these solutions really enable your organization to do, how can it benefit search marketing efforts and who are the real leaders in the space?

Users of marketing automation software platforms, typically those responsible for marketing a website or business (search, email, social, advertising), are able to specify criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes that are then interpreted, stored and executed by the software. While that undoubtedly sounds complex, the objectives are simply to increase efficiency and reduce human error. One possible cause for a lack of adoption in small and medium size businesses is that these solutions come in a variety of forms with a lot of feature cross-over. Before moving forward it is important to understand the various classifications of marketing software.

- Marketing intelligence software tracks behavior (what activity did the user engage in and where) for the purpose of understanding intent, enabling marketers to improve targeting based on interest and vertical market. Appropriate for any size organization.

- Marketing workflow focuses more on budgeting and planning, workflow and approvals, collaboration, asset creation and management internally within an organization. Marketing workflow solutions are typically designed for larger enterprises.

- Marketing automation software focuses on lead generation with marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in products/services. The best solutions on the market couple marketing technology with sales processes as delineated by a CRM program.

These are very broad definitions of the marketing software classifications that should help identify what type is appropriate for your business and in particular your search, social, email and advertising campaigns. Ultimately, any marketing software should aid in performing functions and tasks including analyzing marketing campaigns (and customer behaviors), managing those marketing campaigns, and organizing and storing customer data. So who are the best of the best in the marketing automation software business? WM has listed a few top tier vendors below.

Eloqua

Marketo

Pardot

Optify

InfusionSoft

RightNow

Genius.com

NetSuite

Aprimo

Loopfuse

Silverpop

Unica

Doing Email Wrong Says SilverPop To Retailers

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:31:00 GMT

Email is one of those marketing practices that you must engage in and do well to truly provide a benefit to your online enterprise. Unfortunately, most never get involved so never understand the value proposition it brings to the enterprise.

A recent survey by email service provider SilverPop found that the most sucessful email makreting programs deliver the products consumers want and when they want them. If you aren't collecting the information during transactions or throughout the consumer relationship building process, email efforts will be untargeted, completely irrelevant to needs and untimely.

The number of emails sent in a 30-day period varied quite a bit among companies studied. While some retailers practically bombarded inboxes with promotional messages, far too many ignored consumers. Thirty-five percent of retailers failed to send any message at all within 30 days after registration – no confirmation message, no welcome message, no product information or sales notice. Can you imagine? It may be time to take a close look at the messages you are sending (if you're doing it at all), when you are sending them, and the response that individual messages are generating to see if they can be improved.

"Delaying a first send only confuses the recipient," said Elaine O'Gorman, senior vice president of marketing and product strategy for Silverpop. "If consumers have to wait for more than a month to receive the first email message from a retailer, chances are they'll have forgotten that they even registered with the company and will hit the spam button to keep such messages from reaching their inboxes in the future."