Demand Generation Marketing

Looking for Retention and Lead Generation Ideas, Have an Event! Part 1

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 by Peter Muir

A basic marketing premise looks at how to retain good customers and how to acquire new ones. Acquisition and retention are a cornerstone in any business venture.

In an effort to show your existing customers how they can be more successful and show new customers new places they can go enabled by your ideas, products and services consider hosting an educational event.

I'd like you to consider 4 Planning Phases of Successful Events.
1. Planning
2. Pre-Event Efforts
3. Event Delivery
4. Post-Event Efforts and Outcomes

Below is the beginning of an Educational Event Planning Guide to Increased Sales. Whether your goal is to create an effective lead generation program, re-develop your customer acquisition process, salvage lost customers with a retention campaign or you just want to say no more to cold calls. Developing your objectives is part of the process. It may seem like the guide is a series of questions, but it's in the process of answering the questions that will help you create an event that fits your organization, your needs and the needs of your current and future customers.

We're just scratching the surface here with Phase 1 Planning. Three future posts will discuss Phase 2, 3 and 4.

Phase 1 Planning
The planning phase has two major parts. The planning process of how the event fits into the larger needs of the organization and the actual planning steps to the event itself.

Planning within the Big Picture

Why have an event, what are your goals? What do you want to get for your efforts? Develop objectives that are SMART (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Time Based) and align with the current or future needs of the organization.
Having an educational event provides a reason to talk to customers and prospects. It gives you something to buzz about beyond your capabilities and need for business. It could give your customers reasons to invest in new ideas and new products and services to help them grow.

Planning the Event

Content: strategic, operational, sales, business processes? The content is what will be advertised and why people will attend. Theming your event and tying it to actionable outcomes changes an informative event to a results event. Types of businesses and the role of the attendee will be influenced by the content you choose.
Type of Event: Face to Face or Webinar. Each presents its own benefits and shortcomings. Consider your content and audience along with your budget and resources as part of your thought process.
Timing: Early in the quarter? At the beginning, middle or late in the week? Morning, afternoon or all day? What time works best for those you are looking to reach?
Location: If face to face do you host it at your company, at a local hotel, a customers business? To feed or not to feed? Is the location part of your message? If you choose to have a web conference what are the needs of the solution? Browser, OS, phone, voice over IP, Presentation technology, presentation style, ability to interact with attendees.

Use the event itself to help you retain existing customers and acquire new ones. Use a multi channel approach to solicit input to your educational event. Post it on your blog, have sales reps call on the phone, visit face to face, Tweet about it, email it, provide a web page where people can influence the outcome. Use the multi channel mix to help you connect with people!

Let existing customers know you are hosting an educational event and you would like to invite them to "participate" early on and be part of the planning committee. Ask them what they would like to learn more about and why? What challenges are they facing, their industry, their customers facing? What opportunities would they like to go after but can't seem to get started. Why? All of these questions can apply to new customers you'd like to acquire too.

It's not really about the event itself. The event is an indirect approach to help you grow your relationship with existing customers and knock on new doors and acquire new ones. Deliver on what they ask for and you're on a new road to showing your customer why they could be doing business with you and your organization.

Stay tuned for information on Phase 2: Pre-event Efforts, Phase 3: Event Delivery and Phase 4: Post-Event Efforts and Outcomes.

If you have additional planning ideas you'd like to share or have a question about anything we've posted, just let me know!

MyChristmasBook Trailer Most Viewed/Popular Presentation on MyBrainshark

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 by Mark Rice

The elves at Webinar Resources are busting their buttons as the MyChristmasBook Trailer on MyBrainshark is now the most viewed and most popular Brainshark presentation. Says Santa, who just read this latest update in the Webinar Newsletter from Webinar Resources, "We are very proud that this on demand presentation has received such wide appeal. Rudolph told me that "rich media" was the way to reach the masses so I thought I would give it a try."

The MyChristmasBook Trailer has been viewed across the country and across the world. Webinar Resources launched this campaign to drive lead generation for North Pole IndustryCo. Every MyChristmasBook online Christmas Photo Story Book contains personalized text, images and audio using a good little boy or girl's name and is delivered on a unique personalized North Pole web page. Says Jack Frost, CMO in charge of North Pole's lead generation and personalized marketing campaigns, "We hired Webinar Resources to produce the story of Santa Claus and the Lost Dog as they are the experts in demand generation marketing and the theme song has the reindeer tapping their hoofs."

The success of the campaign can be summed up by Mrs. Claus, "Things have gotten a lot more jolly around here now that the old man is coming home from the shop at a decent hour. Thanks to Webinar Resources launching MyChristmasBook.com with their partners ExactTarget, Brainshark, Vontoo and Compendium, Santa is much more productive and best of all, there are no more cold calls which is important in the frozen North.

Satisfied Customers

Monday, December 21, 2009 by Mark Rice

During this time of year, people have a lot on their mind and buying that unique gift is always a challenge.   The elves at Webinar Resources teamed up with Santa to create a unique and personalized online offering for this holiday season for young children - MyChristmasBook.com.

MyChristmasBook.com brings to life the story of "Santa Claus and the Lost Dog".   It is unique as it provides personalized images, text and audio using the child's name.   The Christmas Story Photo Book is delivered through a personalized, North Pole web address with an embedded Brainshark presentation.

Deliveries started over the weekend and one satisfied customer has posted her son's personalized North Pole web address on her Facebook site.    It seems our mascot, Bella, is becoming a celebrity very quickly.

This is the most unique demand generation marketing activity that Webinar Resources has ever engaged in and we are pleased to have our customers boast and post about their satisfied experiences.

Go to MyChristmasBook.com to order that unique gift today.

MyChristmasBook on MyBrainshark

Saturday, December 19, 2009 by Mark Rice

If you read one of our more recent blogs on re-purposing content of a Brainshark presentation, then you will understand how we can drive additional lead generation by reusing existing content.

Webinar Resources recently launched the MyChristmasBook campaign and deliveries are about to begin.   We repurposed content from a Brainshark presentation and created a MyChristmasBook Trailer on the MyBrainshark site. MyBrainshark provides tools to create simple Brainshark presentations and it is free.

We have been watching the popularity of the MyChristmasBook Trailer on the MyBrainshark site and are delighted to report that we are holding the number two position of the most viewed and most popular Brainshark presentation.   MyBrainshark provides social media tools for sharing presentations and a reporting dashboard that displays a world map indicating viewing activity    The MyChristmasBook trailer has been viewed across the U.S. and in China, Austrailia, and in South America.

It is exciting to watch the popularity of the trailer grow.   Re-puposing existing content pays off.

Blogs - Faster than Santa's Reindeer

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 by Mark Rice

The elves at Webinar Resources spent time last night blogging about our holiday offering, MyChristmasBook.com.   We included a lot of information about re-purposing Brainshark presentations and creating an effective lead generation campaign using ExactTarget, Vontoo, Brainshark and Compendium Blogware.

We did an organic search this evening and were very pleased to see that MyChristmasBook.com is at the top of the organic search. We were also delighted to see the tracking results of our email campaign where many of our subscribers visited their own personal North Pole webpage to see a 2 minute demonstration. Over 25% of the recipients selected the personalized link that included their email address.   Here is a sample personalized URL (PURL), that we call the North Pole web address - http://helper.mychristmasbook.com/NorthPole/personalizemybook@gmail.com.

We also spent time tweeting, posting content on Facebook sites and updating a Brainshark presentation. Of all the lead generation activities we engaged in, blogging received the fastest and most desired results.

We don't have a long-tail keyword for this campaign, but MyChristmasBook.com is unique enough that it can be found in an organic search in Google. We know as we blog about this subject this evening, we will keep our rating up and more customers will find us as they hear more about us. So blogs are faster than Santa's reindeer Virginia and they rate high on Google's naughty and nice list.

Re-purposing Content to Drive Lead Generation

Tuesday, December 15, 2009 by Mark Rice

Webinar Resources recently launched MyChristmasBook.com where you can order a personalized, online Christmas Story Photo Book and display a child's name in text and images.    We created a Brainshark presentation and have made several versions of the presentation by re-purposing the content.   There are now actually four different versions of our Brainshark presentation being used to promote MyChristmasBook.com

Re-purposing content with Brainshark allows you to quickly recreate content for different audiences to drive lead generation. The original version of the Brainshark presentation is embedded in the MyChristmasBook.com main page.   We then re-purposed the content and posted it on our Webinar Resources landing page. You will also find some of the latest Compendium webinar replays on our landing page.

There is also a MyChristmasBook Trailer posted at http://www.mybrainshark.com. It has been interesting to watch the popularity of the trailer as it has been viewed across the world.

Finally, we launched an email using ExactTarget today to our newsletter subscribers which provided a more personalized experience with a unique personalized URL or PURL.   We call it a unique North Pole webpage address for the kids.   You can visit and share my North Pole address to see how personalization works and hear part of the story of Santa Claus and Lost Dog - http://helper.mychristmasbook.com/NorthPole/markrice@riceresources.com.

We found after creating more content for some of the newer Brainshark presentations that we could reuse the content for earlier Brainshark presentations.   So our most recent content that we created for our North Pole webpage address has been repurposed to improve the original Brainshark presentation on MyChristmasBook.com.

Launching this campaign using our partner applications from Compendium, Brainshark, ExactTarget and Vontoo has enabled us to blend the best and create an effective lead generation holiday campaign.   Visit any of the links and learn more.

Give Away Content to Attract Customers

Thursday, June 18, 2009 by Carolyn Hasenfratz

One of the things we all love about the Internet is all the free stuff available for download. For the profit-minded, there are good reasons to make quality, helpful content available on your web site for free. Useful content gives you credibility in your field and helps to build long-term relationships with prospects. If your content is popular, you can generate revenue through advertising. If your content contains text, there are lots of good keywords for search engines to latch onto. Another benefit of good content is that it attracts incoming links, sometimes called "link bait". In checking the external links for one of my sites on which I sell craft supplies, I can see that by far the most popular individual pages are those that contain project tutorials or free templates. Given that incoming links help your site in the organic search results, and that search marketing has a very high ROI in a time when advertising budgets might be shrinking, having quality content that people want to link to is a huge advantage.

I put my web site address on the free templates available for download on one of my web sites so that users will be reminded of my business every time they see the template. Don't overlook the possibility of placing your content on specialized portals so that people who have never been to your site have the opportunity to be exposed to your content. Be sure to embed information about your company within that content. Just to name a few examples, there are portals for articles, blogs, Illustrator files, movies and RSS feeds. If you publish a Brainshark presentation, there are two types of portals provided in which you can make your content available for free or for a fee. Click here to view Webinar Resources' Brainshark content portal. Brainshark is a powerful tool that you can use to turn PowerPoint slides into multimedia presentations with many powerful features including viral marketing capability.

By giving a little, you could gain a lot!

Nurture Your Most Important Asset: Knowledge

Friday, May 1, 2009 by Carolyn Hasenfratz

Some time ago, I was given a stack of books by two former teachers of mine who were getting ready to move to another state and trying to lighten the load. One of the titles was "Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation" by Don Tapscott. Written in 1998, at the height of the Internet boom and also the year I started working in the industry professionally, it reflects the heady optimism of those times and the feeling I remember having every day as I went to work that we were participating in a revolution that would have as great an effect on people's lives as the Industrial Revolution did. The book's primary focus is on the generation just younger than my own Generation X, Generation Y, which the author proposes renaming the Net Generation or N-Gen because growing up with the digital media and the Internet is their defining characteristic. How will the N-Gen change the way we learn, play, work, shop, and live as a result of having developed with
this technology?

The author argues that one of the things that is changing is that knowledge is becoming capital. The competitive advantages that once went to the companies with the most money or equipment will in the future go to companies with the most knowledge. "There is no sustainable competitive advantage today other than organizational learning. That is, companies can compete only if they can learn faster than their competitors."

If this is true, how can businesses make sure that they are fostering a healthy environment in which learning can take place?

Technology is certainly a big help. At Webinar Resources, we use software such as Xerox Docushare, Google Spreadsheets, and Content Circles to organize documents and make them available to all the employees who need them. We use technology such as Brainshark Presentations and ExactTarget emails to help our clients distribute and archive their important knowledge.

At least as important as technology in my opinion is the organizational attitude toward learning and collaboration. At Webinar Resources we have a culture that allows knowledge to flourish. Knowledge flows from the top of the hierarchy down, from bottom to top, and from peer to peer. Employees are encouraged to write up instructions for whatever new techniques we've learned and upload them to our online knowledge base. All employees are allowed to contribute to the shared knowledge of the organization and enjoy doing it (I do anyway). Employees are expected to teach each other, and are given tools and resources for self-directed learning as well.

Contrast this kind of culture with a workplace that you may have been unfortunate to experience, where employees are given incomplete or deliberately misleading information, and employees who refuse to share with each other are tolerated, even to the detriment of customer service. Sometimes this kind of toxic environment results when there are fears that employees will leave the company with important information. Yet the kinds of employees with a lot of knowledge to share are probably the ones who enjoy learning the most. What kind of environment do you think will keep them happier and healthier? Where are they more likely to stay?

In "Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation", the author believes that the influence of digital technology leads to the development of workers who thrive in a collaborative learning environment. That may be true, but whatever generation they are from, I believe that it's in your best interest to help all of your employees to reach their full potential by providing a fertile and healthy environment for learning in your organization.

Pass it on

Friday, March 27, 2009 by Mark Rice

Everyday we are encountering more social media tools that allow you to quickly share information with others. Today we launched an email campaign for one of our customers that contained a personalized video for the recipients. Each customer received a PURL, a personalized URL, that embedded the customer's name in the video. It was a pretty slick application.

Using ExactTarget, we launched the email movie clips through personalization strings that contained the PURLs. This was an effective lead generation process for driving customer acquisition. Through personalized marketing campaigns, you can capture your reader's interest and move them to take an action.

We are using Brainshark presentations to personalize on demand presentation content and further honing our abilities to deliver a Webinar for ONE.

Go the Extra Mile and get more than Salad!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 by joanna hamilton

Like everyone, we have some customers who come and go across our desks a couple times a year, and then we have some who are there a couple times a day to drive lead generation.

Recently we drove customer acquisition for one of our frequent customers for an event through a personalized marketing campaign. Through a lot of work, the event sold out in two weeks and our customer was thrilled.

Because we work with this customer on an almost daily basis, we decided to go the extra mile and support the event locally, though there's nothing in our contract that defines our work in that way. I found myself pulling what props I could from my children's closets so that I could dress like a pirate and take pictures at the event.

My thoughts were, "OK, just give me a salad at the customer dinner in exchange for these services, and we'll call it a draw." What our team got in return was much more than a salad.

Yes, I dressed like a pirate and managed to draw enough smiles from our client's customers to create a spiffy memory book for the occasion. We also managed to meet with no less than 9 cricital contacts in the span of 2 business days. As a result of these meetings- some scheduled, some by chance, we are better positioned across our client's corporation, and we were able to schedule new business.

So - while the salad and the meal were really good, what was even better was the unexpected developments with existing and new contacts. It's definitely worth it to partner with your clients in ways you might not consider "your area"- - it was well worth our while!

Attend Your Customer Events

Saturday, February 28, 2009 by Mark Rice

I just had the great opportunity this past week to attend one of my customer's events onsite in NY. My events team spent a great deal of time setting up online tools to support customer acquisition including the use of a Brainshark presentation for customers.

Through specially designed personalized marketing campaigns, we were able to draw a record crowd of customers in less than three weeks. The event also had a "pirate-theme" and we produced personalized pirate maps with the customer's names on them.

I attended the event and was able to participate in the festivities which included wine, grog, spirited networking and the opportunity to meet my customers and their customers. I also repurposed one of my old pirate tunes from college and added new lyrics to fit the event. I will share the song in a future post.

What I didn't expect was that I would run into other contacts from my customer's account that I have been trying to meet for over two years. The success of the customer event established my company's credibility for building lead generation conferences like this one and our dialogue was both positive and productive.

So next time you put a lot of effort into setting up an event or campaign for your customer. make sure you participate in the event as well. You will learn more about your customer's business, their customer's business and you may just meet that key contact/decision maker that will influence additional business in your customer's account. You also will be considered more of a partner than a vendor and your business relationship will continue to grow.

Online Forms: Green, with Benefits

Friday, January 16, 2009 by Carolyn Hasenfratz

Being "Green" is trendy. Being "Green" makes you feel like you're doing the right thing. Giving the impression of being "Green" makes you look good to your customers. Appearing to be "Green" is an effective marketing tool for products that, according to one study, are only 1% likely to really be beneficial for the environment. As a business person, you know that in a competitive environment you can't afford to fall for Greenwashing and hype when the time comes to find ways to make your operation more green - it makes sense to be skeptical. On the other hand, when you can find genuinely environmentally friendly practices that have additional benefits for your business, that's a win-win situation.

We've found that one such win-win situation in our work is the use of online forms for collecting information from customers. Using an online form instead of a paper form saves the paper and the resources that went into making it, transporting it, and printing on it. But there are many other benefits to an online form that have nothing to do with saving paper. For example, the data you receive is in a format that you can cut and paste, reducing retyping time and human errors that take time to correct and can cause delays in a project. If your customers are in the habit of leaving out important information on paper forms, you can make those fields required on an online form, and the customer will not be able to send the form without completing it. This not only eliminates the time it would have taken to contact the customer for the necessary information, but also you will be able to turn around projects more quickly, which improves customer service and your profits. Another productivity increase that comes with online forms is the ability to send the data to multiple recipients with one click, saving time that might otherwise be spent gathering the information and making it available to colleagues who need it. With online forms there is an opportunity to upsell or give your customers better service by providing links to information that you want your customers to have, either on the form itself or on a web page where they are directed after completion.

None of the benefits I've mentioned so far are new - online forms have been around for awhile. What is new are some of the added functions that you can add to forms and landing pages with products like email marketing by Exact Target and automated, on demand voice messaging by Vontoo. It is now possible to send a voice message or a text message to a customer's mobile device at their request with forms and other triggered sends. It's possible to show them a personalized image on a landing page that is generated by completing a form or by a click in an email - for an example see this Personalized Landing Pages demonstration - or wow them even more with a rich media Brainshark presentation with customized content that reflects the customer's input from the form.

Please contact us if you would like to deploy any of these exciting new techniques in your customer acquisition program.

Blogging and Google Alert

Monday, December 8, 2008 by Mark Rice

It is amazing to witness how quickly blogging can drive activity.   One of my team recently blogged about the Discovery Light project that we supported at a recent trade show.   Using our webinar service, we posted a Brainshark presentation about how we marketed the show and our lead generation conference exhibit.

As we were using a combination of email and personalized landing pages to drive customer acquisition, our reference to the words "landing page" triggered a Google Alert for another company, ExactTarget.   Within one week of posting our blog, ExactTarget contacted us after visiting our post.   They had set up a Google alert for the words "landing page".   ExactTarget recently released their Landing Page feature and we have been putting it to good use for our demand generation marketing programs.   Make sure you opt-in to receive our next newsletter to see a great example of a personalized image marketing campaign.

Quite often we receive a Google alert after posting a blog as we also monitor keywords.    We have heard Chris Baggott, of Compendium Blogware, a number of times comment on how Google likes old content, recent content and frequent content.   We produce Webinar for ONE replays of their webinars and we hear these words in every presentaiton.

Chris is right on target.   You can drive effective lead generation through frequent and relevant blogging.    We are witnesses to the process and we are becoming evangelists for compended blogging.    The combination of blogging and Google Alerts is another step to helping you achieve that "virtual knock" on the door and another step away from no more cold calls.

Other people are watching and waiting for their Google Alerts to trigger a message about keywords they monitor.   The more you blog about a particular subject, the more chances you have of driving effective lead generation.

Mobile Madness

Saturday, November 29, 2008 by Mark Rice

It's almost 1:00 AM, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and it is quiet enough now to sit down and blog. I hope everyone had a great holiday and had time to spend with loved ones.

My colleague, JoAnna, called me late Wednesday to inform me that her Blackberry Storm had just hit her doorstep.   Though she was excited to finally have the opportunity to start using the Blackberry, she had to tend to cranberries, casseroles and a Thanksgiving feast for her family.   The Blackberry Storm would just have to be a quiet storm for a couple of days.

So what is all the fuss about these mobile devices anyway?   We have been waiting for the right mobile phone to come along that will support Flash.   No, not flash memory or flash cameras, we have been waiting to see Adobe Flash running on a mobile phone.  I have tested the iPhone, the G1 (Google phone) and now JoAnna has the newest player on the field, the Blackberry Storm.  Sooner or later one of these mobile units is going to support Flash and the ability to run Brainshark presentations.

So why is that so important you may ask?    Flash will change how mobile content is delivered.   You will basically be able to email movie clips in Flash format to mobile phones.   The fastest way to generate and deliver Flash content is through a Webinar for ONE presentation using the Brainshark presentation platform.   A Webinar for ONE is an interactive presentation that can be tracked and personalized for the recipient.   Viewer behavior can be tracked with reporting on slide duration and number of slides viewed. With additional viewing parameters, we can actually personalize the content to the recipient's preferences.

The Blackberry Storm could be the blast of technology that enables Flash and new demand generation marketing techniques for reaching millions of mobile users with customized content. So I am patiently waiting for JoAnna to get up the learning curve and make a splash with Flash when she runs the first Webinar for ONE on the Blackberry Storm.   Put away the leftovers JoAnna and cook up some history. We are all waiting.

Social Media in Business - Part of 4 of 4: Provide the same level of respect online as you would in a on-site meeting

Monday, November 24, 2008 by Carolyn Hasenfratz

It all adds up to: let your "Subscribers Rule" and let your customers communicate with you the way THEY like to communicate with you, which these days is very likely to include Social Media. I am a recent and enthusiastic convert, but I am trying very hard to be careful and not offend anyone with my Social Media experiments. I know what it's like to get unwanted commercial messages, just as you do. For example, I've taken the rather drastic step of having the text messaging function on my cell phone disabled because I resented having to pay to receive spam messages. This past June I saw the rock band Rush in concert for the 15th or 16th time and would have loved to have been able to text message something like "Geddy Lee Rules!" and have it show up on the big screens during intermission (as if people didn't know that already), but that's one of the small pleasures of life I was deprived of when I gave up on text messaging with my phone!

People can get resentful toward you for much less egregious cyber-offenses than that. One reason for the popularity of Social Media is that users feel it's something they can control better than their email inbox, so please keep that in mind when you are thinking about how to use Social Media for business lead generation. If you take the time and learn the technology and the culture by using the media for more casual, personal purposes first, you should get a feel for what is acceptable behavior and what is not, and then get ideas for how it can help with customer acquisition.

If you want to learn more about the kinds of concepts that were discussed at Connections '08, which include the customer acquisition process, personalized marketing campaigns, and effective lead generation, try visiting the Subscribers Rule Blog.

Image Personalization Used to Help Launch New Product at Graph Expo

Monday, November 24, 2008 by Carolyn Hasenfratz

As you read in Mark's recent blog post, Discovering the Discovery Light at Graph Expo, we attended Graph Expo in Chicago in October to promote Discovery Light^TM, an interactive system for helping young children learn to read by using a special light that creates discovery through hidden messages.

Some of the hidden messages are revealed through a font that produces tiny printed text that can only be viewed with a magnifier.

Other hidden messages are revealed by shining a UV light source, the Discovery Light^TM, on certain areas of the book. Below is a demonstration of the flourescent text in action.

We also put variable data into the books we were displaying at the show. To demonstrate that the books can be personalized for the child that will receive them, we put an assortment of different sample names in the giveaway copies of the book.

Kids aren't the only ones who like personalization - adults take notice of it too. To emphasize the personalization theme, we personalized the emails that we sent out to invite customers to our booth at the show also.

Mark has written about embedding personalized images into the body of an email before in his blog post How to Acquire Customers and Influence People with Personalization. For the Discovery Light^TM, we decided to go a step further and create personalized landing pages for each recipient, a feature available in the ExactTarget email software that we use, that the customers would reach if they clicked on a link in the email. The behavior of the individual customers who clicked on the link is trackable through the landing page.

With these powerful tools we were able to generate interest in our exhibit at the show, the brand new Discovery Light^TM web site, and the value of personalization all at the same time.

If you would like to see my photos from my short but interesting trip to the show, please click here - Graph Expo '08.

Marketing for Mobile Messaging

Friday, November 21, 2008 by joanna hamilton

While I refused to fight the crowds to be on of the first through the door to pick up a brand new Blackberry Storm, I will be going this afternoon to make my purchase.

My boss, Mark, and I have a very un-official, un-scientific experiment (aka competition) we're conducting. He has the new G1 (Google) phone from T-Mobile. I'm getting the Blackberry Storm from Verizon Wireless. We're putting the networks aside, and comparing the phones for how well they enhance our ability to conduct business.

Mark got his G1 about a month ago, and has been bragging ever since. He L-O-V-E-S it. Just for fun on the weekend, he creates a brainshark presentation from his phone, records the voice, and then sends a vontoo message over to us just to gloat.

I'm hoping that I will be able to return the favor with the Blackberry storm. I know I won't have Windows mobile, but what will I be able to do? At a minimum, I should be able to enjoy the latest and greatest in screen resolution and display options to view what our custoemrs view. At most, will I be able to operate the Blackberry Storm as a miniature laptop, of sorts, the way that Mark has been able to do with his G1?

Our whole business centers around effective lead generation and customer acquisition through managed services and internet marketing. We drive personalized marketing campaigns through interactive technologies that may include any or all of the following:
--Video Web Conferencing
--Email Movie Clips
--Variable Data embedded in html emails
--Web Conferencing
--On Demand Presentations

We are also heavy users of many interactive programs including but not limited to online calendars.

Over the next few weeks, we will be testing out these technologies with the G1 and Blackberry Storm. Maybe we'll even keep a scorecard. For now, I have to sign off to go place my order.

Stay tuned, and if YOU have a G1 or a piping hot new Blackberry Storm--please post and tell us about the SMS feats you've conquered.

Social Media in Business - Part of 3 of 4: OFFERING A PREFERENCE OF AVAILABILITY

Friday, November 14, 2008 by Carolyn Hasenfratz

In my last post I talked about how social media gives your audience more ways to receive your content. They can choose many different ways to send you information as well. In addition to calling you or filling out a form on your web site, depending on what services you make available to them, they can for example leave a comment on your blog, or write on your wall in Facebook. Effective lead generation includes giving more choices to your audience so that they can have the kind of relationship with you that suits them.

Other than the natural instinct to make it as easy to contact you as possible, what other reasons might there be for making the effort to branch out into social media? At the Connections '08 conference, I took lots of notes. Here are some excerpts from those notes:

"Relationships with customers are one thing that competitors can't copy."
"79% of customers buy from companies that they are in a relationship with, rather than just on price."
"About 30% of email addresses go bad every year."
"22% of Internet users are using social media instead of email."
"Facebook - must be on it to understand what is going on."

Those random notations lead me to some ideas about why businesses might want to have a social media presence to help with customer acquisition. If about 30% of email addresses go bad every year, then you can't count on email alone to keep in touch with your customers. It makes sense to have other channels available.

Relationships with customers and personalized marketing campaigns are clearly important - how can social media help to build those relationships? Blogs can help a great deal by humanizing your company through informal communication that allows transparent feedback. Blogs are also a great way to possibly get on social networking and bookmarking sites without you having to do anything - for example on our Webinar Resources Blog, at the bottom of each post is a Share This chicklet. If you click it, you will see dozens of chicklets that a visitor to this blog can use to share our posts using the service of their choice. This is just one of many ways that the people who really like what you're producing can do some of your marketing for you by their own free will.

If 22% of Internet users are using social media instead of email, as effective as email is, it's clear you are going to have to reach those particular customers some other way. If your customers are looking for you, it's important to be where they are. If you are using a social networking service, are fellow users on that service manifesting their relationships with different causes, organizations, brand names or products? Can you get any ideas from how they are doing it?

How to Acquire Customers and Influence People with Personalization

Monday, October 13, 2008 by Mark Rice

Dale Carnegie's famous quote "Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language" is still a valid lesson when approaching people.   Everyone likes to be called by their name and have their name remembered.

Mr. Carnegie didn't realize the impact that today's technology could have in influencing people to take an action, especially when personalization is involved.
We have all seen the personalized approach marketing campaigns have taken in addressing the recipient by their first name and including variable data in the communication that is related to the recipient. Personalized communications are an open door to a conversation with a prospect, a partner or an existing customer.
The latest breakthrough technology for personalization is the ability to convert text into personalized images.  A recipient's name can now be an image emblazoned across a label on a wine bottle or carved into a piece of fine wood.   This approach takes personalization to a new level.

Imagine seeing your name embossed on a director's chair?   Would you be more likely to learn more about the message behind the link or in this case, your personal name on an image?

We recently modified a webinar replay follow up email and inserted a personalized director's chair in the body of the email. We predicted that the personalized image would increase click-throughs to the Brainshark presentation (webinar replay) that was linked to the recipient's personalized chair. The results of the campaign were significant with dramatic increases in:

click-throughs - 50% increase
number of views - 50% increase
total replay viewing time - 25 hrs - 3X increase

When the targeted recipient selected their personalized,director's chair, the personalization experience continued as the recipient's profile information was automatically transferred to the guest book in the webinar replay.

Through the use of variable data and XMPie's uDirect Studio, we were able to create and personalize a chair for each recipient. Using attributes in our personalized marketing campaign, we posted each recipient's chair into the email.

Dale Carnegie was right - people love to hear their name. They are also more likely to respond to a personalized image of their name as a call to action to in a relevant and targeted email. We see some great opportunities and applications where image personalization can give your emails that extra edge that will increase open rates and effective lead generation.

Will YOUR Event be a Shot in the Arm?

Tuesday, October 7, 2008 by joanna hamilton

Our customer acquisition team landed in Indianpolis for the Exact Target Connections 08 Agency and User conference. Our management attended last year's event and found the sessions so valuable that additional investment was made to send three of us to the conference this year.

Little did we know what we were in for. I have to say we were all a bit weary and war-torn getting there, as the end of 3rd Quarter has resulted in quite the rush to crank out events for 4th quarter.

What a shot in the arm we received from this conference! They got it right on so many levels.

Exact Target used their own technology for effective lead generation for months prior to the event. They launced their own personalized marketing campaign to first get us there, and then, once registered, to get us to the break-out sessions they had carefully planned.

And it didn't stop there. Once we were there, we continued to get cues from all angles as to what not to miss and how we would be "rewarded" by making it to certain meetings. (Amazing what grown adults will do for a free beach towel or oversized foam finger).

Yes, we went to the conference tired, and weary. However, we left energized and ready to take on not just the day's challenges, but new horizons, as well.

Good job Exact Target!

Any suggestions? Yes!

I think ALL event/conference organizers could use some Vontoo in their back pocket. While everyone is rushing around with their cell phones in their pockets--send them a voice reminder that "The keynote speaker will begin in 10 minutes."

AND---Include in your follow-up an email-embedded brainshark presentation or email flash movie to remind your folks of the best points in that keynote, or the funniest jokes at the last-night-reward dinner.