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1 If you re like most marketers, you re looking for proven ways to get more of a return on your marketing efforts. You know that isn t the newest form of advertising communication, but it s still a powerful channel for driving revenue. An ExactTarget SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS report published earlier this year revealed that 77% of consumers prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications via than any other channel.* This guide contains five essential best practices, with quick tips to help increase your revenue. ExactTarget has worked with thousands of top brands over the past decade and we ve seen firsthand what it takes to grow a successful marketing program. *Source: ExactTarget 2012 Channel Preference Survey, February 2012 To maximize your revenue through marketing, follow these five tried-and-true practices: Gain Subscribers... Page 2 Improve Deliverability... Page 3 Design for Clicks... Page 4 Drive Engagement... Page 5 Use Automation... Page 6 Want more tips and tricks from ExactTarget? Visit /Resources for other helpful downloads.

2 1 GAIN SUBSCRIBERS list growth is more important now than ever. In an ExactTarget SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS report released earlier this year, 66% of consumers say they ve made a purchase as a result of receiving an . Despite the growth of mobile and social channels, is the channel consumers choose when it comes to driving revenue and ongoing engagement with brands. Try these tips to grow your list organically: Make a list of your five most common customer touchpoints and audit each to ensure you re providing every opportunity to opt in to your communications. Consider your website pages, printed receipts, on-location signage, the online purchase process, events, or tradeshows. Test a few different opt in techniques. Choose a few opt in methods and track them closely to determine your most successful source of new subscribers. Get social. If your subscriber list has hit a plateau, you may be overlooking a captive audience: your Facebook fans! Use a simple sign-up form to drive opt-ins and collect customer data on Facebook. It s an easy and efficient way to gain subscribers who are truly interested in your brand. Need help with this? ExactTarget SocialPages makes it easy to build a branded Facebook fan page with customized content, including sign-up forms. When fans submit an address, it s automatically added to your chosen subscriber list. Go Mobile. According to BI Intelligence, 99% of all mobile devices sold today are capable of receiving SMS messages. Encourage people to join your program via text message by promoting SMS callsto-action on-location (whether in-store or at a trade show). Entice participation with a discount offer or other promotion. See how ExactTarget MobileConnect makes mobile messaging easy (for in-bound and out-bound campaigns)! Learn more at /Mobile 2

3 2 IMPROVE DELIVERABILITY If your s don t make it to subscribers inboxes, you re losing out on valuable revenue opportunities. Poor deliverability can be a result of several factors, but no matter the cause, it will quickly jeopardize your marketing program. Follow these tips to ensure your s hit the inbox: Use double opt-in to avoid getting blacklisted. Reduce the risk of finding your IP address on blacklists by implementing a double opt-in campaign. Here s how: 1. Trigger an opt-in confirmation immediately after a subscriber signs up and ask them to confirm that they d like to be on your list. 2. When your subscribers respond yes, you re less likely to end up with deliverability issues down the road. Maintain a consistent From Name. By using a consistent From Name, your subscribers will grow accustomed to receiving from you and will be less likely to hit the SPAM button. This consistency will also help your credibility in the eyes of your subscribers and ISPs. Double check your subject line. Avoid spam filters by not including the following characters and terms: RE:, FW:, Hello, Free, Special Offer, Text in ALL CAPS, Exclamation points!!! Consider subscriber engagement. Webmail providers like Yahoo! and Gmail know exactly which messages are opened, viewed, clicked, or deleted without being read. This data is compiled to create an engagement score for you as a sender. Building scores to denote reputable senders isn t new, but ISPs are starting to rely on this engagement-based data more heavily than before. If you want to keep your spot in the inbox, make sure you re sending only to your most engaged subscribers. Every you send to an unengaged subscriber puts you closer to falling into the bulk or SPAM folder. Test your message content and frequency to determine what resonates. Curious how to improve engagement rates? Flip to page 5 to read more about engagement and relevancy. 3

4 3 DESIGN FOR CLICKS Strategic planning and testing are crucial components of great design. Your design should make it easy for readers to understand and act on your call-to-action, ultimately resulting in the highest conversion rate for your marketing campaigns. Here are a few ways to maximize your subscriber response with design: Design for mobile. ExactTarget research has shown that more than half of consumers (53%) use a smartphone to check at least several times per day. To ensure your design renders properly on mobile devices: Format text to increase pixel size for smaller devices. This will improve readability with fewer words and larger text per line appearing on smaller screens. Format images to auto-adjust to the size of the screen instead of a fixed pixel dimension. Use media queries to allow multiple columns to collapse into one column for easy reading. Consider what s most relevant to your mobile viewers and hide elements like preheader information or unnecessary images to provide a better user experience. Put your most important information in the upper left quadrant. Research proves that the human eye scans in an F pattern. Use this knowledge to your advantage by positioning your logo, headline, and key call-to-action at the top of your . Be sure your primary message is above the fold. Plan for blocked images. Don t rely solely on images to get your message across because 60% of clients block images by default. Tech tip: Use HTML text and web-safe fonts when possible. Include <Alt> tags with your images, and always create a text version of your . Avoid extremely wide templates, and steer clear of JavaScript and embedded style sheets. Test and test again. The best way to determine whether or not your design is effective is to test across multiple clients. Statistically, 69% of B2B and 27% of B2C subscribers view their with a preview pane, so look for proper rendering and preview pane views. Remember your brilliant design is only valuable if your subscribers can see it. 4

5 DRIVE ENGAGEMENT Every marketer wants customers who are engaged with their brand. It turns out that engagement (and revenue) is directly tied to relevancy and relevancy is key to maximizing the lifetime value of your customers. A recent study by emarketer revealed that 56% of US users unsubscribe to a business list because the content was no longer relevant. Our research has proven that as marketers move from left to right on this relevancy scale, engaging in more personalized, one-to-one marketing tactics, the potential to drive revenue increases exponentially. How can you increase engagement? Segment your communications. Use all the data you know about your subscribers gender, job title, hobbies and interests, purchase history, browsing history, social media presence, etc. to send messages tailored to their lifestyle and likes. How? It starts with integrations and testing, so keep reading! Integrate your marketing and CRM systems. Whether your CRM system is homegrown or from a top provider like Salesforce. com, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, or Oracle, you can eliminate disparate systems and store all your customer data in one integrated system. This makes it easy to personalize your marketing to create precise segments, acquire new leads, and nurture those leads through your sales cycle. See how our clients have boosted engagement and increased revenue: /Clients/SuccessStories Test to discover what resonates. Run an A/B test every time to maximize your engagement. Test subject lines or content such as hero images, promotional offers, and calls-to-action to see what performs best. Simple tests like these are easy to execute and ensure you re delivering the most relevant content you have to offer. Give your audiences the ability to hear from your through multiple channels by occasionally testing the promotion of other channels within your social networks. DO YOU HAVE THE ORIGINAL VECTOR FILE FOR THIS? 5

6 USE AUTOMATION Routine and time-intensive tasks like data movement, segmentation, and messaging programs become easy with set it and forget it functionality. The right marketing automation tools make it possible for you to do more with less, freeing you up to focus on strategy and optimizing your interactive marketing programs, while keeping your revenue flowing. Here are a few ways you can use automation to make your job easier: Automate a welcome program. Welcome s are highly anticipated, frequently opened, and (luckily for you) simple to automate! Use an automatic marketing drip to increase conversions at a time when you already have the consumer s attention by including products, services, or special offers. Tie together social media by adding Facebook and Twitter icons in your welcome s to help subscribers connect with your brand across channels. Capitalize on cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. If you send receipts or online transaction confirmations, include offers on related products or services in those messages. s like this are easily automated and allow you to maximize your customer data to boost revenue opportunities. Automate cart abandonment campaigns. Targeted s using clickstream data can generate, on average, nine times more revenue. Integrate your web analytics and marketing systems to run automated campaigns based on online behavior. Automatically include an image of the abandoned product, an incentive to purchase, or include related product recommendations. ExactTarget s integrations with leading web analytics providers like Adobe Omniture, Google Analytics, Webtrends, and Coremetrics can save you time while creating a huge opportunity to regain missed revenue. Learn more online at /Partners Implement customer satisfaction programs. Customer feedback is vital to continued success and yet, we re often too busy to stop and ask for input. If you re a B2B business, try automating a customer satisfaction survey to send one to three days after a customer completes a transaction. If you re a B2C company, automate an to ask for product reviews two to three weeks after the customer completed the purchase. 6

7 QUICK REFERENCE Here s a single page summary of this guide. Hang it near your desk for an easy way to remember best practices to drive revenue through your marketing! 1 Gain Subscribers 4 Boost Engagement 2 3 Audit your customer touchpoints. Test opt-in techniques. Offer a social sign-up form. Allow mobile opt-in. Improve Deliverability Use double opt-in to avoid getting blacklisted. Maintain a consistent From Name. Double check your subject line. Consider subscriber engagement. Design for Clicks 5 Integrate your marketing and CRM systems. Test to discover which parts of your resonate best. Segment your communications to tailor your messages. Use Automation Automate a welcome program. Capitalize on cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Automate cart abandonment campaigns. Implement customer satisfaction programs. BRINGING TOGETHER CROSS-CHANNEL MESSAGING, CRM, AND WEB ANALYTICS BRINGING TOGETHER Cross-Channel Messaging, CRM, and Web Analytics You already know that successful interactive marketing is crucial to forging stronger relationships with your customers and continuing the conversation about your brand. But regardless of whether you re an expert or just getting started, there s always more you can do to uplevel your program to a well-oiled interactive marketing machine. Ready to enhance your interactive marketing knowledge? In this guide, you ll find descriptions, tips, and expert advice broken down based on your level of interactive marketing expertise to help you bring together the essential components needed to build an integrated, world-class program. If you ve taken our quiz, jump to the section that best applies to you! If you haven t yet taken the quiz, you can take it HERE before you get started. BEGINNER Just getting started with interactive marketing? Begin on page 2. INTERMEDIATE Fancy yourself an intermediate interactive marketer? Go on to page 7. EXPERT So you re an expert, huh? Jump to page Take the quiz! Design for rendering on mobile devices. Put your most important information in upper left quadrant. Plan for blocked images. Test your design on a regular basis. Enough Talk. It s Time for Action. To learn how ExactTarget can help drive more revenue through your digital marketing, call us at For more tips, tools, and advice, visit /Resources. 7

8 CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT MADE EASY Discover the Interactive Marketing Hub Work smarter by running your marketing through the Interactive Marketing Hub. Intuitive campaign and calendar tools, plus cross-channel capabilities, allow you to efficiently manage all your interactive programs from one, centralized location. Take the data you gather across , Facebook, Twitter, and point of sale to form a comprehensive view of each consumer. In the Hub, you can plan, automate, and deliver cross-channel marketing campaigns all based on your data. This means: Less Work for You. Say goodbye to managing multiple vendors. With the Hub, you can efficiently monitor campaigns in real time while simultaneously managing conversations across Twitter and Facebook from one intuitive dashboard. Greater Return on Your Investment. With all your customer data accessible in one place, you can finally gain a single, comprehensive view of each consumer. This helps you build smarter campaigns that appeal to your audiences and drive action equaling a greater return on your interactive marketing investment. See for Yourself. Visit /Hub to discover the power of the Interactive Marketing Hub!