Our team had a discussion last week about some of the trends of email marketing; strategies such as micro/behavioral segmentation, personalization, and deliverability.  The more research I do on today’s email marketing strategies, the more I realize that email is much more complicated than I originally thought.  It’s not only a process of developing a successful strategy but it also requires the ability to build out a sound deployment strategy and integration plan with all the other marketing initiatives.
 
After reading Loren McDonald’s recent article in iMedia Connection, I also realize that it is up to the business owner of email marketing to prove ROI off of these sophisticated, integrated email campaigns.  He states that “deliverability, rendering and segmentation are logistical challenges that now require higher-level expertise. It takes skill to devise a forward-thinking marketing strategy that integrates email with SEM and other marketing imperatives.”  I completely agree.  Email deployment strategies have matured so much over the past couple years and there is a need for a full time email specialist to implement the complicated strategies that touch online marketing, offline marketing, user generated content, etc. 
 
Are companies investing a full time job in email marketing strategies?  If so, can you share some success stories?

The conference we are planning for our customers next fall, namely the TechTarget Online ROI Summit, is keen on addressing a pain point for marketers that is getting continual attention.

Since the advent of online as a viable marketing venue, marketers have been tasked with proving ROI on their online expenditures. For better or worse, proving ROI is now a key consideration as the web adds the dimension of exposing who visits, or clicks, or responds to our ad messages - something not as easily or readily accomplished with traditional media.

As a result there is an ever-present pressure on marketers to demonstrate what the exact performance of each online media investment is - especially when it comes to generating leads.

At the TechTarget Online ROI Summit, our goal will be to showcase to marketers what the benchmarks for acceptable performance should be on old and new media online, as well as set them up with information that will help them transcend the constant scrutiny of proving ROI.

If you have any specific frustrations related to this subject that you would like to share-please do.

Social Media has been poised as the next big thing for Online Marketing.  It helps connect users with one another as well as with the original publisher of content.  This has created an entire new way of marketing.  Social media comes in many forms, blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, video, etc.  A recent eMarketing report quotes that a global survey of internal and corporate communication professionals found more than half use blogs, online video, and RSS, or plan to do so in the next 12 months. eMarketing also states that the data reveals that a lot of firms say they plan to start blogging  but that is a matter of intent, not reality.  Many companies do not have a policy in place relating to blogging or other social media tools, indicating that they are unprepared for public facing communication.
What are your company’s policies behind blogging?  How have you used social media in your marketing plans?

I have attended hundreds of B2B marketing campaign performance presentations and asked numerous clients about their lead nurturing and lead conversion strategies.  Some clients don’t have the infrastructure in place to map the ROI on leads delivered and others who do, don’t have complete confidence in metrics delivered.  Plus, a lot of the metrics presented are more subjective than objective.  As a marketer, what is the best way you can become more confident in your lead management system besides implementing the newest software?

If you do a search on the topic “closed loop lead management”, the results are typically focused on technology solutions or tools that can be used to implement a lead management strategy.  But as Brian Carroll mentioned in a recent blog post, it isn’t only the tools that make a closed loop lead marketing successful.  It’s the people and the strategy.  I completely agree.  

I agree that a lot of success comes from “closing the loop” with the sales team.  Offering them ownership in developing the lead management strategy will offer them vested interest in making the process a success.  But at the same time, we need to remember that sales isn’t the only department who touch leads.  If you include your lead gen partners/publishers in the development of your strategy/process, they can offer recommendations based on past experiences and possibly offer seamless lead delivery options that can help shorten the sales cycle. In addition, channel and telesales groups can offer a unique perspective that your main sales team might not have line of sight into.  And finally, bringing in the expertise of your technical team will not only help with improving efficiencies, but it will also give them a stakeholder role.

Do you agree, as marketers, that managing a group of internal stakeholders will offer a more successful closed loop lead management system in the end?

There’s been recent press about the ROI validated for advertisers sponsoring web pages in social web environments; personal pages to be exact. In a recent marketing study conducted by Carat Ad agency and Marketing Revolution the value of an ad sponsorship in a social networking space is explored in an article appearing recently in Ad Age. The marketing study measured lift related to four traditional ROI metrics: intent to purchase, positive brand image, intent to recommend and unaided awareness as a result of vendors Adidas and Electronic Arts testing three different MySpace environments. In short the study results proved positive.

Besides exploring the return on branding investments made on users’ personal pages, the study revisits a provocative question as far as branding ROI goes.

The conclusion of the study basically points to the value of spending branding dollars in a viral environment and reaping the rewards of having an entire social network exposed to one’s advertising message over time.

From an IT marketing perspective it makes sense that if it works on the consumer side it should work as well in social web environments on the btob side. Or is this not true because viral marketing and integration with a user’s personal space is more acceptable on the consumer side but might not fly on blogs and wiki’s frequented by serious professionals? Or is the contextual relevancy of what both parties have to say and sell all that matters?

Anyone care to comment? Anyone have any experience with this?