Don’t-Go-It-Alone eMarketing Blog

Imagine it’s December 31, 2010…

Has your business done better than you had hoped? Worse? Held steady for the last 11 months or so? Have you achieved everything that you wanted to? Do you even have the right tools to measure your successes tangibly?

Whether you’re just getting started with an e-marketing plan in 2010, or you’re well on your way to launching the next viral marketing campaign on YouTube– well, there are still several things every business should keep sight of from Jan. 1 to Dec 31 every year! And if you “keep your eye on the prize”, measure, and follow the 10 easy steps we offer below, it’ll be quite easy to look back on Dec. 31, 2010 and be 100% Regret Free!

If you’re looking for measurable returns on your e-marketing in 2010 (and beyond!) then keep reading, as we unfold the:

Top 10 e-marketing Tips for a Regret-Free 2010

1) Listen: Get in the conversation with customers, prospects, and competitors, and actually incorporate their ideas.

2) Define your social media goals: and get moving! Or pretty soon the social media train will have left the station!

3) Stay on top of your Data: 27 – 30% of your list goes bad every year. It’s your most important resource so stay on top of it. If your data is bad nothing else really matters.

Read All 10 e-marketing Tips for a Regret Free 2010

Coke's Gettin' Social

The next time you lather up in the shower or crack open a Coke it might not seem like anything has changed about your favorite product, but somewhere in the inner workings of these corporate giants—something is shifting.

Coca-Cola and Unilever are just two companies that have announced that they plan to shift from website-based product campaigns in 2010, to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to propel their latest product launches.

Basically, Coke and Unilever are willing to bet that they can attract more people (and more brand advocates) by entering into social media spaces where people already are rather than trying to bring people to a Coke-Zero or a Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” site.

And we agree…

Read More…

For questions regarding your company’s social media marketing plan, contact us here.

With 2009 about to draw to an end, we here at List Engage just wanted to take a moment to congratulate our clients, friends, and fellow businesses on growing and thriving through the unprecedented economic climate of 2009– and to wish everyone a happy and healthy 2010!

With businesses looking to expand their eMarketing and social media budgets in 2010 — on everything from email marketing design and services to developing niche followers on Twitter — List Engage has something to offer any business, big or small. Why not make one of your resolutions to join us on the cutting edge of eMarketing success in 2010!

Ho ho hoooo nooooo! It’s too late. You’ve already hit send, and your seemingly perfect Happy Holidays email is now going to be the laughing stock of your clients’ Christmas parties. Let’s face it: email mistakes happen, but they happen a lot less to experienced senders who follow specific steps and check their final product meticulously before they send it out. Although you may be forgiven for your big email mishap, it’s better to just avoid it all together.

This year we wanted to spread our Holiday cheer by helping you send a cleaner, crisper, error-free email, to all of your clients, prospects, and friends. All you have to do is follow these simple steps:

The 5 Best ways to Avoid Email Blunders this Holiday Season

From all of us at List Engage:

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes in the New Year!

2009 has been a dark year for marketing budgets. As the economy tanked, so did every big company’s dreams of plastering market campaigns across every medium available.

Fortunately for e-marketers, email and social media marketing budgets defied the odds, and most actually grew in ‘09.

Take a look at the Marketing Sherpa chart, to see the average email marketing budget decreases versus increases across 8 financial sectors.

To read the entire article, go here.

It turns out, that when consumers want to share something they’ve found online with their friends or family– like an article link, or a video– an overwhelming amount of people still use email as their primary form of sharing. According to the latest survey from Marketing Sherpa, while social media is gaining some ground, the latter still dominates as a sharing tool.

In email’s defense, there are plenty of reasons to use it over social networking sites: privacy, certainty of delivery,  no length restrictions… to name a few. In the words of Marketing Sherpa, “When we look at media use over the last 15 years, we see a pattern of aggregation and adoption rather than replacement. Some media suffer in the exchange, but none are eliminated entirely. More commonly, their uses become more refined.”

So, while we may find a Facebook status update good for conveying a one-liner, or Twitter for “tweeting” our location it’s a lot less likely that social media will replace email for getting in touch with Nana, keeping updated on your bank’s latest policies, or interacting with potential clients.

To read the complete Marketing Sherpa study, click here.

Balancing a busy schedule isn’t anything new: for most of us, there will always be too much work, and too little day to squeeze it into. But nowadays we’re expected to run a business, pick the kids up from practice, and make sure to update our Facebook status?  Social media has brought a whole new meaning to “managing your Social Calendar”.

Though there might not be a “magic bullet” to solve all your problems, we do have some tried and true solutions to save some sanity in the future. Here are our

Top 5 Ways to Tackle Your New “Social Calendar”:

1)      Delegate: Debby from Marketing—you’re on Facebook Fan Pages. Carol from PR—you’re in charge of tweeting all company media coverage on Twitter. Ok, Go!

Read More…

According to a new article published today by eMarketer, links to social networking sites may be rising quickly—appearing in 20% of marketing e-mails in July 2009, up from just 2% in February.

This dramatic increase is slightly dampened by the fact that the majority of leading online retailers have yet to jump into the mix. In fact, of the top 100 Internet Retailer sites, only about half of them promoted either their Twitter or Facebook profiles in their email messages, and less than 30% with these profiles displayed them prominently on their website.

As for everybody else, it seems that linking customers and prospective clients to any affiliated website is almost always a good thing—and it appears that these numbers will continue to grow for small to medium sized businesses.

The question begs, are these big brands helping or hindering their already well known brand-names by not entering these new social media realms while their smaller competitors are? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

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Is your business looking to augment your social media or email marketing campaigns? Click here and find out where to begin.

As List Engage rolls out the new ShareThis feature for all of our email marketing clients, the social networking world just got a whole lot closer. Now, with the click of a button you can instantly connect your emails to your social networks– and simultaneouly sync all that time, money, and effort you’ve invested in your email campaigns into your social networking efforts as well! And with the 2010 media buying budget looking to have email marketing and social media neck-in-neck on ad spending– now’s the time to make your marketing dollars work overtime.

Keep Reading…

To learn more, specifically about ShareThis and our other Social Forward features, click here.

Not convinced about the power of Social Media?
Take a minute to watch this video, and we think you’ll beg to differ.