Guest post by Ryan Deutsch, VP Emerging Channels, ThreadMarketing, a StrongMail Company

These are exciting times in interactive marketing and in particular; for email marketers.  From the social web to group buying (Groupon) to flash sales (Hautelook and Rue LA LA) online businesses are engaging the consumer in new and compelling ways.  In response to these and other trends, StrongMail has announced the acquisition of two New York-based interactive agencies, which we are combining with our existing strategic services arm to form a new email marketing and Social CRM agency called ThreadMarketing.   Why is this significant to our customers and the industry as a whole?  Here are a few key points:

It’s about conversations not messages. ..

Like it or not, the social web has changed the game.  There are now more ways for consumers to engage with a brand (and each other) than ever before.  While email sits at the center of the social web, it is not alone.  Consumers are using communities, social networks and micro blogs to start and carry on conversations with organizations, and brands need to be prepared to manage these conversations.  ThreadMarketing is not just an email agency, with deep expertise in email, social marketing, website development, community management, it will help break down silos between these channels and streamline the customer experience.

It’s about data, old and new…

StrongMail has a long history of integrating email marketing solutions with customer databases and systems.  The social web is making new data and customer insight available at a rapid pace and many of our customers have requested support in integrating this insight into the communication strategy and making it actionable.  ThreadMarketing will leverage StrongMail’s unique database integration capabilities and make social insights actionable, a key objective for interactive marketers today.

It’s about a broader communication framework…

While the traditional approach to email communication strategy has not changed, the opportunities to understand our subscribers and engage them have.  Today consumers have more than one “subscription” option.  Not only can they subscribe to email communications, but they can “Like” a brand, “Follow” a brand, “join” a community and so on and so on.  This means that a new framework is required to support relevant conversations with consumers.  ThreadMarketing has developed  such a framework: Listen, Learn, Engage and Influence.  This is not a social or email framework, it’s a framework required to drive meaningful conversations across channels.  While many companies “listen” and “learn” few leverage the data they capture to “engage” and “influence.”  ThreadMarketing will help bridge that gap.

Takeaway: Consumers are using communities, social networks and micro blogs to start and carry on conversations with organizations, and brands need to be prepared to manage these conversations.

Questions, feel free to post comments and we will respond as soon as possible.

About the Author:

Ryan Deutsch
Vice President of Emerging Media, ThreadMarketing, a StrongMail Company

An online marketing veteran and industry thought leader, Deutsch has more than 12 years of direct marketing experience across the catalog, retail and publishing industries. An addition to a bi-weekly MediaPost column, Deutsch is a regular contributor to multiple industry publications, including DM News, BtoB Magazine, and Chief Marketer.  Deutsch has been and remains a frequent speaker at industry events, including the DMA Annual, eTail, ad:tech and the MediaPost Email Insider Summit.

For a little more info on what StrongMail is all about, check out this video from Kristen Hersant, Director of Marketing for StrongMail.

In the latest installment of our video coverage from the Canadian Marketing Associations National Convention, Chief eMail Officer, Jeff Ginsberg talks with Aldo Cundari about the state and the future of marketing.

Watch more videos from the Canadian Marketing Association National Convention here.

Aldo Cundari is Chairman and CEO of  the Cundari Group Ltd. and Chair, National Advertising Benevolent Society. In this interview with The eMail Guide’s Chief eMail Officer, Jeff Ginsberg, Aldo first answers the question: How many marketers does it take to change a light bulb? Mr. Cundari has an interesting answer for that question. According to Mr. Cundari the answer depends on whether you are talking about agency side marketers or client side. He also responds to one of our favourite sayings: You don’t know what you don’t know.

What is the future of marketing? Right now, no one really knows because it’s changing so dramatically and so quickly. If we don’t step in quickly and make the right changes, some agencies will die. What are the changes to make? What kind of training do we need to give our people? How do we move them forward to understand that?

The changes we are seeing today are completely different from the past. It’s not the same game as ten or twenty years ago. According to Mr. Cundari, analytics are a good example of how much marketing has changed. Analytics today are real time and immediate. You have to be on it constantly and have staff who live it and breath it. Just getting staff trained on the new technology is a huge effort for agencies.

Dramatic changes have occurred and will continue at a dramatic pace. Those agencies which cannot adapt quickly will die.

Takeaway: Keep it simple. Have a business plan. Plan the work and work the plan.

See all the CMA videos here!

Terry O’Reilly is quite simply a legend in the marketing biz. He started out as a copywriter and later went on to co-found Pirate Radio & Television in 1990. Pirate is a leading creative audio production company with studios in Toronto and New York City.

He’s a much sought after speaker and has probably a few hundred awards to his name for writing and directing. When Terry is not creating advertising, he’s analyzing and speaking about it. He hosts the CBC Radio One/Sirius Satellite radio show, “The Age of Persuasion.”

Terry also has authored a best selling book titled “The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture”.

In this video interview, he speaks about the value of such events as the CMA National Convention. It’s evident that Terry cares deeply about the next generation of marketers and feels it’s very important for them to participate in organizations such as the Canadian Marketing Association.

O’Reilly compares the Canadian Marketing Association National Convention to the Detroit Auto Show is so far as attendees get to see all the current models of thinking and if you are really lucky, you get to check out some concept cars.

He enjoys gleaning insights from thought leaders who come at our world from a number of different directions. He loves to be told something he’s never thought of before and even something he has thought of before because he may get a new perspective on that issue.

Award show books are the how-to manuals of the marketing business according to Terry. Studying these books which feature fresh and imaginative approaches to marketing will help those new to the business learn the ropes.

Takeaway: Events such as the CMA National Convention are important for marketers because they give us the opportunity to share insight and test ideas.

In the first video of Howie Mandel speaking @ the CMA National Convention, we heard Howie describe how he’s managed to re-brand and market himself by going with the flow and keeping himself open to new possibilities.

In part 2, Howie discusses making decisions and how to know you are making the right ones. According to Howie, he probably spends too much time on decisions and given enough time you can talk yourself out of anything. That special talent we all have to suppress our instincts and talk ourselves out of anything is something one should be acutely aware of in order to have a good perspective.

Let’s face it, it was a big decision for him, newly engaged and with a steady job, to move to LA and take his run at being a comedian. In that case, he didn’t over think it and went with the flow – a good thing for comedy fans around the world.

Humans have strong instincts which we too often suppress or even ignore. That first gut instinct is usually right and going with that gut instinct has served him well. He labels himself as a dichotomy because he goes with his gut on the big decisions, but over thinks the small ones. It’s the small decisions such as whether to touch a glass on a table that are hard to resolve for him.

Howie often pauses to wonder at his success and how his ability to go with the fluidity of the way the world changes and not fear that flow/change has brought him such success.

What Howie is really talking about here is change management – our ability to adjust to a world where change is happening more often and more quickly than at any time in the past. It’s not the just the speed of change, but the number of changes of so many different factors which affect our lives.

Takeaway: Don’t ask yourself why the change is happening, but how you can take advantage of it.

Check out the other CMA videos here!

Having Howie Mandel speak at the CMA National Convention was a brilliant move on the part of the organizers. Not only did his frenetic personality totally light up the room, but his witty and insightful remarks on branding and marketing were pure gold. What Howie managed to do was take the subject matter and reduce it down into human everyday experiences that everyone in the audience could relate to. No pie charts, no Power Point slides, just great conversation and a lifetime of intuitive wisdom.

Howie Mandel speaking about your personal brand

From start to finish, Howie had the audience of marketing professionals in the palm of his hand. Oddly enough one got the impression that he wasn’t even trying. He was just being that same frantic funny man we’ve come to love. The real trait which shone through was his genuine sincerity and down to earth manor.

In the first of our videos from the Canadian Marketing Association Convention featuring Howie (there’s more to come from him), He speaks about his early career years and how throughout his life he’s tried to turn challenges into opportunities. He also talks about his natural ability to constantly rebrand himself and marketing his talents. This is a man who understands the most important brand is your own personal one.

Howie mentions how important it is to know what is going on around you and adjusting to that. According to him, people develop a system as they age which they follow all their lives — they lose their peripheral vision. On the other hand, if you continue to be aware of what’s going on around you and you go with that flow, your life will change. People should be open to new thinking and new ways of doing things.

Howie’s career is a great example of going with the flow and finding new opportunities. He’s changed his brand from carpet salesman to comedian to actor to game show host and producer.

Takeaway: Keep aware of what’s going on around you and be open to new possibilities which change presents.

The eMail Guide’s Jeff Ginsberg, talks email marketing with Chris Lovejoy, Senior email strategist, StrongMail at MarketingSherpa’s Email  Marketing Summit 2010.

StrongMail provides email marketing services, strategic services, deliverability services and they’ve just added a new social component to complete the package.

StrongMail offers both a hosted (cloud based) solution and a on premise hardware (appliance) based solution.

On premise solution is best suited for high volume email marketing clients sending 2-4 billion messages a month, who want full control. Being able to buy that perpetual license along with the software and  the equipment and then do the yearly licensing saves some money in the long run.

StrongMail’s cloud solution is basically the same thing but, rather than being behind your firewall, it’s a  rackspace approach behind a hosted firewall and there are a few APIs you would build out. However, it gives some flexibility for rapid expansion and still provides control with such things as the user interface.

According to Chris, their strategic team has years of experience through several different verticals and channels and that’s a key advantage StrongMail brings to the table. This strategic experience provides for a bird’s eye view, seeing what bubbles up for each individual client.  They can go down the rabbit holes to see what the client’s endgame, goals and their mission is — digging deeper to find out what those might be for them.

Chris points out that people just getting into email marketing should invest in an ESP which can also provide a strategic services component. It’s key to have someone who can partner with you on a day-to-day basis to bounce ideas off of, offering insight and perspective. If you can utilize that strategic component at your ESP, it really gets you to the next level.

Takeaway: Having an ESP who also provide strategic services, insight and advice can be critical to get your email marketing to a higher level.

Jeff Ginsberg interviews Timothy Seward, CEO, ROI Revolution at MarkertingSherpa’s Email Summit 2010 and gets some good advice about Google AdWords and first steps for those looking to get started with  leveraging online search to promote their business.

ROI Revolution focuses on helping email marketers (and marketers in general) build their lists using paid search strategies. ROI Revolution is a “done for you” service; they run your paid search campaigns for you.

The term “email marketing” is a very exspensive ad word at about 17 dollars a click or even higher. So, is it worth it for all but the big boys to go for?

Timothy suggests email marketers might want to go after alternative terms. On the other hand, if your customer lifetime value is sufficient and your conversion rate is high and if you have an effective way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace, then it might be worth spending the money on the clicks.

There are alternative networks as well, such as: Yahoo, Bing, AOL and of course there is an enormous amount of traffic all over the web in such things and blogs and news sites. So if people are looking on line to grow their business, there’s a lot of traffic out there.

If someone is just starting out and looking to grow their business, the place to start is Google. Google feeds approximately 70 percent of all searches. Open an account with Google.com/adwords. There are lots of great books out there and online content about adwords and how to leverage it.

Timothy also recommends installing Google analytics and the Google Conversion Tracker on your site as well.

Takeaway: Google AdWords are not your only option for paid search on the web. Do some homework, read up and check out the alternatives.

Over the past several weeks on ScottWritesEverything.com, I’ve been conducting a series of what I call “Email Snob Interviews” with respected voices in the email marketing industry. In the first round of the series, I spoke with:

• John Caldwell, Independent Consultant and author of RedPillEmail.com
• Rory Carlyle of Carlyle Inc.
• Kelly Lorenz of Bronto Software
• Kent McGovern of 1ShoppingCart.com
• George DiGuido of Zeta Interactive
• Shannon Holato of Bronto Software
• Luke Glasner of Glasner Consulting
• Justin Premick of AWeber

Here are some highlights from the questions asked of all the participants:

Words of advice for those who want to get into the industry

“Immerse yourself in everything email and don’t believe everything you read… Oh yeah, and don’t buy lists and don’t use ‘blast’ as a verb.”
-  John Caldwell

“Take care of your client list and it will take care of you.”
- Kent McGovern

“Never quench your desire to learn. Technology is constantly changing and that goes double for email.”
- George DiGuido.

“Read… a lot. You need to keep up by observing industry trends and staying on top of the latest research. You’ll need to read a lot of blogs, whitepapers, trade publications, and the like.”
- Luke Glasner

“Stay open-minded and work hard to learn by testing.”
- Rory Carlyle

Thoughts on the effects of mobile technologies on email

“I think there’s opportunity there for bricks-and-mortar retailers to present coupons via email for subscribers on their mobile phones in-store and potentially for mobile email sign-up.”
- Kelly Lorenz

“People will be viewing email on their mobile devices more than ever before. Email will have to be presented in a mobile browser to be able to offer a similar experience to that of an email viewed on a desktop.”
- George DiGuido

“I think Mobile will work synergistically with email. I think it will do a lot for customer service type tings. I could also see a lot of transaction emails moving to mobile.”
- Luke Glasner

Advice for the email marketing industry at large

“Strategy is key. Regardless of how smart you think you are, be open to new ideas.”
- Shannon Holato

“You’re neither as good or as bad at email marketing as you think. Don’t get down on yourself, but don’t get complacent.”
- Justin Premick

“Before you hit the send button, take a step back and ask yourself: ‘Would I be happy getting this email in my inbox?’”
- Kent McGovern

“Everything is scalable. Baby steps can, and often do, have major impact. Don’t count out the small stuff!”
- Kelly Lorenz

“To ESPs: Don’t dumb-down a sophisticated product; smarten-up your users. Just like not everyone can be an athletic superstar or cover girl model, not everybody can do email.”
- John Caldwell

Favourite things about email marketing

“I love to see the results. A great email marketer is always optimizing different aspects of their email functionality. It’s awesome to put all that work in and watch the success of that work.”
- Rory Carlyle

“The people and the technology. Email technology, the platforms, the functionality, and the ability to provide marketers with the ability to do great things with their email campaigns is really fun.”
- George DiGuido

“I really like the nuts and bolts of email operations across the board. I like to design and develop complex automated programs, roll them out, geek on the numbers, and then start tweaking and tuning. But my absolute favorite thing about email marketing is having the opportunity to share my experience and what I’ve learned in my time in the space.”
- John Caldwell

The “elevator pitch” for email marketing

“The ROI of email marketing speaks for itself. If companies aren’t utilizing this kind of revenue-generating channel, they’re living in the dark ages.”
- Shannon Holato

“In 2009, the ROI of email was $43.52 per dollar spent, according to the DMA. It’s worth the effort.”
- Kent McGovern

“Low cost. High ROI. Start-to-finish measurement for future optimization.”
- Rory Carlyle

“Email is highly scalable, so it fits any market’s size. It is the most targetable form of marketing and nothing seems to be able to beat it as a retention vehicle.”
- Luke Glasner

“With the proper resources, you can build a program that is one of, if not your most, profitable revenue channels.”
- Kelly Lorenz

Got any questions or comments you’d like to add?

Takeaway: Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification. (Martin Fischer)

Check out each of the entire interviews on ScottWritesEverything.com:

Interview with John Caldwell
Interview with Rory Carlyle
Interview with Kelly Lorenz
Interview with Kent McGovern
Interview with George DiGuido
Interview with Shannon Holato
Interview with Luke Glasner
Interview with Justin Premick

Another great post from Scott you should read: Asking the right questions: eMail and the customer experience

About the author:
Scott Cohen is a writer, thinker, and marketer. Well-versed in and raised on local/regional TV and radio commercial writing, Scott has expanded his interests, talent, and expertise into the full spectrum of marketing communications, including email marketing. Currently, Scott works for Western Governors University as their Marketing Copywriter, where he manages the creative for the university’s email, web, print, and direct mail communications. He writes his own blog, contributes to others, and is continually getting more and more involved in the email marketing space. When not spending probably too much of his time on blogs or Twitter, Scott’s busy with his wife and newborn daughter living in beautiful snowy Utah.

Jeff Ginsberg interviews John Janetos, VP of Sales & Business Development at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 in Miami.

iPost is an email service provider based in California. iPost has been serving B2C clients in retail, hospitality, higher education and the B2B tech sector since 1996. They offer a full suite of services spanning creative to execution, providing clients the flexibility to take advantage of these services or function more independently.

iPost technology is fully integrated with API that allow customers to easily integrate their system into an existing IT infrastructure (for example CRM integration) and yet, at the same time it’s designed to run in the cloud as a software service.

For people new to email marketing, John makes the point that it’s key to understand your customer base, segment it correctly and send the right message at the right time.

Chief eMail Officer, Jeff Ginsberg talks new media with Saul Colt of  Thoora.com!

Thoora is a next gen news service. Thoora reads the entire blogshphere, all of the blog comments, plus traditional news sources and in real time clusters the stories together and ranks them based on reaction on the web. As opposed to say DIGG, Thoora uses an algorithm and not user votes to rank the articles. Thoora can be used by businesses to build vertical channels focusing coverage on specific topics of interest. While the Thoora technology is perfected, they are still building out the different possible options for people and businesses of varying needs and means to make use of it.

Saul will tell you he loves email marketing and really appreciates it’s value.

Takeaway: Thoora’s power is in the fact that it uses an algorithm to rank it’s content. This prevents people from “gaming” the system as they might do with a user ranked service such as digg.

For more info on Thoora, check out: www.thoora.com

Tiwtter: @thooranews

Jeff Ginsberg, Chief Email Officer of The eMail Guide, talks email marketing with Nino Gentry from Citrix at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 in Miami.

It’s great to have the opportunity to meet up with our community members at these kind of events and get their feedback and insight. Nino (@nino304) is one of our favourite tweeple and we tweet with him just about every day. He works with Citrix applications such as GoToMeeting.

Nino’s big takeaway from MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2010 is that retention is the new acquisition. For more on that, check out our interview with Joseph Jaffe!

Great seeing you Nino!

Jeff Ginsberg, Chief Email Officer of The eMail Guide, talks email marketing with JD Peterson, Director of Products, Lyris, at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 in Miami.

JD points out that the Lyris HQ value proposition is all about helping online marketers succeed. No matter what they need, be it through tools or services, the ultimate goal is to bring success to their clients. Clients range from very small businesses to larger enterprises but, their focus is primarily on mid-market.

Lyris offers an integrated platform, wrapping analytics, social and mobile marketing tools around their core email marketing offering.

JD also comments that his company takes a very hands on approach with clients and enjoys exposing them to new and different ways to get better ROI out of the tools and ultimately with the program. Lyris likes to get that message to the client via direct contact and via the user interface. They’re focusing on online community growth as well via Twitter and Facebook, so, users can interact and share resources and ideas.

According to JD, email marketing remains one of the most cost effective, high ROI means to stay in contact with your customers. It’s fairly easy to do even if you don’t have a list and one thing Lyris can do is help you build that list.

Jeff Ginsberg, Chief Email Officer of The eMail Guide, interviews Joseph Jaffe, Author of ‘Flip The Funnel’ and President and ‘Chief Interruptor’ of crayon at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 in Miami.

In the interview, Joseph speaks out about acquisition and retention and makes the point that the only reason we are in business is because of our customers and treating them better with a more proactive approach to customer support and the customer experience, will turn them into brand evangelists and brand ambassadors. He’s passionate about how we can grow business from the inside and demonstrate that retention as a strategic driver can become the new acquisition.

Takeaway: What’s more cost effective? Traditional advertising to acquire new customers or investing more in proactive customer support and a better customer experience which will turn customers into evangelists and ambassadors for your brand, marketing it to other potential new clients?

We’d like to hear your thoughts on this as well! Please post your comments.

Jeff Ginsberg, Chief Email Officer of The eMail Guide, interviews Barbara Westhorpe, President of Bamboo Cricket at the MarketingSherpa eMail Summit 2010 in Miami.

Takeaway: You have to be very nimble to respond and be better than everyone else. As an internet consumer, if I don’t like the way someone’s treating me as a client, I’ll go down the street. It’s cheaper to keep a customer than it is to get a new one.

Jeff Ginsberg, Chief Email Officer of The eMail Guide, interviews Sergio Balegno, Research Director of MarketingSherpa at the MarketingSherpa eMail Summit 2010 in Miami.

Takeaway: eMail and social are far more productive working together than they are as separate (non-integrated) tactics.