Twitter 101

April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

WhatCounts isn’t just about email marketing (though that’s certainly what we’re best at). As part of helping you find and grow your email marketing ROI, we firmly believe that social media is a vital part of your digital marketing mix. Today we had the opportunity to share a few Twitter 101 tips with our colleagues over at Fox News. Watch what we had to share:

The link shared for Twitter’s starting tutorial page is here.

If you’d like a copy of the “slides” shown, you can download the PDF here.

If you’d like more helpful tips, check out our free eBook, 18 Ways to Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing.

Christopher S. Penn
Director of Inbound Marketing, WhatCounts

18 Ways book cover
Audience to Evangelist
Learn 18 different ways to find and grow your email marketing and social media ROI! Promote email with social, social with email, learn how to set up a Facebook Page for email subscriptions, and much more. Download the free eBook now.
 Lifecycle email marketing is one of the hottest buzzwords in digital marketing, but how can you make it work for you? Download our free eBook and learn 5 lifecycle frameworks plus practical applications to your email marketing program.

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Filed Under: Social media, Video

Anatomy of an Email Marketing Message Microwebinar

April 18, 2012 By 3 Comments

Welcome to the anatomy of an email in 3 minutes or less, a WhatCounts Microwebinar. We’re going to take a quick look at one of our newsletters and walk through the 6 areas of the email, with tips for each of the areas.

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Pre-header: Establish alternatives

The role of the pre-header is straightforward: give people an immediate alternative if the email isn’t showing up in their inboxes correctly. It’s important to include this so that people can get to a working version of your email as quickly as possible.

Header: Establish brand

The header establishes the brand and identity of the email immediately. You see who it’s from with a clear graphic identity and provide links for people to get to know you better in a tight, compact “About us” box.

Side Bar: Call to action

The sidebar provides an immediate call to action in the above-fold area. This call to action is typically some kind of commercial solicitation designed to give an immediate opportunity to buy. Note that in ours we use a very bold button color and a photograph of people whose eye lines are aimed towards the call to action.

Share Items: Call to action

The share bar and share block work not only to visually break up the newsletter but also to provide an opportunity to share the newsletter on social networks. These days, inclusion of social sharing is nearly mandatory if you want to get your email to the most people possible.

Content: Value and call to action

The bulk of the newsletter is content of value. Note that stylistically, in our content we keep the blue hyperlink color as a visual indicator that this is a link which can be clicked. Throughout the content, we use large images to break up the text, creating a zig-zag reading pattern, and we incorporate large numbers of calls to action, including full-width ones. All images are clickable to ensure maximum action capture.

Footer: Expected elements

In the footer, we have everything that is expected of a newsletter including a clearly marked unsubscribe and our physical address for anti-spam law compliance.

This is, of course, only one kind of email, but by illustrating the six sections, we hope that we’ve given you some ideas of what to include in your own messages. As with everything, be sure to test and see what elements do or don’t work. If you find a section of your email that garners no clicks at all repeatedly, perhaps consider excluding it from your next campaign in an A/B content test to see if anyone misses it at all.

If you work at a company sending emails to 50,000 people or more each month and would like a free assessment like this of one of your email newsletters, please fill out the contact form and we’ll connect you with one of our business development managers.

Thanks for watching!

Christopher Penn
Director of Inbound Marketing, WhatCounts

18 Ways book cover
Audience to Evangelist
Learn 18 different ways to find and grow your email marketing and social media ROI! Promote email with social, social with email, learn how to set up a Facebook Page for email subscriptions, and much more. Download the free eBook now.
 Lifecycle email marketing is one of the hottest buzzwords in digital marketing, but how can you make it work for you? Download our free eBook and learn 5 lifecycle frameworks plus practical applications to your email marketing program.

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Filed Under: Best Practices, Content Marketing, Video, Webinars

Catch all the Super Bowl ads before the game!

February 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s 4:30 pm on a Thursday in early February; and I feel like Ron Burgundy.

From high on mountaintop, I just want to shout, “News Team, assemble . . .!” then tell them how Super Bowl Commercials have always been a small passion of mine. Only I don’t have a mountaintop; I don’t have a news team; I don’t even have a microphone. Instead, in the grand tradition of Lloyd Dobler, I’ve created a mix tape. I hope you enjoy.

INTRO

To kick things off with a bang we have The Bark Side:

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I believe this is Volkswagen’s online-only teaser for their sequel to last year’s universally adored Star Wars themed The Force. The restraint exercised in this spot is amazing. Little details are doled out until finally it dawns on you that yep, these dogs are actually barking the Imperial March from Star Wars; it’s kind of like reading a Dickens novel. The end of the ad points to a microsite where you can create an “Intergalactic Invite” to your Super Bowl Party; love it.

So that spot, seen over 10 million times on YouTube, is actually just the teaser intended to drum up interest in this spot: The Dog Strikes Back: 2012 Volkswagen Game Day Commercial:

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This spot goes for the cutesy heart factor and then pulls back to… well I don’t want to ruin anything for you; have fun!

BREAK BEAT

Both of these spots are examples of an Advertising term called “Borrowed Interest.” In Advertising School they teach you “Borrowed Interest” is a lazy strategy and never works unless done exceptionally well. Initially I of course rejected this principle, but over time I’ve come to realize it’s true – it’s the difference between a seamless piece of embedded advertising like the Mini Cooper in The Italian Job, and the jarring experience you get every time the characters on your favorite show pithily extoll the virtues of whatever Chevy they are driving.

One “leaked” Super Bowl spot you’ve probably already seen that employs borrowed interest really well is Honda’s Ferris Bueller’s Spot: Official 2012 Honda CR-V Game Day Commercial – “Matthew’s Day Off” Extended Version

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They borrowed my affinity for the character, Ferris Bueller, and transmogrified it into a surprising desire to take a Sport Utility Mini Van for a joy ride. Brilliant!

Borrowed interest appears to be a staple of the Automobile Industry this year. You will doubtlessly see the Seinfeld spot for Acura, but I personally I prefer the Audi R8 spot: Audi R8 Super Bowl – Autobild.es

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Sure it borrows it’s narrative from the seminal scene in perhaps the greatest film ever made, but there is an attitude strategically conveyed at the end of this spot that really leaves the brand in a fun place to move forward, “Old Luxury just got put on notice, Audie and the R8 are here.” Very cool.

SLOW JAM

Switching gears and getting away from Automobiles for a moment, I’m a real big fan of Marketing that clearly conveys a benefit. Here is a focused and strategic spot that may go under the radar Monday Morning. FirstBank – Time Out (Superbowl 2012)

That’s just awesome, maybe not the spot with the most viral potential, but in the moment, during the game that’s really, really smart.

HEATING IT BACK UP AGAIN

I think it was the wise poet Van Wilder who first said, “Sex sells Gwen, sex sells.” Taking that strategy to Super Bowl-ian heights H&M gives us 30 seconds of David Beckham in his underwear: H&M David Beckham Bodywear Super Bowl Commercial 2012

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I’m giving this one just a big huge fail. Strategically I’d like to know whom they think they are talking to. Is the idea that women are going to rush out and buy their guy a pair of David Beckham boxer briefs? If that is their intended outcome, I think they missed a real opportunity to tie this thing into Valentine’s Day; to turn the idea of a man buying a little something special for a woman on it’s head – that’s fun. I don’t really see that here.

Outro

Okay last spot and we’re going to end on a high note, a lot of brands are into crowdsourcing these days. Doritos is probably the most famous and they get a ton of YouTube content out of the build up, but this homemade spot for the Chevy Camaro might be my favorite of the night: Homemade Camaro ad Wins Chevrolet Super Bowl slot [Official]

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Thanks for taking the ride, you can catch up with me on Twitter @writemcsean. This Sunday I will be posting to two hash tags: #MothersBowl & #brandbowl

Sean McGarry
Services Account Manager, WhatCounts

18 Ways book cover
Audience to Evangelist
Learn 18 different ways to find and grow your email marketing and social media ROI! Promote email with social, social with email, learn how to set up a Facebook Page for email subscriptions, and much more. Download the free eBook now.
 Lifecycle email marketing is one of the hottest buzzwords in digital marketing, but how can you make it work for you? Download our free eBook and learn 5 lifecycle frameworks plus practical applications to your email marketing program.

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Filed Under: Creative & Design, Video

WhatCounts Announces Release 8.1.15

December 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

WhatCounts is proud to announce the v8.1.15 release of the WhatCounts Platform for current customers and prospective customers, with 4 exciting new features, including a new WYSIWYG editor, click- to-insert tags, social RSS, and WYSIWYG article editing. Let’s take a look at these new tools to help you become a more productive email marketing professional.

The new WYSIWYG editor makes editing your content even easier. Using industry leading editing software, you can make beautiful email creatives within the application or copy and paste from other programs seamlessly. For example, you can copy and paste from Microsoft Word painlessly. To ensure maximum compatibility with your existing training and workflow, ask your account manager to turn on the new editor in your realm.

The new click-to-insert feature for WhatCounts tags allows you to simply click to insert demographics, links and social media tags. If you’ve got custom data from your CRM, Salesforce automation, or database that you want to use in your marketing messages, that data is now just a click away.

Do you use Facebook or Twitter in your digital marketing mix? Not only can you add social media action buttons into your template with just a click, you can also add RSS feeds of your favorite Tweets or Facebook Fan Page updates with just a few lines of text in your messages. Imagine being able to add content from your social media efforts automatically and effortlessly.

How often do you find yourself using and reusing the same pieces of copy? With the new WYSIWYG articles feature, you can design and create standalone pieces of text or graphics that can then be inserted into your messages. Perhaps your sales team has certain boilerplate messages for specific industry verticals. WYSIWYG article editing will let them put together large mailings of highly targeted messages in just a few clicks. Again, to maximize compatibility with existing workflows, ask your account manager to enable the new article editor.

With the v8.1.15 release, WhatCounts demonstrates our continued commitment to changing the game of email marketing with superior technology and services. We’re not stopping there. In the next 12 months, we’ll be implementing a brand new advanced testing suite, social media toolsets, enhanced campaigns, and many more exciting features.

If you’d like to enjoy the benefits of flexible deployment options, a dedicated account model, campaign production services, and video enhanced email to help find and grow your email marketing ROI, contact us today at 866-804-0076 or follow the directions below.

Schedule A Demo Now!

Get a free consultation with one of our expert Business Development Managers and learn how WhatCounts can help you change your email marketing game.
18 Ways book cover
Audience to Evangelist
Learn 18 different ways to find and grow your email marketing and social media ROI! Promote email with social, social with email, learn how to set up a Facebook Page for email subscriptions, and much more. Download the free eBook now.
 Lifecycle email marketing is one of the hottest buzzwords in digital marketing, but how can you make it work for you? Download our free eBook and learn 5 lifecycle frameworks plus practical applications to your email marketing program.

Share this page:

Filed Under: Latest News, Product Tips, Video