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Tom Martin Holiday Message

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A Holiday Message From Tom Martin

To Our Valued Customers,

I can’t believe that 2009 has come to an end; It seems that the year has rushed by in a blink of an eye! Looking back, this year marked a major turning point for our company and for that, I would like to wish you, our customer, a heart filled thank you. Our valued customers are the backbone of our company and we work each day to improve our services, our solutions, our customer support and our offerings to provide you with everything you need to achieve success.

It seems that at the end of each passing year, I get nostalgic and if you would permit me, I would like to take a moment to reflect on what has changed and what we, as your marketing partner, have done in the past 12 months.

At the end of 2008, our company had established itself as the premier one-to-one branded email solutions provider in the marketplace. With close to 10,000 users worldwide, we solidified our position by providing an inexpensive results based solution. We also made major developments to our email marketing campaign solution “OnMarketer” and have implemented many of the features that our customers have requested.

Around March of 2009, after the many conversations we had with our customer base, it was clearly evident to us that a new solution was required. With the emergence and wide acceptance of FaceBook® & Twitter® as well as the rapid use of blogs, we knew the direction we had to take. Careful planning was put into this with the following objectives in place:

1. 1. Our customers need a way to communicate via FaceBook® & Twitter® as EASILY as possible.
2. 2. One of the biggest obstacles our customers were facing in regards to email marketing was the lack and availability of content. We had to find a way to make this easier for them.
3. 3. How can we ensure that every customer has a blog as well as items to post to their blog?
4. 4. How can we tie all of this together in an easy to use format while still making it “budget friendly”

As you may know, in late June, we officially launched our “Turnkey Digital Marketing Solution”. I just want to let you know how proud I am of my entire team for their tireless efforts as I know that with each customer success story, we have exceeded our expectations! We have helped customers across all industries in communicating on a regular basis with their base of business, increasing their sales and retaining their customers.

For the past few months, we have hosted webinars focused on informing our customers and prospects on all areas of digital marketing. I personally host each webinar and love the interaction as I see on a daily basis the challenges you face. This helps me guide the direction of our solutions as well as our company to provide you what you need.

As the industry is changing, so is our company. We see what customers are doing, how they are communicating, what they need and how they need to communicate. To ensure that you have access to the tools you need to compete, we stay at the forefront of innovation to provide you with the edge required in this competitive marketplace.

As we approach the final days of December, I want to leave you with a final message of gratitude and well wishes. I truly appreciate your business and am vested in your success. From the entire OnLetterhead family, have a happy and safe holiday and a prosperous new year!

Tom Martin, President of Monsoon Interactive

4 Ideas to Increase Your Holiday Sales through Facebook and Twitter

While they may not dress in red velvet or herd reindeer, Facebook and Twitter could play Santa Claus for your business. This year, social media sites are the perfect place to promote your holiday sales and strengthen your bottom line. In fact, even the less tech savvy American is jumping on board social media networks this holiday season.

Benefits to Small and Big Businesses Alike

Recently, mainstream television programs like Good Morning America have encouraged consumers to look towards social media outlets to find big savings on holiday shopping. Major retailers like Toys R Us and Target are using Facebook and Twitter to send out “first notices” of sales and promotions at local retail stores or online specials. To help gain customer loyalty and nudge sales, these big retailers have offered up to 75% to 80% off certain merchandise and even popular “Christmas list” items, such as children’s DVDs and Little Pet Shop toys.

This is big news for you, the small business retailer as well. If you have been devout in building your social media following, you have access to loyal customers who are willing to spend money at your business. While emails may not be read, social media updates are frequently seen on a daily basis. Every new update gives your followers something new to look forward to so they can take advantage of your deals.

Ideas for Your Social Network Following

Here are some tips for using social media to promote your holiday sales:

Secret Codes

Social media retailers have been using a special code tool to entice members, followers, and friends to buy. Send out an update or “tweet” with a special code or link. The link can go directly to a particular landing page with big deals for your followers. Or, for instance, followers can simply enter a code at your online checkout, where they can save an additional percentage on their purchase.

If you do not have this ability on your website or people cannot purchase from your website, you can instruct them to “mention” the code to receive a discount. Here are a few examples:

If you work for a beatuty salon, you can offer 15% off their next haircut. Simple send a tweet and instruct them to mention “TwitterPromo” when they arrive. This is an exclusive offering to them because they follow you and you can place a time limit on the promo to encourage business.

If you work for a restaurant, you can send a “tweet” or make a FaceBook post offering a free appetizer for the next 7 days. Instruct them to mention the secret code “socialapp” when they arrive. 

Free Shipping

Online shoppers know that shipping costs can negate the time and expense saved from driving to a variety of stores to do shopping. Offer to pay for shipping on behalf of your social media followers if they make a purchase as a result of your promotions.

Member Only Deals

Your followers and fans might be considered “members.” They are those who have consciously opted to receive your notices and updates. Give them something special for their loyalty, such as a special 25%, 50%, or even 75% off, and they will not only buy this year, but continue to follow you throughout many more holiday seasons to come.

Pass it Along

Another way you can promote your holiday sales through social media is by inviting your followers to pass along the notice to their friends and family. These “friends and family” deals not only help your holiday sales, but could also help you gain even more loyal followers.

The marketing power of social media is being realized during this current holiday season. Get your small business noticed in the social media circles with great holiday promotions.

Remember, this is not for the Holidays only! This should be done on a monthly basis giving them a reason for following you and providing them with value for doing so. Make sure to mix up your promotions and to “Tweet” and post often!

Original Post By: Khera Communications - Edited and added to by OnLetterhead

Digital shines in 2010 forecasts

Global advertising spending forecasts indicate that the industry can take a small breath of relief looking to 2010, because data indicates the market is stabilizing. A number of direct and digital marketing experts told DMNews in light of those forecasts they’re expecting spending growth of at least 10% next year.

According to Interpublic Group’s Magna, global ad spending will jump 6% next year to about $380 billion from $358 billion this year. Publicis Groupe’s ZenithOptimedia and WPP’s GroupM predict global ad spending growth of 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively, with both projecting global totals of about $448 billion

For North America specifically, GroupM predicted that spending will decrease from $155.8 billion to $149.6 billion, while ZenithOptimedia said North American spending will fall from $157 billion to $153 billion. Magna predicted a North America increase from 2009’s $140.5 billion to 2010’s $141.7 billion.

While television still takes the lion’s share of ad dollars when spending is broken down by medium, the Internet is the only medium that will see its share grow significantly in 2010, according to ZenithOptimedia. The share of Web advertising will rise from 12.4% to 13.7%, and its global spending total is on pace to reach $60.3 billion from $54.1 billion this year. TV advertising is also predicted to grow its overall share from 39.2% to 39.7%.

“Just like in the old days, direct marketing used to be the safe haven because it provides quick, measurable results. Online has assumed that safe haven role now,” said Adam Smith, futures director at GroupM.

According to Magna, global media suppliers’ total online ad revenues are expected to see a compounded annual growth rate of 10.5% between 2010 and 2015.

In terms of how these numbers apply to direct mailers, many are still recovering from an extremely difficult 2009. Ed Mallin, president of the services group at InfoGroup, said 2009 was “the most challenging year that a marketer could ever expect.” He elaborated that quarters one and two of this year made marketers feel like a “deer in headlights.”

“We saw an average of 20% to 30% to 35% in cutbacks in terms of circulation and volume of direct mail pieces,” Mallin said.

Though it’s normal for there to be an uptick in the second half of the year due to holiday marketing, Mallin added, he thinks there will be an increase in 2010 budgets and that “most marketers would be happy and hopeful to see a 10% increase.”

Sarah Baehr, VP and national media lead at digital agency Razorfish, said that the Magna, ZenithOptimedia and GroupM predictions are conservative because they include all media. She expects Razorfish clients to increase their spend by “10% on the low end” and “20% on the high end,” depending on industry and vertical.

“Consistently our clients are asking us to do more with less, but with digital, we can really take advantage of online environments and tap into audiences directly,” she explained.

Stormy Simon, SVP of marketing and customer care for Overstock.com, agrees that many marketers are seeing Internet advertising as a better way to reach customers than rival media.

“Our online spend is judged by performance, so as an online retailer, we just spend as much as folks will respond to because it’s so trackable,” she said.

She said Overstock doesn’t break out its marketing spend by channel publicly. However, Simon said she expects Overstock’s spend to remain about the same in 2010 as it was in 2009.

Bryan Wiener, CEO of digital agency 360i, said that his agency is “seeing from our clients, which are a broad cross-section of big brands, double-digit growth in search, video and social media.”

“We’re expecting 10% to 15% growth in search,” he continued. “Video and social will have much higher percentage growth, but they’re starting at a lower basis.”

Simon added that while the e-commerce giant does use some direct mail, digital marketing is more reliable.

“If we send a direct mailer, it’s an absolute impression, but is it as trackable? Will the consumer, for example, type Overstock.com/directmailer? It’s fuzzy. Some people do and others don’t,” she explained. “But I do know that when I spend on online marketing, I’m able to say ‘I spent a penny and I got a penny [back].’”

Andrew Bast, SVP and GM of agency Purple@Epsilon, said that while his firm has seen decreased budgets this year, a large number of clients are pouring more of their budget into CRM rather than  traditional marketing. CRM has eclipsed the more general awareness marketing, and we expect that to continue into 2010,” he said.

“In 2009, clients became very risk-averse,” Mallin agreed. He explained that clients may have, in the past, been more daring, trying many different strategies, yet today they’re only betting on a few campaigns or channels.

Another thing to consider for agencies and marketers alike, he said, is that budgets, for the most part, are no longer planned on a yearly basis.

“We’re seeing people look at their budgets month to month and quarter to quarter,” he said. “It used to be much more predictive, but today they’re being micromanaged. We’ll continue to see that in 2010 but not to the extent in 2009.”

For 2010, Bast predicted that overall marketing budgets would begin to increase. “We think we’ll see budget increases easily north of 10%,” he said.

The new definition of spam and how to overcome it

Spam used to be defined as unsolicited bulk e-mail where the sender lacks consent from the recipient.  In today’s consumer-controlled marketing landscape however, the definition of spam has extended to include any form of irrelevant e-mail or e-mail sent too frequently, even when a sender has full user consent according to our research. Are consumers giving e-mail marketers a bad name? Or should e-mail marketers do a better job reaching their customers and prospects with the right message at the right time and the right frequency?

Earlier this year Epsilon conducted a Global Consumer Email Study with over four thousand respondents in thirteen countries. The study revealed the following consumer definitions of spam: 83% of consumers defined spam as e-mails that intend to trick them into opening them; 76% defined spam as e-mails from senders who are unknown to me; 73% defined spam as any e-mail I receive that I didn’t ask for or subscribe to; and 71% defined spam as e-mails of an offensive subject matter. Surprisingly, 39% of respondents defined spam as any e-mail I receive that I don’t want, regardless of whether I subscribed, and 31% defined it as e-mails from a company I have done business with but that come too frequently. These two definitions create new challenges for e-mail marketers. It’s no longer just about getting subscriber’s permission. Now e-mail marketers must focus on relevancy and frequency to strike the right balance with each individual consumer.

Likewise, the study revealed that the top two reasons for unsubscribing from e-mails were irrelevant content and e-mail messages sent too frequently. Therefore, to avoid losing valuable customers, marketers must not only incorporate explicit preferences and consent, but also watch for implicit response behavior that might indicate a subscriber is no longer interested.  Proactively monitoring e-mail engagement will give you advanced warning when it is time to change up your content, your cadence, or both.

There are a number of opportunities to gather subscriber information. The prime opportunity to establish preferences is at the time of subscription to e-mail programs. E-mail marketers should put customers in the driver’s seat by asking them what types of e-mails they wish to receive, when they check their e-mails, the devices they use for e-mail, their preferred format and how often they wish to receive messages. With all this information, marketers must also be prepared to deliver on it with the latest technology and resources for data-driven, targeted e-mail deployments. Data such as purchase and browsing behavior will indicate when consumers are actively engaged with brands and what is of interest to them. Finally, testing e-mail marketing campaigns and analyzing performance by individual customer segments will also be a valuable reference as to what is working to drive engagement and what is not.

The best e-mail marketers are out in front of their subscribers’ interests, constantly monitoring for changes in engagement and silent attrition on their files.  It is not enough just to manage unsubscribes and complaints. As marketers we need to go deeper into timing, targeting, and program engagement to avoid and overcome the new definition of spam, leveraging trust with brand-name recognition, and keeping a keen eye on consumer preferences – both implicit and explicit – to drive relevance.

Social Media Checklist for Small and Medium Size Businesses

By Heidi Cohen, ClickZ, Dec 14, 2009

As a member of the SES Chicago Social Media Checklist panel last week, it was striking to hear from so many small and medium-sized businesses wrestling with developing a viable social media marketing strategy. Small and medium-sized businesses often have more limited resources, both personnel and budgets, than large companies, so they’re looking to build more cost-effective sales streams. With the goals of raising awareness, expanding market share, and improving customer loyalty, it’s critical to be creative in how your business engages and participates in the social media arena.

Nine Questions to Ask When Developing a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Small and medium-sized businesses tend to be so focused on keeping their businesses going that it can be difficult to brainstorm on ways to leverage the dynamic social media environment. Here are nine questions to help you think about your business in ways that enable you to maximize your social media marketing efforts.

1. Does your business tap into people’s passions and/or hobbies? With hobbies and special interests, customers may make different spending tradeoffs, particularly with “staycations,” where customers look for local activities. From a social media marketing perspective, this translates to ways that people can share their hobbies and special interests using photographs, videos, and blogs. For example, I suggested that a tea purveyor in the SES audience create a Flickr account to show off unusual teapots people collect, and invite the public to participate in this community.
2. Can your business show off its work? While this tends to focus on visual portrayals, like photographs and video, it can also include audio and text. Sharing photographs and videos helps businesses where prospects perceive there are high risks. For example, beauty salons and tailors can show before and after photographs. Remember to get patrons’ permission or offer a free bonus to incent customers to participate. Flickr contains many bakeries showing off their finished product’s visual beauty.
3. Can you give prospects information they find useful? Think broadly to help customers use your product. For example, a food specialty shop’s blog may describe new foods with recipes and menus to use them. A resale shop can use a blog to show how to make wardrobes and living areas snazzy using its current product.
4. Can you extend your expertise to a broader audience? This can work very well for professionals like lawyers and accountants. Leverage videos, presentations, and Webinars giving how-to tips to explain wills or budgeting.
5. Does your business provide reasons for people to gather? In a virtually connected world, give people a reason to congregate in person. This may drive additional revenues. Examples include wine tastings for local wine shops and cooking classes for food specialty shops and/or restaurants. Use Meetup.com to organize the community and post comments. Where appropriate, add a Flickr page to gather related photographs.
6. Can your business disseminate fun or related information via social media? Think in terms of bite size chunks of content. This information doesn’t need to be your business’s main focus. For example, a massage therapist can create a Twitter stream and blog for meditations to put people in a more serene state of mind.
7. Are there targeted or niche communities where your prospects and customers naturally congregate? If so, set up a group in this social media site. For example, yarn shops participate and socialize on Ravelry, a knitting community.
8. Do major blogs cover your business’s area of expertise? If so, actively comment and add to the conversation. Offer to create guest posts to share your knowledge and broaden your audience. This means adding real value to the conversation.
9. Does your offering lend itself to creating a small online community and/or bulletin board? For example, many religious organizations leverage Yahoo Groups to communicate with members. These interactions can move online and offline.

Seven Tips to Extend Social Media Marketing Efforts

As a small or medium-sized business, it’s important to think about how to extend your social media efforts and to integrate these initiatives into your ongoing marketing plans. (For more information on developing an online marketing strategy, click here.) Here are seven tips to help you:

1. Listen before you participate. While social media can help small and medium-sized businesses appear bigger than they are, it’s critical not to promote, promote, promote.
2. Monitor what’s being said about your business. This includes a variety of social media offerings including blogs, review sites like Yelp and niche communities, and discussion groups.
3. Integrate social media efforts offline. Provide retail prospects with a similar experience through an old-fashioned bulletin board with photographs or handouts containing how-to information.
4. Promote social media efforts online and offline. Include your Web site, e-mailings, direct mail, local advertising, in-store postings, flyers, business cards, and correspondence.
5. Socialize social media marketing. Ask visitors, prospects, and customers to visit your social media installations and share their experiences. Don’t overlook traditional ways to extend your business such as local events like Rotary and local sports teams such as Little League.
6. Create a content strategy. (For additional insights on content strategy, click here.) Develop an editorial calendar for content creation to ensure that you don’t get stuck thinking of what to write, especially when using Twitter and blogs where customers expect regular servings of information.
7. Make content search-friendly. Use relevant search keywords and tags and add text to photographs and video to aid findability.

Measuring the Results of Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

Since many small and medium-sized businesses don’t spend lots of time using fancy metrics, here are the main factors to keep your business on track.

• Revenues. Have sales increased? It’s important to note that it may take time to build up a social media following.
• Expenses. Track actual costs as well as the time involved in participating in social media marketing.
• Prospects and customers. Track the number of people who are engaging with your social media efforts. Often, there’s a 90 percent readers/viewers, 9 percent commenters, and 1 percent active content creators breakout.
• Feedback. Monitor the type, amount, and quality of feedback you’re receiving.

Remember there are many ways to engage your business in social media. Consider the options and test what works best for your offering.