By definition (and according to Wikipedia), marketing automation is the name given to software platforms designed for marketing departments and organizations to automate repetitive tasks. Marketing departments, consultants and part-time marketing employees benefit by specifying criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes. These tasks and processes are then interpreted, stored and executed by software, which increases efficiency and reduces human error. (Originally this was called email marketing automation.)

The benefits of implementing a marketing automation solution are tremendous especially for those firms’ marketing departments that are operating on the ‘lean and mean’ side. It gives organizations and marketers the ability to do more with less! Using a marketing automation platform allows marketers to streamline their sales and marketing activities by replacing high-touch, repetitive manual processes with automated solutions.

Marketing automation consequently provides a more consistent, less manual way for tracking items such as lead source, conversion rate and MARKETING ROI (aka the holy grail: being able to attribute sales revenue to the Marketing department!!! Yes Sales Team we do contribute to ‘your sales’ )

Okay now where was I…yes marketing automation solutions. As I was saying, there are many different solutions out there –some more basic than others. A fully developed marketing automation system will provide information across all phases of the marketing process, including:

• Demand Generation
• Lead Management
• Lead Scoring
• Lead Nurturing
• Lead Generation
• Campaign Analysis
• Lead Qualification
• Sales Effectiveness

Whereas, a more basic platform may only provide lead nurturing and automated functionality, for example.

The first question most people will ask is, “Okay, so which is the best marketing automation provider out there?” TBH (to be honest), the answer really depends. It depends upon your organization’s need, established business practices as well as its level of commitment to making your sales and marketing processes automated.

If you know there are certain processes that your organization will never change, that will prevent you from, for example doing lead scoring and nurturing, then a fully developed system might not be the best choice. Conversely, if your organization is open for change and you have buy-in from key decision makers and leadership, a fully-developed system might just be the perfect solution.

Here’s a great chart that helps defines the steps you should take if you are looking at selecting a marketing automation vendor:

Courtesy of: http://www.marketingautomationsoftware.com

So, if your organization isn’t already on the bandwagon, I encourage you to get on and not be left behind! The benefits of automation are just too great to ignore. Let automation take over all those manual tasks you are doing so that you can be freed up to take your marketing programs to the next level. I promise you, it’ll be a life changer (in a positive way) and fun too!

First, let’s consider the iPhone email experience. It is very homogenous (by design) and so it’s not hard to understand the user experience – from screen size to finger gestures to HTML rendering behaviors.

The Android smartphone world is a stark contrast. Open Signal did a great job visualizing the extent of Android screen size fragmentation (spanning both smartphones and tablets) and Google’s latest Developer Dashboard still shows 47% of the Android universe on Gingerbread (2.3.x; translated ‘older’) with another 39% on Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean (4.x; translated ‘latest’).

Equally perplexing is the question of which Android app is used to read email in a sea of device and operating system fragmentation. Manufacturers like Samsung and HTC create Android-based email clients, but the reported surge to 425 million active Gmail account holders (as of June 2012) caused us to wonder whether Gmail for Android app is the mobile email client of choice.

In October, we decided to investigate this matter by conducting a survey that simply asked one question: “Which email app do you use to read & send email from your Android smartphone?”

We found iPhone users raising their hands to this Android-focused question and even got additional insights courtesy of Google that speak to which Android email app men and women prefer. The bottom line: The single biggest opportunity cost marketers face could be ignoring the Android email experience. Here’s what we found:

Who Loves Leaving Money on the Table?
Nobody. No marketer wants to leave money on the table. And yet, optimizing emails for mobile without taking Android users into consideration is a massively lopsided strategy. Of the 1,505 responses, 14.8% identified themselves as Android users. Another 18.5% identified themselves as iPhone users. The remaining responders said they were neither iPhone or Android smartphone users. The survey responses confirmed that there is probably an Android smartphone user in your email database for every iOS smartphone user you’ve identified.

Why is this? Well that’s the perennial flaw in open rate tracking due to the dependency on images rendering. For the majority of Android email clients, images are off by default. Litmus reports for our clients consistently show that there are significantly more iPhone users than Android users (I have yet to hear differently from other email marketers – though I’m all ears).

There’s a bit of a chicken and the egg game at play here. If marketers were to convince their subscribers using the top left corner of their emails to permanently display images, then more Android users would suddenly appear. Problem solved, right?

Wrong. Even if you were to get a Gmail for Android user to display images, marketers won’t easily overcome the distraction and engagement killer that scrolling up, down, left or right is to reading the email content. There is no scaling and in the case of Gmail for Android, no pinch/zoom.

Gender Bias?
The survey also revealed that among those surveyed, 74% of women and 62% of men were using Gmail for Android to check their email. For marketers whose target audiences skew by gender, the implications for opportunity cost are even more significant.

What should we do?
Every campaign and every email template serves a unique purpose. Whether you’re trying to raise awareness or drive direct response, put yourself in the seat of an Android user and figure out what’s necessary to fulfill a positive user experience, starting with Gmail for Android and factoring in other popular smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy family.

Consider using fluid design, responsive design or BrightWave’s mobile optimized design solution that can deliver a unique, device-specific design in real-time that was recently showcased on the Litmus blog and by ClickZ. In case you hadn’t seen it live and in action, here’s a quick look:

A horizontal view of our 2012 Holiday Greeting email for desktop environments and …

… it’s unique, tall, mobile and scrolling cousin as seen on an iPhone.

We happen to have a little nautical theme going at BrightWave. Obviously our name and logo nod to this but our conference room names are nautical and rumor has it our British Friday is inspired by the Royal British Navy.

So we came up with the Quartermaster Award (formally, The Email Marketing Quartermaster Award).

What’s a Quartermaster? – An able-bodied seaman entrusted with the steering of a vessel when entering or leaving a harbor. He is also involved with the use and upkeep of navigational equipment. On a pirate ship, the quartermaster had an almost equal amount of authority as the captain. He was elected and as such was the crew’s voice. If a ship was captured, the quartermaster almost always took over the captured ship. He maintained order, settled arguments, and distributed supplies. The quartermaster was in charge of all booty gained and distributed it among the crew. (Courtesy of Brethren of the Coast)

We told the team prior to voting that The Email Marketing Quartermaster should be awarded to the employee that just had an amazing year and impact on our business. Co-workers, clients and paparazzi all want a piece of him or her and have been uniquely impressed by their dedication, collaboration, passion and success. This person should embody the BrightWave values.  The winner would get a nifty piece of hardware and a trip to a five star beach resort. That seemed to get people’s attention.

So what happened? Over drinks and great Italian food and among our friends and coworkers at our holiday party we presented this to a very deserving person.

Jessica Johnston Higgins had an epic year. She came in and joined the BrightWave team (already established as the leading email marketing focused digital agency in the country) and propelled them up a few notches. When she took over as Creative Director in February 2012, she elevated BrightWave’s client work and made the internal process smoother and team happier. In short, she built out a best of breed team in less than a year while maintaining an exceptionally high level of excellence in the agency’s creative work.

While I can go on and on about how she helped us achieve an Inc. 5000 listing or #70 on the 2012 Tech 200 of fastest growing technology companies but I think it is even better if you heard from her colleagues. Below are some excerpts from the nominations of Jessica from her BrightWave teammates for the first inaugural Email Marketing Quartermaster Award.

“Jessica exudes the characteristics that a Pirate captain would find most beneficial in a quartermaster. Although she does not say “arrgh” often, she does always intervene on projects when needed and truly has the customer in mind when creating the visual experience for an end user.”

“Jessica has brought a set of soft skills that have helped us build a culture and added a fresh perspective to BrightWave as an organization. I believe her arrival and subsequent work has been one of the true milestones of 2012 as we have a stronger future with her and last time I checked, we’re still sailing.”

“Not only has Jessica been extremely patient, helpful, and encouraging, but her personality and demeanor create a very pleasant working environment, which I enjoy immensely.  Her knowledge, experience, and professionalism coupled with her ability to have fun and foster a laidback office environment set a great example for the type of company culture we should strive to nurture and maintain.”

“Jessica has demonstrated great leadership and positive energy in the office (whether it’s creating awesome comps, or planning a fun happy hour across the street). From a creative standpoint, she has not only built a solid team, but she has also consistently created designs that our clients love.”

“Jessica has demonstrated her leadership abilities in a number of areas from the moment she arrived at BrightWave. As our Creative Director she has a role that takes on many responsibilities, almost as if she is doing 3 (or more) jobs in one. She is the chief designer / art director who has to safeguard the quality of our creative product, and she is the head of production which requires her to be both technical and methodical in her attention to detail.”

“Jessica has also stepped up in the areas of strategy and coaching.“

The Quartermaster wasn’t the first award Jessica won – she previously picked up the prestigious Ron Swanson award and is shown contemplating its power, awe and implications.

“On top of all of this, Jessica is also the social committee (chair) who organizes most of BrightWave’s after hours events. This role is almost equally important to her day to day job in effecting the culture and Esprit de corps of the company.”

Quartermaster. Superstar. Employee of the Year. Jessica Higgins certainly qualifies for all 3 of these accolades based on her 2012 performance.  Not only did she win the Quartermaster but Jessica was also selected by Atlanta Business Chronicle in their first-ever Employee of the Year special section.

When I look further down the list I get a little more excited… “Gamification”… that’s cool, but what really makes me go “hmmm” is the last item on the list: Rise of SoLoMo. I think I’m most exciting about this category and I hope the iMedia prediction is correct, I hope SoLoMo goes more mainstream.

The Rise of The Guardians, not rise of SoLoMo… but close

For those that don’t know SoLoMo is the super cool abbreviation for Social + Location/Local/Locale* + Mobile, sort of like North, Tooth and Bunny pictured above. You know, this awesome team that does stuff together.

I think SoLoMo is an interesting tool for both marketers and consumers receiving those messages (or messages they will get in the future). From the consumer side I like the idea of more relevant information because of my location and connection with me on my phone and through my networks. And as a marketer I definitely like the idea of thinking of new ways to tell a brand’s story through new and very personal technology channels.

I’m still looking for that great SoLoMo marketing campaign. Have you seen any? If so leave a comment below. Hopefully we’ll see something great in 2013 as more and more consumers and marketers adopt this blend of technologies. In the meantime, I’ll continue to enjoy the scraps of LoMo interaction I get from my iPhone. Siri is pretty good about reminding me to do something when I arrive at a particular location or when I’m in contact with someone on my Find Friends app.

*I like the Lo standing for Location, but I’ve seen other definitions as being considered part of the SoLoMo mix.

Altimeter Group partner Jeremiah Owyang is an industry leader that provides excellent commentary on his blog on all things digital with an eye on what is disruptive.

I really like this recent post “The Four Elements of Career Management in Business” and have shared it around our office.

It’s a great cheat sheet for what any ambitious leader-in-waiting (or someone on the hot seat now) should focus on, as well as how to analyze what you may be spending too much time on or not enough in elevating your career.

Let me try to phrase this statistic in a couple different ways (that I’d hypothesize to be at least directionally accurate) in ways that may resonate a little better for marketers:

1. For every iPhone user that you’ve found through Litmus (or any other method) to be reading your emails, there is at least one Android user reading that email as well.The October comScore numbers provide good support for this theory.

2. If you’re more of a visually-oriented, right-brain type of person, this might help you grasp what the global smartphone market looks like:

<!– SIDEBAR: I owned an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 4 for a tenure of 4 years. I’m now an HTC One X owner that still loves his iPad. I have a Mac Mini and a Chromebook at home. So please refrain from labeling me as a fanboy of either camp. –>

Preview Text Can Help Identify Android Users

I often talk about how the secret to winning in email marketing lives in the minutia and nuances of things like subject lines and preview text.  Here’s a perfect example of how preview text can help your Android audience self-identify.

Check out how Lucky Brand‘s emails look with images on and off (in Gmail for Ice Cream Sandwich):

Four things to notice:

1. 4 lines of preview text which include a link to the primary call-to-action AND explicit mention that they have a mobile website that I can visit
2. A passive request to to do something easily actionable to keep the emails out of my junk folder by tapping on the ‘STAR’ right next to the reply button.
3. Even though the logo and (ostensibly) the entire layout are all center-aligned, the preview text is LEFT aligned.
4. The ‘Show Pictures’ and ‘Always show pictures from this sender’ are two clicks that could also help identify Android email recipients, but the value in turning on images has to be there. (Perhaps that’s a whole separate petition to be made with someone on the Gmail for Android product team.)

My hope is that simple tests and adoption of some of these tricks can help paint a more accurate picture of the total mobile email consuming universe.

Hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, and snowmen are among the many symbols that may be flooding your inbox for anything from a simple sale at a local store to a clever take on the symbol with a special holiday.

One of the biggest questions we receive at BrightWave regarding symbols in subject lines is: “How effective are they really for my brand?”

To answer that question, we would look at a few things to determine if symbols could be effective for the brand on an on-going basis.

1. Do the symbols fit with the branding standards and the brand itself?  If it seems off-brand to use a symbol, then we wouldn’t recommend using one because it may detract from the brand’s image.
2. Will the audience respond well to symbols? Performing an A/B subject line test (one with symbols vs. one without) can give you a better idea of what future response rates might be.
3. Is the use of the symbol clear and understandable? Using a symbol just to use a symbol will not be as effective [★Happy Days are here!] as using a symbol to connect with the recipient and intent of the message [We ♥ our guest! Enjoy a special gift for you!].

Another thing to consider is the frequency of usage. A rule of thumb from our email team is to only use them when necessary because it shows that the email is more important than previous ones. For example, a recent Cyber Monday campaign was more effective with the use of symbols in the subject line of a re-targeting email. The initial email was sent on Monday morning with a basic subject line relating the Cyber Monday offer. On Tuesday Morning, we resent the email to the unopened individuals with a last chance theme and the use of stars in the subject line. The result:

• 34,000 additional opens by inactive users
• 3,000 additional clicks by inactive users
• 158% lift in revenue from this campaign in total

While this campaign wasn’t 100% more effective because of the use of symbols, we were able to generate additional opens from people that ignored the first message. This test provided good evidence that symbols in subject lines can improve your overall success of a campaign as long as it is used correctly.

To me, it’s a proud accomplishment but it doesn’t really do anything per se for the company. Sure, it helps us to tout our continued success and growth and we find ourselves in pretty elite company (the list is based on 2011 numbers but includes newly public companies like Facebook and Yelp). I certainly see value on the marketing and recruiting front. It validates everything we have been working on for almost 10 years. It also makes me feel confident about our spot in the email marketing world as BrightWave was the only email marketing agency on the list.

I know our team is proud of the accomplishment but we have won a lot of awards and recognition before. They know it doesn’t change the path or mission of the company which is centered on managing world class email and digital messaging programs through exceptional client service.

The recognition definitely gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling but leaves me wanting more. Here’s a bit more on the honor:

The sixth annual Inc. 500|5000 represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy–America’s independent entrepreneurs. In a stagnant economic environment, the median growth rate of the 2012 Inc. 500|5000 companies remains an impressive 97 percent. The companies on this year’s list report having created over 400,000 jobs in the past three years, and aggregate revenue among the honorees reached $299 billion.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/5000.

Our Inc. 5000 stats are below for the Inc. listing:

• BrightWave Marketing Ranks No. 1335 on the 2012 Inc. 500|5000
• No. 51 in Atlanta
• No. 126 within Advertising & Marketing Industry
• Three-Year Sales Growth of 230%

Be sure to check out my recent ClickZ article on the email marketing companies included in this list.

Like what you see? Want in on this rocket ship? Check out our job postings.

One of the coolest things was being able to hear Matt Cutts(@mattcutts), head of Google’s Search Quality team, speaking about how his global team has to fight “Web Spam.” Google (the proper noun turned verb) was taking a lot of heat/questions around whether Google+ really had influence on search ranking (Cutts denied this) among other SEO-related issues.  Immediately, I felt like a closer cousin to the search marketers in the room.

Another area he touched on was the new ability to extend a user’s Google search to look inside their Gmail inbox.  Matt mentioned that Gmail search is currently in a field trial phase where they are seeking out feedback from about 1MM users to help refine the experience for both usability and privacy.

They’ve done a nice job of considering inbox privacy by making the default state of the Gmail search results collapsed and accessible by clicking on a plus sign to reveal related search results.

When I first caught wind of this feature, I thought it might be about as awesome as Google Wave.  However, upon testing it out, I think it has good value for consumers and has positive implications for email marketers. I’ll use one of BrightWave’s clients, Stoney River, to demonstrate benefits for both the consumer and the email marketer.

One Place to Search
In the same way that Google tries to surface relevant non-web results like images, maps, or videos, the Gmail results appear in the right column as one more relevant content source.  This saves me the trouble of popping another tab/window for Gmail to search for something. Additionally, by adding ‘gmail’ into any search string, the results then are placed into the main search result column because Google infers that you want to search within Gmail first.

Yet Another Reason Why Subject Lines Are So Important

When I did a search for Stoney River, Google surfaced 3 pieces of information about related Gmail content:  ”From” (up to 12 characters), “Subject Line” (up to 32 characters) and “Send Date”.

The first 32 characters of your subject line can make the difference of whether you can turn a Google search in to a real business conversion. Suddenly the user can get one additional look at the subject lines for the five most recent emails that you’ve sent.

Two Great Tastes that Taste Great TogetherThe day before my session, I posted this tweet. To my delight, during Q&A @gretchenegeberg asked the question for which she was rewarded a pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  I answered her question by saying that search and email go great together because I believe that for many marketers, the reason why you optimize your search is in order to capture an email address.  Permission-based email marketing via a house email list is so incredibly cost effective. You’d be crazy not to make email address capture a top conversion priority.

If you were to use a less-chocolatey, cheesier analogy, it’s not unlike Jerry Maguire where Tom Cruise is search and Renee Zellweger is email. This is how we make the quan.

I hope I get invited to speak again at future SES conferences because I’d love to continue building synergies with search marketers. And maybe by then, I’ll have a different analogy to use so that I can just shutup.

With social media becoming front and center in the digital realm, it is no surprise that the Olympics have become the ultimate social event. Dedicated hashtags, numerous athletes tweeting daily, and results being posted instantly online, various areas of social media have boomed as a direct result of the Olympics.

The opportunity to watch Olympic coverage live on various outlets (TV, YouTube, and the main NBC Olympic website) and the time lapse between event completion and normal television viewing encouraged the trend of online viewing. Once on the sites, individuals were able to share with friends via Google Plus or Facebook, tweet, or comment directly on the video. With this constant information stream, event results have been broadcast to the public faster than ever.

This instant access and social interaction can easily create a nightmare for members of teams and the Olympic Committee. However, as with most individuals that are savvy in the social world, the Olympic Committee provided all athletes with a guideline document for social media. Take a look at what the athletes have to abide by when participating in social media. Everything from appropriate words to use in tweets and comments to branding for the Olympics is included. Below are a few of my favorites:

• ‘Blogs or tweets must be in a first-person, diary-type format and should not be in the role of a journalist – i.e. they must not report on competition or comment on the activities of other participants or accredited persons, or disclose any information which is confidential or private in relation to any other person or organization.’
• ‘Video and/or audio must only be for personal use and must not be uploaded and/or shared to a posting, blog or tweet on any social media platforms, or to a website.’
• ‘Participants and other accredited persons must not use the Olympic Symbol – i.e. the five interlaced rings, which is the property of the IOC – on their postings, blogs or tweets on any social media platforms or on any websites.’

(Olympic Guidelines – Social Media, 2012)

With such strict guidelines, one would question how well the Olympic committee could enforce it with thousands of athletes and individuals of the press.  Enforcement didn’t seem to be a problem as many individuals were turning in each other to ensure no one received the leg up on material. For example, NBC requested that a British Newspaper’s correspondent be suspended from Twitter until after the games due to his action online. Their request was granted and the individual was banned until the games closed (Read more here). Although the games had a few other issues, the guidelines put forth early in the process really limited the overall possibilities for content.

Another popular trend during the Olympics this year was the use of hashtags in post. The most popular hashtags included #London2012, #Olympics2012, and #Olympics. Each hashtag had its own success but the most popular one was #London2012. Below is a chart showing the last 24 hours of use for the hashtag.

(#London2012, HashTracking.com)

As you can see, it generated over 6,225,000 impressions and reached an audience of over 5,979,000 in the past 24 hours. With such a large impact, it is no wonder that social media has been so popular during the Olympics.

As the games came to a close Sunday night, twitter was aflutter with athletes and viewers tweeting their thoughts and sadness that the games were ending. A few example tweets below from a US equestrian team member and the US Olympic Team account:

(#London2012, Twitter.com)

Many others discussed the variety of musicians that were featured and the overall impact of the performance in our lives. With such a high bar set, I look forward to seeing the Rio Olympics in 2016 but, until then, I leave you with a video from the closing ceremonies and the words of John Lennon, “…I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one; I hope someday you’ll join us; And the world will be as one”.