inSegment’s VP of Digital Marketing, Ian Klein, spoke for over 45 minutes on digital marketing strategy and techniques, highlighting areas and tactics that are most beneficial to financial institutions.  In particular, he highlighted the key aspects of designing and building a bank website to act as a “digital branch location” for customers, where customers can find all the information – and act on it – that they would in a traditional banking location.  Additionally, Klein discussed how banking websites must also be built not only to inform and assist current customers, but also to attract and retain new customers as well.  If a website attracts potential customers in, but fails to incite them to leave their information or to sign up for an account, then the site has only done half of its job.  Klein also spoke about supporting digital marketing efforts, such as search and display marketing, as well as the importance of attaching real human connection to all digital marketing efforts.

The Strategic Margins Conference also included speakers from several financial institutions reporting on the current trends in their industry.  It also featured a keynote presentation from NFL Hall of Fame quarterback and former New England Patriot Steve Grogan, who spoke about the necessity of strategy to being successful in any endeavor, from athletics to business.

NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Grogan speaks at the Strategic Margins Conference, of which inSegment was a presenting co-sponsor, on May 17.

inSegment’s VP of Sales, Dan Freeman, also participated  in the conference, moderating a panel on cross-selling strategies.  Overall, the event was a success, and one that inSegment was happy not only to be a part of, but to sponsor as well.

inSegment has a consistent history of successfully implementing integrated, digital campaigns for financial institutions, including banks and credit unions.  To see some of the work that we have done in this space, please visit our Industries page.

There are a multitude of free and paid tools that allow you to cut through all of the chatter and see the conversations about your company and brand in real time.  Below is our list of some of our favorites:

Free Tools:

• Social Mention:Social Mention crawls blogs, blog comments, video sharing sites, and social media platforms and compiles a real-time list of brand mentions and context, such as the sentiment of posts, sources of posts, and top users who mention your brand.  Social Mention also has a free service that allows you to set up Social Media Alerts.
• BoardReader:BoardReader scours online forums for brand mentions.  This tool is particularly useful because many businesses and tools tend to overlook forums as “legitimate” or “popular” social media platforms; in reality, forums are goldmines of information about companies, products, brands, and businesses.

Paid Tools:

• Brandwatch:Brandwatch is a social listening and analytics tool that costs $250 a month to use.  However, the results garnered by the tool are much more in-depth than those generated by most free tools.  Brandwatch offers sentiment analysis, so that you can see not only where people are talking about your brand, but what they are saying.  Brandwatch offers sophisticated analysis of these sentiment findings as well, allowing you to see what you issues (or successes) you should address.
• Radian6:Radian6 is the social media listening tool offered by Salesforce, and by far one of the most powerful tools of its kind offered today.  The tool features clean dashboards and real-time charts that show the most common words associated with your brand; monitor the highs and lows of your brand’s social mentions, ascertain sentiment of mentions and more. Radian6’s reporting is clear and concise, adept at pulling data and creating compelling, easy-to-understand charts out of the raw numbers.

Still having trouble managing your or your clients’ social media marketing tools, even with listening tools?  Our social media marketing practices help brands listen to and engage their target audiences on the platforms that are the most applicable to our clients’ goals.  We fully measure all of our efforts, so we know what works and what needs adjusting.  Come talk to us about social media marketing; we’re always listening!

Summer is right around the corner, and that means hanging out with friends and colleagues at barbeques, poolside, on the beach, and everywhere else we flock to in order to enjoy the season.  And with summer fast approaching, why not take a little time and celebrate the season by hanging out with your friends from inSegment?   We will be presenting at the Strategic Margins Conference on May 17 at the Sheraton Framingham Hotel and Conference Center, where we are also co-sponsoring the event.

The Strategic Margins Conference is a resource for financial services marketing, particularly for those marketers involved working with banks and credit unions.  This year’s conference focus is on building revenue while fostering high customer satisfaction.  Produced by the Agility Resources Group, Strategic Margins also claims the New England Financial Marketing Association (NEFMA) and the Boston Chapter of Financial Managers Society (FMS) as sponsors for this year.

The conference will feature panels of industry experts who will be presenting on best practices, success stories, and the next big ideas in marketing for financial institutions.  These sessions are great opportunities for attendees to interact with their peers, get some new ideas for their programs, and to explore current trends in the industry.  Our Vice President of Digital Marketing, Ian Klein, will be speaking about how we’ve used our integrated marketing strategies to gain a variety of successes for our financial services industry clients.

And since no summer outing is complete without some sports, Patriots Hall-of-Fame quarterback Steve Grogan will be speaking to conference attendees on “Playing to Win: It’s All In the Strategy”.  Just like in football, marketing for financial-based firms takes research, planning, and precise execution of the game plan.  Football might be a fall sport, but just like marketing, strategizing on how to win is a year-round event.  Let inSegment and Steve Grogan show you how it’s done!

Want to come hang out with us?  To learn more about the conference, and to register to attend the Strategic Margins Conference on May 17, head on over to www.strategicmargins.com.  Interested in seeing why we are a co-sponsor of this particular event?  Check out the work we’ve done for our financial services clients.  We hope to see you this Friday!

• Make sure you research the company you’re applying to thoroughly.  Familiarize yourself with some of their clients, and some of the past work they’ve produced.  This way, you’ll be prepared for the dreaded interview question “Why are you interested in working for XXXX Company?”

  Additionally, you want to research the company to make sure it’s a good fit for you.  While searching for your first marketing job, you might feel compelled to apply to every opening you see.  But you have to make sure that you’ll be challenged and fulfilled in your new role.  You don’t want to be stuck in a traditional print agency, for example, if you’re passionate about online marketing.

• Stay up to date on marketing trends – read marketing journals, blogs, and websites.  We recommend Direct Marketing News, Search Engine Land and PPC Hero (and our own inSegment blog, of course!).  You’ll sound passionate and informed in interviews; these two traits are attractive to would be employers, who sometimes have to choose between several similarly qualified candidates.  Simply being up to date in your industry can be the deciding factor.
• Clean up your social media profiles!  This is important in any industry, but it has particular importance in marketing, public relations, and other communications-based practices.  If you cannot market yourself efficiently or appropriately, an employer won’t expect you to be able to do so for a client.  Adjust your privacy settings and delete questionable posts as necessary.

  And take advantage of LinkedIn!  The platform allows you to display articles you’ve published, media mentions you’ve earned, and design items you’ve created.  90% of hiring employers will use LinkedIn in some capacity during the hunt for a new hire; use yours as an opportunity to flesh out your resume.

• Relax!  Job hunting is time consuming and stressful.  Make sure you stay confident in yourself and your abilities and accomplishments.  It might take longer than you expect to find that first meaningful job, but being happy in where you work is important.

Congratulations, class of 2013!  Good luck!

And for those of you who aren’t quite done with school yet, check out some of our great internship opportunities here at inSegment!  We make interns valuable, contributing members of our team; and there are never any coffee runs!

The Strategic Margins Conference, produced by the Agility Resources Group, is focused on helping marketers in the financial services industry, particularly banks and credit unions, increase their revenue using a variety of channels, while at the same time maintaining strong community relationships and keeping customers happy.  Other sponsors of this year’s Conference include the New England Financial Marketing Association (NEFMA) and the Boston Chapter of Financial Managers Society (FMS).

The conference will feature panels of industry experts (including us!) who will be presenting on best practices, success stories, and the next big ideas in marketing for financial institutions.  These sessions are great opportunities for attendees to interact with their peers and contemporaries, bounce ideas off of each other, and learn about current trends in the industry.  We will be speaking about how we’ve used our integrated marketing strategies to gain a variety of successes for our financial services industry clients.

Joining us at Strategic Margins will not only be the best in the marketing field, but the best from the football field as well.  Patriots Hall-of-Fame quarterback Steve Grogan will be speaking to conference attendees on “Playing to Win: It’s All In the Strategy”.  Just like in football, marketing for financial-based firms takes research, planning, and precise execution of the game plan.  Let inSegment and Steve Grogan show you how it’s done!

Want to come see us (or at least see Steve Grogan)?  To register to attend the Strategic Margins Conference on May 17, head on over to www.strategicmargins.com.  Interested in seeing why we are a co-sponsor of this particular event?  Check out the work we’ve done for our financial services clients.  We hope to see you on May 17!

The term “Internet advertising” is extremely broad; from where exactly did all of this money come?  The report goes on to break down the profits:

1. Search accounted for $16.9 billion, or 46.3% of the total revenues produced online; in 2011, search created $14.8 billion.

2. Display and banner ads brought in $7.7 billion, or 21% of all digital advertising revenues for the year.

3. Mobile and tablets brought in $3.4 billion; while this might sound like small beans compared to search, that number jumped 111% in a single year – mobile only generated $1.6 billion in 2011.

4. Email brought up the rear, with $156 million in revenue this year, or 0.4% of the total digital advertising revenue.  Email was also the only channel that experienced a drop in profits from 2011-2012; the channel generated $213 million in 2011, which means that email experienced a 27% drop this past year.

What does all of this mean to advertisers?  Digital advertising is a huge moneymaker for direct marketing, with almost all of its channels experiencing tremendous growth from year to year.  However, it is important to remember when looking at reports of this nature to keep everything in perspective, and to keep your own business’s needs in mind.

This report isn’t a sign that you should stop running email campaigns and put all of your money into search; you have to examine your digital marketing strategy as a whole, and allocate your resources in a way that makes sense for your company – and its customers.    There may be some areas where you can redistribute resources, but your strategy is a sum of all of its parts – you shouldn’t throw one away simply because it didn’t grow.

inSegment emphasizes the importance of a multi-channel, integrated digital advertising system, including search, mobile, email, and display advertising.   We’re excited to see the results of this study; it means that  there are new technologies and data points being introduced into the marketing mix, which means there are more opportunities to connect meaningfully with consumers.  We expect the trend of growth to continue on for some years to come.

1. Annual Reactivation Campaigns

So, your email list sits and decays throughout the year; some people unsubscribe, while others change email addresses and forget to update you, or some just sit on your list, inactive subscribers.  These inactive subscribers hurt your email campaigns, and should be removed from the list.  But wouldn’t it be great if, instead of kicking those people off of your list altogether, you could “reactivate” them, and engage them again in your efforts?  Remarketing campaigns can be extremely useful at turning passive contacts into engaged users, but no one is going to be swayed by a yearly “Where have you gone?” message.  Instead, craft a multi-layered email campaign that comprises of several messages; one highlighting the benefits of being a subscriber, followed by a second one offering an asset that highlights one or more of those benefits.  Or, ask customers to update their email preferences; maybe they want to engage with your company, but their needs have changed.  Early and often is a great motto to take when looking to convert inactive list subscribers.  The “one-and-done” reactivation campaign is ineffective at converting subscribers into users.

2. Frequency Testing

You want to get the most out of your email campaign, and part of maximizing its potential is knowing exactly when that email should hit your target’s inbox.  When is the best time to send?  And how many times should that message be sent?  In ye olden days, marketers would send multiple messages a week, without any real analysis as to when each email was opened, or if any action was taken.  However, this is hardly effective – or efficient.  These days, email marketers are tracking “behavior based actions”, or tracking when an email is opened or a specific action is taken, like a whitepaper download.  This information helps email marketers craft better, more relevant emails, which in turn allows the customer to personalize their email experience.

3. The Single Email Campaign

If it takes multiple touches to convert an old, inactive subscriber back to an engaged user, it will certainly take more than one email to convert a prospect into a customer.  Vary the days and times that you send each email, and differentiate the content slightly in each email, or “drop” to ensure that you are making the most of this direct contact you have with this potential client.  Only sending a single email is like leaving money on the table- and businesses that do that go extinct quickly.

Are you worried your email marketing is still stuck in the digital stone age?  inSegment crafts all its campaign for clients using conversion-oriented architecture, multiple drops, and continued measurement.  Read more about our services, and see how we constantly push the envelope on email marketing.

inSegment’s VP of Digital Marketing, Ian Klein, in conjunction with Rockland Trust’s CMO Mark Gibson, presented to a full room of 35 representatives from local, regional, and national organizations on utilizing digital strategies to expand fundraising opportunities and brand awareness.  The interactive session, which lasted for more than here hours, included a range of topics, from opportunities available through Google Grants, a program run by Google that supports qualifying not-for-profit groups with free Google products; leveraging social channels and paid search to reach a more targeted audience; and using analytics to measure fundraising success, among others.

In particular, Klein was interested in discussing how the represented nonprofits, especially the many that were social media-savvy, could better use mobile, social, and paid search channels to advertise, fund-raise  and build brand awareness.  He spoke about the importance of identifying and targeting audiences for aligned interests and geographic location.  The practice of geo-targeting audiences is particularly important for regional organizations.  Overall, the event was a success, and one that Klein and inSegment were happy to be a part of.

inSegment has a storied history of successfully implementing integrated campaigns for nonprofits in a variety of sectors.  To see some of the work we’ve done for regional and national organizations, visit our clients page.

Quora is a Q&A sites that ranks questions and answers based on engagement through followers/users, views, votes, reviews and shares.  While company accounts aren’t permitted on Quora, brand representatives can identify themselves and contribute to questions and answers.  This is a great opportunity to address target audiences directly. Below are some simple steps provided by Jim Yu to help your brand on Quora.

1.Follow related topics:

Follow a handful of topics and threads related to your brand and/or industry.  This is great for market and competitor research; find out what is being said about your competition and your company, and use this info to inform your decisions on future campaigns.

2. Prioritize content:

Quora allows you to follow and lead discussions involving many elements of your brand such as products, customer service, and corporate responsibility.  Be sure to cover the most important areas, but don’t forget about the minor details.

3. Assign and train experts to contribute to discussions:

Not only do you want to be following relatable topics of your industry, but you want to    be leading discussions. This will increase your web visibility and generate leads to help  improve your brand and customer satisfactory rate.  Some things to remember while     doing this are to:

A.Identify yourself explicitly as a representative of your brand/company

B. Provide information and perspective this is valuable to viewers

C.  Never sell!  This could seriously harm your company’s image and could result in losing followers or being blocked by users.

4.  Track metrics to measure your experts’ engagement:

Quora is about quality and credibility, but like all social media, it is measurable. Some metrics you can track along the way are the number of:

a. Followers for related topics

b. Followers for each of your experts.

c. Answers for each expert and

d. Votes and shares

5. Use Quora as a blogging platform:    

Quora’s blogging platform is great for the “once-in-a-while” blogger or for brands that want to reach a different and larger audience.  Use this guide to learn more about its benefits.  Quora is perfect for brands wanting to engage and interact with their customers in a new and unusual way.

In order to be successful at social media management, you have to stay on top of emerging trends, strategies, platforms, and movements on all the channels that your brand uses.  It can be a bit overwhelming; that’s why inSegment offers social media marketing services as a part of our integrated marketing services.  While we’re not active on Quora yet for our own brand, we’re more than willing to jump in for our clients.