June 25, 2007

ExactTarget Email Marketing Advantage

By DJ Muller, President/CEO, WebLink International

Since the introduction of our ExactTarget partnership, there has been some confusion about the difference between WebLink’s and ExactTarget’s email capabilities and when you should use one versus the other.

First, if you don’t know about ExactTarget, they are the #1 provider of permission-based email.   Their clients are the “who’s who” of corporate America – including airlines and many big box companies.  These companies use email extensively as a customer retention tool to keep customers informed and to sell them new services.   The messages sent by ExactTarget can have the content of the emails automatically change based upon the customer’s interests and even gender.

Let’s say you have large event coming up that offers many promotional opportunities in addition to just attending.   By using ExactTarget to send out the invitations to your members and community, you can then use ExactTarget to track and find out who is really interested in sponsorships by seeing who actually read the sponsorship articles.  You can then send another email (or even pick up the phone and call) and provide additional information to that group about sponsoring.   This saves staff time, and increases revenue because you can “target” those people that are truly interested.

This is actually a pretty simple example, but the strength in ExactTarget is being able to track, analyze, and then act on what happens after the emails are sent.   Just like your Microsoft Outlook or other email program, WebLink can send the emails, but the tracking capabilities are limited.

The other item that is a benefit of ExactTarget that often gets overlooked is their relationships with all the ISPs such as AOL, Yahoo, and others.  Because they don’t allow just anyone to use their service and you agree not be spamming folks, their emails get-through.   Other companies that allow just anyone to purchase and upload lists online are used quite a bit by spammers and therefore are blacklisted frequently.

Here at WebLink we use both systems, when we have something critical or we are sending conference follow-ups to prospects, we use ExactTarget so we can see who may be really interested in our services and then we can follow-up with them with additional more targeted and relevant emails, or even call them.  We use our ISPs email server (sent through WebLinkConnect) when we are just sending out non-critical notices, or items that are not marketing related.   

ExactTarget’s service does cost per-email sent, but no service provides as much actionable marketing information as they do to generate revenue.  If you act on the information they provide, it more then makes up for the small investment.  It usually only takes just one sale or lead you wouldn’t have normally had to pay for the entire email campaign.  Additionally, they have extensive online resources with case studies, and specifics on how to construct email campaigns and get a return on your investment. 

To learn more about ExactTarget, visit http://www.chamberWebLink.com/exacttarget/