Posted by Norma Shepardson on Thu, Jul 22, 2010 @ 10:56 AM
As we find ourselves in the heat of the summer, daydreaming about lazy days in the sun and long trips to the beach, we should take a minute to stop and 'tweet' the ice cream. Ben & Jerry's ice cream to be specific.
In a recent blog post, Ben & Jerry's announced that their customers will no longer be receiving email marketing from the brand, and that instead they invite their fellow ice cream lovers to join them on Facebook and Twitter for updates. Ben & Jerry's is the first major corporation to discontinue email marketing in favor social media, so we can learn a lot by monitoring how successful their decision is in the near future.
Ben & Jerry's customers' preferred being updated via social media so they made the groundbreaking decision to halt subscribed email altogether. This is an extreme example of how important it is to read your customers and figure out the best way to deliver information to them. It shows that Ben & Jerry's is committed to maintaining a positive, growing relationship with its current and future customers.
It seems likely that Ben & Jerry's will find success in moving away from email as their main marketing tactic because they already have an extremely strong social media presence, but most companies will want to consider that email marketing remains a powerful tool and, in most cases, should not be abandoned. It is vital that you analyze your current marketing strategies and look for tactics that are successful for your brand while eliminating programs and campaigns that do not drive interest or awareness. More than likely you do not want or need to discontinue your email marketing, but rather hone in on what is working for your company and focus on making those strategies even more powerful.
You must be receptive and give your customers more of what they want, and also make it easy for them to get it. Once that happens, they will surely be back for more. Be inspired by ice cream...people will always keep going back for more because they know they can choose the flavor that suits them best.
Source: HubSpot. Click Here to read more.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Fri, Jul 02, 2010 @ 03:15 PM
This October, Marketing Sherpa will be hosting their annual B2B Summit and TSL Marketing is proud to announce our sponsorship of this event. At this event, learn how to:
- Architect a successful social media strategy
- Use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to drive leads
- Accurately score, nurture and measure leads
- Align marketing and sales strategies
- Optimize PPC, SEO, email and landing pages
- Develop strategies to grow your list
- Generate B2B content your audiences will value
- Manage multichannel campaigns
- Market effectively to Fortune 500 companies
- Accelerate leads through the funnel
What makes this event unique:
You'll listen, learn and interact with B2B marketing experts over two days through an intriguing blend of instructional formats, custom tailored to provide value to marketers of all skill levels. Whether you're looking for intensive how-to training, interactive audience-led panel discussions or real-life case studies to add to your arsenal, B2B Marketing Summit '10 has it all. To receive a $700 discount,
More about the event:
The dual coast event dates and locations are:
- Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco, CA - October 4-5
- Westin Waltham, Boston, MA - October 25-26
Click Here to download the event agenda
Join us! We would love to see your there and share some of the top insights for B2B marketing in 2010.
Posted by Norma Shepardson on Fri, Jun 25, 2010 @ 08:00 AM
So you don’t know the difference between Digg & Delicious? You aren’t the only one! With all of the hype around social media, you might be feeling overwhelmed. You know you need to ‘do’ social media, that isn’t the question, but it’s hard to get your mind around what it all means if you don’t understand the terms being used. Having a basic understanding of common terminology is your foundation to getting the most out of social media marketing.
We recently read the ‘Social Media Marketing Directory: 101 Terms to Know’ compiled by HubSpot, and thought that we would share some of the most common (and more obsolete) terms to help you feel more comfortable with social media marketing.
· Delicious - Delicious is a free online bookmarking service that lets users save website addresses publicly and privately online so that they can be accessed from any device connected to the Internet and shared with friends.
· Digg- Digg is a social news website that allows members to submit and vote for articles. Articles with the most votes appear on the homepage of the site and subsequently are seen by the largest portion of the site’s membership as well as other visitors.
· Google Documents - Referred to as 'Google Docs' is a group of web-based office applications that includes tools for word processing, presentations and spreadsheet analysis. All documents are stored and edited online and allow multiple people to collaborate on a document in real-time.
· LinkedIn- LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site, mainly used for professional marketing. As of June 2010, LinkedIn had more than 70 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide
· News Reader - A news reader allows users to aggregate articles from multiple websites into one place using RSS feeds. The purpose of these aggregators is to allow for a faster and more efficient consumption of information.
· Social Media Monitoring - Social media monitoring is a process of monitoring and responding to mentions related to a business that occur in social media.
· StumbleUpon- Free web-browser extension which acts as an intelligent browsing tool for discovering and sharing web sites.
· Twitter- Twitter is a platform that allows users to share 140-character-long messages publicly. User can “follow” each other as a way of subscribing to each others' messages. Additionally, users can use the @username command to direct a message towards another Twitter user.
· Yelp- Yelp is a social network and local search website that provides users with a platform to review, rate and discuss local businesses. Over 31 million people access Yelp's website each month, putting it in the top 150 U.S. Internet websites.
This report is brought to you by HubSpot.
To read the full social media directory Click Here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Fri, Jun 18, 2010 @ 08:22 AM
Is Social Media a Fad? This is what many people are asking across the world. As businesses become more inundated with the need to adopt and adapt social networking, there is still that question on whether or not social media will fizzle out. We recently ran across a video on youtube that I would like to share with you. Not only does the video speak of the revolution known as social media, but it also backs up this theory with a number of statistics; thus proving social media to be not only on the rise, but also too large to fizzle out. For example, social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web. While this is a funny number to mention, it also proves that search engine has become more about networking than personal use. Here are some additional highlights I pulled out:
- By 2010 Generation Y will outnumber the baby boomers: 96% of them have joined a social network
- Facebook added 100 million users in the last 9 months (the majority of facebook users are over 35)
- If facebook were a country, it would be world's 4th largest
- 80% of companies are using linkedin as their as their primary tool to find employees
- 80% of twitter usage is on a mobile device (imagine what that means for bad customer service)
As this article will note.
Social media is not a fad, "it's a shift in the fundamental way we communicate." Check it out for yourself:
Posted by Norma Shepardson on Thu, Apr 29, 2010 @ 04:06 PM
This coming week TSL Marketing will be sponsoring the MarketingProfs B2B Forum. We are excited for the event, and if you are planning on being there stop by booth 17 to say hello.
These are a few event highlights...
- Get a comprehensive B2B marketing education
- Sharpen your B2B skills overnight
- Use social media to grab more attention
- Learn from your peers in the interactive discussions
If you want to view full agenda for the Forum, click here.
We definitely are looking forward to hosting the Wii station at the Forum, it should be a fun way to see everyone between sessions, seminars, and speakers. If you are planning on attending, stop by and enter the raffle for a chance to win the Wii at the end of the day on Wednesday.
If you are unable to attend the forum, check back in the coming weeks and we will be sure to share some of the new information, marketing trends, and sales advice we will learn about while we are there.
Event details can be found by logging on to the MarketingProfs website, or by clicking here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Fri, Apr 23, 2010 @ 02:46 PM
TSL Marketing recently presented a FREE webinar highlighting the top statistics found in "B2B TELESERVICES: THE 2009 BUYER’S GUIDE" whitepaper by Aberdeen Group.
You can now download this webinar to learn how best in class companies achieve:
- 90% of overall sales team quota
- 10% YOY increase in revenue per sales rep
- 7% year-over-year improvement of bid-to-win ratio
- 22% annual increase in revenue per sales rep
We are also offering a free copy of this whitepaper. If you are interested in the whitepaper, please click here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Tue, Mar 23, 2010 @ 01:40 PM
TSL Marketing is pleased to annouced our sponsorship of Paul Castain's first official Networking Event for the LinkedIN Group, “Sales Playbook!”
The group recently surpassed the 10,000 members milestone, Sales Playbook! has evolved into a community that embraces the most value add discussion threads on LinkedIN, while remaining a spam free zone! Sales and Marketing pros sharing best-practices and ideas, a group that fosters collaboration amongst peers with a common goal of achieving Mastery of our trade.
Paul Castain will be presenting more about the group’s history, how it started, where we are today and where it’s going! The event is free, you’ll be able to make lasting personal and professional connections. With such camaraderie amongst group members, it is exciting to finally put a face and voice to the name. We all spend so much time growing our Social Network, and we sometimes neglect the real value afforded to you when you convert that network into real life.
The event attendance is Free of Charge and all are welcome to come and participate in this event! See below for more details.
The event is today, Tuesday, March 23rd @ 6:30pm EST until 9:30pm EST.
Revolution Rock Bar
200 High St., Boston, MA 02110
Phone: 617-261-4200
Website: http://www.revolutionrockbar.com/
Subway Stop: Blue Line – Aquarium
Parking Options:
- 1 International Place: Parking Entrance on Atlantic Ave. $6 per ½ hour – after 2 ½ hours is $34.
- Propark America Garage @ 99 High St.: $6 per ½ hour - $36 max
- 225 Franklin St: $22 per hour - $37 max
- Pilgrim Parking @ 265 Franklin St.: $6 per ½ hour - $32 max
- Street Side: Some parking is available on side streets, bring quarters for parking meters. (Parking is Limited)
Dress Code: Trendy/Casual, Business Casual, No Sports Wear Allowed
Look forward to seeing you there!
Posted by Tara Robertson on Thu, Feb 18, 2010 @ 01:58 PM
This week we would like to share with you our newest white paper on the IT Predictions for 2010 at no cost (we can call it our valentine to you)! In this paper, you will see a comprehensive picture of the landscape for IT buying and how it will evolve in 2010.
Through this white paper, you will learn:
- Technology trends - the five biggest winners
- Which technologies and sectors will grow, and by how much?
- Which geographies will see growth or contraction?
- How will purchasing patterns change?
- What will CIO priorities be in 2010?
Here is a highlight from the white paper:
"Of the many organizations putting forth predictions for IT purchasing in 2010, the majority of the outlooks are positive. Gartner is predicting that growth in the industry will return, with IT spending looking to rise about 3.3 percent over 2009 levels to about $3.3 trillion."
Posted by Tara Robertson on Tue, Nov 17, 2009 @ 12:57 PM
As 2009 is nearing its end and the holiday's are upon us, determining the best way to go to market for 2010 is on everyone's mind. TSL is in the process of collecting research from various sources to put together this coming years 2010 trend report. We are interested in hearing from you on what you think will be the best way to go to market this January. Here are the top 5 questions we have come across:
- Will Social Media continue to grow at a fast pace?
- Seminars vs. Webinars - what is your preference?
- Are tradeshow sponsorships worth it?
- Direct Mail - why send snail mail?
- Should you use an avatar?
Feel free to answer these questions or ask your own. We would also like to hear your insight as to what you think will be a top trend in 2010. Be sure to leave your name and email address so that we may share our final trend report with you as soon as it is released.
To check out our Top 5 Marketing Trends for 2009, click here
Thanks for sharing!