This involves the displacement of a logical kind of marketing “Product-oriented” to a “Customer Oriented”, where every decision revolves around the customer, with whom a relationship “one-to-one” is established.

In this context, email marketing is one of the most advantageous marketing tools available on the web. This is because email marketing:

- It’s cheap. That is it has extremely low management costs.

- It’s profitable. The email marketing campaigns offer a high ROI.

- It’s customized. It is possible to propose solutions, products and services tailored to the unique characteristics of the customer who will receive specific notice.

- It’s quantifiable. It allows easy control and analysis of results, which are made ​​available in a short period of time.

Neosoft Ltd understands the importance of this tool anticipating the times: in 2001, in fact, proposed on the market Bancomail, born from the synergy of the service department and web-marketing development dept.

Bancomail is specialized in providing e-mail lists (and related personal data) of national and foreign companies selected for market sector, geographic location, legal status, class and number of sales employees.

Bancomail has seen a trend so compelling to require to Neosoft Management to dedicate specific resources, establishing a business unit independent from other structures of the company. Bancomail was founded and managed with the aim of encouraging the exchange of information, development opportunities, mutual visibility between companies (business to business) around the world. The benefit of users, market research and experience every day on the field nationwide, have now convinced the Management Neosoft to restructure the entire service, expanding it to an audience of companies which is now international: thus it’s born Bancomail.com , created to integrate and incorporate into perspective the original Italian site.

The Home Page in English version

Bancomail.com has a database that includes over 2 million emails of companies worldwide.

It is navigable in 5 different languages​​: English, French, Spanish, German and Italian.

Bancomail.com has an online list constantly updated: the user has an easy tool to consult, in which quickly find what you want thanks to the different types of research that the website offers: full-text search, geographical and categorical.

The E-mail Lists Search Page in Italian version

It also offers the opportunity to request custom quotes and requests extra catalog, to meet the specific needs of customers.

The Quote Request page in German version

Bancomail.com offers its customers an online service that allows to interact directly with specialized operators.

In addition, Bancomail.com provides the access to PartnerZone, the reserved area for those who want to become official partners and use or sell the packages at favorable conditions for the marketing of themselves and their customers.

PartnerZone page in French version

Bancomail always reminds its customers that the content of the email is very important. Both for the “redemption” of the campaign, and for compliance with the Privacy rules.

For this reason, Bancomail.com offers for free to its customers the package “Bancomail Template Kit“, containing

- A message type of request for consent,

- A message type for profiling,

- A message “Privacy”

- A “leg Privacy statement.”

The Template Request page in Spanish version

Email marketing is traveling towards the global market. Bancomail.com provides the vehicle to travel this road.

We’re talking about the first edition of the Italian Non Profit Email Award, promoted by Contactlab within the Festival del Fundraising, to reward the creativity and best strategies of email marketing for nonprofit organization.

All the campaigns in the contest can be seen and voted by users directly on the website and the first 10 will be presented during the festival. The event members will then select the winner. The award ceremony will take place in Castrocaro Terme the 11^th of may and the winner will receive 2.00 euros.

This initiative prove show e-mail marketing still maintains the primacy as channel used for fundraising, as the following graphs published by Razoo well highlights:

It follows that the NPO can not neglet their direct marketing campaigns, instead they should always renew their communications. Therefore we recommend to look through the gallery of the contest also to pick some interesting ideas for your future campaigns.

However the crucial importance of e-mails doesn’t mean that other social channels should be ignored. On the contrary it’s necessary to enforce and connect the campaigns through all channels, in order to add the whole positive effects.

Finally is important to remember that e-mail marketing before being an instrument for fundraising is one of the main ways to build and strengthen the relationship with supporters, that are the life blood for every NPO.

First of all we would try to ask the crucial question “What’s the best time to send an e-mail?”, using an image that summarize the analysis of different time slots.

Clicca per visualizzare l'infografica completa

Let’s see in details the most favourable timeframes:

- from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. when everyone is more fresh, responsive and attentive
- from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. when the day work is about to end and people can focus on new promotions

Of course there are also off-limits timeframes, which need to be respected:

- from 10 a.m. till noon when people are too busy to read commercial e-mail
- from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. when very unlikely B2B promotions will be read

Knowing when is appropriate to send messages is still not enough to plan the campaign. Is also important to discover how often can a newsletter be sent, without resulting too much. In fact, as you can see below, the too high frequency is the principal reason for unsubcription:

Of course there are no golden and universal rules to follow, since newsletters depend on company activities. Nevertheless we estimate a range for the frequency: at least once per month and no more that once a week.

Timing goes hand in hand with the modality of receipt, that’s why we would like to share the results of a survey on e-mail access habits. In our opinion this element is essential to prepare at best the email- contents.

Source: European Email Marketing Consumer Report 2011 – Contact Lab

In 2011 has been recorded a considerable rise of using smartphone and other mobile devices. Contextually desktop computer, which remains at first place, lost some percentage points.

It can be easily gather that mobile devices can no more be considered simply preview-instruments, sincein the last year they have become one of the principal way to check mailboxes. That suggests not only a design optimization but also a general elaboration of contents usable with different devices.

For instance textes shouldn’t be too long and there should always be a link to the online version, since the mobile browser are often better than the e-mail clients.

These are just some facts that we wanted to provide you as cue for reflection to improve your e-mail marketing campaigns, keep on following us to find out more research results. As always your cooperation is more than welcome, so please tell us your doubts or interests about e-mail marketing by leaving a comment.

Social Media Marketing

Adobe new release is addressed just to insiders, in particular Adobe Social: it’s an integration/sharing platform for those who work on the commercial side of social media and want to be always updated on techniques and news. A sort of thematic community for professional people specialized in on line campaign creation and management.

Among the various merit marks we find the possibilità to import all the analytics data collected on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest, blogs and all commercial multimedia structures. Analysis is not based only on numbers but involves impressions, opinions, feelings, influences and allows to intervene to otptimize the communication in every channel to generate positive comments and include sensible situations for visibility increase.

Practically speaking it’s possible to define dedicated social applications without a forced use of complex programming and hard development, managing pages, modules, contests and measuring users fruition dynamics.

Digital Marketing and Customer service manager, community manager, analysts, public relations operators are the professionists who could profit from the opportunity to integrate publishing tools with the almost infinite (and sometimes unexplored) chances of viral interation in social networks, assuring a professional approach to trend analysis and advertising spaces purchase and administration.

It’s indicative that a software house like Adobe decided to legitimate the importance of social media marketing in actual and future business through its direct involvement.

The service is part of a galaxy called Adobe Digital Marketing Suite that allows to explore and manage in an optimal way all digital marketing aspects, for example:

- use the predictive marketing, that is to say to analyze with effectiveness the non-stop growing mass of data organizing in hierarchy terms to exploit statistics at their best to define targets and strategies.

-the possibility to unify social, search and display advertising campaign, using a multi-channel communication based on diversified techniques

-advanced managaement of visits through Discover, whose crossed analysis skills permit to visualize visitors behaviours in detail to optimize segmentation

-an advanced e commerce via WEM (Web Experience Management)

Adobe has put together a wide range of collaborations to get all the competences to define a well-articulated product like this: for example Efficient Frontier, Hybris, Context Optional.

A technology like this could be precious for an advanced approach to business and relations with skilled 2.0 addicted customers.

Use an Easter theme in your campaign

Direct Email Marketing has a general conversion rate about 2%, but using a graphic easter theme you can expect a better performance. Take the opportunity to bring out your communication and show your seasonal involvement.

Easter is a religous holiday, don’t be too iconographic if your audience is wide and unspecif. Spring means happiness, sunny days, outdoors and freedom of movement: communicate these aspects with a fresh and lively style.

What products?

If you don’t have to launch a new product, present again the ones, that fit better the period, perhaps with a discount. Adapt the product to the occasion.

If you sell accessories or clothes, present the best spring outfits. If sell home products, focuse on terraces, gardens and open windows. If you are in turism business, find out the best destination for a week-end or a trip.

Hide an Easter Egg and tell it in your Newsletter

An Easter egg hunt is a traditional english festive activity, where eggs are hidden outdoors f or children to find on Easter morning. This hunting and mistery spirit has inspired web designer and marketers. At the beginning was used by developers in game design to leave their signature-  then was developed  by marketers, maintain the same features: no fixed schemes, creative and funny nature and, of course, a good hiding place.

You could find giddy to let your marketing strategy inspired by this tradition, but remember that people love games, and discovery. Today Easter Eggs on websites are revealed by a conjunction of keys or clicks. They don’t imply a complicate elaboration or an huge expense. Their value is actually simplicity: something funny and useful to stimulate participation and make your audience feel special.

Storytelling is  particularly effective in the brand building, where charts and statistics can’t succeed. According to this strategy the goal is to involve people on an emotional level, in order to create a relationship based on empathy between customer and brand. Therefore is a long term fidelization technique.

This method can be easily found in commercials but its applications are spread also online. Social media lend themselves very well to convey corporate identity and to reduce the distance between the company and its audience. As we know every means has its own narrative code: blog, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter can’t be used indistinctly. For example texts are more suitable for elaborations, while videos and audio contents are “consumed” more quickly.

Of course also email marketing can play an important role in storytelling, as let the company reach directly its clients. It’s very important to do not leave anything to chance, there’s need to be coherence and interaction between various channels (email, social networks and website), as, for instance, did Filofax:

Afterwards you can use simple tricks to make email an excellent means to your story. First of all you need to insert a catchy headline, that shouldn’t seem commercial. Secondly focus on one story at the time in order to do not confuse your reader with too many inputs. Finally try to tell something interesting and involving besides your product.

The goal of this kind of email marketing is to create an atmosphere that encourages the recipients to cultivate the relationship with the brand, by involving them on an emotional level. At the end clients themselves become harbinger of the corporate identity, that they feel related  to.

If you steel have some doubts about how to do it, the following presentation might help you:

As for the personal pages the wall takes the Timeline style: news are divided in two columns and the space dedicated to the events has a new form.

The changes are not only on the graphic side, the companies have now the possibility to give more precise information about their activities. Actually they will be able to add past events, to tell the history of the company from the very beginning:

Bancomail foundation and mission

to the present, through its milestones:

Bancomail.com launch

Bancomail Donation to the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund

Clients and prospects love company’s personal approach, especially on social networks. Take this opportunity to let them share in the company’s life.

In relief there’s the chance to highlight some news. You can not only make them large as the page but also set it as first news for a week.

Every user that looks the Timeline will have a custom zone: in the first part of the wall there will be a post or tag published from a friend, chosen for popularity and without any temporal standard: that allows to create a stronger trust-bond. In the same area can be found the brand’s favourite pages.

The most relevant graphic change is the cover, that represents an important chance for companies to create catchy and powerful messages. The creative solutions are many, but they need to respect Facebook’s policy. Images can’t be explicit commercial:

Note: This space is not meant for promotions, coupons, or advertisements. Your cover photo should not be primarily text-based or infringe on anyone else’s copyright.

This choice reduces the commercial hype of the pages and leads to think that Facebook will push more its Advertising platform.

So be creative and play with cover, profile and tab! Remember to do not include prices or sales, but to use cleverly your products images, your logo and every other concept that will communicate your brand identity. Keep changing the header, especially for important occasions or bond it with users participation.

Bancomail Timeline Cover

“What will become of TABS?” we asked ourselves many times while waiting for the official release of the Timeline. The result confirms the most rated guess. The boxes under the cover are now the button of pages, whose large goes from 520 pixel to 810. Certainly the new layout brings out the first tabs chosen – three at most, since they are four in all and the photos can’t be moved -  but penalizes the following ones (up to twelve) that will be listed only by user selection.

New dimensions for images are:

Cover: 851x315px

Profile: 180x180px

Tab Icon: 111x75px

Another important innovation of tab pages is that it will be no more allowed to set a landing page. Users, members and not, will arrive to the principal timeline of the page, without any other possibility. Also this choice seems to underline Facebook’s ambition to be the only filter for Tabs with the advertising subscription.

The new administration panel seems finally more functional: in a single view there are many important informations: new fans, notifications, users actions, statistics – some of which will be public- and messages.

Messages are the last, but of course not least, big innovation. Administrators can again send messages to fans, but they’ll have to choose the recipients. This in and out messages are an huge innovation for social marketing people, since they imply direct customer service.

In conclusion of this first analysis  we are satisfied with the new control panel, the capability to exchange messages and the high personalization possibilities. However the reorganization of contents, based on the number of comments, could have a distracting effect on the news, that are already penalized by the new Tab setting.

Timeline encourages the personal approach, highlighting the interactions and heading to the launch of Facebook Stories.  Pages will have to be more creative and customized: no more as forum managed by users but full of content created by companies to involve fans. Ian Schafer, CEO of the social acency Deep Focus, explained on Mashable how pages represent a good opportunity for companies to involve their clients. The gain is an higher presence on fans feeds, but the risk, especially for who uses Facebook without interaction, is to succumb for lack of  proficiency. In the long term this aspect should bring more quality due to the resistance of professional users.

Schafer underlines: “Timeline is a highly engaging content channel, but one where the content is meant to travel. You don’t want people to spend too much time on the Page, as opposed to sharing it. They should look at Timeline as a distribution point, as opposed to a destination.”

PS We bring to your attention not only our new timeline but also two pages, that we like: http://www.facebook.com/nytimes and http://www.facebook.com/coldplay

Let’s try to understand what’s about:  the term describes the collective cooperation to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.

Supply and demand mainly meet on the internet, where two different types can be found: private initiatives, born for a specific purpose or crowdfunding platforms. These can be divided also into: generalist, collecting projects in any fields, or thematic, specialized in projects of a particular sector.

The basic idea is for sure not so original and seems very close to charity, however the innovative aspect is the online application, which confers a new value on social connections. In these platforms friendship becomes resource, as well described in the Kapipalist Manifesto by Alberto Falossi, who found in 2009 Kapipal, the first platform in the world open to private projects.

Crowdfunding is based on the following principles:

1. Your Friends Are Your Capital

Your social network friends and contacts can help you to raise capital.

2. Your Friends Make Your Dreams Come True

Any of your contacts can make a contribution, no matter how small.

Together they will help in achieving your every wish, project, and dream.

3. Your Capital Depends on the Number of Friends

Many contributions can build big capital.

The more contacts you have, the greater your chances of reaching the amount you need.

4. Your Capital Depends on Trust

Contribution doesn’t happen automatically. Even if you contact a large number of people,

you must still gain their trust, especially if you don’t know them personally.

5. Your Capital Grows by Word Of Mouth

Your friends can contribute by giving money, but also by spreading the word.

This will help your social network grow, and increase the probability of reaching your goal.

Crowdfunding is in fact non only about business or non-profit but can also make private dreams come true, such as weddings, travels etc.

In Italy the most important and business oriented platforms are Eppela and Boomstarter, while Shiny Note is dedicated to non-profit. YouCapital instead was created by the Associazione Pulitzer to promote investigative journalism.

As already said crowdfunding exists also outside platforms. The most famous example worldwide remains the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in 2008.

Like everything else in the 2.0 era crowd funding is also in costant evolution. In April a new revolutionary platform will come to light: Starteed. With it every user will be also investor with a small registration fee. The amount of fees constitute an extra found that will go to the most voted ideas by the community.

©starteed

While waiting for this platform to start, think about your wishes maybe someone will realize them

Successfully building a company from scratch takes not only dedication but also a clear business plan and a good amount of marketing know-how. E-mail marketing is one of the most valuable and effective tool because it’s based on a two-way relationship with the customer.

This means not only that your messages will be better targeted at various groups but also that your company  will implement a highly client oriented communication, which in the medium – long term will produce a strong customer loyalty as well as word of mouth.

The main advantages that e-mail marketing offers to startups are on the economic side. In fact, it guarantees a good price/ quality ratio because its costs are much lower than traditional advertising tools, that besides don’t  allow so easily to establish a direct and bilateral communication with the customers.

The e-mail marketing is therefore an asset to your company but, like any tool, what matters most is how it’s used. Let’s see the best way to start.

First of all do not attempt to immediately sell your products or services. Your first e-mail should instead  provide information, that will enable you to display your knowledge in your field.

It is essential that recipients can immediately interact and connect with you, so provide links to your website, Facebook account or a subscription page. In this way they will feel involved from the very beginning and you will collect the first statistics.

Adopting  a good opt-in system but most of all including always an opt-out method (removal from the database by request) over time will let you not only consolidate your database but also communicate with those who are truly interested in your business, without incurring legal or technical problems (i.e. inclusion in the blacklist), and thereby gaining an audience properly targeted, attentive and receptive.

As a startup you want to tell the story and mission of your company but instead of writing what you consider important, figure out what information your audience actually wants to receive.

Also remember to be concise, mailboxes are often so full that too long messages are almost automatically deleted by recipients. This however should not detract from the tone and style. Take your time to choose carefully the way you want to communicate, as you know “First impressions count”.

Since the main goal of an e-mail marketing campaign is to build a group who will follow your activities being at glance identifiable is a crucial point.

From the beginning recipients should be able to recognize directly your company, then don’t forget to include logos, fonts and brand colors. Therefore don’t skimp on the design. If you need, rely on professionals but without overdoing it. It’s important to make an impact right away but keep it simple.

At this point you know what and how to write, the question arises:  “Well, now that I have a great message whom can I send it to?”.

Creating and managing (privacy, obsolescence, updates) a database is challenging, trust who have been doing it for more than ten years.

If you want to go for free, use your personal contacts (business cards, friends, acquaintances, etc..) and / or small market researches. If you choose instead to start with an extended target, rely to companies that provide databases. Analyse carefully their credentials, reliability and the guarantees offered. The risks in terms of results and images are too high to regard just the price.

The most important aspect of this activity, however, is consistency, without which is really hard to cement the relationship with customers. Although e-mail marketing seems to be a simple tool, you should invest proper time in planning and executing campaigns.

It will therefore be essential to set a regular schedule, in this way you’ll also be able to prepare in advance the contents, that with time will become more sophisticated including videos, posts, surveys, etc..

Finally, the monitoring of feedback and statistical data will allow you to understand what topics and channels work best and then adjust your newsletter from time to time, making this activity more and more effective.

Nowadays, with the proliferation of profiles, the social reputation of a person is online and therefore available to everyone. Of course, you could easily reply that this is an Orwellian scenario, where there is no more privacy and so forth, but to use a quote: “that’s the way it is”.

So instead of complaining you’d better be cunning and avoid making blunders.

For example, if you present yourself as a reliable person while on Facebook or YouTube there is public evidence of your wild nights, you can easily understand how doubts may arise in the minds of those who are evaluating you.

Your interests may also be compromising, especially if you are applying for positions in the PR. It is therefore advisable to select carefully the pages you are a fan of.

Most of the common mistakes are related to the photos on the curricula. It is important to clarify that even when a good-looking presence is required, it doesn’t become automatically a beauty pageant. It’ is therefore pointless to “display ones goods” by sending photos in bikini, perhaps taken directly from your holidays album.

Random choice is wrong as well: a picture is not as good as another! Thankfully the advent of digital technology has freed us from passport photos that have never done justice to anyone, so use photo editors in your favor. However, do not overdo editing: in case of an interview they should be able to recognize you!

Now let’s talk about e-mail. It seems a harmless tool, almost neutral, but just the simple account can reveal a lot about a person. Who would hire partygirl@xxx.it or studmuffin@yyy.com? If these addresses may still make sense for applications in the porn industry, missy18@xxx.com or teddybear83@yyy.it have no chance in any field.

Besides, applications are often sent with an empty subject line, and this is the best way to be deleted by the receiver or be stopped directly from the spam filter.

Very often you use a preset text or copy & paste of an e-mail sent earlier but, as you know, “Haste makes waste”. Thus you can easily forget to change the references to prior advertisements or positions that have nothing to do with the current one.

Do you think that after all this there can’t be anything worse? You are wrong. The most common mistake is in fact sending the e-mail without attaching the resume. At this point the bravest among those who realize it (which is not obvious) try to make amend with a second e-mail. No harm in trying, but success is not guaranteed.

At this point, do not be discouraged, the mission is not impossible as it seems, just pay attention while using these tools.

We promise not to leave you alone, follow us to discover how to use e-mail and social networks properly.