Alternatives: RSS feeds, desktop applications, wireless

SUMMARY: The quest to stand out at a trade show often tempts marketers to offer splashy sweepstakes prizes with no relevance to their industry and no tie to their own products and services. This isn't the best way to generate qualified leads.

Read how a team of marketers designed a bingo-themed contest for an industry conference that highlighted the host’s software and their own team’s expertise using it. They used automated email to recruit players, generating a 70%+ visitor-to-registration form conversion rate. Then, they kept players engaged over two days by using SMS and Twitter to announce each drawing. read the complete case study

SUMMARY: Seemingly each day, we hear more talk of new mobile devices, and more consumers are making the switch to advanced smartphones that quickly browse the Web. Is your brand ready?

We spoke with Taco Bell’s team and several mobile site design experts to uncover what to do -- and what not to do -- when creating your mobile website. Find out why you might not want the most advanced mobile site possible. read the complete article

SUMMARY: A case of the flu kept Pam O'Neal, VP Marketing, BreakingPoint Systems, from delivering her talk on lead generation through email and social media at last week’s Email Marketing Summit. So we caught up with her this week to learn how her team combined the two channels to create a powerful engine for inbound leads.

Read the eight essential tactics that have helped BreakingPoint triple its revenues in each of the last two years. Includes advice on:
o Coordinating a strategy with the sales team
o Establishing a social media presence
o Creating and distributing content
o Nurturing leads with drip email campaigns read the complete interview

SUMMARY: This month, we welcome email marketing expert Jeanne Jennings as a guest blogger for MarketingSherpa. Jeanne will be teaching MarketingSherpa’s Email Essentials Workshop Training class in 10 cities from March through August, and will be blogging about her experiences along the way.

In her first post, she examines recent studies that reveal how symbiotic the relationship between email and social media actually is.

http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/email-marketing/making-social-and-email-work/ read the complete article

By Anne Holland, Content Director

I was giving a speech at a PR association meeting in New Jersey in early 2001 about how the Internet was affecting PR tactics, when a group of older-looking grumpy attendees just sat there like lumps and left as soon as possible afterward. "What's up with them? Was my speech that awful?" I asked the organizer.

"You were fine!" she reassured me. "These are the guys who are... read the complete blog post