The Summit kicked off with America’s favorite pastime cheering on the Giants at the Giants vs. Phillies game Wednesday night at AT&T ballpark. One hundred Summit participants, partners, clients and friends joined for a night of food and drinks in a private space to get the Summit started. A big highlight of the night, beside the Giants clinching a win in the top of the 11th, was seeing our raffle winner,

Christian Hamilton from x.commerce, stealing the Giant’s Second base and joining the grounds crew out on the field mid-game. Hamilton got to spend some time in the dugout and was featured on the jumbotron in front of 40,000+ people, sporting a Rapleaf sweatshirt of course!

On the day of the Summit, over 200 CEOs, Founders, and Execs came together at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco to discuss numerous topics on Personalization, it’s current state in marketing and technology, and what we think is yet to come. The day opened up with a heated discussion on Email Marketing, where leaders in the Email space including WhatCounts, SailThru, and Alchemy Worx battled over the current state of email marketing; we also we heard about what’s on the rise for email marketing from AdStack.

The day expanded into discussions over Big Data, where leaders from Acxiom, Inflection, and Deloitte discussed how data is changing marketer’s overall strategy in today’s world. Other topics throughout the day included:  improving customer loyalty, building brand advocates, the importance of privacy in personalization for both brands and consumers, personalization in the display ecosystem, innovation & personalization, and more.

As we are moving from one to many towards one to one marketing and customer service, one issue kept surfacing: we as marketers need to do a better job of getting inside the consumer’s head.  The companies that are better at putting themselves in the user’s shoes in the long run will win.  Then, consumers will see the value of personalization first hand and start drinking the kool-aid.

Overall, the day was a tremendous opportunity for technology leaders and innovative companies to share in a dialog, where Founders and CEOs from salesforce.com, WordPress, comScore, Deloitte, Hootsuite, GiltGroupe, care.com, Retargeter, BrightRoll, and more, did a great job as panelists creating some brilliant questions and discussions for the group at large.

“It was great to see how the convergence of technology, data, and innovation can come together to create a better online experience across so many channels,”says Phil Davis, GM of Sales and Marketing at Rapleaf.

The day was captured by Graphic Recorder, Emily Shepard, who produced some incredible visuals from the discussions. A huge thanks to our sponsors for helping make the Summit a great success; both Rapleaf and LiveRamp were proud to host such a memorable conference, and were honored to have such monumental thought leaders partake in our event. If you are interested in learning more about the Summit or have ideas for 2013, please contact info@personalizationsummit2012.com.

Live Recordings

Email Marketing: Gaining Attention in the User’s Inbox

Big Data: Tapping Into Data to Creat a Competitive Advantage (Scroll to 1:40)

Display Advertising: The Next Dimension of Personalization

Industry Outlook: Personalization

Privacy: Big Data in the Age of the Zetabyte

Audience Building Finding and Building Brand Advocates

Putting together an email marketing campaign and hitting inboxes is no longer enough, and it hasn’t been for quite some time. Today, consumers are much more cautious and selective with their spending dollars and are significantly less loyal to any one brand. As a result, marketing strategies have shifted to rely on interactive marketing solutions to deliver the right message to the right person at precisely the right time. The key to improve customer relationships is to understand your audience and learn more about what they as a consumer want to know from your brand.  Instead of viewing customers as basic groups, all with the same wants, needs and interests, consider how all those things might differ between each, and develop content to engage each group appropriately. Use email to get to know customers better, and then deliver relevant content based on what you learn. After learning more about your audience, use these 8 tips below to help make your content marketing efforts succeed:

1. Ensure all content passes the “So what?” test

What should the reader take away? Where is the benefit? Why should we listen to you? Especially if you’re in B2B – the goal of content marketing is usually to inspire trust, grow your reputation and influence your market. Throw-away content accomplishes none of these things.

2. Create remarkable content, take chances

With some 900,000 blog posts published every 24 hours, and more than 20 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube, how do you expect to stand out with “vanilla” content? If you’re going to play it safe or regurgitate what is being done by others you’ve got almost no chance to succeed. Strive to consistently break the mold, be an unmissable resource or in some way stand out to make your content heard.

3. Personality is essential

It’s always easier to connect with content that has a voice and personality behind it. Personality and emotion are lacking in most corporate and business communications, and this has carried over into the content marketing efforts of many. But, infusing these elements within your content marketing strategy can be a powerful way to not just speak to prospects but connect with them.

4. Content should forge connections

Your content marketing can also accomplish another valuable goal: building connections and relationships. Connections can help build inbound links, increase shares in social channels and ultimately help your content gain visibility. Incorporation of these connections should be worked into the content artfully and naturally. Readers may not even realize what is happening, but those you are trying to forge connections with will.

5. Worry less about perfection, more about tone

Be less concerned with being perfect and more concerned with being earnest, thoughtful and genuine. Perfection is severely overrated and minor flaws are forgivable, we’re all human!

6. Make content scan-able (and attractive)

Make no mistake, your prospects are busy. By making your content scan-able, you increase the propensity they will not just scan that content, but if the parts that catch their eye during the scan are worthwhile they will go back to read it. Use headlines, bold text, get creative with your formatting, get designers involved – do whatever it takes to make content attractive and scan-able.

7. Draft sticky headlines

Follow basic headline writing tips and work to create headlines that entice potential visitors to your content in the first place. Without an enticing email subject line, your email your spent all that time crafting won’t even get opened.

8. Consistency and quality

As we’ve noted here before, every company is now in essence a media company. The quality of your content is how prospects will imagine your service or product to be, and the consistency you produce that content is a signal to how dedicated you are. Both are required.

What content marketing tips have you found most helpful?

Following the success of last year’s event, the Personalization Summit is back this Thursday for its second consecutive year to bring together 200 top executives and thought leaders with a vested interest in personalization. This one-day discussion will take place at Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco.

As Personalization redefines itself in businesses, technology, and society today, it’s important to realize just how we moved from a one size fits all marketing strategy back to that 1-to-1 customer experience; how to adapt to the new environment, and how to stay current, given the constantly evolving tools and technologies. Co-hosted with Deloitte, the invite-only event will consist of interactive panel discussions from industry-leading organizations, and will explore the benefits and implications of personalization, privacy, customer segmentation and more. As people begin to expect more personal and meaningful interactions from the brands and services they use, how can businesses effectively communicate 1-to-1 with customers on a mass scale? The Summit will address various topics as they relate to personalization, including: Email Marketing, Big-Data, Audience Building, Display Advertising, Privacy, Innovation and Customer Loyalty.

Attendees will learn and discuss with fellow participants the latest initiatives and technologies currently being addressed, new business models, data strategies, and what’s still yet to come.

This year’s speakers feature thought leaders from companies, including: salesforce.com, WordPress, comScore, Acxiom, BrightRoll, Exelate, WhatCounts, Sailthru, AdRoll, Bizo, Reputation.com, Hootsuite, Gilt Groupe, Inflection, Collective Intellect, Care.com, AdRoll, OpenSky, Tru-Signal, and more.

The event will be streaming live and you can also follow @rapleaf and #PzS12 on twitter for live updates. For more information, check out the 2012 Personalization Summit website: www.personalizationsummit2012.com

The Personalization Summit is hosted by Rapleaf & LiveRamp and sponsored by Deloitte, x.commerce, Webtrends, The David All Group, WhatCounts, SailThru, Tru-Signal, e-Merges, and pii2012.

The following is a guest post is written by Lior Levin: 

E-mail marketing is a key way to directly connect with customers who have given you permission to send them offers, promotions, and product information on a regular basis. This level of customer interest makes e-mail marketing campaigns critically important, and therefore the timing of these campaigns can make or break the level of customer engagement.

The ideal for an e-mail campaign is to not only target a time when customers are online, but when they will most likely open your e-mail and click through on your offer or to your website. While there is no one correct time for an e-mail campaign, there are some important trends and practices that you can learn from and integrate into your e-mail marketing.

When You Should Send Emails
E-mail marketing can be a moving target depending on your industry or customers. For example, a clothing store may send e-mails on the weekend when customers are home and available to go out shopping. An e-mail from a construction supply store may be more effective on Monday morning as contractors are planning to make their purchases.

Marketing writer Lynn Terry writes, “your best days/times to send emails will be unique to your list and to your market. The best thing you can do is test, analyze your results, and adjust according to how your subscribers best respond.”

The best way forward is to test what works best for your customers. Business Week suggests split tests: “Conduct some split tests and send the same message out at different times to see where you get the best results. Once you understand what days and times work the best, you can create a publication schedule.”

All that to say, there are some measurable trends in e-mail marketing that may also help you find the best time to send e-mails. According to HubSpot’s Daniel Zarella in his Science of Timing Webinar , the best time to send an e-mail is in the morning on the weekend, with 20-40% more opens and 5% more clicks on Saturday and Sunday. The earlier in the morning, the better. Similar trends on the weekends have been observed with blog posts and shares on Facebook by Zarella when he guest posted at Pro Blogger.

Timing is especially important for determining the quality of the connection with customers. Author Kelly Schuknecht suggests, “You want to offer your highest value deals to your subscribers within the first few days.” This is when your customer engagement is highest, so give them something that will keep them coming back.

How Often Should You Send Emails?
While there is no set rule for e-mail campaign frequency, the most important thing is to set a predictable schedule so that customers won’t forget who you are or the simple fact that they opted in to receive these updates. Without a set schedule, you’ll never create a steady and productive e-mail marketing campaign.

Derek Fredrickson, author of Build Your Authentic List, suggests, “I recommend at least once a week. I know for some people that sounds like a lot. And it is for someone just starting out. If that intimidates you – than perhaps try once every other week. But, think of this: Anything less than every other week is almost counterproductive. Waiting 14 days between sending a valuable piece of content to your list doesn’t do enough in terms of building a long lasting relationship with positive goodwill and nurturing the subscribers on your list.”

In his study of e-mail unsubscribes and opens, Zarella also found that unsubscribes and opens remained relatively stable throughout the month after sending 3-4 e-mails. That means once someone subscribes to your list, it’s OK to send more e-mail. Those who aren’t interested will unsubscribe after a few e-mails anyway, so you may as well target those who are most committed to your list with at least a weekly e-mail, if not more.

E-mail marketing still remains the most effective marketing channel and can produce excellent results for businesses hoping to directly connect with their customers. You can increase the effectiveness of your e-mail marketing campaigns if you send more e-mails at the right time and on the right day. While early mornings on weekends are often the best, don’t forget to test out the trends for your list in your particular industry.

This guest post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing consultant for a to-do list app, and who also consults for an inspection company that offers a variety of Pre shipment inspections. If you are interested in writing a guest post for our blog, let us know: info@rapleaf.com.

The following is a guest post is written by Lior Levin: 

E-mail marketing is a key way to directly connect with customers who have given you permission to send them offers, promotions, and product information on a regular basis. This level of customer interest makes e-mail marketing campaigns critically important, and therefore the timing of these campaigns can make or break the level of customer engagement.

The ideal for an e-mail campaign is to not only target a time when customers are online, but when they will most likely open your e-mail and click through on your offer or to your website. While there is no one correct time for an e-mail campaign, there are some important trends and practices that you can learn from and integrate into your e-mail marketing.

When You Should Send Emails
E-mail marketing can be a moving target depending on your industry or customers. For example, a clothing store may send e-mails on the weekend when customers are home and available to go out shopping. An e-mail from a construction supply store may be more effective on Monday morning as contractors are planning to make their purchases.

Marketing writer Lynn Terry writes, “your best days/times to send emails will be unique to your list and to your market. The best thing you can do is test, analyze your results, and adjust according to how your subscribers best respond.”

The best way forward is to test what works best for your customers. Business Week suggests split tests: “Conduct some split tests and send the same message out at different times to see where you get the best results. Once you understand what days and times work the best, you can create a publication schedule.”

All that to say, there are some measurable trends in e-mail marketing that may also help you find the best time to send e-mails. According to HubSpot’s Daniel Zarella in his Science of Timing Webinar , the best time to send an e-mail is in the morning on the weekend, with 20-40% more opens and 5% more clicks on Saturday and Sunday. The earlier in the morning, the better. Similar trends on the weekends have been observed with blog posts and shares on Facebook by Zarella when he guest posted at Pro Blogger.

Timing is especially important for determining the quality of the connection with customers. Author Kelly Schuknecht suggests, “You want to offer your highest value deals to your subscribers within the first few days.” This is when your customer engagement is highest, so give them something that will keep them coming back.

How Often Should You Send Emails?
While there is no set rule for e-mail campaign frequency, the most important thing is to set a predictable schedule so that customers won’t forget who you are or the simple fact that they opted in to receive these updates. Without a set schedule, you’ll never create a steady and productive e-mail marketing campaign.

Derek Fredrickson, author of Build Your Authentic List, suggests, “I recommend at least once a week. I know for some people that sounds like a lot. And it is for someone just starting out. If that intimidates you – than perhaps try once every other week. But, think of this: Anything less than every other week is almost counterproductive. Waiting 14 days between sending a valuable piece of content to your list doesn’t do enough in terms of building a long lasting relationship with positive goodwill and nurturing the subscribers on your list.”

In his study of e-mail unsubscribes and opens, Zarella also found that unsubscribes and opens remained relatively stable throughout the month after sending 3-4 e-mails. That means once someone subscribes to your list, it’s OK to send more e-mail. Those who aren’t interested will unsubscribe after a few e-mails anyway, so you may as well target those who are most committed to your list with at least a weekly e-mail, if not more.

E-mail marketing still remains the most effective marketing channel and can produce excellent results for businesses hoping to directly connect with their customers. You can increase the effectiveness of your e-mail marketing campaigns if you send more e-mails at the right time and on the right day. While early mornings on weekends are often the best, don’t forget to test out the trends for your list in your particular industry.

This guest post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing consultant for a to-do list app, and who also consults for an inspection company that offers a variety of Pre shipment inspections. If you are interested in writing a guest post for our blog, let us know: info@rapleaf.com.

Contact us if you are interested in setting up a time to meet.

Exhibit Hall Hours

Tuesday 10:00am-6:00pm & Wednesday 10:00am-4:00pm

Congratulations to our 2nd round winners. Check out the innovative ways the following winners are using our data. Interested in applying for our next round? Applications are on a rolling basis, apply now.

AddShoppers is a next generation sharing platform built for social commerce. They increase sharing by rewarding and incentivizing social actions on eCommerce websites.  Meanwhile, their social analytics measure ROI and provide deep insights including demographics, for free.

The TurnSocial Leads bar is a simple, social sign-up form that helps convert your website visitors into customers. After a visitor signs up via email or Facebook Connect, we utilize the Rapleaf API to build out a lead profile, which is delivered directly to your inbox. This personalized profile gives you instant customer insights that you can use to craft a follow up message, helping turn every new lead into a customer.

Unified Inbox helps users learn more about the people they are interacting with online.  The application increases personalization via email and empowers people to collaborate with colleagues, friends and others in a more direct fashion. Unified Inbox’s integration with the Rapleaf API provides a richer “about the sender” functionality, enabling users to understand more about the person behind the email.

Bombfell is a monthly subscription for men’s clothing that enables guys to dress well, no effort or style knowledge required. Every month members receive a clothing item that’s been hand picked for their body type and style preferences in mind. Bombfell’s integration with the Rapleaf API incorporates Rapleaf’s age and occupation data to come up with individualized clothing recommendations for Bombfell members.

Dexy.tv provides a website platform that aggregates sources of movies, tv, games, and books online, using a sophisticated collaborative-filtering-based algorithmic recommendations to users based on all the information we can gather from them and facilitates new ways to socially discover content among groups of your facebook friends. Rapleaf’s age and gender data helps create content filters once a user signs in creating a more personalized experience.

NomoPay is a media monetization platform that gives consumers free access to premium digital content, in exchange for completing short-targeted surveys.  NomoPay creates a new revenue stream for publishers, lowers the cost of surveys for researchers, and lets consumers bypass paywalls for premium content.

Congrats to our winners! A great group of projects started between this round and our first round of winners and we are thrilled to be able to help contribute. Stay tuned for the next round coming next quarter, and be sure to check out more info about the Rapleaf Personalization Fund. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

1. Understand the Content Pipeline

Create a development strategy based on the type of content you need to produce. Is it long-form or short? Low-frequency or high? Based on the end results, decide what skill sets are necessary, how to allocate budget, and what production timelines are realistic.

2. Get Passionate People on Your Team

Passionate people produce results. Find people with the right skill sets for your content needs, and then nurture that talent. Understand your audience and put together a team that is interested and engaged in the content you need to produce.

3. Create a Development Workflow

Clearly communicate responsibilities and set realistic timelines. Decide and articulate who is responsible for which tasks in content development, how those tasks will be accomplished, and what the final result of each task should look like.

4. Integrate with Other Marketing Systems

Stay in touch regularly with teams heading up other sales and marketing initiatives for your business. Although people may operate in different departments, it’s to everyone’s advantage to share ideas and resources and repurpose content whenever possible. If there is no communication between teams, the message you deliver to your audiences will be muddled.

5. Target Content Appropriately

Targeting is important for any kind of communications outreach, and even more so for content marketing. As is often the case, targeting is part art and part science. Sorting content by demographics, specific topics or audiences is a helpful way to ensure the right users get access to the right material.

It’s not only content itself you need to refine and improve, it’s also your content distribution methods. Get creative and utilize other channels in addition to email to reach your customers. And don’t forget to measure and refine: make sure you utilize analytics and metrics to provide the type of data that can help you make effective decisions about future content. Don’t wait, get started by learning more about your customers and integrating content marketing in your marketing plan today.

Thanks to Limelight Marketing for their inspiration for this post. Download their full white paper on Content Marketing here.

Imagine being able to change what products you show in your emails based on marital status or change content and layout based on whether your subscriber is a smartphone user. All this and much more is built into the Rapleaf InstantData service. Check out this 2 min demo and see it in action:

Want to learn more? Sign up for our joint webinar with WhatCounts coming up on March 22 @ 11am PT.

1. Write awesome subject lines.

Subject lines are the first things your customer will see and can be the deciding factor in whether or not they even open your email in the first place. Don’t rush the writing of your subject line — you spent too much time crafting content for your email not to be opened.  Come up with several different ideas, and test test test!

2. Don’t forget the preview pane!

The preview pane is the handy little window that exists in email clients like Outlook and Thunderbird. It shows a preview of the email before it is actually “opened”. It’s so useful in fact, that many people read their emails almost exclusively through this window. Create your email so that the most important part of your offer or message is visible in the preview pane.

3. Avoid SPAM language.

Chances are good that you’ve gotten a SPAM message in your email inbox. Have you ever noticed how they all seem to share the same language? SPAM filters have been designed to pick up common “SPAM words” to block potential SPAM messages. Avoiding certain words and phrases can make your email more deliverable. .

4. Make it look good.

Despite the popular adage “don’t judge a book by its cover,” all people have a tendency to make snap judgments. Bad design can detract from the positive aspects of your email and can damage your campaign’s potential for success. Not every email needs to be a work of art, but take some time and try objectively view your email. Put yourself on the other side and ask yourself “ What would I think when I opened this email?”

5. Treat your recipients like real people.

Because they are! Adding that personal touch can be the difference between success and failure. Email has the tendency to be cold and impersonal, if you manage to find a way to break the mold and connect with your recipients, you will give them a refreshingly positive experience that is sure to drive results.

6. Focus on relevant content.

Find out what your customers want and give it to them. Too many marketers get so wrapped up in their own product that they forget about the consumer. If you provide your recipients with something valuable that your customers want to read or buy, your campaign will be a success. Period.

7. Establish a look for your brand.

If you are already producing content that your recipients actually want, the next step is to ensure that they don’t overlook your email. Maintaining cohesive design and messaging will make your email familiar and allow your recipients to pick your email out of a crowded inbox.

8. Include an offer.

Including an offer is a fantastic way to incentivize customers. Exclusive offers are more attractive and have a strong potential of prompting recipients to forward the email to a friend. Free marketing doesn’t get any better than that!

9. Stay clear of large images.

Large images make your email more likely to trip SPAM filters and may also be detrimental to your email design. An email is not the place to try to show off high resolution images. If that is your objective, include a thumbnail of the image and have it link to the full size image hosted elsewhere.

10. Ask to be on their list.

There is no better way to ensure that your future emails don’t wind up in a willing recipients SPAM folder than just asking nicely. Ask your customers to add you to their contact list and, in most email clients, your message’s delivery will be ensured. You can include this option in your first campaign or in all of your campaigns.

Following these checks is a great way to get started and build a solid foundation in email marketing. Email marketing is not easy, but when done effectively, it is an extremely valuable tool. These are just a few to get you started. What other checks and balances are important to your business and your email marketing campaigns?