Agency News

• In Case You Missed It: "Power of eMarketing Conference" Recap

  June 30, 2011

  Sean Shoffstall, VP Innovation and Technology

  Did you catch the Power of eMarketing Conference in San Francisco?

  On April 19 and 20, I had the privilege of speaking on three panels at the conference. Naturally, social media and SEO were the hot topics of the day. But the conversation also trended toward lead nurturing and how to drive conversions from your social conversations.

  Here are a few quick thoughts on the three panels I participated in.

  Don’t Stop at CAN-SPAM Compliance
  On the morning of April 19, I was on a panel with a Director of Compliance for a large corporation. The conversation focused on best practices in subject lines and email formatting, and how they apply to spam traps. These three ideas really resonated with the audience:

  1. CAN-SPAM compliance is the bare minimum. If you want to avoid spam filters and get your message delivered, you need to go much further.
  2. Keep subject lines short and sweet, yet descriptive and honest. Remember that if your subject line is longer than, say, 70 characters, it will only be partially visible in a preview pane or mobile device.
  3. Image-only emails not only provide a bad user experience (most of your clients probably set “images off” as a default), but are also a spam filter trigger.

  
   “You Can’t Handle the Truth” About Email Content
  For my second session on April 19, I shared the stage with Loren T. McDonald from Silverpop. The conversation was much more detailed. In fact, I felt like we were two old war buddies sitting up on stage reminiscing about battle scars and answering questions. We covered deliverability, content creation and relevancy, frequency, and, of course, CAN-SPAM.

  We even had a “You can’t handle the truth!” moment when an audience member complained that he didn’t have any content. We spent the next 5 minutes covering all the different ways you can generate content.

  If you face a similar problem, look at these simple facts:

  1. If you sell products or services, you have content. Go to your people who know the product best. Interview them and create a top 10 list.
  2. If you have customers, you have content. See point #1.
  3. You can repurpose existing content to create new content. If you’ve captured a video, do a write-up about it for your newsletter. If you’ve published a popular blog post, make a web clip summarizing the top points. If your CEO is giving a presentation, have him or her write an article about the subject.

  
  Protecting Your Online Reputation
  Our session on email and branding covered everything from tone and voice to email and newsletter design. Across the board, everyone agreed that having a consistent tone and communicating and fulfilling on your customer’s expectations is key. There was some disagreement about using comical versus professional tone, and about how often to send communications. But much of that hinges on whether you’re writing B2B or B2C emails.

  Here are some of the high points, which may seem obvious but are easy to overlook:

  1. Naming your constant communications helps boost deliverability and open rates. So, name your newsletters, webcast series, and any regular postings (especially your blog).
  2. The fastest way to lose the branding battle is to do a bait and switch. Be consistent, and deliver what you promised.
  3. Protect your online reputation. Don’t spam, don’t incite flame wars, and keep the conversation on topic.

   If you were at the Power of eMarketing Conference, I’m glad you could join us.

  If not, there will be another conference coming up in October in Rhode Island. Ozone Online’s Joel Lockwood and I plan to participate. It’s always good to get out of our bubble and swap best practices with others who are in the trenches.

  See you there?

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  Sean Shoffstall, VP of Innovation and Technology Social media, search and metrics are the driving force behind today's online marketing. Sean specializes in driving the best results for clients in all aspects of their business. He gives them a solid platform to build key learnings in all online media through proven metrics and testing strategies, and by leveraging years of best practice learnings from the top companies online. Email Sean.

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• Ozone Online Completes New Website to Help Diabetes Patients

  June 15, 2011

  Vanessa Bianco, Account Coordinator

  Copywriter, Keven Smith

  We’re pleased to announce the launch of InsulinForward.com

  Changing Lives, Online
  It’s not every day that Ozone Online gets to work on a website that changes lives. But when Medtronic Diabetes engaged us to create the brand vision and develop the website for its Insulin Education Program, that’s exactly what happened.

  Medtronic’s objective was to provide top-notch insulin and pre-pump education, and ultimately, to drive patient awareness and engagement. Ozone Online has a long track record of delivering on these types of goals. We dove into the project with a real sense of purpose, knowing that as a result of our efforts, diabetes patients would get educational information that would better their lives.

  Providing a Hopeful Vision
  Our first priority was to develop a program name, brand positioning, and associated visuals. These elements needed to provide diabetes patients and their healthcare providers with a hopeful vision that a better quality of life is possible with the Medtronic Diabetes/LifeScan personal insulin education plan.

  Nailing the Message
  With our branding foundation solidified, we then focused on designing and building the website using our agency’s proven best practices. During the discovery and information architecture project that preceded our creative work, Ozone Online defined the functional requirements for the Insulin Education Program website, as well as the optimal information architecture and user experience for each target audience segment based on their needs and the project goals.

  Doing this groundwork made it much easier for us to provide on-target creative. We designed the website, rewrote web copy provided by Medtronic Diabetes, and produced all necessary website assets for handoff to a Medtronic Diabetes technical partner for development on the Force.com platform. In addition, we created a questionnaire that encourages users to define their optimal online educational experience, helping Medtronic to improve their content.
  
  Measuring the Impact
  How do we know the website is working? At Ozone Online, we’re big believers in gathering metrics and applying this knowledge to enhance current and future projects. We are tracking the number of healthcare providers nationwide who enroll to become participating Insulin Forward education centers, and the number of patient referrals generated by both the education centers and the website itself.

  Of course, the greatest benefits of this project will be the ones that are hardest to quantify. As Insulin Forward classes go into full swing, we won’t be able to measure the exact value of helping diabetes patients live their lives to the fullest – but that’s OK. It’s just good to know that, thanks to our collaboration with Medtronic Diabetes, millions of people now have a new ray of hope.

  Visit www.insulinforward.com now and let us know what you think!

  

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  Vanessa Bianco, Account Coordinator and Social Media Analyst Vanessa is an Account Coordinator at Ozone and assists in the day-to-day management of Ozone Online's clients, ensuring projects and campaigns are developed and executed flawlessly. Along with her account coordinator responsibilities, Vanessa is also responsible for managing Ozone's Social Media strategy and tactics. Email Vanessa.

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