Marketing Commentary from interlinkONE
Marketing. Web-to-Print. Warehouse Management.
Integrated, Multi-Channel Marketing – Why?
Posted by 
on Tuesday, August 9, 2011 
at 7:18 AM 
in 
About.com recently posted an excellent article detailing the benefits of integrated, multi-channel marketing.
While the study that the article is based on might be geared towards non-profits, the benefits can apply to companies of all shapes and sizes.
The two that I primarily enjoyed were:
- Unification of messages across channels
- Being able to sync online and direct mail databases
Unification of Messages
I’ve had the chance to talk with various print, mail, and fulfillment service providers over the past few years. While I do understand some of the reasoning behind why some may purchase separate point solutions to do various marketing activities, the part that scares me is when there are separate people managing each channel.
In a case like that, companies are almost guaranteeing that branding and messaging will not be in sync across various channels.
But with an integrated system, multiple employees should be able to easily and quickly access key taglines, offers, links, and images to use on whatever they are creating, whether it’s an email, a landing page, a flyer, etc.
Syncing Online and Offline
And in regards to being able to sync online and offline databases, I cannot even imagine having to manage two separate buckets in that case! Today, customers and prospects choose whatever channel they want to use to communicate with us. That choice may vary across different circumstances.
By having an integrated database that is populated by multiple channels, companies can greatly improve their marketing and sales processes.
Tags Sending SMS/Text Messages with ilinkONE Version 8
Last week, Mobile Marketer published the results of a study from ABI Research. The big headline was that “consumers worldwide will send more than 7 trillion SMS messages in 2011″.
While there may not be many of us surprised that SMS will reach volumes that we can barely fathom, there are still a lot of businesses that have not yet made steps to integrate SMS/Text into their marketing mix.
If you are a customer of our ilinkONE Version 8 software, you have the ability to send text messages to people in your contact database. The feature is not turned on by default. If you’d like to use it though, you are just a few steps away. First, simply notify your interlinkONE sales rep that you’d like to use the feature. They will help you get the ball rolling.
Once the SMS/Text feature is turned on, here is how simple the process can be to use:
Step 1: Assign Cell Phone Numbers to Contacts
Within our CRM pages, you have the ability to assign a cell phone number to contacts. This field could be populated by editing a contact record and entering the number, or via a bulk upload.
Enter a Cell Phone # on the Contact Record
Step 2: Select the Contacts via the Search Feature
Our system allows you to search for contacts via a wide variety of filter criteria. For example, you could pull up a list of people that have opted-in to receive SMS messages from you (i.e. if you had set up a campaign/landing page to collect this data), or perhaps pull up your list of customers.
Search for Contacts via Various Criteria
Step 3: Click the Send SMS button, and enter your message
On the Contact Search Results page, simply click the “Send SMS” button. Then, enter your message in the window that appears (screenshot below).
Enter the Text for your Message
Once you’ve queued up your messages, our system will take care of the rest. It will send the text messages to the selected contacts that have valid cell phone numbers in the database.
Cell phone sent from V8 to your contact's phone
We hope that you use ilinkONE Version 8 to contribute to the projected 7 trillion text messages that will be sent in 2011. Please contact your interlinkONE sales rep to get started!
interlinkONE Lunch & Learn: CRM/Sales
On Wednesday, March 17th, from 2:00pm – 3:00pm Eastern Time, interlinkONE will be hosting a Lunch & Learn webinar for its customers on the subject of CRM/Sales.
During this webinar, interlinkONE will demonstrate some of the latest enhancements to its ilinkONE Version 8 Marketing Software. Specially, we will walk through our CRM/Sales functionality.
Please join us as we walk through items such as:
- New features for adding and editing Contacts
-Options for the List Management tool
-Using User-Defined Contact Fields
-and more…
There is no charge to attend the webinar. interlinkONE customers — simply click here to register.
New Enhancements to ilinkONE Version 8.5
Over the past few weeks, we have greatly increased our intake of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and snacks.
Why? Well, they sure are delicious.
But also, we have been working hard to put the final touches on the latest release to our ilinkONE Version 8 software. Through the extra hours and shots of espresso in our coffee, we have emerged with a new software release that should greatly benefit our customers.
Here are just a few of the enhancements that we are pretty excited about:
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Email Template Editor We have plugged in a new WYSIWYG editor into our Email Template feature. This will make it a lot easier for you to create and deliver professional email campaigns. The new editor works with all of your existing email templates, the ones from our Template Library, or any new HTML emails that you may upload to the system. |
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Email and Landing Page Templates We have more than 30 new templates that can be used for your email marketing efforts. Customers will be able to browse through the template library at any time. Simply select the template that you’d like, and upload it to your site. We have also provided new Landing Page Templates as well. |
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Twitter/Social Media Integration We have enhanced the integration between our CRM system and the popular social media channel Twitter. Users can now associate their contacts (customers, prospects, etc) to a Twitter ID. They can then view the person’s recent Twitter activity directly from the contact record in our system. Users can also post collateral from the sales library directly onto Twitter from our system, simply by clicking the Tweet This link during order placement. |
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SMS/Text Messaging We have made it easier than ever for users to send out SMS/Text messages to their contacts. Mobile marketing continues to emerge as a channel that must be considered for use in a multi-channel marketing campaign. You can do it easily and successfully with ilinkONE Version 8. |
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Easy Steps to Personalization The benefits of delivering one-to-one communications have certainly been documented in many marketing case studies. It is now easier for users to identify areas for variable data on their landing pages, emails, and other marketing messages. |
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Styling of Questions and Answers Users now have greater control over the design and layout of questions and answers. There are new options to help you style your surveys and response forms, as well as new Question Types to help you create a survey that meets your design needs. |
