Altaf Shaikh

Altaf Shaikh is the founder and CEO of ListEngage.com - a full-service interactive marketing firm that helps organizations harness the power of email & social media to acquire, engage and convert prospects faster — and to retain existing customers better using data-driven marketing concepts.

Under Altaf’s leadership ListEngage assists clients on almost every aspect of e-marketing including but not limited to best practices; effective email designs; increasing email deliverability; triggered email campaigns; drip marketing automations; attracting and engaging visitors using social media channels like Twitter, Linkedin & Facebook.

ListEngage’s clients include companies like Parametric Technologies, Alpha Software, Fidelity Investor, Brandsmart, Liberty Mutual, IDC, Nova Chemicals, Demandware, Classy-Kid, Jessica London, J.Jill, Response Insurance, Green Giant, Chadwick’s and more.

Altaf is passionate about digital marketing and has more than a decade of experience purely in this field. Previously he was the CEO of hitechlcub.com and prior to that held senior engineering and consulting positions at Bell Labs, PictureTel, and the European Commission Brussels. Altaf graduated with a degree in Computer Science which gives him a unique vantage point to also view marketing challenges from a technological and analytical perspective.

Our platform has implemented an amazing new A/B Testing feature in each account in the past year. This feature has helped our clients decide which email campaigns are doing the best - from subject line comparison to send time, this feature gives tracking information you can use. In addition to testing your email campaigns, it's also a great idea to test out your landing pages. B2C.com has compiled a short list of the top tips for effective testing---

A/B testing is one of the best ways to raise your landing page conversion rates and overall online marketing ROI.  A/B testing or split testing is a testing method where a control landing page is compared to a variety of test pages.  Testing landing page experiences against one another with A/B testing offers the opportunity to create and test wildly different things – think in terms of testing apples and oranges.

Here are five tips to help you effectively plan and run landing page A/B tests:

This a busy time of the year at ListEngage as we undertake lots of e-marketing activity on behalf of our clients — but as 2011 comes to a close we want to extend our warm thoughts of gratitude and holiday cheer to all of you who make our work worthwhile.

ListEngage, an interactive marketing agency based in Framingham, is seeking a technology-driven specialist to implement large scale email marketing campaigns. Applicants should have at least 6 months experience with a major Email Service Provider, preferably ExactTarget. This role will help onboard new clients onto the ExactTarget email marketing platform and will involve a complex understanding of data management, automated programs, and 3^rd party SaaS applications.

The ideal candidate will have:

· In depth knowledge of Email Marketing and SaaS platforms including automating programs, creating triggered emails, managing data.

· Proven track record of working with large teams to provision and implementation email marketing software.

· Working knowledge of HTML beneficial. Experience with SQL and relational data is a plus.

· Ability to manage multiple projects at a time and demonstrate great time management skills.

· Excellent problem solving skills coupled with great interpersonal skills (verbal and written) and an ability to explain complex technological projects to marketing and non-technical teams.

· A team-player attitude and a willingness to take on projects that land in lap and may not always fit your standard “job description”

· Experience with API programming, and/or programming languages (MS.NET, JAVA, PHP) is welcomed, but not necessary.

Candidates with experience with ExactTarget will be given special consideration, however, candidates with other ESP experience (Cheetah Mail, Silver Pop, Constant Contact, Responsys, Vertical Response, etc.) and candidates with a web/technological knowledge and an enthusiasm to learn and adopt the appropriate skill set in “record time” should not hesitate to apply.

Will consider remote candidates if extremely well-qualified.

What should you do to apply?
Please provide cover letter, resume, references, and salary requirements to: jobs@listengage.com position will be considered on a rolling basis.

Want to connect and learn more about us?
Follow us on Twitter @ListEngage
Become a fan on Facebook.com/ListEngage
Read our blog (ListEngage Blog)

Image: Kittikun Atsawintarangkul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Earlier this fall I was invited to speak on a panel at ExactTarget's Connections 2011 User Conference entitled "Bridging the Divide: Internationalizing Your Marketing Efforts" where I presented a case study of how ListEngage has helped Parametric corporation with their monthly international email sending needs in 9 different languages and solved some specific challenges. Collectively the panelists offered some great insights. Charlie McAtee from ExactTarget summarized them well. Here they are:
Thanks to Charlie for his insight and great breakdown of the session! Have an email dilemma of international proportions? Email us and we'll share our thoughts.

This past September the ListEngage team traveled to Indianapolis to be part of one the largest interactive marketing conferences in the world - ExactTarget's "Connections 2011" user conference. The event was host to email and digital marketers from around the globe and touched upon online marketing techniques, email campaign tips, social media marketing and B2B marketing.

It’s the end of August, one of the traditionally slowest months for productivity and growth for many industries — and maybe you found a little dip in your email marketing ROI this summer? All of those “Out of Offices” and clicking latencies are precisely the reason it’s time to restructure your email goals — and plan to hit your targets dead-on once “school’s back in session”.

So this summer, as the dog days dwindle – why not swing back into action with

3 Fool-proof Ways to Deliver Targeted Email Marketing:

Send Emails Based on Attributes: Your “Master List” is a living database of all of your many, and uniquely different subscribers. If you’re a sporting goods store who knows their customers favorite sports you can pre-determine that while Joey the runner from Chicago, IL may want nothing to do with your “Fall Footbal Blowout Sale”, Coach Bill in Plano, TX might be looking for all new padding for his defensive line. By sorting on the “Sports” profile attribute and sending the email to Coach while avoiding Joey, you’ve made one football fanatic ecstatic and saved another customer the grief of deleting another email from his inbox!

Drip Campaigns: Someone shows up on your circuit board website and asks for a quote, but certainly isn’t ready to buy. They leave their name and email, and you send them a series of emails based on what you know about your buying cycle. Day 3 after quote, a handy “What to Consider When Buying Circuit Boards Email”; Day 8 after quote, a reminder email; Day 11 after quote a discount coupon worth 10%; and if they happen to buy somewhere in between the mailings stop.

Dynamic Content: Don’t want to make 50 emails with varying content for the 50 states you send to from your Daily Deal website? With dynamic content, a feature that ListEngage is fully versed in, you can create one email and define what content you want to go into a template based off of what data you have on the subscriber. With dynamic content you can send one email and simultaneously feature the daily “Lobster Roll Deal” in Boston and the daily “Wine Tasting Deal” in San Francisco! It’s easy enough to pull together and a tremendous time-saver that delivers targeted results.

Can you think of other ways that have helped your business target your subscribers? Do you have a targeting problem you think ListEngage could help you with? Send us a note and let us know!

My friend Joel Book is a very smart guy. As the (handsome) face of ExactTarget, he often has some great research, products, and ideas to share. In a recent article on the ExactTarget blog, he shared the need for marketers to be able to view all of their cross-channel integrations in one, real-time manner and dropped some great marketing 2.0 nuggets in there as well.

Joel’s Article: Effective Customer Engagement Means Real-Time, Cross Channel Service
Marketers have long relied on multiple channels to drive engagement, but today marketing requires a new approach – one built on a single view of the customer that values real-time interaction over static channel-focused campaigns. The antiquated one-to-many monologue of mass marketing has given way to the one-to-one digital dialogue of engagement marketing that is fueled by customer data and enabled by interactive marketing technology.

In “The Age of the Individual,” the most successful marketers are using a carefully integrated mix of Email, Mobile, Social media to attract, engage and retain customers. This “triangle offense” strategy is enabling brands like Scotts Miracle-Gro, Belk, and Papa John’s to accelerate their ability to engage customers in real-time and dramatically improve marketing and sales performance.

From “Campaign Management” to “Interaction Management”

The days of the “single-channel” customer are gone and they’re not coming back. Today’s customer interacts with a brand through multiple online and offline channels. Every conversation, every interaction a customer has with a brand – whether it occurs face-to-face, through Email, on the phone, on the website, on Twitter, on Facebook, or SMS – shapes the customer’s opinion and influences how he or she talks about the brand.

When these channels operate independently – instead of cohesively as one – messages often conflict, offers are not consistent, and the customer’s perception is that the brand is dysfunctional and totally unprepared to anticipate and respond to his or her needs. Not exactly a positive brand experience.

On the flipside however, when a brand creates a single database of knowledge about that customer and uses it to deliver consistent messages and timely offers across multiple channels, the customer’s brand experience is quite different.

This is the fundamental difference between “Campaign Management” and “Interaction Management.”

Customer Data is an Asset. Manage it Accordingly.

A company’s customer base should be managed like an investment portfolio, and like a good investment advisor, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service all share responsibility for maximizing the performance of that portfolio. And that requires a single source of reliable customer data that fuels the operations of each department.

That’s why it’s so important to manage information about each and every customer interaction in a shared business system that all customer-facing employees can access and use to communicate with and serve the customer. This way, the customer is treated correctly and consistently because Marketing, Sales and Customer Service are all aware of his or her needs and interests, previous purchases, and value.

Not only does this single view of the customer make it easier for employees to make smarter marketing decisions and interact with customers more effectively, it also creates a better experience for the consumer. Integrating cross-channel data in a single database creates an invaluable corporate asset, and accelerates the ability to interact more effectively with individual customers in real-time.

Serving has become the New Selling

To truly serve customers better, companies must learn to market to a “segment of one” because today’s customer wants more control over the content that is being delivered through Email, Mobile, Social Media and Website channels.

No longer is it appropriate or acceptable to guess what information or offers the customer wants – in fact it is destructive to the customer relationship. The recent Subscribers, Fans & Followers research conducted by ExactTarget revealed that 90% of consumers unsubscribe, unfan, or unfollow when the communication received from brands is too frequent or the content is irrelevant.

In the “Age of the Individual” consumers expect to be served, not sold. When companies make the commitment to understanding individual customer needs and interests, and using that insight to deliver content that is timely, relevant and useful, they not only sell more, they create a community of “brand advocates” who become some of the company’s most effective marketers.

Read More of Joel’s Insight on the ExactTarget Blog

image: ExactTarget blog

ListEngage is seeking a technology-driven software developer with at least 6 months experience working with an Email Service Provider, preferably ExactTarget. This role will help on-board new clients onto the ExactTarget platform and/or will facilitate projects that enhance already established ExactTarget accounts.

The ideal candidate will have:

• In depth knowledge of Email Marketing and SaaS platforms including automating programs, creating triggered emails, and managing data (or demonstrate a desire and willingness to learn quickly).

• Solid experience with programming languages (MS.NET, JAVA, PHP)

• Experience with API programming

• Experience with SQL and relational data

• Front-End web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, etc) a plus.

• Ability to manage multiple projects at a time and demonstrate great time management skills.

• Great interpersonal skills (verbal and written) and must be able to explain complex technological projects to marketing and non-technical teams.

• A team-player attitude and a willingness to take on projects that land in lap and may not always fit your standard “job description”

Candidates with experience with ExactTarget will be given special consideration, however, candidates with other ESP experience (Cheetah Mail, Silver Pop, Constant Contact, Responsys, Vertical Response, etc.) and candidates with a web/technological knowledge and an enthusiasm to learn and adopt the appropriate skill set in “record time” should not hesitate to apply.

Will consider remote candidates if extremely well-qualified.

What should you do to apply?
Please provide cover letter, resume, references, and salary requirements to: jobs@listengage.com by 8/26/11 – although position will be considered on a rolling basis.

Want to connect and learn more about us?
Follow us on Twitter @ListEngage
Become a fan on Facebook.com/ListEngage
Read our blog (ListEngage Blog)

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In the past few months, we have been witness to a major social (and worldwide) paradigm shift. Hi-tech communications and more nimble forms of messaging are allowing people to convey info at unprecedented speeds, and almost limitlessly via cell phones, twitter, facebook – and now one more establishment has been rocked (in a good way) by this.

9-1-1 will soon be taking your texts.

According to a recent article on Mashable.com – the 911 Emergency Response system will soon be rolling out plans to receive images, texts, and videos to help facilitate communication in any emergency and to help emergency responders get information and arrive on scene faster.

With social media, smart phones, and other technologies lending a hand in getting the word out fast for causes good (the “Arab Spring” demonstrations this year, earthquake/tsunami disaster relief in Japan) and bad alike (the current riots in London) – it will be great for our emergency responders to be armed with one more (social) weapon.

Read the Mashable article here.

Earlier this month, I read an article about Research in Motion, or RIM as most people know it – the company that designs and manufactures the Blackberry brand of smartphones and tablets… and the guys who used to be the leaders in the booming world of mobile devices. The article was entitled “The Real Reason There Was No Email on the BlackBerry PlayBook” and it made me stop to take a look, since I used to be an avid Blackberry user. The gist of the article, and the huge underlying issue for Blackberry – is that they designed a product that won’t let them use an email address on more than one device. They’ve seemingly backed themselves into a corner.

Back when Blackberry first designed their operating system for mobile devices, the Blackberry team could not begin to fathom a day when a user would want or need to access their email from more than one mobile device, ever… and that is how they set up their operating system architecture. 1 email user = 1 device. No room for add-ons.

Now, I’m not saying that I would have been any better at projecting that users would want to access anything from multiple mobile devices, let along native email… but then again I’m not a smartphone manufacturer, I’m an emarketer so my radar is pointed in a whole different direction. Either way, I still think there’s a lesson to be learned here:

Technology moves fast, and it doesn’t help that it’s cyclical – technology pushes consumers to want new technologies and devices, and the consumers push back with new wants and desires that push technology further forward. Within this, we’ve seen many companies thrive and many more rise to the top and then give up the lead due to some “minor detail” that turned out to be a pretty major one.

Though it’s impossible to tell what the “minor detail” may end up being, I think it’s important to learn from the companies that keep evolving versus the companies that may internally resist the evolution revolution. It seems to me that the companies that grow the best listen to all ideas and allow many to contribute, they reinvent themselves the fastest, and they don’t spend time trying to resuscitate ideas-gone-bad.

Though I don’t know for sure what will happen with RIM/Blackberry, I can say that their problem really made me stop and think: How could they have seen this sooner? What could they have done differently?

Maybe those questions are too hard to answer yet, but the lesson that we are watching unfold with RIM is intrinsically tied to all business: adapt and evolve.

Let’s see how they react, and learn from their next moves.

Full story on Blackberry Playbook, and its missing native email support.

Just walk down a crowded side walk at rush hour – and try not to bump into someone posting Facebook updates on their iPhone, checking in at the train station, or tweeting about work that day. It doesn’t take a super-sleuth to see that Americans are using their mobile devices more than ever to browse the web, check email, and update on social networks. But, the actual percentage of increase in mobile browsing from last year to this year – 45.7% to nearly 64 million users in total – is pretty mind blowing.

Within that growth, social media is posting up the most impressive statistics; it had the highest growth recorded in any user category. According to a recent study by comScore Mobile Lens, the number of users who accessed social media sites via mobile device “almost daily” increased more than 70% Year over Year as of March 2011.

So what does this phenomenon mean for mobile web users, and what sort of ripple effect will it have on industries that rely on these users? In the short term, it means more advertisers will start venturing into mobile where they can find new audiences, our data providers will likely have to invest double-time (and hopefully not charge double) in these new networks and, of course, you might have to pay a little more attention to all of those crazy new mobile browsers and updaters who have been let loose on the crowded sidewalks!

It’s always great to get “press” but when 2010′s #1 Most Influential Person in Sales Lead Management, Mac McIntosh looks to you for advice, tips, and insight — and then shares your thoughts on his blog, well, then that’s just awesome!

Recently, Mac approached me to give my Top 3 Tips for Email in this modern age of emarketing, social media, and new media. You can read my responses, here on his blog: http://www.sales-lead-insights.com/2011/b2b-email-tips/

Do you have any additional thoughts that you would add? Have you found these to be true, or do you have other “tried and true” secrets you’re willing to share? Let us know, and I hope that this post can be a resource to you as you plan out your email and online marketing efforts now, and in the future.

Thanks,

Altaf

To learn more about Mac McIntosh, visit his website here.

Not everyone who uses a computer at work all day knows how to code HTML, and it isn’t like our public schools are planning to include a “PHP, Java, and Advanced Devlopment” course in place of Phys-Ed class anytime soon. So, for a business who wants to participate in Content Creation and Inbound Marketing to their website, what’s a non-techie to do?

Well, there are plenty of great content-creation tools that stir up some SEO-juice along the way without a single lick of code, and here are the best 3 Codeless Content Creation Tools Out There … AND if you can take the extra step of linking these 3 resources together via RSS feeds (no code required) then you’re doing even better. Finally, if you can invest a few dollars into hiring someone to link these resources to your website (or getting someone internal to do it) then you’ve basically given your entire brand an often-updating facelift and a new lease on life.

1. Twitter.com – obviously you’ve heard of it, but do you know how easy it is to set up? If you’ve ever been frustrated that your static website just couldn’t express a single revelation or announcement that your company had EVER, think again. A Twitter account can be opened and up and running (with pretty logos/graphics) in less than five minutes. From here you can share content, update followers about events or seminars, and provide information must faster than you could ever get someone to update your site.

2. Facebook Groups – all you need to do is login, upload a photo, and request friends to join your group and it’s done. Announcements are as easy as hitting the “return” key, and users who might otherwise not go to your website daily now hear from your brand multiple times a week.

3. A Blog* – A blog requires some baby steps to get the maximum benefit out of it, but if you just want to set one up and start sharing your thoughts, then a simple platform like WordPress.com is super easy and the best way to go. All you need to do is define a URL for your blog, and you can be posting to it a few seconds later, e.g. YourBusinessHere.Wordpress.com.

That being said, the distinct benefit of a system like WordPress is twofold: it can be built easily, and it can morph into something much bigger and better down the road. Some small-to-medium sized businesses even use it as a template for their website: which means it can be easily managed and updates without any code – and it’s easy to include pieces from social giants like Facebook and Twitter as you go. The other great thing about WordPress is that you can eventually purchase your own domain for your blog, or fold it into your websites domain as well.

Once you have these 3 pieces set up, you’ve just laid a great foundation for future content marketing success. Sure, you can hire someone to update your website to include these new features, or you can convert your site into a WordPress blog, or spend money on making any of them look nicer… but at the onset as you “experiment” and try new ways to create content and share thoughts with your users – the only cost is the time you put in and the only skills you need are fingers and the internet, so why not give it a shot? It might just change the way you (content) market.

image: www.internetbillboards.com

April has been a busy month here at ListEngage, and we thought we’d take a moment to supply you with some “takeaways” that we’ve learned from this month: from time savers, to why location-based services do and don’t stick. Have a look at our Top 3 Takeaway articles from April 2011 – and feel free to share other great insights if you have them, too!


- Save Time on Your Emarketing Efforts in a Few Apps Per Day


- Location, Location, Location – Why Users Do & Don’t Use Location-Based Apps


- Increase Email Subscriptions with these 5 Quick Tips


Have an eMarketing question or dilemma? Drop us a line.

So now that you know Why No One Wants to Share Your Emails Socially from our post earlier this week, we’ve got some foolproof ideas to get your subscribers to actually start sharing your email marketing campaigns! Here are our Top 5 Suggestions for Making Your Emails more “Share Friendly”:

1) Share in Pieces: make sure there’s delineation between your pieces of content and let each separate piece be shareable. Odds are people will share a few paragraphs or an interesting article over an entire email on their social networks.

2) Show ‘Em WHAT and HOW They’re Sharing: most social subscribers understand the Facebook “Like” button, Facebook “Share” button and Twitter “Tweet” button. Even though there’s no Javascript allowed in emails – you can trick your emails into being able to host these functions. Get Code Here.

3) Make Your Email LOOK Social: Gone are the days of billboard marketing to your subscribers. Show them they’re a valuable part of the conversations by featuring their quotes in noticeable quote bubbles, highlighting “top users” (with their avatars of course!), and showing off the networks and conversations your brand has in the social-sphere. Think of the UI of popular social sites and try to take the best features, look/feel into your emails.

4) Prompt a Response: ask questions that will generate a response, make it look social and link it to a discussion on your blog, Twitter, or link to a YouTube video and ask for comments below the video – then include responses in your next mailing.

5) Embrace the Forwarding: Ok, so maybe there’s no way to check how many people just click forward in their email client, but take solace knowing that email was the first social medium and sometimes people do actually use it to share, connect, and comment in their own small networks. You might not be able to measure it, but it’s still happening!

Now go forth and get sharing!!!

Marketers have been talking about “Making Emails Social” for awhile now— but how many people are actually having success with this mantra? Even though today there are many ways to integrate sharing functions into email like – ShareThis, AddThis and Forward to a Friend, social–sharing still hasn’t hit its stride.

So, what’s the holdup that’s keeping people from clicking, sharing, forwarding and (ultimately) getting your brand in front of more people?

Here are the Top 5 Things that Keep a Subscriber from Sharing Emails Socially:

1) What the heck am I sharing? (Uncertainty) - If you’ve placed a “ShareThis” button in your email campaigns and aren’t seeing a lot of clicks and sharing, you might ask yourself – “do these people know what they are sharing?” – do you make it obvious with visual cues and an explanation?

2) Where does that link even go? (Skepticism/Confusion) – Your users might be leery if they’re unsure of what happens after they click a “Share” function. Will they have time to review it before it posts? What will it look like?

3) Who would I want to share this with? (Common Interests) – You are uniquely you and sometimes your interests are very specific. Odds are, many of your contacts might not be interested in the personalized and specific emails you get in your inbox every day… which brings us to our next question.

4) Why would I want to share this? (Motivation/Value) - Great, you’ve just digested an email with some goodies in it from one of your favorite brands… but unless it has really compelling content, value or an offer you’re not going to bring it to anyone’s attention on your social networks.

And most obviously there’s the question of:

5) Why don’t I just Forward this to them directly? (Ease of Use) - Most users want to expend the least amount of energy possible sharing their info… and sometimes a quick forward from your own address is best.

Stay tuned and find out how to get them to share your emails in our next blog post (coming later this week).

Just like dating, attracting prospects to your business’ social media campaigns can be a challenge. Though we’re sure you’re quite the real-life Cassanova, here are some suggestions when it comes to courting yourself some fine-looking social media prospects:

1. Don’t be a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (aka – be genuine): Just like you can spot a sleazebag from halfway across a crowded bar, social media users can totally see through a company just trying to play it cool to get fans and followers. Don’t lure them in with witty banter if you plan to BLAST them with marketing messages a week later. Instead, ask questions you generally want to know the answers to, run contests users will actually be interested in, and plan to engage, not broadcast.

2. Be prepared for the good… and the bad: When you put yourself out there, sometimes you get the Prince and sometimes you get the Frog. Some of your users will be smart, funny, and engaging while others might just want to criticize your company or product. Make sure you’ve got a plan to react to both types, and no… deleting unflattering comments doesn’t count as a solid plan (unless they’re flinging 4 letter words at you). Always think through your strategy before you put yourself/your brand out there.

3. Go to the right places: If your favorite Friday night activity is building model airplanes while listening to Beethoven’s 5th symphony, you might not want to go out clubbing to meet your next soul mate. Seems simple, right? Well, the same thing is true about social media: as tough as it is to swallow, some businesses might not fit well on Facebook, for example, because they are just not that social. The takeaway is: know your audience and go where they are. If they don’t have a central meeting place, maybe creating a blog or forum will give them one!

4. Tell them how pretty they are: Ok, maybe that’s a little too creepy – but thank your fans, followers, and brand advocates! Make them feel like they get as much out of this relationship as you do, and make them feel special – with “members only” messaging, discounts, and “in the know” opportunities.

And if these suggestions don’t get you the hook-up, maybe lose the suspenders.

Image: Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We know you’ve got a lot to do this year – so rather than make you dig around all over the internet we created a digest of the 3 Best (Borrowed) Social Media Predictions for 2011 and we wanted to share:

1. What: Prediction #2 on Tim Feriss’ 4 Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2011 – “The full resurrection of email” Why: We were sick of people proclaiming “Email is Dead” in 2010 – and we’re looking for it to blend with social in ways you never imagined in 2011.

2. What: Prediction #3 from ReadWriteWeb’s 10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2011 – Mobile will become our Gateway to the World. Why: “There’s an App for that.” (and everything else on the planet)

3. What: Prediction #5 on Big Changes Coming in Social Media in 2011 – “We’ll reach a saturation point” Why: We will soon be even more bombarded with marketing messages from every corner of our lives: email, mobile, social, SMS, video & beyond. The possibilities are limitless – the only drawback is: will our subscribers, fans and followers ultimately feel bombarded? TBD in 2011…

Think you’ve got a better one? Share in the comments below, converse with us on Facebook, or Tweet at us. We’re listening!