Email marketing is one of the least expensive marketing channels, and according to the Direct Marketing Association, a very high performer. Most email marketers are paying pennies per email, but most are still not leveraging the true potential this marketing channel has to offer.

However great its reward, email marketing needs to be done wisely as its popularity grows. Those inboxes continue to get hit with email after email, how can you be sure your message reaches those you want it to? For instance, did you know that:

• Over 200 billion emails are sent worldwide each day (Radicati Group)
• Spam accounts for nearly 90 percent of all email (Symantec)
• People are being bombarded with 4,500+ marketing emails annually (Forrester)

As we can all relate, most people will say they want less email, not more of it. Therefore, most of the emails business owners send out will be perceived as junk by ISPs, anti-spam programs and the people who delete them. While there is much one can do to ensure the deliverability and acceptance of an email, it’s even more imperative for new digital marketers to know what NOT to do in order to prevent permanent blacklisting.

Try these tips to reach new customers and communicate with those you already have established a relationship with:

1. Purchasing email lists could lead to a bad reputation, save your time and money.
2. Create a way for prospects and customers to opt-in to your communications to consistently build your list.
3. Choose subject lines wisely, if it doesn’t relate back to the email’s message, the user could forever blacklist you.
4. Avoid words such as ‘free’, promise an increase in sales, or use excessive punctuation in your subject line.
5. Be careful to not send too many emails. This too will find you a permanent spot in the deleted items folder.

When it comes to low-cost, high-reward marketing channels, email has no rival. Th!nkCreative can help you drive your customer communications with the Th!nk EmailGenius service. This service can help you create branded email marketing campaigns that help you build relationships, increase sales, inspire loyalty and generate a faster response. Learn more on our website.

Here are some exceptionally creative ads for the auto industry.

Facebook continually makes updates to its features to make things more consistent and user friendly for its users.

Whether you like these changes or not, it brings up the issue of how you as an email marketer can best keep up with the changing world of social media.

Social media is a natural partner for email marketing. It gives us the opportunity to listen to our customers, instead of simply talking at them. It's clearly evident that the more you listen, the better you'll be able to refine your marketing efforts.

Here are some tips on how to keep social marketing current so you can keep listening to your customers:

Get people to follow you on social networks. Include links in your emails, on landing pages linked from your email communications, on your website, and in any other marketing efforts that reach your customers.

All of your email messages should contain links or icons that allow recipients to connect with your social media sites, and to post items from your emails on their pages if they feel that their online friends will find them valuable. Think of email as the opening line in your conversation with customers, and social media sites as a place where they can expand on those conversations.

Th!nk EmailGenius features a forward feature where your customers can easily forward your email to a friend, thus increasing the reach of your communications. And, if you use a social network widget that makes links, you can easily put those links into EmailGenius to increase social sharing.

Talk about yourself, let everyone know you have a social prescence online. One of the most effective ways to do this is to share information about discussions on your website, or include postings from members in email campaigns. You want to create enough interest for others to feel the need to get to your site to learn more.

Make it easy for people to join the club. Anytime you post content, be sure there's a way for them to opt-in to your email list.

Vary your approach between different social channels, but keep your branding message consistent. Your audience needs to be able to recognize you and know that all of the messages are coming from the same place. This strengthens your brand and creates synergy among the many points of contact.

Ever since the iPhone was released in 2007, the mobile internet market share has been growing. Today over 80% of mobile phones have the capabilities to access the internet. Since 2009, mobile traffic has increased by over 2% of all internet traffic in the world. That's an insane amount of growth considering mobile traffic had never been over 0.5% before 2009.

Large companies are seeing this trend and are preparing for a mobile explosion for advertising. Google and Apple are on the frontline as both recently purchased existing mobile advertising companies and are heavily investing in these new ad channels. Advertising is an ever-changing landscape. How will you adjust your marketing efforts to be sure your message goes mobile too?

CBA401k.com	MankatoClinic.com
OpportunityManor.org	RamjackMN.com
GREAT Theatre Summer Camp Brochure (Download PDF)

We have had some exciting projects rolling at Th!nkCreative and would like to share the great work our clients and team have been up to.

Stearns Services Video	Stearns Community Video
Lake Wobegon Trail Website	Wenzel Engineering Website
Stearns County Abstract Website	Miller Properties Website
Latitudes Group Website

Want to see more? Visit our website gallery.

We've made it clear that video is the one of the most engaging marketing mediums. And, with so many online opportunities to get your video out to viewers, there's really no excuse why it shouldn't work.

But, things have changed. We've moved from a marketing driven world to a buyer-led one. And, those buyers are smarter, more sophisticated, and better informed about our products and services and even those of our competitors. They know how to use Google, Facebook and Twitter to thoroughly research what they need before taking the next step with sellers.

Video alone isn't enough to convince prospects to give you 30 minutes, let alone 30 seconds of their time. So, how can a medium like video play into this new buyer-led world? To engage today's buyers, we need to reinvent it as an interactive marketing medium.

Try these 5 goals to better engage your audience:

Focus on the ROI - Video is no longer an optional add-on - it's instead, a need - to spark your current lead generation, lead nurturing and sales enablement programs. Recent studies show that adding video to e-mail campaigns can increase conversion rates by 2 to 3 times. That ROI is hard to beat.

Keep it short and sweet - In these viewers' lives, time is precious -- so don't assume just by developing a video that someone will sit through a 30-minute on-demand version. Find the important, short clips of content and make them available in a format that's easy to digest.

Integrate calls-to-action - hook, line and sinker! If you have prospects engaged in a video, drive them to your website and close the deal.

Find your stars - Try using your own employees rather than actors to create effective and authentic video content. Use LinkedIn and Twitter to enable direct connections between your video's stars and prospects.

Video is the Google ticket - Optimizing video content is one of the easiest ways to get a higher organic ranking on Google. Submitting video content to YouTube and other video portals will help you raise awareness, but driving prospects to your door is the ultimate goal.

To learn more about how Th!nkCreative can help you develop a video to meet your needs, click here.

Listrak research shows email communication generates a faster response - typically 1-3 days, versus 7-12 days for direct mail campaigns.

78% of consumers appreciate receiving email communication from a business they frequent when the content is relevant, informative or entertaining.
68% have made purchases online after receiving email.
66% of consumers indicated that receiving an email from an existing business was the best form of customer service they have ever received.
Contact us to learn how Th!nkCreative's EmailGenius service can help you reach more customers and achieve a higher return on investment for your marketing budget. Sign up for our free trial offer today!

First impressions count. But the first 50 milliseconds?

A recent Canadian research study found that the snap judgments made by test subjects shown glimpses of Web pages -- 50 milliseconds, about the flash rate of a television screen -- were roughly the same as other subjects given a much longer look at the same pages. That initial impression, formed in the blink of an eye, may also influence how Internet users gauge the general performance of a website over time, the study showed.

That's because people tend to like being right, the researchers said. By continuing to use a website they initially liked -- if only for a fraction of a second -- users are proving to themselves that their rash decisions are sound.

Gitte Lindgaard, a Carleton University researcher who led the study, said that has big implications for e-commerce and other businesses moving online: "Unless the first impression is favorable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors."

Taking a break from convention is a very sensible approach to maximizing the chances for success. This is true in many things and email marketing is no different.

A conventional approach to your email marketing might seem to be a safer bet than trying new things, but an "unconventional" approach might be more effective if it's done right. Making the right marketing decisions and using Th!nk EmailGenius as your email marketing tool, can help you be ready for success.

Is it new, or new to you?

Try not to focus so much on keeping your own email program on track that you lose touch with what other organizations (especially competitors) are doing with their email programs; something that might seem unconventional to you may have already been employed with great success by someone else.

Are there obvious advantages?

Consider the display of your message in a variety of email inboxes, try to focus on the content in the pre-header of the email just as much as you do the subject line and the body. If that pre-header text is optimized to hold some value to the recipient, it's almost like another subject line (or, another approach to success).

Where is the focus?

You know you're not the only one using email marketing. How can you draw recipients' attention away from the other messages in their inbox, or the countless other possible distractions present on their screens? If your email template feels stale, it might be time to breathe some life into your message by trying something new.

One goal, many ways to get there

Give recipients plenty of ways to click over to the landing page you want them to visit, rather than relying on the single link or button that you may currently use. Is there a particularly important piece of content you want to share? Try linking to a short video containing that same content for recipients who appreciate a break from reading and may respond to a video.

Introducing new, "unconventional" elements into your email marketing campaigns does not require a total departure from what you've done in the past, nor does it require tremendous risk -- so long as you conduct adequate testing. The results might show that trying something new makes a lot of sense.

When you're ready to put a plan into action, Th!nk EmailGenius helps you create and deploy business-critical emails, promotions, and event-triggered communications to your existing email databases. You can quickly create branded email marketing campaigns that help you build relationships, increase sales, inspire loyalty and generate a faster response. Learn how to get started here.

We are often asked, which marketing investments are best. The answer
varies based on who your target audience is, what you’re promoting, and
your offer. In 2008, Listrak did a comparison of the average return on
investment for every marketing dollar spent. The results are below.

While there are no guarantees in marketing return on investment, the right combination of medium, message, audience and offer can make a dramatic difference on your return.

A lot has been written about social media, but this video on YouTube really illustrates the impact that it is having.

Watch the Video below, or click here.

1. The best way to get great ideas is to generate lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.
2. Create ideas that are 15 minutes ahead of their time...not light years ahead.
3. Always look for a second right answer.
4. If at first you don't succeed, take a break.
5. Write down your ideas before you forget them.
6. If everyone says you are wrong, you're one step ahead. If everyone laughs at you, you're two steps ahead.
7. The answer to your problem "pre-exists." You need to ask the right question to reveal the answer.
8. When you ask a dumb question, you get a smart answer.
9. Never solve a problem from its original perspective.
10. Visualize your problem as solved before solving it.

Chic Thompson is a popular creative author of "What a Great Idea", "What a Great Idea 2.0" and "Yes, But..." and founding partner of the CMG Holdings Inc.

Everybody likes a good story. They are entertaining, engaging and they connect people to to your message. Stories are about communication and communication is the essence of marketing.

Today we have one of the greatest communication tools the world has ever known; the Internet, and we don't always use it to our benefit. Websites are often used as if they were corporate brochures. But who is going to go to your website if it's boring to view and blends in with every other site they visit. To stand out, tell your story.

Marketing is nothing more than telling your story in an effective way that embeds your identity into the minds of your audience, connecting and communicating who you are, what you do, and why your audience should be doing business with you.

Today, new web technologies and video allow you to tell your brand story in a way that’s engaging, allows for customer interaction, and gives you complete control of updates.

To really connect with your internet audience, convey your brand story in a compelling way.

A circus came to a small town in northwest Iowa, throngs of people gathered to watch the raising of the tent. A boy named Matthew, was fascinated by the powerful elephant’s ability to stretch the canvas into form.

That night, when he attended the circus, Matthew immediately noticed the elephants standing quietly while tied to a small wooden stake. He asked his father, “How come the elephant doesn’t pull the stake out of the ground and run away?”

The answer: While still young and powerless, an elephant is tied by a heavy chain to an immovable steel stake. The animal discovers that, no matter how hard he pulls, the stake remains secure. As the elephant grows, he continues to believe he cannot move as long as there is a stake in the ground beside him.

There are people conditioned to behave like these elephants. They are restricted in thought, action, and results. Therefore, they never stretch beyond their own self-imposed limitations.

The world continues to change, continually providing new opportunities to grow. Don’t limit your potential through old limitations.

Stearns County Welcome video	High Impact Training website
Tischler Wood Products website	Viking Industries website
OFC website

Announcing the re-designed home for our blog and your source to creativity, events and trends!

The Th!nk Marketing IQ (www.thinkmarketingIQ.com) is the place to find all the latest marketing tips and upcoming speaking events presented by Th!nkCreative.

The Speaking area of the site outlines the expertise of CEO KevinEhlinger along with featured programs Kevin offers to share valuableinsights in marketing and creativity.

Take a look for yourself and see how Th!nkCreative can helpyour business, enjoy the reading material, or follow us on Facebook orTwitter. And, mark your calendar for Wednesday, February 10th, toattend the Th!nk Marketing IQ seminar on Effective Email Marketing -Tips, tricks and techniques on how to use email marketing generateleads and build relationships.

Discover how to take advantage of one of the most cost-effectivemarketing tools to leverage more sales and build loyal customers.

Wednesday, February 10th
7:30 – 9:00 am
ING Café Meeting Room
Downtown St. Cloud

FREE with $10 donation to Kids Against Hunger Haiti relief efforts.

Register Now

Online video is the most powerful sales and marketing tool available, but how do you get started? Try these 5 steps in the following order: plan, practice, publish, promote and perform.

Each of these 5 P’s is essential to virtually any professional online video project.

1. Plan

Before you get started, its important to identify your goals, audience, theme, topics, location, budget, wardrobe and props.

2. Practice

We've all heard the line "Practice Makes Perfect" -- the same is true with online video. Being behind the camera or in front of it requires a certain amount of practice.

Some important factors to consider are setting an appropriate pace, enuciating well, getting across key points, eye contact, and body language. It's important to practice before the camera starts rolling.

3. Publish

Online video marketing tends to work much better when you to put out regular videos with some consistency. Consider capturing several "episodes" at one time and airing them at different times.

First and foremost, publish videos on your website or blog. It keeps people around your brand much better than on a shared video site like YouTube, and can be much more effective with achieving business goals.

4. Promote

Promote your video to generate targeted traffic and “buzz” for your business. Make your videos sharing-friendly. Create RSS feeds and mention them on social networking sites. Try news releases and video search optimization to get even more mileage. Include graphic images of your video in your email marketing with links to the video on your website.

5. Perform

Use your web analytics to the fullest to find out the duration of a video watched by a viewer. Include calls-to-action to guide viewers to the next step you want them to take.

Contact the professionals at Th!nkCreative for quality production of online videos and or e-mail marketing that achieves results. View samples on our website.

For more information on ThinkCreative's Sales Motion Videos, Corporate Videos, eMessage Videos Visit Our Website.

Focusing on the outside world is only half the game of marketing. The other half is focusing inward. Are your team and products in tune with an intimate understanding of your customers and the market? Are your products and marketing emitting signals and experiences that uphold your core values and purpose? Are you continually recalibrating that internal machine to drive customer satisfaction and revenues? Are you focusing enough on your people to cultivate a strong marketing culture?

It's tough to juggle the outward with the inward. Both are critical, yet often at odds. It's easy to focus on just one and not the other. However, a seasoned executive learns how to do both and keep them in check. The more conscious you are to incorporating inward and outward strategies, the more effective and successful you will be.

Baby Boomers influence buying power and can play a signifcant role in your company's success.

Here's 10 reasons why it might be advantageous to target Boomers as part of your marketing plan in 2010.

1. The over-50 crowd will grow 21% in size in 10 years. The 18-49 crowd remains the same size.
2. The over-50 crowd outspends the under-50 crowd by $400 billion. That's more than Walmart sells annually.
3. They try new things. They'll buy your product if you make it relevant. So make it relevant.
4. They are easy to reach. They read newspapers. They watch TV. They listen to the radio. They are easier to target than younger generations.
5. They think they are in the middle of Middle Age. With a median age of 54, Boomers are far from being "old".
6. They use the Internet. They search, they shop, they buy.
7. Some 40% of all Boomers are already grandparents. They spend money on their grandkids, practically without thinking.
8. From their parents' consumption of healthcare to their kids' education - they like to influence everyone's purchases.
9. They like advertising. Sure, they are skeptical, but they are also fans of good advertising. They will respond to your effort if it speaks to them.
10. They are the future. Boomers are where the action is for the next 20 years and Boomers are the new "old."

Don't make the mistake of missing the Boomer opportunity. Direct your marketing efforts accordingly and watch your bottom line improve, Contact Th!nkCreative today to help you succeed.