Key take-aways:

• Cyber Monday surpassed Black Friday as the biggest online shopping day of the year
• Email marketing, paid search and display advertising were the most successful marketing tactics last holiday season
• Marketers are planning to invest more in Pinterest this year
• Adoption of mobile-optimized websites is on the rise over last year

In addition to email, the study showed that paid search and online display advertising were the next most successful marketing tactics of the 2011 holiday season, with 48.9 percent naming search and 34.8 naming online display advertising as extremely or very successful campaign tactics. Our internal experts are currently looking at real-time data around these and other marketing channels and will present what they’ve learned during a live webinar on Thursday, October 25^th at 1:00 p.m. EST. This information should prove very helpful to marketers who want to improve their campaigns based on current trends and results. Register for the holiday webinar and you’ll receive all of the survey data in the form of a 2012 holiday marketing white paper. Here’s to a joyous and profitable holiday season!

We also learned that 61% of respondents planned to increase their focus on email marketing in 2012 (top choice), while 53% intended to increase social advertising (second choice). It will be interesting to see how marketers feel about their 2013 marketing programs, though I’m guessing that multi-channel will remain a top challenge.

Please take our survey on your company’s focus from a marketing perspective, including topics like online and offline customer experience, marketing department integration and more. It will only take a couple of minutes to weigh in and we’ll send you the results so that you can see where you benchmark against other organizations.

86% of U.S. online adults are taking part in at least some form of social interaction

None of the marketers in the room were surprised to hear Rob say that social media has become increasingly mainstream, though it was interesting to learn that according to Forrester, 86% of U.S. online adults are taking part in at least some form of social interaction.

This was good news for the marketers in attendance, many of whom are in the retail and travel industries, and all of whom are increasingly turning to social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to promote their brands.

Also not surprising was Rob’s breakdown of challenges that marketers face, the biggest of which is creating a single view of customers across channels – picked by 50% of respondents in a recent Forrester survey. Not surprisingly, according to Rob, organizational silos contribute heavily to creating this challenge.

Measuring results was chosen by 45% of respondents, 39% cited improving expertise in new channels (i.e., social and mobile), 37% picked capturing customer insight to drive decision-making and 33% said managing data quality.

Smart cross-channel campaign management is critical to solving all of the above challenges and Rob had these thoughts on the topic:

• Campaign management applications are needed to enable more customer-centric approaches, but core CCCM capabilities are now quite mature
• Integrations, customizations and licenses are expensive and this sometimes prevent firms from incorporating campaign management applications
• Marketers need more support in social, mobile and local, but often native social listening, mobile push notifications and location-based communications are poorly supported or absent from the mix
• Marketers are asking for more help from their vendors as they often have the right vision and an interesting perspective. The vendors’ biggest challenge is simply a matter of moving fast enough to satisfy clients’ needs

Ultimately, Rob’s advice to marketers for getting to optimized cross-channel campaign management was this:

• Map your customer’s journey across key touch points
• Look for opportunities to integrate data and automate operations
• Create a 3-5 year technology strategy and implementation roadmap
• Prove ROI in high-value interactions – quick wins make it easier to get funding

Bryon noted what we all already know but need to keep in mind every day: the customers are in control and the best way to improve sales is to improve engagement. He suggested a focus on building brand advocates – they’ve used a “surprise and delight” strategy to convert detractors by initiating a personal contact via Twitter and other means. He said that one-to-one engagement can not only turn around a bad situation but also create a lifetime fan.

Amy noted that while it’s important to speak to the customers, you have to stick to the brand’s core values when you do. Make sure your messages and images stay close to your core. Your programs can and should be influenced by the data you mine and receive, but you never want the data to completely rule the marketing strategy or message. She said it’s a fine balance between data insights and the art of brand marketing. Bryon stressed the importance of not becoming “data myopic” and both suggested spending time in the stores to really understand how the customers are behaving.

Both panelists thought it important to mostly keep their company’s brands separate. In other words, it’s tempting to jump into cross-marketing programs across the sister brands, but you must be very careful to preserve that 1:1 connection each brand has with its own customers; that connection is kind of sacred.

As for social media, both panelists stressed the need to have an authentic voice in social channels. They also pointed out that you can easily get distracted by the next shiny new social object, but you simply can’t be everywhere. You have to think about which social channels you really want to be in (i.e., where your customers are), plus when you want to jump into a conversation and how you sound when you do.

In the end, if you map everything you do back to the customer you will have a greater measure of success. Both have also seen benefit in breaking down silos that exist within the full marketing organization so that there is greater sharing of information, strategies, tactics and successes.

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Key take-aways:

• Emails with an offer in the subject line had a 21% higher transaction rate than those without
• Online search traffic was up 10% over 2010 with search teams like “back-to-school clothes” and “back-to-school deals” driving the increase
• Searchers tend to be female and between the ages of 25 and 44

Questions marketers should ask themselves include:

• What are the characteristics of my target audience – who are they, how do they shop, what resonates with them?
• How can I make my marketing messages more targeted so that they stand out from the crowd?
• What offers and promotions should I employ?
• How should my marketing budget be allocated across multiple channels?

To learn the answers to these questions and more, visit our back-to-school homeroom to see the latest data, emerging trends and opportunities that exist for marketers this season.

• For the first time, last year’s Cyber Monday beat Thanksgiving Day as the busiest online shopping day of the year
• Facebook and Pinterest were the top traffic sources to the Experian Marketing Services Retail 500
• Pinterest visitors most often went to etsy.com and amazon.com from the pinterest.com site
• Dynamic content in emails can drive up to a 70% lift in open rates
• Tying web, email and in-store promotions together enhances the shopping experience and improves sales

The bottom line is that marketers need to understand where there customers are, when they are there, and what they are doing. Armed with that knowledge, you can deliver personalized and targeted holiday messages that are sure to make this shopping season merry and bright (and profitable!). View the webinar to learn more.

Fast Track Couples consist of young couples and families already on the road to upward mobility. Although 90% are under the age of 35, most are married, work at good jobs and own their homes. About one-third of Fast Track Couples have already started families, and others might look to start one soon. Other key characteristics that describe this segment include the following:

• Nearly all have at least some college education, which has helped them obtain decent-paying jobs in sales, white-collar professions and technology. More than half of these households have dual workers in the labor force.
• These young couples live comfortably in homes valued close to the national average, though they have yet to sink deep roots. Most have lived at the same address for fewer than three years.
• Fast Track Couples are informed customers, not impulse shoppers. They’re acutely aware of demands on their budgets, and they want to make sure they get good value for any purchase.
• Fast Track Couples are focused on their careers. A significant number are entrepreneurial and dream about starting their own business.
• They are mostly novices when it comes to financial investments and have not saved much money nor invested in many stocks, mutual funds or bonds. A high percentage have 401(k) accounts, and those with young children have started 529 College Savings Plans. Their balances, however, are still relatively modest.
• Many members are comfortable with debt. They’re still paying off student loans and have added auto loans and first mortgages to their liabilities.
• Fast Track Couples lead socially active lifestyles. They enjoy going to bars, movies, comedy clubs and rock concerts.
• They prefer their vacations to be filled with heart-pounding sports, including skiing, scuba diving, water skiing and backpacking.
• Self-described early adopters, they like filling their homes with the latest customer electronics and technology.

The best channel to reach Fast Track Couples is the Internet. They are highly receptive to digital advertising via online search and sponsored links. Few segments spend more time in cyberspace. They are enthusiastic Internet users, going online to simplify their lives. They use the Internet to manage their financial affairs, make travel arrangements and check out new job, car and home listings. They also use the Internet as their chief form of entertainment, downloading music, listening to Internet-only radio stations, watching videos and sharing digital photographs. In addition, they’re comfortable telecommuting and shopping online. Having grown up with communication on demand, they don’t care how they get their Internet access. They bounce seamlessly between cell phone, laptop and wireless connections. Although they dislike email ads, they respond to sponsored Websites and links — especially when doing product comparisons. They like shopping for games and software to improve their online experience. In a list of popular Websites, it’s difficult to find any that they don’t visit, opening up many possible touchpoints for marketers looking to engage this segment.

This segment consists of young couples and families already on the road to upward mobility. They enjoy vacations filled with heart-pounding sports, including skiing, scuba diving and backpacking. They are also self-described early adopters, and like to stay on top of the latest consumer electronics and technology.

I really enjoyed this video by Rick Erwin, President of the Data and Analytics Division of Experian Marketing Services. He provides some interesting details about Fast Track Couples and how retail marketers can best connect and engage with them

For more facts about Fast Track Couples and “New American Consumer,” download our 2012 Digital Marketing Report.

It seems those marketers are on to something – we’re seeing that mailings in the first half of August garner the most revenue. Why the first half of August? Success could be related to a number of factors, including:

• When the first day of school is after Labor Day, families may choose to get their shopping done before their end-of-summer vacations.
• When school starts in August, shopping may be driven by peer-group influence – children see what peers are wearing and ask their parents for similar items.

This information can be used to drive your messages and offers.

There are 55 million school kids out there and even more parents with wallets at the ready.

There are 55 million school kids out there and even more parents with wallets at the ready. We’ve been thinking about how to reach these plumb shoppers and will cover a variety of marketing strategies and tactics during a webinar on Tuesday, May 15 at 1:00 p.m. EST. Here are a few of the questions our subject matter experts will answer:

• Who are my key targets and how can I differentiate my marketing message?
• How should my marketing budget be allocated across multiple online and offline channels?
• What can I do to make my message stand out above the crowd?
• What variety of offers and promotions will enable me to capture a significant share of back-to-school expenditures?

Visit the Back-to-School Homeroom to register and to download an email-focused white paper.