So how do you launch a re-engagement campaign?

Define what ‘Inactive’ means: Depending on the frequency of your emails, inactive can mean difference things to different folks. You’ll need to review your audience list and identify members who have not taken action (open/click/convert) in a specified period of time. A typical inactive time-period is the past three to six months.

Create an opportunity for action: When attempting to re-engage an inactive audience member, your primary objective should not be to sell them something. Instead, consider alternative ways for them to take action. Ask them to participate in a survey to find out what is top of mind – what do they think or want to hear. While you have their attention, be sure to ask them how often they’d like to hear from you and if they’re still interested in receiving emails from you at all.

Remind them why they wanted to hear from you in the first place: Cite the values and benefits they receive just by being an active member of your audience. What will they learn? What will they get? There has to be something in it for them to keep your audience members coming back for more.

Remember to say Thank You: Once an audience member decides that they want to hear from you (or not) remember thank them for their time. Consider sending a re-engaged audience member some form of compensation for sticking with you: whitepapers, articles, discounts. If your inactive audience member decides to opt-out completely, say thank you and let them know that you’ll remove them from your list (and be sure to do it)!

Go get ‘em!

Tech companies that primarily market to global or national audiences may be able to tap in to new traffic sources right in their own digital backyard. Local search was one of the top online marketing trends in 2010 and this year it’s even hotter. Here are a few reasons why it pays to get into the local search scene:

Free links. Most local business listings are free, easy to customize (hello, keywords!), and include a link from a popular domain with search authority. Links to your website from reputable sources also help your site rank higher for non-local searches. Google Places, Bing local business listings, Yelp, and City Search are good places to start developing online local listings.

More SERP real estate. In Google, most search queries now return global results mixed with local results. Focusing on building local business listings increases the likelihood that your company’s website will show up in the search results for both local and non-local searches. After investing in local SEO, one Google search could potentially display results for multiple pages on your website, your company’s Google Places page, and several of your local business listings. Throw in a targeted PPC campaign and there is a good chance that your company will dominate the results for your most important keywords.

Reviews and Deals, they’re not just for brick and mortars. Several local directory sites, such as Google Places and Yelp, allow companies to promote deals and special offers at no charge. Deals and coupons can easily be added to a business profile to promote free trials and demos, product and service discounts, training and webinars, and more. In addition, most local business listings also allow customers to leave reviews about your business. Online reviews are now just as important to global and product-centric companies as they are to local storefronts. With the launch of Google Hotpot, Google is placing an even heavier emphasis on online reviews, yet again blurring the lines between local search and social media. Think of reviews as a way to boost your company’s online reputation and showcase its stellar customer service.

In this mobile world, you never know where your customers will be when they search for you online. So don’t just think global or local. Go glocal!

IT Insider polled 47 C-Level executives in technology companies throughout the Mid-Atlantic region to find out how to capture their attention in today’s information overload world. Here’s a recap of the findings and tips on how to get in front of these tough-to-reach prospects:

Get past the assistants: All of the C-level execs surveyed said that they rely heavily on their assistants to parse through the deluge of communication that comes their way. Consider sending two pieces of collateral — one targeted to the assistant and the other to the executive.

Do your homework: To standout with C-suite executives, you have to fully understand their roles, responsibilities and concerns. The C-level execs surveyed said this is where most people miss the mark. To get their attention, make sure you do your homework and understand their business enough to truly know if your product will fulfill their needs.

Be hyper personal: Generic mailings like postcards and letters result in a one-way ticket to the recycle bin when it comes to the C-suite. Use dimensional mailers — something that isn’t flat, like a box or tube — that are more eye-catching and hard to ignore.  Incorporate personalized URLs that drive them to a personal landing page.

Be a thought leader: CEOs surveyed say that they rely heavily on word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations via their network of other CEOs. Leveraging personalized and peer-to-peer marketing opportunities in combination is the most effective path to influencing the influential. Often, WOM is spurred by thought leadership — truly outstanding and provocative content packaged and distributed through direct channels, webinars, conference events, speaking engagements and so on.

It means that if you thought smartphones were going the way of the lava lamp — a loved, but short-lived accessory, it’s time to think again. Smartphones are here to stay and they are making a noticeable impact on web design & development, and thus, how you represent your brand online.

Today, wi-fi, tethering and increasingly ubiquitous high-speed mobile coverage make it possible for us to stay connected. Always. That means when Joe’s boss asks him to cut IT costs by 30% in Q2, you better believe he’s taking advantage of his 40-minute train ride to explore vendor websites, check-in with his twitter network and update his Facebook friends to let them know he’s under the gun — again — at the office.

So what does this all mean for marketers? At a minimum — and I do mean minimum — it means that Joe is expecting that your website is going to work on his Droid. So, how do you make sure it does?

Here are 3 simple tips to get going in mobile:

1.     Know your audience. What phones and platforms does your audience use most? Don’t forget to include tablets here — have you seen the feeds coming from CES 2011?!

2.     Test, test, test. Find out what phones and mobile browsers your potential customers are using and get them. Then test your site on them to determine what, if anything, needs to be fixed.

3.     Don’t beat yourself up. It’s ok if not all aspects of your site work in all mobile browsers. Like life, mobile is a journey, not a destination. Don’t be afraid to try things and don’t be afraid to ask for help!

2. Instant gratification. They dislike having to dig deep to find adequate information about technical specifications and system requirements. They want to know how things work!

3. Not enough proof. They want evidence that the technology works and that it’s better than what else is available. They like things like competitor charts with features and benefits. They also like white papers with hard data.

4. No demos. It annoys them to be required to fill out a form to request a demo and then be harassed by a sales person. They want to see a demo first and then decide if they want more information.

5. Too hard to see the benefits. Tell them straight up how the technology will make their life easier. Will it help them sleep better at night? Will it reduce their workload? They want to know what’s in it for them right upfront.

Emergence of new evangelists. Consumers value peer reviews, and social media provides a platform for this sort of communication. New experts are able to voice their opinions about products and services and let their prophecies be heard.

Newspapers are so yesterday. People no longer cut out deals and product news from the Sunday morning paper, they create “favorites” tabs on their internet browser. The internet is the new newspaper clipping. Consumers use these virtual clippings as ways to collect interesting and important information.

Hit the blogosphere. Blogs have become an important part of the average consumer’s everyday life. These portals of information feature the opinions of real people, and consumers feel like these peer-broadcasted opinions are genuine. With blogs, there is no hidden agenda, and this facilitates trusting relationships.

John Smith likes this. The notorious “Like” button on Facebook has certainly made its mark in the social media sphere and has enabled consumers to show their interest in certain products, services and ideas. This provides an outlet for peer-to-peer interaction and helps track trends.

We’ve done some digging and compiled a list of what we think most IT professionals are lusting for this holiday season.

Introducing: Seagate’s new and improved 3 TB external drive. Say goodbye to the 1 GB hard drive, it’s old news. Seagate has recently introduced a 3 TERAbyte (yes, TERA) external drive. This drive is the first of its kind and it is available for only $250…This is a definite 2011 Techie Must-Have.

‘Tis the season to get a tablet. Though tablets are still relatively new to the tech world, they are certainly making an impact. Tablets can be used as a compliment to the ubiquitous smartphone and many predict that it will become faster and able to store even more information.

Find those perfect shades of red and green. For the techie who has it all, the Pantone Capsure is the perfect gift. This color reader grabs hues from the desired color surface and matches them to one of the 8,000 Pantone library colors.

The pen of the future. Imagine storing up to 100 pages of documents inside your pen…That’s right, that thing you use to write down your to-do lists. This gadget also enables its holder to wirelessly send documents. Scan your information with one sweep across the page and voila, it is stored inside the Planon Docupen X50 and ready to be shared.

New Years Resolution: Get organized. The USB port, “Hubman,” is a great way to organize desktop gadgets. Hubman can plug in up to four USB’s at once and can help get rid of that tangled clump of wires behind your computer.

Flexible and affordable.

These are the top reasons why the cloud is so appealing. It allows users to pay for what they need, when they need it. It also enables them to mix and match the solutions they are seeking and leverage just the right amount. Businesses like the cloud because of unbeatable scalability and pricing.

Agile and secure.

These factors were next in line. Respondents believe that cloud-based solutions are extremely agile and enable them to accomplish their goals efficiently. They also believe that the technology has evolved to the level that it is extremely secure as long as you’re using a reputable provider.

What bandwidth issue?

IT people in our survey love that cloud computing lets enterprises use resources as if they are local. They’re able to use storage and runtime resources as if they exist within their data center, something that was difficult just a few years ago.

Coolness in the cloud.

Respondents think there are a lot of very cool cloud computing providers out there and more to come.

They see the downsides, sort of.

Like all things in life have two sides, the cloud also has its downsides. Availability was identified as the biggest concern from our respondents, over security concerns.

Share your thoughts on cloud computing.

Social media is one of the fastest evolving technologies on the web today. In fact, as I’m writing this, Facebook is getting ready to announce yet another Privacy Policy change. Keeping up with the changes and advancements on Facebook can be very time consuming; on top of the time it takes to develop a strategy for social media marketing, then there are the actual social interactions, and of course you still have to do your day-to-day work for your company. It’s enough to make your head spin! This is why so many businesses decide to turn to social media professionals for consulting and profile management.

But for the do-it-yourselfers, there are several resources out there that can help you keep up with the rapidly changing world of social media. First, start reading some popular industry blogs such as Mashable, The Facebook Blog, ValleyWag, and AdWeek. Some of these blogs don’t just cover social media topics so another time-saving tip is to subscribe to each blog’s RSS Feed in a news reader, like Google Reader, so you can quickly scan the latest posts from each blog and only read the articles that are of interest to you. You also save time by not having to visit each website or blog that you want to follow. If you are using Google Reader, you can take this one step further by setting up Google Alerts for keywords like “Facebook update”, “Facebook change”, “Facebook policy”, etc. to instantly receive access to all articles on the web that mention these phrases, without leaving your Google Reader. Another way to keep up on the latest Facebook and social media news is to follow these industry blogs and other social media professionals on Twitter. Think of Twitter as a modern-day news wire and use it to stay on top of what’s happening in social media.

We want to hear from you! How do you stay on top of the latest social media changes and strategies?

I started using Facebook a few months ago to promote my company. Just when I thought I had a grasp on how my Page worked, Facebook changed “Become A Fan” to “Like” and now I’m seeing a new Like button on other websites after I had already integrated the Fan Box and Share buttons on my website. Now I’m confused, what’s the difference between a Fan and a Like? Should I add this new Like button to my website too?

The recent Facebook Page change from Fan to Like really has no impact on how your Page works, how you grow your Page’s audience, or how you interact on your Page. However, this does tie-in to the other change you mentioned– the new Like button. Basically, Facebook wanted to create a universal action that users can execute in Facebook and on any website outside of Facebook. So now instead of someone becoming a Fan of your Page, they Like it, but after that everything else works the same (for now). Even after this change, Page owners are still referring to their audience as Fans because what else are you going to call them? Likers? I’m guessing that the transition to Like will take some time so for now don’t worry about addressing your audience as Fans in your promotions and communications.

I do recommend adding the new Like button to your website, but first you should understand the difference between this new button and the old Share button so you can determine if it makes since to add Like to your site. There are two main things that differentiate the Like and Share buttons– 1) What each action means on Facebook, and 2) How each action shows up in a users profile on Facebook.

Share is still an action that allows a user to automatically share information on their Facebook Wall. The shared information still includes a link to the original source, a brief description about the content, and usually a thumbnail image or video. However, with the introduction of the new Like button, the meaning of the Share action has changed slightly. Share used to imply that you liked whatever you were sharing or that you just thought it was interesting enough to share with your Friends (maybe because you strongly disliked the information or you just wanted to start a conversion about the content). But now if you read something on website that you like, you have the choice to Like it or Share it. The new Like button lets a user make it clear that they like the content they have found on a website while Share is still a somewhat ambiguous action. Although the new Like button action sends a stronger message about the users feelings about the content they are sharing, the Like action does not generate as much detail about the content on the users Wall. Unlike the Share action, the Like action appears as a message on the Wall that simply says “Joe Smith likes Keeping Up With Facebook on The Pomerantz Agency Blog” with a link to the original content but there is no description of the content or a preview image. So with the Like action it’s a stronger vote of opinion about the content but less information about the content appears on the user’s Wall. With the Share action, the user isn’t necessarily telling their Friends that they like, or dislike, the content but more information about the original content appears on Facebook.

We want to hear from you! Send your toughest marketing questions to thecoach@pomagency.com.