I’m sure many of you will have conversations with your executive colleagues about how many Twitter followers you have, what your plans are to increase this number and how quickly you can make it happen. My response to similar questions both internally and externally is always ‘quality vs quantity’.

I can’t deny that to have a really large number of followers would be fantastic. Not only is it a great feeling that so many people want to connect with the company/brand, from a technical aspect it potentially increases your reach, influence and the opportunity to spread your message. My opinion, however, is that I would much rather have followers who are more engaged and interact with you, even if this is a lower number, than thousands of followers who appear to not be listening or connecting with you, or others, in any way. That’s what social media is about after all, isn’t it?

When these discussions arise I will always go to social influence measurement sites such as Klout and PeerIndex for back up. These sites do have their critics, but they work on the same principle. Three main sets of data are taken from your account(s) to determine your ‘score’:

1. The number of followers you have who are actively engaging with you.
2. The influence on others that your followers have themselves.
3. How often your tweets/messages are shared.

The result is a quality score from 1-100, based on your activity and the quality of your engagement, rather than solely on the number of followers you have.

This score is relative for B2C and B2B brands. For consumer brands, the goal is different, competing with global brands such as @CocaCola, who have a score of 73. To gain a score of 100 you basically need to be @justinbieber! Even @ladygaga, with her 23,248,699 followers ‘only’ has a steady score of 94. Large UK retail brands such as @marksandspencer have a score of 63, as a benchmark, and are considered a ‘broadcaster’, meaning their content is often shared and their large and diverse audience of followers value the content they are posting. @Topshop is considered a ‘pundit’ by Klout, meaning the brand creates news and is highly trusted, with a score of 69.

B2B brands have a different set of quality-related benchmarks. If you score above 40, you are considered as outperforming more than half of B2B accounts on Twitter. A score above 50 puts you amongst the top quarter of all B2B accounts and a score of 70 or above puts you in the top 10% of all B2B brands on Twitter. The Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga of the B2B world!

All Twitter accounts differ in style, purpose and audience, however I wanted to share the top tips I go by (and yes, actually have pinned up on my desk!), from the co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, which are relevant for both consumer and B2B users in their quest for some ‘Klout’:

Be Human
“People like to see the faces behinds the firms. Post behind-the-scenes photos to engage your followers.”

Get Talking
“Start a dialogue with people who mention your business. Retweet your customers; they will feel more special.”

Keep Friends Close
“People like seeing cross-pollination e.g a chef talking to another chef. It will attract people who are passionate about your sector.”

Get Inspiration From Others
“Tweet every day and see what works for peers in your area.”

Be Positive
“Turn negative reviews into opportunities. Reply with an @ response to publicly acknowledge that you are there to rectify things.”

The quality vs quantity debate will no doubt continue in this and all offices. At least it makes for interesting discussions! I’m going to stick to my guns (proudly displaying my ‘Klout Addict’ badge!) and maintain that a smaller audience of engaged followers, who are themselves influencers, is far more important than thousands of spurious followers who don’t really spare a thought for content you are sharing.

First we’re absolutely thrilled to announce that today, we have signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by the World’s leading analytic data solutions company Teradata.  Aprimo – the global leader on cloud-based integrated marketing software- was also acquired by Teradata in 2011, and the joining together of all three companies will result in the creation of the largest marketing applications provider in Europe. But it’s not only the size of the new combined Aprimo / eCircle unit which makes the difference – it’s the unique product vision we are building.

Thanks to the powerful combination of eCircle’s cloud-based digital messaging solution, Teradata’s analytical capabilities and Aprimo’s integrated marketing management, this is the first time that a single supplier has been able to empower you – as marketers – to create integrated, compelling customer experiences across online and offline channels that leverage Big Data to create a superior user experience across all digital channels – completing the value chain from data to delivery.

Big Data (or for some companies just even ‘Data’) has always been an issue and will become an even bigger issue in the future: It’s hidden deep within  the company; it’s too much effort to be processed; it costs too much to get it integrated across databases; it’s not possible to derive meaningful insights from it;  it can’t be utilised for (digital) marketing…the list goes on. If you agree that marketing will be data driven in the future this means that there is a major flaw in the equation.

But together with Teradata and Aprimo we’ll be able to take this flaw out of the equation because we’ll empower marketers to utilise ‘big data’ insights to deliver better marketing. Sounds too theoretical?  Well, think about  social interactions: A customer complains about his new tablet on twitter and automatically gets a message on his smartphone directing him to the nearest store to get it fixed. Or getting an email with the corresponding support instructions!

This is an extremely exciting time, not just for our three organisations but for the industry as a whole. We’re lucky to be in such a dynamic and fast-moving industry which is growing quickly, both here in the UK and across Europe and the USA.  Digital Marketing (encompassing email, social, mobile and web) is now an essential and invaluable focus for marketers and according to a Forrester report* is expected to grow from $34B to $76 Billion by 2016.

We’re delighted to be forming a new generation of digital marketing applications and are really looking forward to joining the Teradata and Aprimo teams whose combined skills, expertise and experience will help you and all our global customers stay ahead of the competition, taking Digital Marketing to the next level.

We’ll keep you posted on our joint roadmap in the coming weeks and months but in the meantime we’d like to thank you for your support and we look forward to delivering our newly enriched, visionary digital applications to help strengthen your digital strategy.

For further information, visit the press section of eCircle’s website.

Read Lisa Arthur’s (Chief Marketing Officer, Aprimo) blog post on the ‘Golden Braid’ of Teradata, Aprimo and eCircle here.

* Forrester report titles U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2011-2016, September 7, 2011.

The ASCII code that is used to create a copyright symbol is “&copy”. Previously, this rendered exactly the same as any other HTML copy, but a couple of weeks ago we identified that Hotmail are rolling out their Emoji emoticons, and they replace the symbol with an image of 19 pixels in height, and unfortunately will only appear in dark grey. At the moment, there doesn’t appear to be a code fix to override this.
 

There are other symbol which are being affected by this update including &reg ®, &trade ™.

The solution

There are a few ways to overcome this. You could use an image to replace the symbol/ASCII or use the word copyright or (c) instead of the symbols. There have been various attempts at forcing Hotmail to render the symbols naturally using CSS but we have not seen or found a consistent solution following this method, so we advise that you consider one of our proposed solutions above.

If you’d like to speak to me or one of our consultancy team members about your email design and find out a bit more about this rendering problem, don’t hesitate to get in contact.

All this simply meant was that we were hoping for some sort of Pavlovian response to our stimulus (be it an email, TV advert, or whatever) so that when buyers were at the shelf, they chose to buy our products or services not our competitors, took them away and either had a positive or negative experience. Simple.

However, the marketing rule book is changing.

Last year, Google undertook a huge piece of research with Shopper Sciences looking at the key drivers and influencers involved moving someone from finding a product to making a decision and buying it.

Jim Lecinski of Google used the results from this to describe a new moment that they discovered, before buyers even get to the shelf, which he called the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT), where the battle for sales is really fought. And his book ‘Winning the Zero Moment of Truth’ gives the guidance on how to succeed with this new mental model.

What is a Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) though?

• A busy mum waiting in her car to pick up her son, looking on her smart phone for the best deal on kids shoes

• Our office manager Sam, comparing coffee prices and green credentials before deciding who gets the annual beverage contract for the building

• It’s checking someone out online before agreeing to a blind date – or even a business meeting!

It’s a big book, which at times just feels like a call to arms to spend more on search and display, but for me, two of the most important points were:

• Buyers go through 10.4 touch points on average before making a decision*

• 84% of shoppers said that ZMOT shapes their decisions*

What this means is that, like the examples above, rather than simply seeing an advert, going to a shop and buying a product, consumers instead now get online and start searching, using the sign posts left by other buyers to help make their decisions, which are found in blogs, review sites, videos, social media, through email, chat and instant messaging, online community sites… the list is almost endless! And these conversations are taking place 24hrs a day, and archived forever!

What has this got to do with email though? Email is still one of the most important stimulus with 76% of consumers citing it as key influencer in buying decisions*, but if consumers are now not simply just clicking through and making a purchase, how do you make sure that you are winning at the Zero Moment of Truth when they start information gathering?

Do this experiment first:

1. Go to Google or your preferred search engine and type in your company’s flagship product, or any other product you like

2. You should see the official brand site at or near the top

3. Then add the word ‘reviews’.

4. Then try a new search and try putting the word “best” with your product category i.e. best hotel, best pet insurance, best email marketing software.

According to Google, and in my own personal experience as a consumer, this is the information that shoppers are now using to make their decisions. You have to ask yourself are you happy with what they will see? Based on this are they likely to want to buy your products? Can they even find them?!

Importantly, in his book Jim Lecinski identifies some quick ways for winning at the ZMOT:

1. Put someone in charge – if you don’t nothing will get done.

2. Find your Zero Moments – what are these for your product, category and brand? They will be different for every vertical. If you sold ferrets for example, the popular searches would be:

a. Ferrets for sale

b. Ferrets as pets

c. Ferrets for sale UK

You will start to see where the ZMOT’s are for your products. Also make sure you use free tools like Google’s Keyword Tool which can tell you more about related terms and their popularity.

3. Listen to what people are saying and respond: using the ferret example (don’t ask why I chose ferrets they just seemed appropriate at the time) if some of the popular searches above are queries about them as pets, don’t immediately serve “10% discount off your next ferret”.  Answer the question first! Get them to your site, explain why they make such good pets, then offer them a discount.

To find out what questions consumers are asking right now, there are a couple of free tools:

a. Google Trends – tells you what searches are hot right now.

b. Insights for Search – detailed information about searches specifically related to your business.

4. Optimise for ZMOT: create something that responds to peoples questions; find out what the number one question is and create content that fits i.e. a blog called “ferrets as pets” will have immediate impact.

5. Finally, be fast: winning at the ZMOT is not going to happen by planning in advance, you need the person in charge to be able to respond to trending searches, current affairs, user generated content, virtually instantaneously.

Recently I presented a session on the ZMOT at ConnectEurope2012 which went down really well.  If you would like to learn more about this then you can find my presentation online here.  If you would like to view other ConnectEurope2012 presentations then visit the event website gallery page by clicking here. 

So although email is still one of the most important stimulus to hook a consumer in, you need to think about your Zero Moments of Truth to make sure they don’t wriggle off again!

 *Source: Google/ Shopper Sciences, Zero Moment of Truth Macro Study, U.S., April 2011

The shortlisted organisations are considered to be the most innovative and promising companies from a pool of hundreds from across Europe. The Finalists are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, IP creation, CAGR, execution of strategy, and disruption in their respective industries.

The process involved the screening of countless organisations from across the continent so to have been included in the shortlist (which can be found here) is an honour and a privilege. 

Following the final selection stages which take place in Amsterdam on 24th and 25th April, the winners will be announced.  Until then, we’ll be keeping everything crossed for a successful outcome then.  Watch this space!

If you haven’t heard of Google Easter eggs before, a Google spokesperson described them as ‘simply little fun surprises to be discovered by our users to make their Google experiences even more fun and put a smile on their face’. So, if you’re looking for a bit of down time on this ‘virtual Friday’…look no further!

Warning: The term fun is used subjectively here by an online marketing geek!

Google Doodle’s are an obvious example of the company’s sense of humour, however they have cleverly designed some ‘hidden’ treats for the more tech savvy users. (these features don’t work in IE, only Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers)

Do a barrel roll:

The gamers out there will recognise this first feature, if you type ‘do a barrel roll’ into the Google search bar the page will flip 360 degrees! Absolutely pointless…but addictive when you’ve been sat in front of a computer all day and you fancy a bit of distraction.

Askew:

If you type ‘askew’ or ‘tilt’ in to the Google search bar, the screen will slightly tilt.

Sphere:

Have a look at what happens when you type in a search – pictures and words will fly around the screen, which can be controlled with the cursor.

Gravity:

This feature makes your Google searches crash to the floor and stack up as you go.
There are lots more Google Easter Eggs to be found. When Google were asked why they produced these features, a spokesperson said ‘I don’t think it’s important but it’s always good to have a sense of humour’. If you’re trying a few of these out at your desk…make sure your boss has one too!

Happy Easter!

Ever since Facebook launched its News Feed feature back in 2006, it has seen a whole range of emotions with each update since… First confusion, then anger, and then finally acceptance.  And Facebook Timeline is no exception. But folks, it’s here to stay, so let’s see what it means for us (as businesses) and embrace them!

What are the main changes and what do they mean?

As far as I can see there are a number of changes to Facebook in addition to the cover photo and the ‘Timeline’ on the right hand side that are worth noting for businesses and although this list isn’t (by any stretches) exhaustive, I’ve chosen my top 3:

1) Increased customer service via Facebook expectation 

Fans are now able to send a direct, private message to a brand (the option to do this is now prominently placed on the right hand side next to the ‘like’ button under the cover photo) which means this raises the expectation of the customer for a real-time response.  Brand’s need to embrace this or be left behind by their competitors.  More and more customers are expecting quick responses to enquiries, complaints or requests for information via social media channels so brand’s need to adopt a strategy to ensure these are dealt with swiftly and efficiently.

2) Facebook apps are now much more easily accessed

I used to find it frustrating to try and find apps, events etc from the original left hand menu panel.  With the new ‘Timeline’ format, apps are found directly under the cover photo and are really easy to navigate.  It also allows for greater branding opportunities as they can now have an image of their own, and can be ordered easily by page admins to make sense for each individual brand. I think the new format for apps is much more appealing and will ultimately lead to more brand engagement thanks to their new prominence, look and feel. 

3) Insights and statistics are now real-time

Previously statistics would take a couple of days to appear, but now you will be able to see statistics about your brand within minutes.  Ultimately this will mean that marketers or social media managers will be able to develop a sense of what works and what doesn’t with their ‘fans’ in real-time.  Another important change is that a lot more statistical information is now available to non-admins.  Through the ‘Likes’ box on brand pages, non-admins can see a 1-month graph of ‘People talking about’ and ‘new likes per week’ as well as some basic demographic information.  Whilst your first reaction to this might be fear that your fans will be able to see what’s working for your brand and what isn’t (although how many ‘fans’ would actually bother looking into this!), it does mean you’ll be able to have greater insight into your competitors pages, and let’s face it, who doesn’t like taking a sneaky peak into what the ‘opposition’ are up to?!

Some nice examples of Facebook Timeline for Businesses:

Thanks to this post from We are Social, I had a really great insight into how Facebook Timeline for Businesses could work really well.  Take a look at Bulmers’ Facebook page.  It’s quite frankly superb.  I love the way that the Cover photo integrates into the profile photo beautifully. 
 
They’ve accessed a huge archive of images from the Hereford Cider Museum which documents the brand’s 125 year history.  So if you scroll through the timeline, there is a series of beautiful images and descriptions from the 1800s to present day.  What better example of the way the Timeline can be used to its full potential?
 

British Airways is an example of a brand who has also embraced the new Timeline with a really nice history of aviation and the airline.

  
What next?

According to Econsultancy despite the fact that Timeline for Businesses didn’t officially go live until Saturday 31st March, by Friday 30th over 8million businesses had already adopted the new format proving that savvy businesses were embracing the changes and all that they offer for their brands. 

In my view, I see the changes as being really positive for brands.  It gives them greater opportunity to really make their brand stand out from the crowd and allows them to post historic photos or other descriptions that demonstrate changes to the brand over a number of years. 

Facebook’s primary benefit for businesses is the ability to engage with customers and create an online dialogue with them, and with the new format’s emphasis on images and greater transparency, this will mean increased engagement.  Surely this can only be a good thing?

Here at eCircle we’ve been around a long time in digital terms but compared to other brands we’re just toddlers, however we still had lots of fun looking at our 13 year history to choose nice bits of information and photos illustrating our growth during this time.  Take a look, give us a ‘like’ and let us know what you think!

Over 500 digital marketers came together to help make this event our biggest ever – and make it one of the biggest Digital Marketing conferences in Europe.  

Delegates arriving

Delegates arrived and were given their delegate bags – and some of our delegates were in for a treat! Thanks to some of our amazing clients, we were able to pop a ‘surprise’ into over 50% of the delegate bags.  Treats in our ‘delegate bag lottery’ included gifts from The FA, Lipsy, Lyle and Scott, Cineword and GLTC, not to mention prizes given away during the event c/o Three, Webtrends, Return Path, Salecycle, comScore and Bazaarvoice.  A huge thank you to you all!

Before the event kicked off

Hosted by eCircle’s Partnership Manager Chris Sheen (who did a GREAT job I must say!), the event kicked off with a presentation from our CEO Volker Wiewer, who revealed information about our visionary Cloud infrastructure.  His German humour produced a few laughs from the audience and he started the event with a bang.  Simon Bowker, our UK MD then came onto the stage and elaborated on how our Cloud is revolutionising the email marketing allowing more advanced messaging than ever.  We were delighted to hear some really positive responses to our story throughout the day. 
  

eCircle CEO Volker Wiewer kicking off the event                                         UK MD Simon Bowker discussing eCircle’s cloud

And then came our first external keynote and the one a lot of people were waiting for.  Richard Reed, co-founder of the smoothie brand Innocent took to the stage.  And what an inspiring talk!  I was a little in awe when I met him to take him to the Green Room and set up his presentation, he’s just unbelievably laid back for one so successful.  And his presentation didn’t disappoint.  His candid presentation revealed so much about how he built up the brand from nothing to a multi-million pound global business and he was so open and honest about the journey (the presentation was entitled ‘Smart Calls and Screw Ups’ so we kind of knew it would be a warts and all session) and our Twitter feed went crazy with people raving about his talk. 

   
Richard Reed, Co-Founder of Innocent… Totally inspiring session, thank you Richard!

Some of the tweets from the opening keynotes included:

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Then came our first coffee break where delegates got the opportunity to meet our fabulous Gold Sponsors (comScore, Return Path, Bazaarvoice and Salecycle).  We decided to really ‘go digital’ this year and instead of traditional stands or booths, we had an animated projection of their logos above their stand with a plasma screen for each sponsor to provide additional information.  It looked great and seemed to go down with everyone too.  And in the Platinum Bar, delegates were able to meet with both eCircle and our Platinum Sponsors Webtrends who had their logo projected onto the walls of the hotel’s Atrium like a piece of Digital artwork.

Refreshment and networking time…

After the coffee break, we offered delegates the chance to go into one of 4 breakout sessions. 

INSPIRE BREAKOUT

In the Inspire Theatre hosted by eCircle’s Head of Sales, Tom Bailey, the breakouts kicked off with Emma Barnett, Digital Media Editor of The Daily Telegraph who discussed the monetising of Social Media.  She went down incredibly well and didn’t even need a presentation to back up her talk.  A true pro!  Next up was the brilliant Matt Cox from Salecycle who discussed the Importance of Shopping Cart Recovery and customer engagement – a very popular session.  Then came Christopher Lukezic fresh from landing in the UK having flown from the States that day, there’s dedication to the cause!  Even with losing his voice, he presented an inspiring session on the Airbnb story and we received some glowing tweets subsequently (and lots of people raved about his red trainers!).  And last but not least in the Inspire theatre was Ol Janus, MD of agency EHS 4D Discovery who talked about how to make a good campaign great!  I think everyone who attended this stream would agree that the sessions were all worthy of the ‘Inspire’ tag!

INNOVATE BREAKOUT

Next door was the ‘Innovate’ theatre, hosted by eCircle’s Head of Key Account Management Adam Dougall.  First up was eCircle’s very own Phillip Storey who was presenting his favourite email marketing innovations.  A seasoned speaker on the email marketing circuit, Phillip session as usual was very well attended – and he kept up his (now common!) tradition of people tweeting about his hairstyle as well as his ideas! Following Phillip was Andy Smith from The Football Association and Adam Bennington, the FA’s Key Account Manager at eCircle.  A fascinating case study into profiling and recipient insight which was rated highly and given a big thumbs up via the Interact App ratings section.  Next up was our partner Bazaarvoice.  Håkan Thyr has spoken at several eCircle events prior to ConnectEurope2012 and never fails to disappoint so we were delighted to see his session was as popular as ever.  And finally Holly Mander, eCircle’s Head of Professional Services and Saj Bhojani from eCircle client Dunelm Mill (and who presented in his previous role at Halfords at ConnectEurope2011) took to the platform to discuss the Rise of Mobile and Marketing on the Move.  Some really useful advice came out of the session on the importance of optimising your marketing for mobile devices.

INFLUENCE BREAKOUT

Upstairs were the other two break out rooms.  Firstly the ‘Influence’ theatre, hosted by our Media Partnerships Manager Tom Dean.  First up was eCircle’s own Tim Penton who was discussing the ‘Zero Moment of Truth’.  His presentation was really inspiring and very visual and people came away enthusing on what they had heard.  Next up was email guru Tamara Gielen.  Many of our European delegates had come over specifically to see Tamara’s session on 7 reasons why subscribers don’t respond to email campaigns and her session was standing room only with people crowding out of the door.  What better sign of a popular session?!  Then came our favourite lawyer.  Another regular on the eCircle conference stage, we invite Stephen Groom from Osborne Clarke back to our events year on year as he has the unique ability of making Email and Social Media Marketing law both interesting and fun which is no mean feat! And finally ending this stream in style was an insight into the amazing work Center Parcs is doing with eCircle using our Cloud technology to really improve targeting.  Jeremy Colston from Center Parcs and his Key Account Manager at eCircle Larah Van Niekerk made a great double act sharing their success story with the ‘Influence’ delegates.

INTEGRATE BREAKOUT

And last – but by no means least – was the ‘Integrate’ stream, hosted by our Business Development Director Dan McKinnon.  Sadly due to fog and dire weather conditions in The Netherlands, our Dutch delegates and speakers didn’t make it to ConnectEurope2012 so Guido Fambach of comScore was unable to present.  However we were delighted to to offer our delegates an invitation to a webinar where he presented his session online instead.  We hear it was a great success!  Next up was another eagerly anticipated session from Jim Coleman, Founding Partner of We are Social who brought a fabulous social media case study on Heinz soups.  With Social Media so high up on the digital agenda the session was very well received and very well attended!  Next up was Dr Dave Chaffey.  Like Tamara Gielen in the Influence stream, his session was standing room only with many of our European delegates specifically flying over to hear what he had to say – proof that email marketing is bigger than ever!  One delegate was overheard saying ‘I used to study his work when I was doing my Masters so I can’t believe I’m finally seeing him speak’!  And finally the ever-charismatic Christian Howes, data geek and TV social media pundit took to the stage.  And his session was so popular we ran it twice!

After some spectacular food (thank you The Grange chefs, you outdid yourselves as always!) at lunch there was further opportunity to network with our sponsors and meet our staff.    

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Lunchtime!

And then came the afternoon keynote session where all the delegates were joined together once more.  Kicking off the afternoon with the graveyard slot was Conrad Bennett from eCircle’s Platinum partner Webtrends.  Having seen him speak at Webtrend’s own ‘Engage’ event I knew he was the best man to take the post-lunch slot as his session on ‘The end of the cookie’ would provide some invaluable and fascinating information for our delegates.  And he didn’t disappoint.  In fact of all the sessions, Conrad’s Q&A afterwards received the most questions of any.  Next up was the eagerly anticipated Mike Butcher, Editor of Tech Crunch Europe.  Described by one of the delegates as a ‘John Lennon lookalike from the Hamburg era’, Mike took to the stage discussing European tech startups and his session went down really well with some really positive tweets appearing on our live Twitter feed. 
 
 

Cookie monster Conrad Bennet from Webtrends                                       Tech Crunch’s Mike Butcher

And then came the true star of the day, Sir Ranulph Fiennes.  I had the absolute privilege of looking after him through the day and he was a true gentleman and what an inspiration?  His story blew everyone away, and through is 1 hour and 15 minutes presentation, you could have heard a pin drop, everyone was literally gripped.  And I think it’s fair to say that everyone came away with a new hero!  He then spent over 2 hours signing his books and having his photo taken with delegates (and staff!) – and all with a smile.  What a guy!

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The legend that is Sir Ranulph Fiennes, OBE

Finally we were honoured to have Cyber-Illusionist Marco Tempest as our guest.  Having spotted him on TED, we just had to have him and we were lucky enough to welcome him to our event on his way from Europe back to the USA.  His ‘stickman’ demonstration and his iPhone trickery was mind-blowing and left everyone really in the mood to kick the evening off with eCircle’s Incognito masked after-party!

Here are our favourite tweets from the afternoon keynotes:

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The Incognito after party went off with a massive bang and we partied late into the night.  With a live band, a yummy chocolate fountain, a tarot-card reader c/o Webtrends, a photobooth (c/o Salecycle), a caricaturists (c/o Bazaarvoice) and some great tunes thanks to our DJ Lizzie Curious, it was a perfect ending to a brilliant day!
   

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Party-goers in the photobooth                                                                          Getting into the masked ball theme

Drinking the Intoxicate Bar dry!                                                                         Our fabulous band

Here’s a selection of our other favourite tweets of the day:

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I hope those of you who attended had as much fun as we did.  All available presentations, photos, videos and the event highlights can be found here.  Enjoy!  And see you at ConnectEurope2013! 

Watch the highlights video here.

• Sir Ranulph Fiennes, OBE – Keynote Address
• Richard Reed: Innocent – Smart Calls and Screw Ups: The Innocent Story
• Marco Tempest – Augmented Reality Illusionist
• Mike Butcher: TechCrunch Europe – Silicon Valley Europe: The Who’s Who of European Tech Startups
• Emma Barnett: The Daily Telegraph – Social Networks: Free to Join but Difficult to Monetise?
• Stephen Groom: Osbourne Clarke – Social Media Marketing: Learning the Lessons from Recent Legal Disasters
• Christopher Lukezic: Airbnb – Building a Community, Not a Brand; The Airbnb Story
• Jim Coleman: We Are Social – Social Media and FMCG brands: Case Study of Heinz “Get Well” Soup
• eCircle clients: The FA, Dunelm Mill, Center Parcs
• Partner presentations: Webtrends, comScore, Bazaarvoice, SaleCycle

To see the full agenda click here.

We’ll also be holding a eC-messenger drop-in centre for all your eC-messenger related enquiries!  Our experts will be on hand all day to show you a demonstration or answer any questions you may have about eCircle’s award-winning email broadcast tool.

Registration starts from 8am, however if you can’t make the start, registration will be open all day.  Teas and coffees will be provided throughout the day and as well as a fabulous 5-star lunch. 

At the end of the conference we hope everyone can stay for a drink or two which will be followed by our Incognito Party (see our Facebook page for a teaser) and, of course, another 5-star supper will be provided. 

Click here to book now.

Click here to find out more about the event, including the Incognito after party.

If you have any questions about the event, please email us at info-uk@ecircle.com and we’ll try to get back to you asap.  If you would like to stay up to date with the latest event news, simply ‘like’ us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter (@eCircleUK) using the hashtag #eceuro12.

We’re really excited about seeing you on Thursday!  LOVE seeing all that hard work and planning come together.  See you there?

What is it?

DMARC, which stands for “Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance”, is a technical specification created by a group of organisations that want to help reduce the potential for email-based abuse by solving a couple of long-standing operational, deployment, and reporting issues, related to email authentication.

Last week, a group of some of the largest email service providers (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL), together with organisations like Facebook and Paypal, jointly announced the release of a new method of email authentication. The new standard, called DMARC, is a way for email senders and receivers to better work together to increase email security, by protecting email recipients from malicious phishing attacks and domain spoofing.

DMARC Overview:

Email authentication technologies SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) were developed over a decade ago in order to provide greater assurance on the identity of the sender of a message. Adoption of these technologies has steadily increased but fraudulent and deceptive emails still seem to make it through. If legitimate senders used these technologies, then email receivers would easily be able to differentiate the fraudulent messages from the authenticated ones. Unfortunately, it has not worked out that way for a number of reasons.

• Many senders have many systems sending emails. Ensuring that every message can be authenticated using SPF or DKIM is a complex task.
• Spam algorithms are error prone and need to constantly evolve to respond to the changing tactics of spammers. The result is that some fraudulent messages will inevitably make their way to the end user’s inbox.
• Unless messages bounce back to the sender, there is no way to determine how many legitimate messages are being sent that can’t be authenticated. This makes troubleshooting mail authentication issues very hard, particularly in complex mail environments.
• Even if a sender has buttoned down their mail authentication infrastructure and all of their legitimate messages can be authenticated, email receivers are wary to reject unauthenticated messages because they cannot be sure that there is not some stream of legitimate messages that are going unsigned.

The only way these problems can be addressed is when senders and receivers share information with each other. Receivers supply senders with information about their mail authentication infrastructure while senders tell receivers what to do when a message is received that does not authenticate. The goal of DMARC is to build on this system of senders and receivers collaborating to improve mail authentication practices of senders and enable receivers to reject unauthenticated messages.

Phishing emails are a technique used by illegitimate senders to deceive you into revealing personal and sensitive information like passwords and account details. This is done by masking the FROM address so it seems legitimate to you but actually it was sent by these illegitimate spammers.

How does it work?

Essentially, email senders can now publish a DMARC record that indicates (1) which authentication tests they have in place (i.e. DKIM, SPF) and (2) what action the email service provider should undertake when an incoming email fails these tests (i.e. spam folder or outright rejection). This provides the mailbox provider with greater certainty about the origin and identity of messages, thus taking the guesswork out of filtering incoming email. The mailbox provider sends a report back to the email sender containing information about all incoming emails claiming to be from that sender, and whether or not they were actually delivered to recipients.

This process is highlighted in the workflow diagram below:

 
Detailed DMRC Specifications: http://www.dmarc.org/draft-dmarc-base-00-01.html

Who Can Use DMARC?

DMARC policies are published in the public Domain Name System (DNS), and available to everyone. It is the goal of DMARC.org to submit the draft specification to the IETF so that it may begin the process of becoming an official Internet Standard RFC – available to everyone for reference, implementation, and improvement.

What are the implications for email marketers?

There are no immediate consequences for senders who do not yet have a DMARC record in place. However, given the size and importance of the players involved in the development of this standard (Gmail, Facebook), its consequences on the email industry are likely to be of growing importance.

The new standard provides many clear benefits, where data security is a high priority, such as the Finance sector. However, in effect any company can benefit from publishing a DMARC record, if for no other reason than to receive the DMARC reports, which provide visibility and information about a domain’s email and any potential authentication issues.

How Senders Deploy DMARC in 5 Steps:

DMARC has been designed based on real-world experience by some of the world’s largest email senders and receivers deploying SPF and DKIM. The specification takes into account the fact that it is nearly impossible for an organisation to flip a switch to production. There are a number of built-in methods for “throttling” the DMARC processing so that all parties can ease into full deployment over time.

1. Deploy DKIM & SPF on your sending domain. You have to cover the basics first.
2. Ensure that you are sending from authorised sending domain identifiers.
3. Publish a DMARC record with the “monitor” flag set for the policies, asking for data reports (this will be done by the eCircle deliverability team).
4. Analyse statistical data from your sendouts and modify your mail streams as appropriate (recency segmentation activity based system).
5. Modify your DMARC policy flags from “monitor” to “quarantine” to “reject” as you gain experience (this will be done by the eCircle deliverability as you reputation matures).

Further Questions?

If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to get in contact. Our Deliverability Team are always on hand and happy to help.