Relationship Marketing articles

STRATEGIES ranked as a Leading Global B2B Company
Mark Morin

STRATEGIES ranked as a Leading Global B2B Company

At STRATEGIES, we bring brands and people together. Our clients, leading national and international brands, rely on our services to build stronger customer relationships through CRM, email marketing and marketing automation. So when they tell us we’re doing a great job, we’re thrilled. But when they take the time to tell the world how much they appreciate our hard work and dedication, well we’re simply over the moon! So imagine our delight when our five star customer reviews lead to something even bigger!

Every year, Clutch releases their Leader Awards. We are thrilled to announce that Clutch has named STRATEGIES a global B2B leader in the advertising and marketing category. Our team is among the best on Clutch, ranking 2nd of all email marketing agencies in the world!

We are also the only email agency classified as a Market Leader in Canada according to Clutch! Located in the center of Washington, DC, Clutch is a B2B market research firm. Their independent team interviews the past customers of B2B service providers listed on their site.

These verified reviews ensure that all of Clutch’s rankings and awards are fair and transparent.

“We are particularly thrilled with this award since it is strongly based on client satisfaction. It’s the culmination of 31 years of dedication and hard work. Of course, this award would not be possible without the trust of our amazing clients who allow us to do deploy innovative and sometimes daring programs that deliver huge impact and build stronger customer relationships.” – Mark Morin,

Clutch also has a sister site, the Manifest! The Manifest is a B2B resource and how-to site that features company shortlists according to location and service line. STRATEGIES is a leading email marketing agency on the Manifest!

We are thankful for each and every one of our wonderful clients, especially those who took the time to leave us a review on Clutch! Hear what they had to say about working with us.

“They’re friendly, competent, and transparent. If something isn’t working, they tell us about it, and they want to see us succeed. STRATEGIES works with us as though we are part of the same company. The team is also very involved in our business growth.”

– Digital Marketing Manager,
Insurance Company

This award and our perfect 5-star rating on Clutch are all thanks to you, our wonderful customers!

To learn more about us and our past work, check out our profile on Clutch. Ready to start your
next project? Contact us.

Email benchmarking tool – are you an email superhero?
Mark Morin

Email benchmarking tool – are you an email superhero?

Why you should give our email benchmarking tool a try?

You don’t realize how great you really are unless you compare with what others are doing. It’s time to come out of the shadows and claim your share of the recognition you deserve. It’s time to measure how well you’re doing. To figure out how to take your email program to the next level. How does your program measure up? What parts are great, and what parts are simply Meh? Beyond opens and clicks, what do you need to look at to measure your email program performance? That’s precisely why we created this simple, and we hope fun, email benchmarking tool. Use it to evaluate your email superpowers and set yourself on the path to glory.

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Five strategies for a healthy marketing database
Mark Morin

Five strategies for a healthy marketing database

If you want a healthy marketing database, don’t be shy

A healthy marketing database requires constant upkeep, or it will degrade fast. The causes of this degradation are many: Customers become inactive. Implied consents expire. People unsubscribe. As a result, your relationship marketing program falters, no longer delivering the sales growth needed to ensure the continued prosperity of the company.

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Marketing ROI – How to accurately evaluate campaign performance
Mark Morin

Marketing ROI – How to accurately evaluate campaign performance

Accountability and marketing ROI go hand in hand

Marketing ROI is becoming the number one metric for evaluating campaign success. And for good reason: Marketing spend is increasingly under pressure for greater accountability.

For this reason, campaign profitability analysis is essential. So is the need for optimization. ROI is often equated with profitability and traditionally stands for “Return on Investment”.

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A/B Testing – How to implement a winning strategy
Mark Morin

A/B Testing – How to implement a winning strategy

Yes, we can learn to love statistics and A/B testing

I am a big fan of optimization and A/B testing. But that was not always the case. When I was studying for my MBA at HEC in the 1980s, the most challenging courses I enrolled in was Statistics and Probabilities. This course, loaded with obscure equations, was meaningless gibberish to me. And I couldn’t see how it could be useful in real life except maybe for surveys.

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Marketing technology: The challenge of omni-channel orchestration
Mark Morin

Marketing technology: The challenge of omni-channel orchestration

The proliferation of marketing technology poses a major challenge

Not so long ago, the ecosystem of marketing technology – commonly known as “martech” – represented a range of a few hundred applications. Today, according to ChiefMartech.com, there are 6,829 marketing platforms. And this figure is probably underestimated since WordPress alone, for example, is surrounded by a universe of 54,000 plug-ins!

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The fundamentals of marketing automation effectiveness
Mark Morin

The fundamentals of marketing automation effectiveness

Customer-centricity is the key

Why should we learn to master marketing automation fundamentals when we have so many other priorities? The answer is simple: in recent years, marketers have embarked on an epic quest for customer-centricity and one-on-one customer relationships. This quest has led to the development of large-scale marketing automation platforms.

These martech tools make it possible to trigger on-going campaigns according to the customers’ behavior. They also help marketers better understand where customers fall in their brand adoption journey.

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B2Me Marketing: What’s it all about
Mark Morin

B2Me Marketing: What’s it all about

B2Me Marketing – helping people make better choices and get more enjoyment from whatever they buy.

As consumers, we are constantly faced with the challenges of too many choices and too much information broadcast across a cluttered and fragmented media landscape. Any attempt to guide people through their customer journey is totally useless if we can’t deliver the right message at the right time.

This short video explains how personalization can play en important role by increasing the relevance of your marketing messages. Personalization helps your customers make the informed choices that are best for them. In doing so, they will get more enjoyment out of everything they buy from you.

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Flèche d’or 2019 award nominees – our three campaigns
Mark Morin

Flèche d’or 2019 award nominees – our three campaigns

Each year, the Quebec Marketing Association (formerly the AMR) holds a competition to select the top marketing campaigns created by prominent brands and their agencies. Year after year, Strategies does quite well in the standings. Last year, we were awarded Best omnichannel marketing campaign. The year before, we were honoured as the Agency of the year.

This year, we have three campaigns nominated for an award (out of three submissions) for three of our clients. Check out the videos below to learn more about the nominees.

OSM – 2019-20 SEASON LAUNCH

In order to highlight Kent Nagano’s last season as artistic director, the OSM commissioned Strategies to design an email campaign to launch programming for the upcoming season and begin the season ticket renewal process.

This campaign was highly personalized according to the various client segments. It integrates many interactive content elements, including musical excerpts from featured concerts from the upcoming season that can be listened to directly in the email. The engagement rates for this campaign are truly exceptional, which probably explains part of the nomination of the campaign.

RENAULT CANADA / EUROP AUTO – DISCOVER AUTHENTIC EUROPE

Renault Canada and Europ Auto turned to Strategies to help it better convey the value of “short-term lease” car rental format and in the process help to boost sales. Our agency redesigned  the brand experience and implemented a relationship marketing strategy centered on the freedom and rich travel experiences that a only a car can provide.

The “Discover Authentic Europe”, program showcases destinations that are off the beaten path throughout Europe. Including a welcome series, a renewed e-mail template, destination campaigns and conversational programs geared towards the joys of traveling, this program resulted in higher engagement, increased website traffic and a significant sales increase for Europ Auto.

 

LEVENSWATER SPRING – INFLUENCE CAMPAIGN

Levenswater produces a range of small batch craft gins in the Niagara Valley, including Levenswater Spring 34. This unique gin recently won the Best Compound Gin Award at the World Gin Awards. When it secured its first order from the SAQ, Levenswater needed to create awareness for its product in Quebec and quickly sell out inventories in order to stimulate a new order from the corporation. Levenswater turned to Strategies to set up an Influencer Marketing program to reach out to the mixologist community and gin-lovers in Quebec.

Working closely with a group of influencers, online publications and mixologists, we deployed an outreach strategy that generated over 600,000 earned impressions over an eight-week period. Tasting events were held in Montreal’s Frank & Oak stores and recipes were developed and distributed in partnership with several popular bars including the Alt+ hotel’s Les Cousins bar.

THANK YOU TO THE JURY FOR THIS RECOGNITION

These nominations in such a prestigious awards competition is already a great victory for us. We sincerely thank the Jury of the Flèche d’or competition, under the chairmanship of Mélanie Roth, Senior Director, Strategy and Marketing Execution, National Bank for having recognized the quality of our work. Will we be the winners of one or more awards? This is what we will soon find out at the 2019 Awards Gala on June 11, 2019 at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit the Association Marketing Québec website.

 

Apology emails: How to turn an Oops! into an opportunity
Mark Morin

Apology emails: How to turn an Oops! into an opportunity

Despite all your best efforts to avoid them, sometimes errors slit through your carefully-planned safety net. Maybe it’s “just” a typo. Or a small design flaw. In which case, you simply make a mental note to pay more attention in the future and move on to the next project. But when it’s a more serious issue, like a broken link, the wrong price, or an email sent to the wrong audience, you only have one option: send an apology email or “oops!” email to your customers.

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