iContact Expands Capabilities of iContact Social Tools

By Icontact Corp., PRNE
Wednesday, July 20, 2011

LONDON, July 21, 2011 -


- Tracking and Other
Functionality Drive Email Marketing to Front Line of Social Media
Revolution

iContact Corp. ( href="www.icontact.com">www.icontact.com ), a
leading email marketing and social media marketing ( href="www.icontact.com/support/email-marketing-best-practices">
www.icontact.com/support/email-marketing-best-practices
) company, today announced the latest version of their powerful
Social Tools ( href="https://www.icontact.com/social-tools">https://www.icontact.com/social-tools
) solution. iContact Social Tools give small- and medium-sized
businesses a powerful and effective means to reach existing and new
customers through social media channels - including Facebook and
Twitter.

(Logo: href="photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110413/CL82281LOGO-b">photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110413/CL82281LOGO-b
)

“iContact empowers businesses to easily use social media
marketing, get actionable and relevant information and continually
improve their marketing campaigns for long-term business success,”
said Jeff Revoy, chief marketing and product officer at iContact.
“We strive to provide the right solutions so that small- and
medium-sized businesses can grow and succeed.”

“iContact’s solutions have always been so user-friendly, and its
Social Tools are no exception,” said Vanessa Keyser, theater
administrator, El Paso Playhouse. “We have promoted every email
sent this year with Social Tools, and it has helped increase our
publicity and broaden our patron base. Thank you iContact for
creating tools that help our business continue to grow.”

According to the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report ( href="www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2011">
www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2011
), social media is a primary tool for marketers, with 88 percent
surveyed viewing it as critical for increasing their exposure.
iContact Social Tools allows businesses to capitalize on this
opportunity by integrating emerging social media channels into any
email campaign. Continually monitoring and measuring performance
and impact helps identify the most effective channels.

iContact’s Hub for Social Media and
E-Mail Integration

The upgraded version of iContact Social Tools significantly
builds upon the foundation iContact established earlier this year,
when the company started blending email marketing and social media
marketing into a single conversation focused on small business
success.

While social media is focused on sharing content and engaging
customers in interactive discussions, email marketing helps convert
the results of those initial engagements and conversations into
targeted campaigns and long-term customers. Marketers must learn
the nuances of how to synch the two approaches to achieve a higher
ROI. They also need to outline objectives and goals, and have
quantitative tools on hand to gauge whether a campaign is yielding
the desired results.

Following are a few of the expanded features and functionality
for iContact Social Tools:

  • Social Tools Tracking -Users can insert, edit and
    track Like and Tweet buttons in every message, for recipients to
    easily share with their friends, colleagues or followers on
    Facebook or Twitter. This feature splits up the tracking of Likes
    and Tweets by source so marketers can see how the numbers break
    down across viewers coming in from Facebook posts, Twitter posts,
    direct email recipients and other third-party sources.
  • Facebook Like Buttons -Contacts can now “like” a
    vendor’s emails from their inboxes to further extend their
    reach.
  • Tweet Buttons -Users can add a tweet button and
    contacts can tweet from anywhere in the message.

Miami’s Beacon Hotel ( href="www.mybeaconhotel.com">www.mybeaconhotel.com
) has seen great success from using iContact Social Tools.
 Chris Regalado, revenue manager, and his team use Facebook to
encourage fans and previous guests to sign-up for its email list
and take advantage of promotions for future visits.

“It is easy to share information with ‘friends’ on Facebook; we
have found that people are more likely to click on a link if it
comes from a trusted source, so our customers can help us extend
our reach,” said Regalado. “We have found that incorporating social
media with email makes each approach more powerful, and helps us
expand our marketing efforts and grow our brand awareness.
iContact’s Social Media tools are very straightforward to use, we
can see great results in a short period of time.”

About iContact

iContact is a purpose-driven company based in Raleigh, NC,
working to make email marketing and social marketing easy so that
small and midsized companies and causes can grow and succeed.
Founded in 2003, iContact has more than 700,000 users of its
leading email marketing software. iContact also provides the event
marketing platform Ettend. As a B Corporation, iContact utilizes
the 4-1s Corporate Social Responsibility Model, donating 1% of
employee time to community volunteering, 1% of payroll, 1% of
equity, and 1% of product to its local and global community as part
of its social mission. iContact works hard to maintain a fun,
creative, energetic, challenging, and community-oriented company
culture. Visit us on online at iContact.com ( href="www.icontact.com">www.icontact.com ), on
Twitter @iContact ( href="twitter.com/iContact">twitter.com/iContact
), at iContact LinkedIn Group ( href="www.linkedin.com/company/29117?goback=.fcs_GLHD_iContact_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&trk=ncsrch_hits">
www.linkedin.com/company/29117?goback=.fcs_GLHD_iContact_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&trk=ncsrch_hits
) and on our Facebook Fan page ( href="www.facebook.com/iContact">www.facebook.com/iContact
).

For media inquiries, contact Davida Dinerman or Michael
McDonough
, Schwartz Communications, at +1-781-684-0770, or href="mailto:icontact@schwartzcomm.com">icontact@schwartzcomm.com.

.

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