SIGMA Marketing Group, the customer intelligence-driven, direct and digital marketing services firm, has enhanced its industry-leading solutions by partnering with global interactive marketing provider ExactTarget. SIGMA becomes a reseller partner of ExactTarget, further expanding its integrated suite of solutions.

In a year marked by steady growth, SIGMA has taken another step to build value for clients by adding this best-in-class service, and will provide the marketing insights and guidance to help maximize the benefits of ExactTarget’s marketing technology.

“As we build our clients’ relationships ith their customers across all channels, ExactTarget stands out as a great partner to profitably focus messages to the right prospects at the right time and in the right place,” said Martha Bush, senior vice president of strategy & marketing at SIGMA. “Customer intelligence has to be incorporated into every aspect of your messaging and ExactTarget will help us deliver those messages on the customer’s terms.”

“SIGMA Marketing Group has grown its business by helping clients improve their existing email marketing programs to save time, increase efficiency and boost ROI,” said Jim Kreller, vice president of channel partners at ExactTarget. “As one of our newest reseller partners around the globe, we look forward to working with SIGMA Marketing Group to introduce more clients to the power of ExactTarget.”

About SIGMA Marketing Group

SIGMA Marketing helps clients like Xerox, Nationwide, AAA and Citizens Bank engage with their customers through Analytics + Strategy + Technology. We turn data into customer intelligence and innovative marketing solutions — online and offline — with direct and digital solutions that focus on multichannel marketing strategies, data and technology integration, web analytics and sales enablement. SIGMA builds long term customer relationships and drives Marketing ROI. Visit us at www.sigmamarketing.com and at our Fifth Gear Analytics blog: http://fifthgearanalytics.com.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email-marketing and interactive marketing solutions. The company’s Interactive Marketing Hub^TM technology provides organizations a single solution to connect with customers via email, integrated text messaging, landing pages, and social media. Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture (News – Alert), and Webtrends, among many others. ExactTarget powers permission-based multichannel communications for thousands of organizations around the world including Expedia.com, Best Buy (News – Alert), Aurora Fashions, Papa John’s, CareerBuilder.com, Gannett Co., Inc., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Home Depot, and Wellpoint, Inc.

Minnesota-based system builder Equus Managed Services Solutions is launching a new managed services offering for channel partners at the Autotask Community Live event in partnership with Autotask.

Equus, a 22 year old employee-owned company, makes hardware private label equipment, is Intel’s seventh largest customer in the U.S., and may be the largest U.S. based system builder. But this is their first foray into the managed services space.

“What’s new here is a complete service based offering,” said Frank Gurnee, Vice President of Managed Services at Equus.

The new Equus offering includes several highly rated services offerings, including Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) by Level Platforms, Help Desk by Live Virtual Help Desk, Backup Solutions by Intronis and Symform, Hosted Email Security/Compliance by Reflexion and Exchange Defender, E-marketing solutions by Kutenda and Varvid, and NOC services. But the key to the whole package — and the reason why a system builder would get into the managed services market in the first place — is a Hardware-as-a-Service offering.

“Hardware as a service is the most differentiated part of this,” Gurnee said. “There are very few people out there doing HaaS, providing servers, new desktops, licensing, all at a low monthly fee.”

Gurnee said that while they are well aware there are a multitude of managed services for resellers to choose from, they believe they have some major advantages in putting together c complete offering that lets partners make choices about what to offer from a balanced menu without having to research many different solutions.

“We’ve created an a la carte experience where they can easily research any of these offerings, to create or complement what they want to do,” Gurnee said.

Gurnee said the offering also makes it easy to put configurations together. It provides channel partners with a web e-commerce portal that allows easy configuration of servers, desktops, notebooks, infrastructure items, services, and peripherals in a user cart type experience. This lets managed service resellers configure all aspects of the systems from RAM to Hard drives, to total custom configurations. All configurations are displayed with a monthly price, suggested retail price and recurring revenue profit. This advantage gives users the ability to see the profit potential of their entire service offering to their clients.

Gurnee said their offering has absolutely no minimum requirements and no up front costs for the equipment. They expect it will appeal both to traditional resellers just getting into managed services as well as to established MSPs.

“For the established guys, the big get for them is the hardware-as-a-service part,” he said.

Equus Managed Services Solutions (www.equusmsp.com), North America’s largest system builder to the channel, has chosen the Autotask www.autotask.com Community Live event to launch its new Complete Managed Service offering to the channel. As part of its partnership with Autotask, Equus is committed to providing product/service integration, education, and solutions to enhance the Autotask community.

The Equus Managed Service Solution brings some of the industry’s best managed service products to partners, while also incorporating Hardware as a Service (HaaS). This creates a complete service solution that allows channel partners to provide a single monthly price for hardware, software, and services with absolutely no investments, all from a single source.

Frank Gurnee Vice President of Managed Services with Equus Managed Services Solutions stated, “We are excited to be a part of the Autotask Community Live event. It’s our goal to provide a truly affordable and partner-focused solution to the Channel. We have been able to provide a Managed Services and Hardware as a Service (HaaS) solution with no barrier of entry, low cost, high margins, early termination options, deployable onsite technician options, equipment buyout, and much more.”

The Equus Managed Service solution provides channel partners with a web e-commerce portal that allows easy configuration of servers, desktops, notebooks, infrastructure items, services, and peripherals in a user cart type experience. This allows managed service resellers to configure all aspects of the systems from RAM to Hard drives, to total custom configurations. All configurations are displayed with a monthly price, suggested retail price and recurring revenue profit. This advantage gives users the ability to see the profit potential of their entire service offering to their clients.

Equus has chosen best-of-breed products for the Managed Service Solution to make Equus the best overall value with competitive pricing, no minimum quantity requirements, no-commitment SaaS solutions, single-source billing, and services available a la carte. Some of the best-of-breed products include Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) by LevelPlatforms.com, Help Desk by LivevHD.com, Backup Solutions by Intronis.com and Symform.com, Hosted Email Security/Compliance by Reflexion.net and ExchangeDefender.com, E-marketing solutions by Kutenda.com and Varvid.com, and NOC services.

Ted Roller with Intronis commented, “Intronis is excited to be a part of the new Equus managed service offering. We see this as a major win for the channel to have a partner that can not only bring best-in-class solutions, such as Intronis, but also provide managed service solutions with no minimums and no commitments, in a true month-to-month SaaS type model. Equus is value at its core.”

About Equus
Equus Managed Services Solutions is one of America’s largest manufacturers of build-to-order desktops, notebooks, servers and workstations. It is a 100% employee-owned company with over 200 employees. Recognized as a top OEM of industry leading vendors such as Microsoft® and Intel®. Equus was named top North American system builder by Computer Reseller News. Equus has delivered more than two million custom computer systems to business, academia and governmental customers exclusively through its more than 2000 resellers.

The proliferation of collaboration and social tools designed to increase productivity is actually costing businesses millions of dollars per year in lost productivity, according to a new survey of more than 500 employees in U.S. businesses of all sizes.

“This survey paints a picture of a highly distracted workplace with a particular irony: information technology that was designed at least in part to save time is actually doing precisely the opposite. The very tools we rely on to do our jobs are also interfering with that mission. We’re clearly seeing what psychologists call ‘online compulsive disorder’ spill over from our personal lives to the work environment,” said Yaacov Cohen, co-founder and CEO of social email software provider harmon.ie, in a news release. “For all of us, it’s time to take back the Internet and find ways to control our digital addiction.”

The survey was conducted by online market research firm uSamp (United Sample) and commissioned by harmon.ie.

Nearly 60% of work interruptions now involve either using tools like email, social networks, text messaging and IM, or switching windows among disparate standalone tools and applications. In fact, 45% of employees work only 15 minutes or less without getting interrupted, and 53% waste at least one hour a day due to all types of distractions.

That hour per day translates into $10,375 of wasted productivity per person annually, assuming an average salary of $30/hour. That is more than the average U.S. driver will spend this year to own and maintain a car. For businesses with 1,000 employees, the cost of employee interruptions exceeds $10 million per year.

Among the survey findings:

Most work disruptions are electronic:

While traditional activities such as phone calls, talking with coworkers, and ad hoc meetings account for 43% of work interruptions today, the lion’s share of distractions are now electronically based.

Users reported getting sidetracked in email processing (23%), switching windows to complete tasks (10%), personal online activities such as Facebook (9%), instant messaging (6%), text messaging (5%) and Web search (3%).

Multiple devices on the desktop contribute to the problem, with 65% of respondents reporting that they utilize up to three additional monitors and/or mobile devices simultaneously with their main computer screen as they work.

Document searches drain productivity:

Users also spend an average of 2-1/2 hours per week trying to find the documents they need in multiple local, corporate and cloud repositories. That adds up to 16 workdays annually, costing businesses $3,900 per $30/hour employee per year to subsidize inefficient document management. The problem is exacerbated by the use of email attachments instead of posting documents to a central repository where they can be easily located. The survey found that:

The user’s email inbox is the #1 location searched, with 76% of respondents reporting email as the first place they look. Other locations include the desktop (69%), file server (52%), shared workspace (34%), portable storage device (18%) and/or cloud storage (9%).

The average user emails two or more documents per day to an average of five people for review, increasing email-based document volume by up to 50 documents per week. The fact that these attachments are stored on multiple local computers complicates the challenge of finding the latest document versions as well as merging feedback from multiple reviewers.

Work output and quality suffer:

The actual cost of distraction is even higher than $10,375 per person per year in terms of the negative impact on work output, work quality and even client relationships. Users report that the continuous interruptions cause:

• Difficulty working/producing (33%)
• No time for deep or creative thinking (25%)
• Information overload (21%)
• Missed deadlines (10%)
• Lost clients/business (5%)

Refusal to disconnect leads to rudeness:

The perceived need to stay connected at all times has reduced civility in the workplace as well as interfering with the ability to focus on the task at hand. The survey found that:

• Two out of three users will interrupt a group meeting to communicate with someone else digitally, either by answering email (48%), answering a mobile phone (35%), chatting via IM (28%), updating their status on a social network (12%) or tweeting (9%).
• Relatively few workers disconnect to focus on a task (32%) or during virtual meetings or teleconferences (30%), webcasts (26%) or lunch (12%).
• A majority of workers turn off their devices only when their boss asks them to (85%) or during one-on-one meetings (63%).

More than 2/3 adopt strategies to reduce distractions:

Despite the attachment to their digital tools and devices, both companies and end users recognize the productivity challenges created by these technologies and have implemented a variety of tools and strategies in an attempt to limit digital-related disruptions.

68% of respondents reported that their employers have implemented policies or technologies to minimize distractions, while 73% of end users have adopted self-imposed techniques to help maintain focus.

The #1 corporate strategy used to discourage digital diversion is blocking access to public social networks such as Facebook and/or other non-business websites (48%).

Other corporate techniques used to promote digital efficiency include tracking online usage patterns (29%), training (25%), deployment of an enterprise collaboration and social platform that aggregates information in a single window (13%), No Facebook Fridays (6%) and No Email Fridays (3%).

In the case of end users, 51% try to minimize distractions by reading emails in batches, 28% by working outside the office, and 25% by disconnecting from IM/email and phone a few hours a day.

Findings are based on a March 2011 uSamp survey of 515 email users working in sales, marketing, human resources or legal departments for U.S. companies of all sizes.

At a time of hyper-growth in the realm of collective buying and flash sales, the producers of the Daily Deal Expo are pleased to announce this year’s must attend deal event, the Daily Deal Expo, scheduled for August 25 and 26, 2011 in Chicago’s McCormick Place.

In 2010, 23 million Americans, or 10 percent of the adult population, purchased a coupon from a “deal of the day” website such as Groupon or LivingSocial, according to a new survey by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants by Harris Interactive. “The Deal” template has demonstrated it is worth adopting because it has proven it works. The concept is simple and the local business merchants and subscribers both benefit. According to research firm Experian, visits to group-buying sites grew ten-fold during the last year. This new model supports that digital coupons are not a fad but they represent a new advertising model for local business. The simplicity of daily offers arriving with no cost to the customer is only a click away.

Who Should Attend?

The Daily Deal Expois the perfect opportunity for Internet and direct marketers, entrepreneurs, social and digital media enthusiasts, affiliate and email marketers, merchants, daily deal companies and executives curious to learn more about the latest game changing trends and new wave of customer acquisition models. The conference identifies shared issues among different platforms to leverage peer-to-peer networking, direct responders and problem-solving. The seminars will be led by the heads of industry and will explore the latest trends and business opportunities that are rapidly shifting the tide of daily deals and marketing.

Attendees:

•Publishers
•Media Owners
•Internet Marketers
•Affiliate Marketers
•Social Media Specialists
•Email Marketers
•Mobile Apps
•Retailers
•Daily Deal Companies
•Lead Generators
•Direct Marketers
•Local, Regional and National Merchants
•CEO and Top Level Executives
The two day expo begins with a six part workshop covering the daily deal industry, the newest advances in technology, niche marketing and investors. The daily deal industry portion will feature pioneers from deal brands similar to Buy With Me, Woot! and Gilt Groupe discussing topics like customer acquisition, choosing markets and securing merchants. The tech seminar workshop will feature leading experts from ExactTarget, Salesforce and Heroku that will cover avoiding spam filters, merchant platforms, platform-as-a-service and geo-fencing. Niche marketing will be handled by experts from companies such as Thrillist, UrbanDaddy, Daily Bank Deal who will educate on how to gain customers through hyper-focus on niche markets. Finally, the industry’s top investors will discuss why they believe in the daily deal model and why they are willing to continue investing in its growth.

Keynote speakers will also cover some of the most important topics on the first day. After breakfast the first speaker will discuss the importance of ‘Changing the Game,’ such as reaching new markets and customers in interesting new ways. After the first networking lunch the second keynote speaker will discuss, ‘Going Beyond Spas and Restaurants,’ where the idea of offering new types of products and services will be brought to consumers.

The second day of the event will unveil a series of six hands-on, classroom-style workshops illustrating in depth how daily deal companies can improve their brand. The workshops will cover the basics of Daily Deals, E-mail Marketing, Tech Solutions, Mobile and Marketing. Finally, Starting a Daily Company, will be hosted by Saveology’s ‘Team Amazing’ who are pioneering new techniques in the daily deal field. These workshops will be led by industry thought leaders who are pioneering the way in understanding their audience and sharing their vision.

The Daily Deal Expo will take place in Chicago, an ideal location, on August 25 and 26. Chicago is no longer the ‘Second City,’ but has become a leading tech zone. The bustling urban city has moved away from its older population and has embraced the new, tech-savvy crowds which have been starting up innovative companies. Along with these young-skewing companies comes a trendy group of workers and executives that have money to spend on Chicago’s nightlife, growing art scene and many restaurants.

With hyper-growth in the daily deal market, the Daily Deal Expo will quickly fill up. But, there are very few speaking, sponsoring and exhibiting events still available for the August 25 and 26 events. Companies interested in securing their place at the DailyDealExpo can submit speaking requests, launch a new product or for sponsorship opportunities, contact Jillian Jacobson at [email protected], or call (877) 574-4274.

Daily Deal Expo

The Daily Deal Expo brings together the community of technology executives, entrepreneurs and investors to a rich program focused on identifying the latest marketing techniques, how-to’s on mobile, email marketing, technology, and starting your brand. The Expo offers custom networking events and sessions led by industry pioneers in the deal marketplace. Attendees will gain insight on the future of the growing eCommerce trend of collective buying and flash deals. For more information and to register to attend, visit www.dailydealexpo.com.

LaRosa’s Pizzeria sent me an email last week offering $5 off my next $25 food purchase.

Its title: Can you believe it’s been three months since you last visited?

I had no clue.

But I might just use that coupon.

LaRosa’s web and email marketing strategy comes from an eight-year-old relationship with HyperDrive Interactive, a small agency that operates out of a house in Loveland.

Small in number, perhaps, but the workers at the firm hold databases full of consumer insights. And they’ve spent years tailoring their findings to local brands like LaRosa’s and Montgomery Inn and national brands like Dreamfields Healthy Pasta and Udi’s gluten-free bread. Its newest clients are Gold Star Chili and Graeter’s, Crystal natural deodorants and La Cense Grass Fed Beef.

HyperDrive founder and CEO Dan Heimbrock recently gave me a behind-the-scenes look at how his 18-person team builds loyal and engaged customers for these brands, and how that often translates to higher sales.

Heimbrock was an early pioneer of Internet marketing, starting his agency the first day of 2001 to symbolize his 21st century focus. After more than two decades at traditional agencies, he saw the movement toward one-to-one marketing, targeting a specific customer with a specific message. He knew that could happen with advances being made online.

Heimbrock’s business took off in 2003 and 2004 with LaRosa’s and Dreamfields, a Minneapolis-based maker of low-carbohydrate pasta. By asking customers to share their email addresses, HyperDrive began accumulating data about brand loyalty and developing a fanbase.

“We have to help the right people discover the brand,” Heimbrock says. Using software called ExactTarget, HyperDrive ranks customers based on their level of engagement with a brand, and then tailors future communication. For Dreamfields, HyperDrive set up 65 different web pages linked from individual email messages. Some of those pages would offer specific promotions based on a person’s buying habits. Others would feature new recipes.

Gradually, brand fans would become stronger advocates, interacting with Dreamfields through Facebook and Twitter and recommending the product to friends.

“Certain brand fans not only have value because of their own transactions, but have potential to share, refer, recommend,” Heimbrock says. Dreamfields now has 40,000 of these advocates.

HyperDrive typically becomes an extension of a brand’s marketing department. Its team handles web site design and develops online strategy. It also responds on behalf of clients to questions and comments posed through social media. In the case of Dreamfields, HyperDrive also sent sample kits to dieticians, to seek endorsements for the product. It also planned and implemented physical events for customers to try the product. The company now participates in 1,500 health events a year.

According to Heimbrock, Dreamfields’ market share in the pasta category is up 26 percent. Dreamfields customers say they buy four times the average household consumption of pasta.

“It’s become a staple in these people’s diets, and if you make it easy for people, many will share about it,” Heimbrock says.

Work began with Graeter’s late in 2009 when the ice cream maker was strategizing national distribution of pints in grocery stores. Graeter’s had collected 59,000 email addresses from customers over the years, but had never sent a message.

“Rich Graeter was concerned about email, but we know that customers want to hear from brands they care about,” Heimbrock says. An initial message prompted 43,000 responses. HyperDrive collected those names, birth dates, gender, favorite flavors and preferred buying methods (ice cream shops, online or at grocery stores) and then tailored a welcome message based on those personalized responses.

“The secret is to mirror data with communication,” says Bernie Joyce, HyperDrive’s president.

Its first major online campaign, called “Share the Love,” happened before Valentine’s Day of 2010. By incorporating, email, Facebook and Twitter, Graeter’s boosted its online sales by 300 percent over 2009.

Today, the company has nearly 120,000 Facebook fans. A visit to the page yields dozens of comments from customers across the nation, followed by prompt responses from the company. In recent days, customers have applauded Graeter’s distribution agreements in Kroger and Fresh Market stores across the nation.

Heimbrock’s team is paid a monthly retainer to do this work for its clients. He figures he’ll add two or three new clients a year by adding a few additional staff. He hopes to soon double the firm’s annual revenue to $5 million.

“It’s no longer a game of deeper pockets, but who’s in tune with their customers,” Heimbrock says.

Historically the New England VC and Technology ecosystem has been criticized for not doing enough for the local communities. This is changing! To underscore the change on June 9th, over 500 “entrepreneurs” are pitching in for the betterment of New England. We hope “Tech Gives Back” citizenship day catalyzes a moment that becomes a community service continuum that sets the stage for future generations.

We started Technology Underwriting Greater Good (TUGG) two years ago to foster early stage social innovation focused on education, entrepreneurship and life experiences for young people in New England.  Simply put: we harness the resources of our tech community to (1) source and filter ideas; (2) fundraise; (3) engage directly to establish the next generation of social innovation.  We have funded seven grants and placed dozens of mentors/advisors, and are proud to work with groups like More Than Words, Generation Citizen, Bikes Not Bombs, Science Clubs for Girls, Boston Scholars, Young Entrepreneurs Alliance (YEA) and Teen Voices.

To date, we have over 1500 TUGGers within the NE tech community and we expect the number to reach 5000 by next year.  Twice a year, TUGGers attend parties designed to showcase early stage social innovation while combining connectivity and fun.  Our events have been labeled as “epic” and “legendary.”  Our 2010 wine party was attended by over  400 individuals and we raised over $100,000 for start-up social innovation all while helping to launch Tequila Avion.  Generation Citizen walked home with the Grand Prize for the evening after Scott Warren completely captivated the crowd with GC’s leveraged approach to building democratic participation among under-represented youth populations.

A few months ago a TUGGer had the idea of an ecosystem wide citizenship day.  We loved the idea and teamed up with BostonCares and BostInnovation for the first annual “Tech Gives Back Day.” On June 9th, 500 entrepreneurs will catalyze this movement by participating in a day of giving back to and celebrating Boston.  We already have over 20 companies participating in the day including groups from Where, Fybridge, LuckyLabs, OpenView Partners,  Dataxu, Vertica, Bit9, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst and Polachi & Co.  The day will finish with an after party at the Citi Performing Arts Center (formerly The Wang Center).  The party will feature live music, food, drink and an appearance from the Mayor and a few other Boston celebrities.  Click here to get involved.  For the betterment of you, me and Boston, and to get your TUGG on…

Sheplers Inc., a multichannel retailer of cowboy boots and related apparel, faces fierce competition in such states as Texas, Oklahoma and California. So the retailer, whose e-commerce site brings in about 30% of the company’s sales, has started to test free shipping in those areas, and has enjoyed early success, says Mark Hampton, the retailer’s chief operating officer.

Sheplers decided to experiment with free shipping after realizing that some of the states that produced the highest traffic to the e-commerce site, Shelpers.com, also had the lowest conversion rates. That suggested online consumers were merely digital window shopping because of the abundance of Western wear retailers, including those with nearby bricks-and-mortar stores or web sites.

So in two tests in February and March the apparel retailer offered free shipping for orders placed by consumers from those high-traffic states. Sheplers used testing and optimization services from Monetate to conduct the trials.

Conversions increased 10% in the first test, and 6% in the second. The free shipping offer encouraged customers who had selected items to complete their purchases, leading to an increase in sales, Hampton says.

“The offer was a tipping point for people who had already put things into the cart,” he says, adding that the retailer plans to test free shipping again in the run up to Father’s Day, which is June 19.

Sheplers, which can trace its origins back to the late 19^th century, also found, via Monetate-enabled testing, that making its online checkout process simpler also could boost conversions. Hampton says Sheplers began selling online in 1999 but during online checkout had still been asking customers to enter codes found on the backs of print catalogs. The codes helped the retailer identify which customers were placing orders, But the request confused customers, some of whom did not receive the catalog, and apparently made them reconsider their orders.

So, during a 10-day test, the retailer stopped asking for that information during the online checkout process, a change that helped increase conversion rates by 3.3%, Hampton says. The lesson is clear, he adds. “Anytime in a shopping cart you are asking for information that doesn’t make sense to a customer, it hurts you,” he says.