Monday, September 01, 2008
In April 2008 I gave a presentation to the Vancouver League of Drupalers (the Vancouver Drupal users group). My presentation, Email Newsletters: WTF?, is a general overview of the issues involved with managing an email newsletter and 6 mistakes to avoid.
These Show Notes were kindly pulled together by Dale McGladdery.
Introduction
00:00 Email Newsletters: WTF? Opening Credits
00:05 Monique Trottier introduces her talk
Monique’s List of Mistakes to avoid
01:50 Mistake 1: Don’t treat Email HTML like Web HTML, they’re different
04:50 Mistake 2: Forgetting to design for Preview Panes
09:53 Mistake 3: Assuming your images are going to work
13:10 Mistake 4: Too many images, not enough text
16:12 Mistake 5: Not testing in different email programs
19:45 Mistake 6: Do not neglect your footer
Questions
23:35 Campaign Monitor
25:36 Email vs RSS
28:00 Newsletter Focus
30:30 Email Delivery Systems
33:50 What kinds of stats do you want to see from a delivery system
Discussion of handling bounces/unsubscribes
37:10 ISP Blacklisting
37:35 More points on newsletter forwarding
38:47 Getting content into Campaign Monitor
41:00 Outlook 2007 especially problematic
41:40 Recommendations of time/frequency/length
44:54 Jacob Neilson eye tracking study
46:48 What kind of stuff gets forwarded?
47:18 Embedding images, objects, and landing pages
You may also find this blog post interesting (Monique on Lab with Leo talking about Email Marketing): More Email Marketing Tips
References
Boxcar Marketing Website: http://www.boxcarmarketing.com
Constant Contact: http://www.constantcontact.com
Campaign Monitor: http://www.campaignmonitor.com
MailChimp: http://www.mailchimp.com
Thursday, August 21, 2008
How I Got Wine from Campaign Monitor
First let me tell you a story. It’s actually Seth Godin’s story from The Purple Cow, a book about what it takes to create and sell something remarkable.
Seth and family driving in France, enchanted by picturesque cows grazing in lovely pastures. Kilometres and kilometres of cows. New cows suddenly are just like old cow, now cows are common. Now cows are boring.
“Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are boring. They may be well-bred cows, Six Sigma cows, cows lit by a beautiful light, but they are still boring. A Purple Cow, though: Now, that would really stand out. The essence of the Purple Cow—the reason it would shine among a crowd of perfectly competent, even undeniably excellent cows—is that it would be remarkable. Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to. Boring stuff quickly becomes invisible.”
Campaign Monitor is my purple cow.
In the land of email distribution services there are some big players and companies with lots of features. How do you choose who to spend money with?
I looked at everyone’s websites. I tested the tools.
I like that CampaignMonitor.com has a self-explanatory website. The home page tells me about the immediate benefits I will see using the service: control, design testing, reporting, and the blowing-away of clients. Wow, they know what I need.
- Free sign-up. Yay!
- Easy set-up. Double yay! (Although it did take me a bit to realize all the moving parts for creating the on-site subscriber links and thank you pages. As a methodical beginner this was all fine, and now that I’ve done it once, I’m like a rocket ship.)
- Simple reporting of complex info. Love the opens, activity reports, subscriber reports--fantastic!
Plus, they have a rockin’ newsletter with lots of tips. It’s important that the company selling me email distribution actually understands how this works and writes a good newsletter.
And, they continue to provide value to the community by creating tools for designers, like this CSS Support Chart that details what CSS elements are supported in various email clients. Hello Superstar!
Campaign Monitor is my Purple Cow. They make email marketing “refreshingly simple”, which is also part of the tagline for Freshview, the company responsible for Campaign Monitor.
And “refreshingly simple” makes them my favourite. It makes them remarkable. So remarkable that I’m willing to recommend them to friends and colleagues, which is what I did recently on Lab with Leo.
Now how did I get that wine?
In June, Mathew from Campaign Monitor spotted me on Lab with Leo and sent me an email thanking me for mentioning Campaign Monitor. He also said, “We’d love to send you a Campaign Monitor shirt to say thanks.” Sweet!
Since James is the t-shirt wearer in our family, I picked a size for him. On a related note, James gets a lot of t-shirts from Threadless, who also use Campaign Monitor.
Somewhere along the line, I also ended up with 2 bottles of fantastic Australian wine from my Sydney-based friends at Freshview.
Remarkable service means I remark on the service.
Thank You for the Thank You.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Congratulations to our friends at Techvibes who launched the new design of their website today!
The new design is more user friendly and the content is easier to pick out from the featured members and advertising. I like the new look.
As mentioned in their email blast,Techvibes was acquired by entrepreneurs Boris Wertz and Geoff Hampson, “with the goal of realigning it as a hyper-local technology news blog and community.”
What are the other improvements of note:
* A complete redesign, cleaner and standards-compliant
* Ability to choose between per-city local content or all-city global content
* RSS feeds for blog posts, blog comments, jobs, and events
* Improved site search
* Consolidated forums into one area
* Google Maps integration
Check out the new design of Techvibes.com
Posted by Monique Trottier |
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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
A small business group that I participate in has pulled together a panel for SXSW. It’s about how to create your own small biz mafia to rule the world (or at the least to rule your niche and get support from peers).
For our session to be selected we need some votes. If you’re so inclined, please go vote for us.
You create a free login, it’s quick and ease.
Voting closes Aug 29.
Vote Here: Micromafia: Building a Local Small Business Support Network
Click on the stars beside the title to vote. If you’re not logged in, you’ll be prompted to do so.
Many thanks!
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Facebook is “a social utility that connects you with the people around you.” What does that mean? It’s a place for friends to hang out online.
Are you a business professional looking to capitalize on friends hanging out online?
Sounds dirty doesn’t it.
As businesses we have to keep in mind the nature of the communities we are joining. Facebook is about personal networks. Facebook became a phenomenon because it’s simple, it’s fun, it has photos, it has spam-free email, and because there’s very little advertising. If you want to be active in Facebook, go beyond advertising. Create value-add applications, like the TripAdvisor map. Create fun games or quizzes or tools that help users socialize.
And by all means follow the 10 Facebook Tips for Professionals posted by Bill Sweetman on OneDegree.ca.
1. Use your real and full name in your profile
2. Make sure your profile includes a photo of you
3. Include detailed business information in your profile
4. Do not invite strangers to be your Facebook friends
5. Do not send messages to strangers
Visit OneDegree.ca for the next 5 tips and full details on why the first 5 are so important.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The social bookmarking site Del.icio.us has refreshed it’s look and domain name.
Check out http://delicious.com/
Or watch this short Flickr Video on Delicious 2.0:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deliciousblog/2718285703/
Delicious, if you’re listening. I like it. Nice look.
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