It’s been a busy 5 months since going full-time freelance, and there’s a lot of news coming soon, including a new website, new client announcements and much more.
In the meantime however, I thought I’d announce a new side project that has finally seen the light of day. Introducing The Email Design Gallery at http://emaildesigngallery.com. I created this gallery as a showcase for all of the fantastic email designs out there, specifically as a way to help get the medium of email design more widely-recognized across the web community.
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When designing and coding email designs, more often than not you’re forced into using your browser to render the HTML code you’re working on, and have to wait until you’re ready to test across multiple inboxes to find the per-client issues (looking at you, Hotmail, Gmail and Outlook 2007). Working towards that point is probably the most important in the development phase, as the better you create your base file, the less likely it is you’ll have to tweak and hack to accommodate those pesky email clients.
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Silverpop have just announced something pretty monumental for the email marketing industry: they’re the first major ESP to bring the next big thing in today’s marketing environment to the email marketing space – email marketing is going social.
It was only a matter of time that email marketing and social media would collide (I’ve been racking my brains for the last few months trying to find a way to marry the two) and kudos to Silverpop for bringing their version to market first.
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After a busy month in October, here are the top 10 most popular articles from CarbonGraffiti.com.
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Last week I returned from the DMA show in Las Vegas (been busy!), which I attended on request from my boss as an opportunity to learn/adapt new technologies and ideas to be implemented back in the UK.
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Although as a whole online marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels out there, some online marketing methods can still eat into a yearly budget faster than you can say ‘Google’.
Take PPC (pay-per-click) for example. According to MarketingSherpa, US SEM spend is expected to hit $16.5 billion by the end of 2008, with Google accounting for 71% of all US search traffic (74% for the UK). Add to this the news of Google’s recent deal with Yahoo, and the search engine marketing landscape (with paid ads in particular) is shrinking. With less competition, we’re witnessing the formation of a quasi-monopoly that can only drive keywords costs up. As a cost-aware marketer, you’ll still have to rely on the long-tail keywords to maximize conversions, but you won’t be able to avoid some competition over pricey keywords and your online budget will take a hit.
However, the true beauty of online marketing is the multitude of choices available that are either cheap or free. In this time of impending economic doom and gloom, below is a list of various marketing tactics you can do that won’t break the bank… and if anything they’ll only add to it.
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Using email marketing as more than a 1-way announcement can do wonders for your bottom line. By enhancing the communication channel with your website visitors and subscribers with better targeted & more relevant emails, you stand to gain a lot more than your basics like how many opens, clicks, and unsubscribes.
Here’s a list of the top 10 ways you as a company (no matter how big or small) can use email to interact, engage, and show your customers or website visitors that you’re human and that you care. Utilize all, some, or just one of these, but however many you choose to use can make a huge difference to your customer satisfaction, which goes hand-in-hand with your company’s overall success. Remember: the extra effort you take in crafting the right email can positively affect the way a recipient sees and interacts with your brand, product or company.
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I’m not saying it’s bad, but if you (or the marketing department you work in) insist on calling your email marketing campaigns something like ‘e-shots’, ‘mail shots’, ‘mail blasts’ or anything else similar to being expelled by force from a cannon or gun, chances are you’re viewing email marketing the wrong way.
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Janine Popnick, CEO of Vertical Response, has just created a great list on where you should always place your opt-in form to ensure quality newsletter subscriptions. Read the full post at the VR Marketing Blog, or scroll down this post the list itself.
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I think these guys are new kids on the block – and are more than welcome!
SpamMeltdown.com offer sources of inspiration to designers of HTML email. Instead of just talking about email design, they’re going one better and showing real-life examples of emails from monster retailers and brands. What’s more, they’re then analyzing and dissecting those campaigns and providing very insightful feedback. Check them out at www.spammeltdown.com, or check out their highly useful post on Welcome Messages at http://spammeltdown.com/post/Welcome-Messages.aspx
