Excellent Example of Timely Email Marketing Campaign as Balloon Flies Over Colorado

October 16, 2009 Robert Burko Leave a comment

One thing that is great about email marketing is that it allows you to be very timely.

Unlike with traditional print flyers where you have to get your flyer designed, then printed, then packaged for mailing, with email it’s just point, click, send. There is no massive lead time, no waiting for ink to dry, no stuffing into envelopes, no driving to the post office, no walking door-to-door … and, since you’re not using paper it’s also more eco-friendly (and everyone loves an organization that goes green!).

Yesterday, I saw a truly excellent example that highlights this big benefit and really showcases just how quickly a business can blast out an incredibly relevant and timely email to their customers.

While millions of TV viewers were watching as a giant Mylar balloon flew through the air in Colorado apparently carrying a 6 year-old boy (see video on CNN), one of our customers that runs a “Home Safety” store was busy preparing an email blast.

The email featured a summary of the story essentially with the tag line “how safe is your home?” The email then went on to showcase several new products.

While this customer’s email was probably going to send out anyway, the fact that they were able to make a quick last-minute adjustment to include a current event literally as it was happening, makes it a much more effective email when it lands in his recipient’s inboxes. After all, some people may not have heard the story yet and it was their ‘home safety’ email that broke the news.

Being timely in your email marketing campaigns can really take your newsletter to the next level.

Email Marketing, Online Marketing

Canada’s New Anti-Spam Legislation is Facing Some Opposition

October 6, 2009 Robert Burko Leave a comment

As email became an integral part of our daily lives, so did the issue of spam. One thing that everyone at Elite Email is always monitoring are the new spam laws being implemented in various countries. The most popular of the laws is the Can-Spam Act, which was signed into law by George W. Bush on December 16, 2003 (Wikipedia). It has been amended since then and remains a key regulator of email marketing activities in the United States and also largely establishes a benchmark for email marketing regulations.

In Canada, Bill C-27 (A.K.A. the “Electronic Commerce Protection Act”) was introduced last spring (by Industry Minister Tony Clement) and has steadily made its way through the legislative process. The Standing Committee on Industry is likely to conduct it’s ‘clause by clause’ review this week.

The proposed law has similar limits to the laws already in place in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

There are, however, a growing number of business groups who have mounted attacks against the proposed law claiming that it will create new barriers to doing business online in Canada.

While the final rules in the law remain to be seen, Canadian’s have been down a similar road before with the “Do Not Call List”. The original proposal of the Do-Not-Call List was so gutted by the time it was passed that the end result is that the majority of telemarketing calls are still perfectly legal, even though there is a huge amount of numbers on the do-not-call list.

Since all of our Elite Email clients are sending permission-based messages adhering to email marketing best practices, this new legislation will likely not affect us. But, as always, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this as the story develops.

Business Blunders

Nuit Blanche Toronto App a Bust – This is Why You Must Test Your Programs

October 5, 2009 Robert Burko Leave a comment

We’ve been working on a new version of Elite Email for a while now and with most of the new features almost ready, we’ve been testing, testing, and then testing some more. We simply will not release a product that is buggy because we all know too well how frustrating something can be when it doesn’t work.

This past weekend I went to Nuit Blanche in Toronto and there was a perfect example of why you have to test (and then test more!) an application before you release.

Prior to heading out to the event I downloaded an iPhone app especially made for Nuit Blanche (published by Simply Good Technologies Inc.).

Night Navigator Scotiabank Nuit Blanche by Simply Good Technologies Inc.

The app had some very cool features, including a GPS locator that would tell you nearby exhibits. The feature that most interested me, however, was the Capturefy technology (more info) . This technology was supposed to let you take a picture on your iPhone of specific “Capturefy” enabled signs put up around the city and then give you additional information on the exhibit.

I have seen technology like this all around Asia (location on billboards, in magazines, on subway ads, and everywhere else you can imagine!) and I was eager to see how it would work at this major event in Toronto.

It turns out the technology was a BUST and did not work at all.

First of all, the vast majority of the event took place outside and all of the Capturefy signs were very dark. How the event organizers overlooked the fact that it gets dark at night and iPhone users won’t be able to take a clear picture is beyond me! So, that was blunder number one, which right off the bat tells me that no one did a trial-run of how this was supposed to work.

I did find some Capturefy signs inside in good lighting and was excited to see if the technology actually worked. But, once again, it did not.

I even had two other people try on their iPhones to see if it was something I was doing wrong (…although I wasn’t sure how I was messing up the ‘point’, ‘click’ wait for results, instructions in the app!), but it didn’t work for them either.

I’m not sure whether they rushed to release this app and skipped over testing or if their test scenarios were under very specific conditions that couldn’t possibly be replicated the night of the event. But, regardless of the reason, the app simply did not work even close to the way it was supposed to and I’m sure that all could have been avoided if they had done proper testing.

Just as a point of reference, we currently have hundreds and hundreds of automated and manual test cases that we run against Elite Email. This way we know that when we release something it actually works the way it’s supposed to!

Business Blunders

Image Is Everything: Faces of Coal Uses iStockPhoto… Whoops!

September 30, 2009 Robert Burko Leave a comment

I was watching Jon Stewart last night and he mentioned a story about the supposedly grassroots organization from the coal industry that I just had to blog about.

One of the things I have always preached to our clients, whether they are big or small, is that the “image” they portray on their website or social network is very important. And, in addition, once it’s out there in cyberspace, you can’t pull it back.

This is actually a more important theory to take to heart than ever because one wrong Tweet could land you in seriously hot water.

The new campaign for the coal industry is located at http://facesofcoal.org/.

On their homepage (which has been edited since this story came to light) there are a bunch of big images that flash across the screen to show you the FACES that coal helps. Their entire campaign is based around this idea of “FACES”. I guess this is their way of connecting coal to the people in our everyday lives.

Apparently the coal industry couldn’t find any REAL faces to support their cause because all of the images they are showing on their website are from iStockPhoto.

Now, let me be clear, I have no problem with iStockPhoto or stock photography in general. I think it’s highly practical and is a resource that should definitely be used.

But, if you’re running a campaign where the focus is on the FACES of people who are supporting your cause, then maybe… just maybe… buying photos online for a couple of dollars is NOT the right way to go.

Faces of Coal iStockPhoto Example 1

Faces of Coal iStockPhoto Example 2

Credit goes to the Appalachian Voices blog who, based on my research, were the first ones to break this story. You can find more of the examples here.

Company News, Email Marketing

Tucows Launches New Feedback Loop

September 11, 2009 Robert Burko Leave a comment

Tucows, the third third largest wholesale domain registrar (through its wholesale division known as OpenSRS) has just launched a new feedback loop program.

Everyone at Elite Email feels this is great news because it allows for much greater and instant communication between mail box providers and ESPs. With better communication I firmly believe that both the receiver and sender benefit. Tucows joins a long list of other ISPs who provide feedback loops. While many people may not be familiar with Tucows, it is worth noting that it has registered more than 8 million domains and hosts millions of inboxes.

I’m sure most major ISPs that don’t already operate feedback loops (or “FBL” for those that want to use the cool industry lingo!) will start doing so in the near future.

Business Blunders, Email Marketing

Proof & Test Links in your Email Marketing Campaigns

August 30, 2009 Robert Burko Leave a comment

One of the first things I always tell a client is that it is so important to thoroughly review your email marketing campaign before pressing send. Check it for spelling mistakes, broken images (no one likes those little red X’s!), incorrect links and anything else that could be wrong.

Even big national brands seem to still be making mistakes.

Just this week Air Miles, a huge rewards program in Canada, sent out an email apologizing because a link to a coupon did not work properly in a previous email. This link was actually for a partner company announcing new locations.

I’m sure they weren’t very happy when they got absolutely no one redeeming the coupon! And, the whole situation could have been avoided if someone would have just tested the links. I bet it would have taken less than 30 seconds to check every link in the email, but it seems no one did their due diligence on that. Opps…!

I also think it’s amusing that it took them an entire week to realize and correct their mistake.

The subject line of their email was: COUPON CORRECTION – New locations! Visit and receive 25 reward miles

Air Miles Email Marketing Campaign

It must be a rough week for Air Miles because even now when I clicked on the link in their email marketing campaign, I landed at their website only to find this:

Screenshot of Air Miles Website

Sheesh!

I can’t stress this enough, check your links, make sure they work, and keep your website online. It’s that simple.

Company News

Major Upgrades & Enhancements to Elite Email Sending Infrastructure

August 19, 2009 Robert Burko Leave a comment

I am happy to report that after several days of carefully planned upgrades, we have fully completed the latest round of enhancements to the backend infrastructure of Elite Email.

This upgrade, without getting too technical, puts a ton of new horsepower under the hood of Elite Email!

Emails will now send out faster than ever before (…adhering to ISP guidelines, of course).

This upgrade includes major enhancements to both the underlying hardware at our data centers and also major improvements to the sending software.

During this upgrade we’ve also added several new servers, which increases the stability of our network. In case of network failure, we can now route customer’s emails through different data centers in the USA and Canada.

This upgrade was meticulously planned to ensure almost unnoticeable downtime for our customers so that sensitive email marketing campaigns were always delivered on time.

While all of us at Elite Email are exciting about the upgrades, we also want to thank our loyal customers. It is only because of our tremendous and rapid growth that such upgrades were required and for that we are incredibly grateful.

Email Marketing

Gmails Adopts List-Unsubscribe Feature

August 13, 2009 Robert Burko Leave a comment

A couple weeks ago Gmail announced on their blog that they would be supporting the list-unsubscribe header element that allows people to actually unsubscribe from a mailing list automatically.

This is a good solid step by a major email provider to help permission email marketers. Hotmail was the first one out of the gates to support this functionality that allows end-users to click an unsubscribe button/link right in the email interface that communicates back to the sender.

I’ve long been a supporter of this feature since I think it helps boost communication between ESPs and ISPs/email-providers without forcing people to click the ‘spam’ button, which could damage a sender’s reputation.

We always tell all of our customers that we do not tolerate spam in any way and that means that their mailings must not produce spam complaints. But, we have seen time and time again where someone who has double opted-in to receive email from one of our customers later decides to start marking the message as spam when they don’t want to get it anymore. In the studies we’ve conducted, the reasoning for this is that it’s a whole lot easier to click that big spam button at the top of the interface, than to unsubscribe. (Personally, I’m not sure why scrolling to the bottom of email and clicking the unsubscribe link is that laboring, but, on the other hand, I do respect the laziness!)

Supporting the list-unsubscribe header helps to combat this because it build the unsubscribe option right into the interface. So, the ideal goal is that instead of marking the message as spam (assuming it comes from a legitimate source), you could just as easily unsubscribe.

The problem with Gmails current deployment is that they still haven’t made it that easy to find the unsubscribe link in their interface. I think they will ultimately give it a more prominent position once they hear some positive feedback from the industry and their users. Until then, we can still celebrate a baby step in the right direction!

All Elite Email customers are already taking advantage of the list-unsubscribe option, so there is nothing that must be done to ensure you get this benefit.

RobertBurko.com