The creative team here at Infogroup/Yesmail continues to earn recognition for 'out of the box' email design. Literally, out of the box. Our HP campaign was recently recognized by Chad White for visually surprising recipients with a playful design that... More

The creative team here at Infogroup/Yesmail continues to earn recognition for 'out of the box' email design. Literally, out of the box. Our HP campaign was recently recognized by Chad White for visually surprising recipients with a playful design that has Shrek's arm breaking outside of the grid. As he points out, this isn't a common tactic used today, but when it is used it certainly does grab your attention. Our HP Monsters Vs. Aliens message was also designed to break the grid and received awards from Creative Media and OMMA. A shout-out to our award-winning creative team here at Infogroup/Yesmail - nice work!

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We are proud to announce that we have won another Interactive Advertising Competition award with HP. HP was awarded the 2010 Internet Advertising Competition Award for Best Technology Email Message Campaign for their Windows 7 Launch multi-message series.HP created a customized... More

We are proud to announce that we have won another Interactive Advertising Competition award with HP.
 
HP was awarded the 2010 Internet Advertising Competition Award for Best Technology Email Message Campaign for their Windows 7 Launch multi-message series.

HP created a customized email message stream to highlight the new Windows® 7 operating system and associated new product launches. The targeted audience consisted of tech savvy email subscribers, which allowed HP to focus more attention on the new product designs featuring the new operating system, rather than on the operating system itself. The Windows® 7 launch proved a huge success, with customer engagement metrics 20% higher than typical email campaigns and significant revenue generated.
 
The Windows 7® Launch was another example of the strong collaboration between HP and Yesmail, with Yesmail providing creative design and strategic consulting, as well as full service campaign management and execution.
 
The full list of IAC award winners can be found here.
 
This is the second IAC award for Yesmail and HP. We also won the Best Computer Retailer Email message award in 2009 for the HP Mini 1000 campaign.
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Today Yesmail Professional Services hosted a webinar for our clients called Getting into the in-box: Deliverability in 2010. Deliverability continues to be a top concern and challenge for all email marketers, and since it is a constantly changing landscape it... More

Today Yesmail Professional Services hosted a webinar for our clients called Getting into the in-box: Deliverability in 2010. Deliverability continues to be a top concern and challenge for all email marketers, and since it is a constantly changing landscape it is important for us to take the time to update our knowledge and stay on top of emerging trends and opportunities.
 
Jason Warnock, Director of Deliverability and Bob Sybydlo, Deliverability Analyst shared some great information about the state of deliverability including compliance, legal and technical challenges all senders face.
 
They helped our clients understand how ISP actions can impact deliverability, what Yesmail does every day to help our client's get their email delivered, and what steps senders need to take to ensure their email gets into the in-box.
 
Key topics covered included:

• Email authentication
• Campaign volume monitoring
• Abuse and hard bounce metric tracking
• How to combat mail stream pollution
• Standard bulking and blocking challenges
• Creative content blocking

It was a great event. If you would like a copy of the presentation, please email me.
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Develop original contentMake sure you show value to your customers by providing original, useful, or at least fun and entertaining content via your feed(s).  Sales announcements, store openings, new items, causes supported, service outings and restorations - all of these... More

Develop original content
Make sure you show value to your customers by providing original, useful, or at least fun and entertaining content via your feed(s).  Sales announcements, store openings, new items, causes supported, service outings and restorations - all of these are great, proactive ways to communicate with your followers.  Remember to be brief (obey the 140 character limit!) but not too brief.  Leave the "gr8" abbreviations for SMS whenever possible.
 
Include links to relevant content
140 characters isn't much space to work with, but you can and should include relevant links to website content in your Tweets. To save space you can shorten URLS and track clicks for free using services like bit.ly
 
Track response
Twitter response tracking is limited, but you do have some important success metrics you can monitor.
 
Yesmail Enterprise will help you track:

• What you tweeted
• When you tweeted
• How many were following you when you tweeted

Additionally, you can track:

• Follower trends - are the number of followers increasing with your marketing efforts? Increases and decreases in follower trends can also be tied to engagement and relevancy of your content.
• Clicks - how many clicks are you getting on the links in your Tweets? How many clicks do you get on email content promoting Twitter?
• Conversion - if you have revenue tracking codes as part of your URLs you can track website visits and revenue generated by your Tweets.

With patience, perseverance, and an open mind, you can make Twitter a core component of your marketing strategy and improve the results of your email initiatives as well.

Catch up on Part 1 to learn more about how Yesmail Enterprise allows you to centralize the management of a single marketing campaign across many channels. Less

This week we announced our new Twitter Campaign Management feature available in Yesmail Enterprise. This is exciting news for marketers, because now you can save time by centralizing the management, coordination, and analysis of a single marketing campaign across many... More

This week we announced our new Twitter Campaign Management feature available in Yesmail Enterprise. This is exciting news for marketers, because now you can save time by centralizing the management, coordination, and analysis of a single marketing campaign across many channels (email + social + mobile) within one tool.

It only takes three simple steps to execute your Twitter campaigns in Enterprise:

1. You set up your account
2. Create your content (up to 140 characters)
3. Schedule and send

Not sure where to get started? Twitter crosses many of the boundaries of social, email, and SMS and requires its own approach to be truly successful.  Here are some best practices to keep in mind as you develop your Twitter marketing strategy.

Promote Twitter in your emails and on your website
Make sure your customers know how to find you and what benefits they will get from following you on Twitter. Will you send special discounts or give them early notice of new products or sales? Will you keep your followers updated on the latest events?

Dick's Sporting Goods sent their email subscribers an invitation to follow them on Twitter with a nice Free Shipping incentive.  The message did a good job creating visibility and outlining the benefits for followers.

Integrate Twitter with your email program
Twitter can be used to announce special sales and promotions, or to create viral buzz for new marketing campaigns. With Twitter Campaign Management you can schedule tweets as teasers or chasers for email campaigns, or send out special "twitter only" deals. Your  Twitter strategy should complement your other marketing channels, not be a stand alone.

Buy.com's Tweet 'n Seek campaign is a great example of a multi-channel strategy.  They promoted a "social scavenger hunt' via email and website banners. Clues were tweeted to followers, and then the community posted their answers on Buy.com's Facebook page.

One Twitter feed may not be enough
If you have a large company, several customer-facing departments, or varied products or services, you may need more than one Twitter feed.  Don't try to cram several disparate message streams into one account if you don't have to; create individual feeds for specific topics or customers to drive more value to the end user. For example, you could set up one Twitter feed for Customer Service, and a second Twitter feed for Marketing.

Stay tuned next week for Part 2 and learn about developing original content, including relevant links, and using Yesmail Enterprise to track responses.
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We are proud to announce that we have won the Gold Marketing Sherpa Award for Best Dynamic Content or Personalized Email for the Microsoft Enhanced Hotmail and Messenger Launch. Background: Microsoft recently launched enhanced mobile versions of its Windows Live... More

We are proud to announce that we have won the Gold Marketing Sherpa Award for Best Dynamic Content or Personalized Email for the Microsoft Enhanced Hotmail and Messenger Launch.
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We are proud to announce that we have won the Silver Marketing Shepa Award for Best Opt-In or List Growth Message (B2C) for the My Coke Rewards Community Invite. Every quarter, My Coke Rewards reaches out to a select few... More

We are proud to announce that we have won the Silver Marketing Shepa Award for Best Opt-In or List Growth Message (B2C) for the My Coke Rewards Community Invite.

Every quarter, My Coke Rewards reaches out to a select few of its members to join the My Coke Rewards community.  Community members have a chance to regularly share ideas, opinions, and other feedback with the My Coke Rewards team to make the program better for all members.  As noted in the email, "community members' feedback this year helped give mycokerewards.com a bold new design that's faster to use and easier to get around," among other great ideas and recommendations.

Other recent creative awards and recognitions include:

• 2009 Creative Media Awards - Best Email: Hewlett-Packard's "HP Monster Sale"; Finalist Coca-Cola / Vault Double Points
• 2009 Internet Advertising Competition Award - Best Computer Retailer Email message: "HP Mini 1000 campaign"
• 2009 Ad: Tech Awards Finalists - HP Mini 1000: The Perfect Mobile Companion & HP Voodoo Monthly Newsletter

Congratulations to our Creative Services team! They continue to deliver break-out email design that drives engagement and delivers results.

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On Thursday, Yesmail Professional Services hosted a webinar for our clients called Getting Started with SMS. This was our first opportunity to talk with clients about our new Enterprise SMS campaign management features and share high level best practices information... More

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The best computing solutions are patterned after biology - they have the ability to quickly adapt and learn in response to stimulus. Similarly, some of the most intriguing musical performances have the same qualities More

Like all biological life forms, they have the innate ability to quickly adapt to their surroundings in response to stimulus.  To adapt, but also learn and evolve.

By comparison, the best computing solutions are patterned after biology - they have the ability to quickly adapt and learn in response to stimulus.  Similarly, some of the most intriguing musical performances have the same qualities.

Take for example, the song "Quadrant 4", from Billy Cobham's Spectrum album. (Go to iTunes and download it, then continue.)  The song is based on one of the most familiar, basic patterns in music: the blues.  Yet the four musicians take this most basic of formats, blues in 4/4 time (four beats to a measure), and twist it into something entirely new - largely in response to each other - all at breakneck speed.

The first minute is an improvised keyboard and drums segment.  The ambidextrous drummer, Billy Cobham, plays like a speeding locomotive: both feet and hands churning away with mind-boggling speed and precision.  At the 0:57 second mark, you'll hear him and the keyboardist playfully mimic each other as they head into the main section of the song.

At the 2:50 mark, you'll hear a perfect example of adaptation in response to stimulus - the guitarist goes off on a rhythmic and melodic tangent, and the drummer instantly adapts in a very complex 6-second game of "follow the leader".   Not something you could exactly predict, or maybe even understand, but the result? "Wow."

In the end, what they did was take a familiar structure (4/4 blues), adapt it in real time, and create something deeply personalized and compelling on the spot.

An elite few interactive marketing software solutions have this same ability: to take something basic and familiar (an email marketing message, website, microsite, social media communication, etc.), receive real-time campaign feedback stimulus, and then adapt, learn and continually evolve it - all in real time, at breakneck speed.  Yesmail has such a solution, one that has received a patent for its universal ability to dynamically adapt and learn as it personalizes interactive media channel content. Examples of this real-time "situational awareness" stimuli that can be received from the targeted audience are:

- What time is it where the email or webpage is being opened?
- Where is the viewer of the email or webpage when it is being opened?
- What is the weather like at that location?

Those are just a few examples of how this solution - similar to our musician friends - can create something highly personalized, relevant and compelling on the spot.

You'll be hearing a lot more about this innovation in the weeks to come.  I'm pretty sure it will make you say, "Wow." Less

Yesmail is proud to announce the birth of a sparkling new website: cokeusa.com!  This website was developed by Yesmail and our partner R2integrated.Coke USA provides The Coca-Cola Company with an excellent opportunity to communicate directly with key decision makers... More

Yesmail is proud to announce the birth of a sparkling new website: cokeusa.com!  This website was developed by Yesmail and our partner R2integrated.

Coke USA provides The Coca-Cola Company with an excellent opportunity to communicate directly with key decision makers at home in a refreshing new way. The website speaks to an audience thirsty for an online experience with content that resonates with practicality, pertinence, and accessibility: not mere marketing and promotion. In this way, Coca-Cola can strike a unique relationship with consumers, increasing loyalty through the gift of inspiration, entertainment, and education.

By combining Yesmail's fresh content strategy that serves up relevant, useful, engaging, and inspiring articles and tips with R2integrated's beautiful, intuitive, and fluidly functional build, we created an experience specifically designed to connect with decision makers: a site that speaks directly to a consumer with a friendly style and respect for their busy lives.  

Check out the new website and let us know what you think! Less