The Blue Sky Factory team is excited to announce the launch of the Publicaster Learning Center for Blue Sky Factory clients! We’ve been working hard to compile everything there is to know about our email marketing application, and we think you’ll like the end result. The Publicaster Learning Center was developed to be an interactive, inclusive resource for the Publicaster community, allowing users to share knowledge and tips with one another as well as access other email marketing resources.

In the new learning center you will find detailed instructions on everything from adding a “from address” to setting up automated A/B split tests. But the site is much more than just a fully searchable help guide. It also includes information about upcoming events, other Blue Sky Factory resources, and even open-forum discussion boards. All Publicaster users are able to become a member of the learning center community. We encourage you to share your own Publicaster tips and success stories, as well as ask questions and learn from other users.

Key learning center features include:

• Help Guides: Instructions on how to use every feature and function of Publicaster 7
• FAQ: Nearly every question you could think to ask about Publicaster, complete with detailed answers
• Discussion Boards: An open forum to ask for advice from or share tips and tricks with a community of other Publicaster users.

So, become a member of the Publicaster community, explore the learning center, and before you know it you’ll be an expert user!

While email marketing is a proven effective way to reach out to your audience and provide a strong ROI, it won’t work if you don’t have a list of interested subscribers. In order to make the most of your email marketing efforts, it’s important to build a solid database and continue to gain new subscribers. There are definitely shortcuts you can take to grow your list quickly, but it’s worth it to your business and your brand to grow your list the right way.

For the wrong and right ways to grow your database, click here (brought to you straight from the June issue of Factory Direct).

Building a strong and healthy email list is the most important and fundamental element of any email marketing program. Your email list is the backbone of your program, and it’s essential to grow and cultivate it like you would any other valuable relationship.

It’s important to stay in touch with your clients, and email marketing offers a cost effective, measurable solution allowing you to send targeted, relevant messages to your audience. To make the most of your email marketing campaigns, it’s necessary to build a strong list and keep your subscribers happy.

Join Blue Sky Factory for our “How to Grow Your Subscriber Database” webinar as we discuss:

• How to build your subscriber database organically
• Making the most of relationships with existing subscribers
• Strategies for making your emails viral

Taking place Thursday, May 28 from 3:00 to 3:45 PM, Melanie Sims from Blue Sky Factory will be presenting.

Click here to register. Hope to see you there!

When Google and DoubleClick researched how people responded to online marketing, they found that viewers were 4 to 7 times more likely to respond to dynamic audiovisual content than to static text and graphics.

That’s why more companies are making rich media and web video an important part of their online marketing initiatives – to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and make an impact on target audiences in a creative way.

Join Blue Sky Factory and Flimp Media, an innovator of web video marketing solutions, for our “Web Video Meets Email Marketing” webinar to learn:

• How to quickly create video landing pages (with no programming knowledge required), incorporate them into your email marketing campaigns, and track detailed viewer activity
• Benefits of using web video marketing as a lead generation and data collection tool
• How the Blue Sky Factory and Flimp solutions seamlessly integrate to accelerate your email marketing campaigns

Taking place Tuesday, February 3 from 1:00 to 1:45 PM, Melanie Sims (Blue Sky Factory) and Jennifer O’Meara (Flimp Media) will be co-presenting.

Click here to register. Hope to see you there!

To read more about our relationship with Flimp Media, click here.

2008 brought great things to the email marketing world. With the increasing popularity of mobile email and social media networks, email is now used more than ever. Mediamark Research & Intelligence found that 74.2% of adults use email, up 5.2% from last fall. Here is the scoop on what happened in email this year:

Mobile email became bigger and badder than ever
With the huge popularity of mobile email readers such as the iPhone 3G and Blackberry Storm, the topic of email on handheld devices became even more heated than usual this year. The EEC predicts that by 2009 60% of emails will be read outside of the inbox. While the newer email devices allow for better HTML rendering, standardization across all mobile readers is still an issue for email marketers. For our recommendations on how to design for mobile, view our whitepaper here.

It’s more difficult than ever to design for the inbox, but easier to find help
Many ISPs have made strides to improve rendering of emails; however, we are still not there yet. For instance, this year Yahoo made a seemingly minor, yet frustrating, change to the way they render paragraph spacing. In short, they no longer support the standard spacing measures and designers were forced to add extra margins to the code to alleviate the problem. Luckily, organizations such as the Email Standards Project have kept email marketers in the know for changes like this, providing documentation and solutions.

Things got tougher for the bad guys
This year the FTC made some long-awaited changes to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. The changes, such as the requirement that recipients must only provide their email address to opt out, weren’t earth shattering for most legitimate marketers but could threaten the practice of shady senders. More bad news for the bad guys: Major cybercrime hosts were taken offline this fall.

Email was still the glue that held it all together
Social media continues to rise in popularity every day and many companies are taking advantage of the opportunity to create buzz through Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media networks. Because email is the most common online identity for internet users, social media networks count on it for reliable communication. After all, email is still the most popular internet application.

To read about predictions for 2009, check out one of our recent Factory Direct articles: “In the Year 2009…”

In honor of this most creepy of holidays I would like to address a truly frightening phenomenon.  On a dark and stormy night one of your subscribers sits at home, checking their inbox.  Suddenly they see your email, thunder crashes, and as terror takes over they instinctively opt out of your email list.  But what exactly spooked them into taking themselves off of an email list that they actually asked for in the first place?  

Waiting too long to send the first email

If a subscriber doesn’t remember signing up for your list, chances are they will unsubscribe as soon as they see the first email from you.  Never wait to send an email to a new subscriber!  When someone signs up, you should immediately trigger a welcome email to remind them that they just subscribed.  After they’ve signed up, add them into the rotation of emails and continue to send emails on a regular basis.

Sending emails too often

Another frequency-related issue is over sending to your list.  Email users are often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of email they have to deal with day to day, and sending to emails them too often could cause them to just opt out altogether.  Set the proper expectations on your opt-in page to let them know how often they will hear from you, then follow through with that promise.  It’s also a good idea to give subscribers the option to choose their preferred frequency in a subscriber preferences center.

Content that isn’t relevant

When a new person signs up for your list they are essentially saying that they want to read more about what you have to say; however, if the content of your email strays too far from their expectations, subscribers could get bored and opt out.  Give new subscribers the option to sign up for any or all of your different communications, and provide detailed descriptions of each type on the opt-in page.  Then make sure you follow through by sending meaningful, relevant content in every email. 

Don’t let the dreaded opt out phenomenon happen to you.  Keep your emails timely, consistent, and relevant, and your subscribers will never be spooked again.

Email has dramatically changed the marketing landscape for virtually every industry.  With the highest ROI of any online marketing medium and the ability to reach millions with the click of a button, email needs to be an integral part of any successful marketing program.

But even with its efficiency and ease of use, there are still many things to consider when planning and executing an email marketing campaign.

If you are new to email marketing or just want a refresher, we are here to help!  Join us for our “Email Marketing 101” webinar to learn the basic tactics to get the most out of your email program.
Join us to learn:

• How to optimize deliverability
• Best practices for list management and creative
• Strategies for deployment to yield the highest response rate

Date: Tuesday, Sep 30 2008

Time: 4:00 PM – 4:30 PM EST

Presenter: Melanie Sims

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.3.9 (Panther®) or newer

Click here to attend.

We have written a lot recently on the importance of giving subscribers the option to update their preferences and settings for emails.  Email users are savvy and they want the ability to control what they receive and when.  Many ESPs give emailers the option to set up a Subscriber Preferences center for their recipients, and that feature should be, and often is, utilized immediately.

So because of this, I’ve been shocked to find that recently my preferences have gone unnoticed by several companies that send me email.  There is a particular retailer who sends emails every day.  While I do enjoy hearing about their sales, the frequency is too high for me.  Rather than unsubscribe, I chose to receive one email per week on their Subscriber Preferences center.  I was thrilled to learn that I could still get their emails, but that they wouldn’t be clogging my inbox all week. 

Unfortunately after making this change, they have continued to send emails to my address almost every day.  In fact, this week I received an email from them 4 out of 5 days.  This obvious oversight is especially troubling since they took the time to ask me what I preferred, but then chose not to use that information.

It sounds like a simple rule but it’s a detail that can easily be overlooked: if you ask subscribers what they want, you must deliver on that promise.  If I weren’t such a sucker for email, I would have opted out from their emails long ago.  Most subscribers will take that route rather than put up with something they don’t want.  If you value your subscribers, take the time to ask, listen, and then make good on your promise. 

What makes an email legitimate?  The answer is many things, but most importantly permission.  Email users have naturally become wary of keeping their inboxes clean of SPAM, but unfortunately with the constant influx of unsolicited messages, more email is considered SPAM every day. 

eMarketer recently featured a chart that shows how adults in North America determine if an email is legitimate (at right.)  Not surprisingly, the number one aspect of an email that makes it legitimate to subscribers is that they asked for it in the first place.  We say this a lot, but I want to stress that it is imperative to your sending reputation that you only send emails to true opt-in subscribers.  But this is just the first step.

The second most important factor in this study was a tie between the email address and the from name of the sender.  If subscribers don’t recognize who the email is from they are highly likely to delete the email or send it to Junk.  Unless you work for Orville Redenbacher or Walt Disney, avoid using an individual’s name for the from address and name.  Use the name of your company or organization for the best recognition.

Third place goes to the fact that they have received your email before.  The easiest way to legitimacy here is to send them a welcome email immediately after they sign up so they know to expect more in the near future.  Then follow up with consistent launches to keep with their expectations.

Of course all of these tricks won’t help if you’re not sending relevant emails to your subscribers.  The content is still very important, so make sure that you’re keeping your content in line with what you promised them from the beginning.  If your click rates start to lag, survey the subscribers to see what they would like to see more or less in the content.  Engaged subscribers are happy subscribers and as long as you keep it relevant, your path will be golden.

Segmentation and personalization have become a way of life for the savvy email marketer.  Many of us personalize emails with names, addresses, and customer IDs.  We often segment based on geographic location, email type preference, and even open/click rates.  But there is one type of segmentation that has been seriously under-utilized: segmentations based on website click traffic.

Campaigns that target based on website user click-stream data generate conversion rates that outperform untargeted broadcast campaigns by nearly 4 to 1, according to Jupiter Research.  Most (if not all) Internet retailers track click data on their websites, however despite having this extremely valuable data in-hand, many retailers still do not use email segmentations to target website visitors. 

I am on the email list for a particular online retailer and I happened to be browsing their site the other day.  The very next day I received an email with the subject line “Where did you go? Come on back!”  The content of the email said that they noticed that I had visited their site but left before making a purchase, so as an incentive to do so they offered me free shipping.  Simple, personal, and enticing.  Check out part of the email in the image on the right.

With all of this data at our fingertips, it is truly a waste to not take advantage.   If you know your subscribers are browsing your site, reach out to them with email.  If possible, offer them an incentive to return.  It can really mean the difference between casual browsing and conversions!