Hello marketers, tech junkies, bloggers, tweeters, and everyone else familiar with Blue Sky Factory and or email marketing!  It’s been a few months in the making, but thanks to Keith and Noah, Blue Sky’s dynamic design duo, our new website (www.blueskyfactory.com) has finally been launched.  While we have stayed true to the Blue Sky Factory brand, there are some upgrades that make the site more streamlined and clean.

Let’s start from the very beginning.  We’ve pretty much completely redesigned the look and feel of the homepage.  By bringing our blog to the forefront of www.blueskyfactory.com, we hope to help visitors have real-time easy access to information about industry trends, best practices and everything and anything else email marketing related.   Other sections on the homepage include a rotating banner, listing some of our customers, information and links about upcoming events we are involved with as well as resources and white papers we provide, and a section featuring links to different subscription centers throughout our site.  Basically, the homepage creates a more user-friendly platform linking you directly to the popular features of our website.

 The team and creative services pages are two other noteworthy changes to the site.  The new and improved team page will let you get to know your friendly neighborhood Blue Sky Factory employees a little better.  Bigger more colorful photographs along with questionnaire answers from the employees themselves, give visitors to the site a more in depth, personalized look at the Blue Sky team.  The creative services page is also redesigned, allowing for a more organized look at the work our design team has created for our customers.

I could ramble on some more, but the best way to experience and learn about the new features is to actually get online and see it yourself!  Visit www.blueskyfactory.com  and let us know what you think.

 The results are in from our Mobile Device Survey:
* 70% of you use a mobile device to view emails
* 41% of you receive HTML emails with images on these devices?
* 64% of you save emails on your mobile device to view later on your PC
* 62% of you use the view in browser link on your mobile device

Social Media’s growth and influence on the web continues to explode. We’re interested to see what kind of tools you use! Click here to share your thoughts, and look our for the results in the near future.

Most email marketers agree that their subscribers can sometimes be impulsive and unpredictable. Often at times they ignore messages or respond at large to a particular email. A lot of us don’t have a clear cut understanding of why one subscriber may take action differently than another subscriber.

 Let’s face it: the interest of your subscribers are d ifferent. If you don’t recoginize the differences you may be in danger of losing the value of your message and the attention of your subscribers. To read tips on giving your subscribers, click here.

 Don’t miss another issue of Factory Direct, our monthly newsletter. Click here to sign up.

Have you ever wondered why people are opting out of your emails? Don’t be afraid to ask! You could learn some very valuable information from sending a simple survey to your unsubscribers.

This information could help you improve your email program and retain more subscribers in the future. To learn how to stop beating yourself up about your opt-out rate and use the unsubscribers as a learning tool, read our latest article from our monthly newsletter, Factory Direct.

What the Changes to the CAN-SPAM Act Mean For You

Though it’s taken quite awhile, 3 years to be exact, the CAN-SPAM Act has issued a final rule, which will take effect on July 7, 2008.  Recently, I attended a webinar on the recent changes to the Act, hosted by Unsubcentral and the ESPC.  John Engler and Justin Weiss discussed the new rules in “Total Compliance: What the Changes in the CAN-SPAM Act Mean for You.”  While the changes will definitely be beneficial to the industry, there has been some confusion surrounding certain topics.

The purpose of this webinar was to dig into the new commercial email requirements, which are of particular interest to email marketers.  The webinar first discussed the birth of the CAN-SPAM Act and took listeners through a timeline, showing how we got to where we are now.  The presenters then went on to discuss the four new points of the Act, which are:

1.       Liability being attached to “persons”

2.       Multiple-sender rule

3.       Uncomplicated opt-out mechanisms

4.       Physical mailing address requirements

The presenters also discussed the guidance given by the FTC on the usage of the “forward to a friend” option and how to know if you have a compliance obligation.  This new guidance states that emailers must comply with the CAN-SPAM requirements whenever the forwarding action is induced (i.e. offering a special discount or free gift for forwarding) by the marketer.  Some marketers have been confused by this language, and the presenters gave a great explanation of who is obligated to comply and when.

One of the many questions asked was, although the new rules will not be enforced until July 7, 2008, can marketers start following them now?  The answer was, of course, yes!  Marketers are certainly allowed to get a jump start on the new compliance rules, but won’t be punished for not complying until the due date of July 7, 2008.

For a more in-depth look at what these changes mean for you, view the recorded presentation of this webinar here. As an email marketing firm, our suggestion is to learn and comply with these new regulations sooner rather than later (and of course, before July 7th).  If you have any questions about these new rulings, please contact your Account Manager or email us at bsfinfo@blueskyfactory.com.

Summertime is made for vacations. Whether you go for spontaneous weekend jaunts or carefully planned extended stays, vacation is always something to look forward to. Travel and tourism destination emails are valuable tools to help prospective visitors gather information about your destination. With the economy on a downturn you want to make sure your email is noticed. An AOL/Zogby Travel Survey showed that 57% of Americans will be spending less on vacation in 2008 than they did in 2007. So how are you going to lure these prospective visitors to come and vacation with you?

When promoting a travel destination you want to make sure you give your contacts time to prepare for upcoming events. These folks have signed up to receive information from you so make it count. For recipients that are planning extended vacations you have a wider window of opportunity to send relevant content. If you have not done so yet, try segmenting your list by people that travel with children versus people that do not. For instance, the season opener of a theme park might be targeted to people that travel with children. Not to say we don’t all love to ride a roller coaster when given a chance but individuals with children would be more apt to interact with that announcement than others.

One of the easiest groups of travelers to target are the weekend travelers that decide at the last minute to get out of town. If you have an event or special happening on a weekend and you want to promote that event quickly, send an email out around Wednesday before the weekend event. Also, make sure to segment and target to contacts based on geography. Only target the email to folks that are within easy driving distance of your destination. Not only does this give the recipient time to make plans to attend said event, they will be able to get there in a short amount of time.

Even though there is no tried and true day and time to send an email you must make sure if you are promoting a particular event that the recipient receives the email in plenty of time before the event to make plans to attend. I recently received an email on Sunday June 15th, Father’s Day. The offering was a listing of restaurants that were promoting Father’s Day dinner specials. Seeing as how I rarely check email on the weekend I did not receive the offer till the Monday after Father’s Day. Poor planning, as I was obviously not going to be able to act upon the offer.

Be sure to include a very visible link to a calendar of events on all your emails. If your reader is not able to plan a visit that weekend or within the near future, a link to the upcoming events will allow them to peruse what is happening and make plans accordingly.

Have a safe and fun summer.

I love lists. I couldn’t live without them. I recently moved in with my boyfriend for the first time, and he’s already making fun of all the lists I have. But really, I love them. Oh, and the feeling you get when you check an item off - priceless.

So, you can imagine my excitement when the eec announced two new lists in their Email Checklist Series that will help you get your emails out without a hitch. The two checklists are titled “Email Design” and “Code QA Testing”. These two lists were developed by the eec’s Email Design Roundtable team, and they are free all this week to download from the eec’s Whitepaper Room. So hurry and get your free copy today before it’s too late!

We at Blue Sky Factory have also developed some good lists over time that you should check out.  Interested in the do’s and don’ts of email design? Read our Email Design Guidelines here. Looking for a list of words and phrases to avoid in your subject lines? Click here and learn to avoid these Dirty Words in Disguise.  How about ways to Improve Your Email Marketing Program? Check out our ideas here. And finally, need to Grow Your Email List the right way? Click here for our suggestions.

Do you use any email checklists of your own that you’d like to share? Feel free to post them here. Or let us know if you have any ideas for more checklists we could develop that you think would be helpful to our clients.

As my birthday rolled around this year, I was anticipating an inbox full of emails extending birthday discounts, deals, perks, & more. Surprisingly, I only received one such email and the offer was nothing extraordinary. What’s a birthday girl to do? I was left puzzled as to why such a small number of businesses took advantage of this golden opportunity.

My friend Nick has a birthday around the same time. I asked him if he had received any birthday wishes from companies that he has email relationships with. Nick sent me the email below as an example of a birthday email that he was excited to receive. Golf Galaxy had collected enough information from Nick during the sign up process, or update process, that they were able to send him a birthday greeting and personalize it using his first name. By addressing Nick and sending the email on his actual birthday, they made an immediate connection with him. The fact that Nick said he would use this discount also means that Golf Galaxy is sending relevant offers.

There are a few things that Golf Galaxy could have done differently creatively. They should have used snippet text, moved the call to action above the fold, etc. However, the general look and feel of the email is clean and clear and it gets the message across (if you download all of the images and scroll down!) Aside from a few design changes, Golf Galaxy is doing a great job using the information that they have on their customers and sending them timely, relevant offers.

Remember, when collecting opt-in information, ask your customers for personal information for marketing efforts such as birthday offers. It is also a great idea to allow your customers to update their own information at any time. This way you can collect that birthday later on if you missed it during the initial opt-in. Connecting and engaging with customers will always help you increase your sales. Knowing how to do this with special offers and incentives using data you already have will only increase your email marketing ROI.

So you think that your emails will be successfully delivered if your sender reputation has been carefully built over time, you use a permission based email list and you have exhaustively tested until you know your email renders across multiple email clients?  Don’t be too too hasty.  According to Marketing Sherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008 AOL, Gmail and Roadrunner tend to give 100% consideration to sender reputation, while MSN/Hotmail only gives 32% to sender reputation.  The remaining 68% consideration for MSN/Hotmail is given to content. 

Just because your message makes it through to a users inbox does not mean it may not get reported as spam, so how that message is perceived is very important.  Readers are so cautious these days that any email that is suspect can and does get reported as SPAM.  Even though your email has passed all the SPAM tests you can run and has gotten past the email client content filters, it’s the ultimate action the end user takes that can that can make content filters adjust their rules.  If enough readers perceive your email as SPAM and report it as such, then the content filter rules adjust based on the content and your deliverability can ultimately be affected.  Even if the content is valid and relevant, perception of the email is key.  Stefan Pollard expounds on this very issue in his most recent ClickZ article, Why Content Is Still an Issue.  He gives a very detailed example of how content filter rules change based on readers actions.

It is imperative to be diligent in creating the content of your email.  Make sure that you understand what triggers a SPAM report, should your emails get reported as SPAM.  By understanding this you can take action to correct what might be causing the user to report the email as SPAM.  The most basic rules still apply when trying to create an email that your reader will not report as SPAM: a branded “from” line, an accurate and concise subject line, design for preview pane and blocked images, respectful frequency based on user preferences, the ability to let a reader unsubscribe easily, SPAM check performed before you send, and if possible the use of a deliverability monitoring service.

Contact your Account Manger if you have any questions concerning your content. 

Today, I am excited to officially announce our acquisition of North Carolina based nTarget, an email marketing firm specializing in electronic communications, with a focus in the hospitality, travel/tourism, retail and ecommerce sectors.

We are very pleased to announce this partnership, and could not be happier with the fit with our organization. The nTarget staff shares the same values around providing stellar customer service, and working towards the best interest of their clients. We are excited to have them all on board here at Blue Sky Factory. As a result of the deal, we will now operate and maintain an office right outside of Charlotte, NC, where the nTarget team will remain.

nTarget has proven to be a market leader in the travel / tourism and hospitality space, a vertical which we also have great traction and a solid client roster within. As a result, our combined clients will benefit greatly from the knowledge and experience gained over the years working in these key industries.

All of the current nTarget clients, as well as all of our current clients, will soon be migrating to the latest release of Publicaster, our leading web based email marketing platform, due for release this August. We look forward to bringing the latest and greatest in email marketing and on demand communications to our combined client roster. We will be posting more on our upcoming Publicaster release over the coming weeks. Lots of good stuff to come.

From the entire staff at Blue Sky Factory, we say “Welcome nTarget!”

You can read more about this exciting news on the official press release from our website.