Campaign Monitor Blog & Gallery

Our improved help section makes searching for answers easy

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-20T04:20:48+10:00

If you’ve accessed the help section of your Campaign Monitor account lately, you would have noticed that we’ve made some rather pleasing visual tweaks to our search. We’ve aimed towards making the process of finding the information you and your clients need much more accessible, not to mention, more natural:

The results say it all – pleasant summaries of most help articles, category links and well, just a good, clean look. Note the new list of most popular questions in the right-hand column:

Clients see pretty much the same interface as designers see, however with fewer help categories. Not all help categories that are open to resellers of Campaign Monitor are available to clients – categories that are exclusively accessible to resellers are marked with a padlock in the right-hand column of the resellers’ Help interface. Also, should a client not find the answer they seek, they are prompted to contact the reseller via email, not Campaign Monitor directly.

We hope you find these changes to the help section of your account as excellent as we do. We’re paying close attention to common search terms too, so look out for improvements such as more relevant content and ‘smarter’ customer support in the near future. Please leave your comments and suggestions below – we’re always looking for ways to improve!

joshua levi galleries

Davida Fernandez — 2009-11-20T04:19:00+10:00

This image rich email for joshua levi galleries from ZERO HOUR has a great, scanable layout, and impactful imagery that does a great job featuring the artwork for their current and upcoming exhibitions.

It's chock full of little graphical touches which make for a well put together email that can still get its message across even with images off. One suggestion: get those contact details into text, people like to copy and paste those things into email programs, skype, google maps, and more.

A better approach to spam complaints for you and your clients

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-19T05:12:59+10:00

After some very insightful discussion with our community, we’ve made some improvements to our spam complaint notification process for resellers of Campaign Monitor.

Initially, if a single client sent a campaign which attracted a sufficiently high number of spam complaints, then everyone’s accounts – including the reseller’s – would be locked. This undoubtedly caused a lot of trouble, especially for designers who had resold Campaign Monitor to multiple clients. Now, if a single client sends a campaign that attracts a high number of spam complaints, then the client’s account only will be locked. The result – resellers of Campaign Monitor are now protected in the event that a single client sends a dud campaign. For all other customers, the process has not changed.

What happens if my client’s campaign receives spam complaints?

If a client sends an email campaign which receives spam complaints from more than 0.3% of email recipients and the actual number of complaints exceeds 20, a white-label warning email will be sent to them:

An email will be also sent to you letting you know that your client’s campaign has received a high number of spam complaints.

Should the complaint rate reach 1% of emails delivered and the actual number of complaints exceeds 20, we will lock the clients’ account, but not those of other clients. The client will see the following message if they try to send further emails:

You will also see the following message next to the client’s name on the dashboard:

Although both you and your client will be able to login, neither of you will be able to send emails on behalf of this particular client. Note that if multiple client accounts have been locked at the same time, then your account will be locked, too. In this instance, neither you, nor all your clients will be able to send email.

Re-opening a locked account

In the instance that either your account, or that of one of your clients is locked, you will need to contact us immediately. We will require as much detail as possible about the campaign that resulted in the account being locked, including the origin of the subscriber list and how subscribers opted-in to receive email from the designer or client.

If it has been shown that you and your client have operated within our anti-spam policy, terms of use and have made every effort to meet our guidelines, then in many cases, we can re-open the account.

Will this ever happen to my campaigns?

If you pay attention to our permission policies there is very little chance that you, or your clients will ever reach the threshold required to receive a warning email, let alone face account closure. Ultimately, your complaint goal should be zero, however we do understand that people will often hit the ‘Spam’ button instead of unsubscribing. Typical email campaigns get very few to no spam complaints, so reaching the 0.3% warning threshold for a given campaign is certainly worthy of a red flag.

Spam complaints are taken very seriously here, as they not only affect the deliverability of specific campaigns, but can impact sender reputation, the deliverability of other customers’ campaigns and even get our mail servers temporarily blocked by unhappy ISPs. Read more about how spam complaints are recorded - we have a similar, white-label resource that your clients can read in the Help section of their accounts.

Overall, this is a great improvement to the spam complaint process, which for resellers of Campaign Monitor, will ultimately reduce a lot of the risk in taking on new clients. Please do share your thoughts on this change in the comments section below.

Linn Records

Davida Fernandez — 2009-11-19T05:12:47+10:00

The first feeling you have when you open this email is that you are falling right into it with that dizzying straight overhead angle in the header. We love how the space isn't gone to waste though, as they put the table of contents right over the top.

Other things we love about this design are great layout, the generous line-height which makes for both a scan-able and readable email, and the big call out to Forward to a Friend. Overall a nice nice job on this internal design from Jim Collinson at Linn Records.

Getting started with our free email templates

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-17T22:11:12+10:00

If you’re new to coding HTML email or short on time, our 30+ free email templates are a great place to start preparing a campaign. In this post, we’ll go through the fundamentals of downloading and editing a template, then uploading your email masterpiece to a campaign. We’ve tried and tested our email templates in all the major email clients, so most of the hard work has been already done for you.

Although this walkthrough requires no assumed knowledge, we highly recommend that you understand the fundamentals of coding in HTML and have experience using a visual HTML editor. Check out our help topic for more information.

Lets get started

Getting started with a template is easy. Simply visit our template gallery and download your template of choice:

You will notice that when you download a template from Campaign Monitor, it will come with an assortment of other files – don’t worry about these for now. Simply open ‘template-basic.html’ (or similar) in your HTML editor of choice and enjoy the show:

For the purposes of this guide, we’ll be using Adobe Dreamweaver as our HTML editor.

Editing the template

You have two options when it comes to editing our templates – you can either use your own HTML editor, or once you have set up tags, our WYSIWYG editor, however we’ll stick to the former option for now.

In your HTML editor, you will either be able to view the email template visually, or as lines of HTML code. If you are not confident with HTML code, we recommend viewing the template design as a visual layout (called ‘Design view’ in Adobe Dreamweaver):

In most visual HTML editors, you will be able to type directly over the existing text and even drag-and-drop images into your layout. Play around with text and color… Just don’t forget to save your work regularly:

At this point, it’s essential that you delve into the code – you will see that we’ve used a few of our tags to add the ever-important ‘unsubscribe’ and ‘forward-to-a-friend’ links. You can edit the existing tags in the HTML code, or add some of your own:

Once you’re happy with your template, compress all the images and CSS files you need for the campaign into a .zip file (don’t zip ‘template-basic.html’) and login to your Campaign Monitor account.

Adding a template to your campaign

To add your updated template to a campaign, simply create a new campaign in Campaign Monitor, define the campaign details and sender, then when you reach ‘Step 2.2: Define the HTML content for this campaign’, select, ‘Import the campaign from my computer or network’. At Step 2.3, choose ‘template-basic.html’ as your HTML page and check, ‘Move a copy of my CSS inline’. Also, select your new .zip file in ‘2. All other files in zip format’:

Once you click, ‘Get my Campaign’, you will be able to preview the campaign, continue or re-import it. If you’re satisfied with the result, click the ‘Next’ button, edit the plain text version of your email using our editor and you’re done!

This is our first post in a series on getting started with Campaign Monitor’s templates. Next, we’ll look at tags and consequently, creating templates for use in our WYSIWYG editor. Stay tuned to this blog for more!

Want to do more with our templates? This post covers the quickest and most simple way to set up an email campaign using our free templates. If you’re after something more advanced, please take a look at our comprehensive resources, or even create your own email template.

Minu November Newsletter

Jason De Santis — 2009-11-17T04:41:32+10:00

Exposing unique artwork, prints and creative goods from New Zealand, Minu brings it all together in a clean, well thought out, newsletter. Showcasing a few pieces of art as well as event information, this email is light-hearted in feeling and leads the reader through copious amounts of content without complication.

Each section is well defined, and most notably, the bottom section with their website, blog and shopping links. However, since their store information is made of two graphics, one suggestion would be to have correlated links in case viewers have images turned off. This would ensure their store links are accessible.

Writing effective email copy

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-16T01:37:20+10:00

When you’re elbows-deep in applying visual tweaks to your HTML email design, it’s very easy to forget how important writing quality, punchy copy can be. Tailoring email copy to your audience is not a matter of ensuring your message is readable even with images turned off, but presenting it in a style that your readers will respond to. In this post we’ll highlight some considerations when writing effective email copy, including tone, personality, keeping it concise, offering value to the reader and testing.

Start the conversation

You don’t have to be an expert copywriter to engage audiences, simply someone who understands the objectives of your campaign and can adapt their language to suit. We do this in everyday life – how you talk to a new client will, in most cases, be very different from how you address your partner or friends. And just like real life, being authentic and conversational is key to creating dialogue, regardless of whether you’re selling fashion to teens or life insurance to retirees.

With this in mind, consider the unique voice of your email communications and keep it consistent. Will your campaign convey the personality of a marketing team, senior management, a product user, or a friend? Each of these roles (and many more) will use their language differently and have a different kind relationship with the reader. Flipping from one persona to the next simply doesn’t work.

Get to the point

The Internet has many times over been blamed for turning us into lazy, keyword-seeing readers. Whether or not this is a result of mental shortcutting or backlit screens, keep your copy clear and concise. The majority of readers will not read the entirety of your email, let alone large blocks of text. So, highlight key points in your copy, use visual devices like colour and space and ensure that the message is immediately tangible – after all, you only have a few initial seconds before your reader decides to discard your email… Or read on.

Inspire action

At this point, it’s worth considering the importance of a strong call-to-action - what’s in it for the reader, anyway? Sell with value - outline the benefits of your product and the useful ways in which it can be used. Identify common pain-points and how you can overcome them. As many clients look towards fostering a level of engagement that goes much deeper than simply counting click-throughs to a landing page, compel recipients to explore your site, request more information, try new things and return for more.

Test, learn and improve

Finally, test and refine your email campaigns. Proofread, run your email copy past another set of eyes, ask for opinions. Progressively refine your copy using A/B testing, by comparing subject lines, differing calls to action and body content, all while delivering the most attractive email to your subscribers.

The quality of copy is critical to the success of a campaign, yet with the visual attraction of HTML email, often gets simply relegated to a design afterthought. Remember your objectives and ultimately, how you’re going to measure the success of the campaign - you can define your brand's relationship with the reader, inspire action and learn more about your audience, simply by giving your copy some consideration and seeing it from recipient's point of view.

Have a tip to add? These are only a few hints as how you can improve your copy and ensure more responsive subscribers, so please add your own tips and suggestions below.

The Pleb

Jason De Santis — 2009-11-16T01:36:16+10:00

Announcing the opening of their new store, The Pleb clothing company comes at its audience with a dynamic and colorful email. A bold graphic on a dark background greets one’s inbox with punch and then delightfully breaks up the content into color coded sections to make for easy reading. With images turned off, this design holds up in unique fashion, much like The Pleb’s clothing line. The only thing we’d suggest (and something to watch out for with creative emails) is to give the unsubscribe a more cohesive look to integrate with the design. Overall, a nicely executed campaign!

Shopify app for Campaign Monitor

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-13T01:00:48+10:00

Lucid Design, a New Zealand-based graphic design and web development studio, have just released their Shopify web application for Campaign Monitor.

With their Shopify + Campaign Monitor app, buyers can opt-in to receive email communications from your Shopify online store at the checkout stage and be added to an existing Campaign Monitor subscriber list. You can then design and send your customers email newsletters, offers and other marketing material, all from within Campaign Monitor’s powerful interface.

Shopify integration with Campaign Monitor can be achieved within a matter of minutes - all you need to provide is your Campaign Monitor API key. You no longer have to worry about manually uploading files to your web server, simply install their app via the Shopify App Store, complete the short setup process and start collecting customer email addresses.

The Shopify + Campaign Monitor app is currently free of charge, so give it a shot and share your thoughts on this nifty integration.

Who pays the price when your client doesn’t have permission

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-12T05:14:24+10:00

One of your clients has just come to you with a really snazzy new subscriber list – a few-hundred email addresses – and is itching to have his regular monthly newsletter sent to these contacts. “Where did you get these email addresses?” you ask. “Oh, they’re from business cards I picked up at a trade fair”. What could possibly go wrong?

Declaring permission

Permission can be a minefield for both new and experienced email marketers alike. The problem is only compounded when clients bring along their own subscriber lists. Unless your client has explicit permission to send them email, a number of unfortunate situations can arise.

This is why at Campaign Monitor we have a strict anti-spam policy to ensure your list is legitimate. In short, there are some lists we will not accept, including:

Lists where your client does not have explicit, provable permission to contact the recipients in relation to the topic of the email being sent
Lists that have been bought, loaned, rented or in any way acquired from a third party - these include tradeshow and chamber of commerce type lists, where people have signed up to an organisation or group, not the individual sender
Lists which have not been contacted via email in the last 2 years - subscribers may have forgotten providing their details 2 weeks ago, let alone 2 years down the track, and;
Lists scraped or copy and pasted from the web.

We also have an approval process prior to sending your first large campaign. Have a look at our help topic to see how this works.

What happens if my client doesn’t have permission?

We can’t ensure that all contacts that are imported into subscriber lists have stated their consent to be emailed. In the case of your clients providing lists, make sure you read this handy reference to help you better check your clients have obtained permission. If it all sounds a little tricky, here are some good reasons why you should ensure your clients’ subscriber lists know what they’re in for:

Your client doesn’t want to be a spammer - Did you ever ask for all those ‘v1agra’ emails? Unsolicited email in any form is very poorly regarded and will jet junked… Or worse.
It’s a legal requirement - In the United States, the CAN-SPAM Act sets the rules for commercial email and serves to protect the rights of recipients. Similar rules exist across the world. Breaking these laws can be not only costly, but can damage your reputation… And business.
Your client’s campaign deliverability will suffer - These days, recipients are more frequently treating the ‘Report Spam’ button as the way to unsubscribe from an undesirable mailing list. If an excessive number of spam reports are received as a result of an unsolicited email being sent, then the domain, or IP from which the message originated can be blocked by email service providers and ISPs.
Everyone’s campaign deliverability will suffer - The problem gets infinitely worse when you consider how much email gets processed by our mail servers. All it takes is one rogue client to get our mail servers temporarily blocked, to the detriment of everyone who has sent a campaign around that time.

So, who pays the price when a campaign is sent to a subscriber list, without seeking the recipients’ permission first? The answer is - Everyone.

Starting on the right foot with new subscribers

Now you’ve verified that your clients’ new list is legitimate, you may not want to go gung-ho into emailing them at any time of day or night. Here are some smart ways to engage your new subscribers:

Consider an introductory email - Introducing the client and explaining how they received their contact details is always a safe way to start the relationship. After all, your new subscribers may have forgotten passing their details at the trade fair. This is also a great time to request that new subscribers update their preferences or other custom fields you may have. As always, subscribers should be given the opportunity to unsubscribe immediately.
Permission also covers frequency of email - If your client has asked new subscribers to sign up for a monthly newsletter, this does not give your client permission to email them updates on a weekly basis. Be honest and suggest they sign up to your other relevant mailing lists.
Take particular care with competition lists - A disproportionate number of spam complaints are the result of lists being sourced from competitions. Read this article on how to treat these lists.

Emailing your subscribers for the first time is like a real-life introduction - first impressions count, so take the right steps to ensure a harmonious and lasting relationship.

Finally…

As you can see, gaining permission is not rocket-science if you understand the process from the get-go. Plus, it only makes sense – with a combination of best practice and an understanding of our approvals process, your client will be sending to their happy, responsive list in no time. Ignoring permission simply leads to a dead-end.

Are your clients permission-savvy? We would love to hear of your experiences, good and bad alike. Add them below as a comment, or send us your questions!

Minds On Design Lab

Jason De Santis — 2009-11-11T23:58:20+10:00

Mind On Design Lab, as design partners to educational and social serving organizations, they have developed a new fundraising tool along with a great newsletter to announce their work and company progress. Given their portfolio of attractive, clean, and professional design, its no doubt their newsletter would reflect this as well. This simple, yet clean layout shows how organized and detailed the Minds On Design Lab crew can be - introduction, developments and projects all rolled in to one email with distinct header text, footer and simple graphics. Well done!

Giving the Jelly a stir: Casual coworking for designers

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-11T03:11:28+10:00

What do you get when you throw 15 designers, coders and web-types into an open room, with workspaces, couches, fast Internet access and a good supply of coffee? Jelly.

The notion of casual coworking in a Jelly, or plainly, spending the odd weekday with a like-minded group of people, has gained a lot of momentum amongst designers and web developers. Under the auspices of the Sydney-based design and development house, Agency Rainford, I decided to experience the Jelly phenomenon for myself.

Why Jelly?

Regardless of whether the idea of spending the day amongst your fellow designers sounds like inspiration-heaven or an infinite string of distractions, Jellies have gained appeal for number of reasons:

It’s a refreshing day out-of-the-office with like-minded individuals
It’s a day in the office for freelancers, home-based designers and people who don’t work in a regular office environment
It’s a great opportunity to mix and network, while actually getting some ‘real work’ done
The coffee is consistently fabulous

For most designers, attending a Jelly is simply a unique way to get into a different headspace, share ideas and do it all amongst great company.

But… Do you actually get work done?

The amount of work that occurs at a Jelly is as much dependent on your personal working style, as that of your coworkers. One of Agency Rainford’s Jelly regulars reflected on how little work occurred at their first Jelly, citing that the pure excitement of launching one of Sydney’s first code-and-design Jellies, combined with sharing the space with a diverse, energized crowd, had a predictably negative effect on productivity. However, once a routine had been established, complete with recurring participants and standardized coffee breaks, the Jelly environment turned from novelty to one of constructive cooperation.

In attempting to commit to my regular day-to-day at the Jelly, I quickly discovered that I was only able to maintain concentration by leveling the surrounding conversations to ambient noise, no matter how interesting they were. Yes, there were silent stretches of 10-15 minutes, but the majority of the time the room was filled with fascinating chatter - often, directed at you. For designers used to operating in busy agencies, this may be no shock, but for the rest of us there were simply two options - either tune out and work, or sport a serious pair of headphones.

Another consideration soon arose. I was away from my desktop machine – and didn’t have access to my drives or the intranet. Although there was no critical need to access either resource, it did highlight that a degree of readiness is necessary, especially if you don’t regularly work away from the office.

After a hectic morning of people walking in and out with laptops, various introductions and a collective curiosity as to what everyone else was working on, things did settle into a steady hum. The conversation continued to ebb in and out for the rest of the day, but with more purpose and less YouTube breaks.

It is possible to get a solid day’s work done at a Jelly, but for most participants, that’s not entirely the point – just as important are the social and collaborative benefits, from brainstorming a new idea, learning how you can do something better, or simply meeting other designers.

So, how do I get started?

Interested in giving casual coworking a try? Jellies have spread to over 100 cities worldwide. Check the list of locations to find one near you.

I asked Tim Lucas, the organizer of Agency Rainford’s Jelly for his advice to those planning on starting their own Jelly. His response was to keep it simple, regular and genuine. If you limit the scope of your Jelly to a manageable number of participants and simple workspaces, maintain a regular Jelly schedule, mindful of meetings and other work commitments you have on, and foster a genuine sense of community, then your Jelly will soon populate and often, maintain itself. Read more on how to host your own Jelly.

Casual coworking may not be for everyone, but if you’re a designer who enjoys being able to work remotely and is open to spending a day collaboratively working, then there’s a good chance that you will be hooked. Personally, I found that not only was it a great way to meet a diverse and engaged group, but learn more about my craft and still get a satisfying amount of work done, too. After all, what’s not to love about Jelly?

Many thanks to our friends at Agency Rainford in Sydney, Australia. Follow them on Twitter.

Do you host, or are you planning on organizing or attending a Jelly? We support a number of events for designers and developers via our Giving Back program and are keen to get behind your Jelly or event, too.

Using the preference center to retain and target your subscribers

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-09T05:51:02+10:00

Not sure if your subscribers prefer to receive campaigns about soccer or snooker? Would they hang around if they received updates on country music, over calypso? There are immense benefits to knowing your subscribers’ interests, desired email frequency or even location, two of them being better targeting of your subscribers and less unsubscribes. Plus, in order to reduce email churn, you will want users to be able to update their active email address. Thankfully, you can achieve this and more, simply by using Campaign Monitor’s preference center feature.

Quick jump:

The preference center in a nutshell
Setting up the preference center
Customizing the preference center
Adding a link to the preference center to your email
Editing your subscribe form
So.. How do I get my subscribers to edit their preferences?

The preference center in a nutshell

Even if you’ve had an existing subscriber list for a while now, collecting preference information and giving subscribers the option of changing their preferences instead of simply unsubscribing is easy, with a little know-how as to how segments work. In an earlier blog post, we discussed how useful segments can be – if you haven’t tried segmenting your lists yet, do give this post a read.

Setting preferences is akin to allowing your subscribers to subscribe and unsubscribe to sub-lists - a subscriber to a widget store newsletter may be interested in Arduinos, but not Faraday cages, and therefore may only want to receive newsletters solely about Arduinos. Having a preference center allows the subscriber to state this:

Another benefit to setting up a preference center is a reduction in email churn, being the number of emails in your list that become inactive as people discard their email addresses. On average, 15-25% of all valid email addresses are discarded each year as people move to a different ISP or change jobs – with a preference center, subscribers can change their subscribed email address without completely unsubscribing from your list.

Setting up the preference center

In this example, we will set up a preference center with the three interest categories above, being ‘Arduinos’, ‘Faraday Cages’ and ‘Gewgaws’.

In your account, click on ‘Manage Subscribers’, then your subscriber list, then click ‘Custom Fields’. Under ‘Edit field’, create a new field with Data Type, “Multiple Options (can select many)’ and enter your desired preferences. Ensure “This field should be visible to recipients when they edit their settings in the preference center” is checked:

Subscribers will now be able to subscribe to these preferences, and you will be able to segment your subscriber list accordingly:

Customizing the preference center

To change the colors, header graphic, message and language of the preference center, click on ‘Client Settings’, then ‘Preference Center’. You can also preview the preference center:

Adding a link to the preference center in your email

Linking to your preference center is as easy as adding the following tags to your email content. When we send your campaign, we’ll convert this into a personalized link for each of your subscribers.

HTML emails - <preferences>this will be a link</preferences>

Plain text emails - [preferences]

Note that the preference center is only available to subscribers once the campaign is sent – in order to test the preference center link, you will need to send the campaign to subscriber list that includes you as a subscriber.

Editing your subscribe form

When creating a subscribe form, you can also add custom fields so that subscribers can state their preferences when they sign up for your email. In ‘Manage Subscribers’, click on your subscriber list, then, ‘Create a subscribe form’. Check the custom field you wish to add, generate the code and you’re off:

So.. How do I get my subscribers to edit their preferences?

Using our above example, say you wanted to start sending the special-interest newsletters (‘Arduinos’, ‘Gewgaws’...) to your subscribers. Here are some tactics you could try:

For existing subscribers - Consider sending an introductory email, suggesting that your subscribers update their preferences in order to receive more relevant updates on their favorite products. Also remind them that they can change preferences or their subscribed email address at any time. All future emails should contain a link to the preference center.

For new subscribers - In the confirmation, or welcome message, make sure the subscriber is made aware that they can change their preferences, or unsubscribe at any time. It doubly helps if you have already edited your subscribe form to reflect the preferences on offer.

Finally…

Preference centers are a very powerful addition to any email campaign as they not only encourage subscriber retention, but allow you to profile your subscriber list by interest, gender, or whatever field you please.

If you’ve created a great preference center, or have seen one you like, do tell us about it below. Whether it’s a cool customization or a neat way to segment your lists, we’re always keen to know about the creative ways that designers have used preference centres for everyone’s benefit.

Authentic Jobs

Blake Haswell — 2009-11-06T07:25:47+10:00

Authentic Jobs, the popular web design job board from Cameron Moll, has been redesigned and upgraded, and as part of the announcement he has sent out this newsletter.

You can see that this campaign has been thoroughly thought out. It starts off with a short introduction which explains the main points of the email and gives a clear call to action, and then in the following sections it goes into detail about the new features.

We also like the screenshots which support the content, but aren’t necessary to understand it, which means that this campaign will display perfectly with images disabled. This is another fine example of the great design Cameron is so well known for.

A new look for system emails

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-06T02:35:02+10:00

If you’ve been receiving invoices, email delivery confirmations or password reset emails in the last few days, you may have noticed that we’ve made some changes to the look of these system-generated messages. They’ve been given a delectably modern cut-and-color, with clean lines, nice icons and more information:

In our previous blog post, you may have noticed the new invoice design; these now include customizable address fields, which can also include VAT number and any other relevant information:

The invoices to both you and your clients have been updated to be consistent with the look and feel of the application, which undoubtedly is a great improvement.

Please send us any comments or feedback regarding this redesign - we’re always looking to improve!

Haystack

Blake Haswell — 2009-11-05T05:18:29+10:00

Haystack, the new service for sourcing web designers, has launched on the scene thanks to the ever-innovative folks at 37signals. In step with their release, they’ve delivered a newsletter that accentuates why 37signals is such a loved brand - not only does it make a clear case as to why you should be using their products, but keeps the message fun and undeniably, tickles your curiosity to know more.

We really like the simple design with a prominent call to action and clear structure. The dark background on the footer is a nice way to mark it as a separate section, and we also like the (now customary) large product icons. Overall, 37signals’ newsletters, like their web applications, look modern and fresh, yet perpetually consistent from one release to the next.

Email Bacon’s Matt Adams on why email goes better with bacon

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-04T04:49:34+10:00

Email Bacon has combined all the best elements of a successful Campaign Monitor rebrand – a striking design, sense of humor, business-savvy and the smell of bacon. Matt Adams from factor1 spent a moment apart from the fry pan to tell us about offering affordable email marketing services and being a ‘purple cow’.

First things first - why is everything better with bacon?

It’s consistently advertised that bacon makes everything better. You can’t watch an hour of TV without seeing at least one commercial with bacon. When we market to a potential customer, we can count on the bacon concept being reinforced all day long. Hopefully customers will find Email Bacon to be memorable.

The Email Bacon site is brilliant, how did it come together?

We try to align all of our factor1 branded sites to a minimalist, core message approach. We like to have fun, and want things to be simple for our visitors and clients. Everything we create has the aim of keeping the heavy thinking on our end, so clients simply receive the content they came looking for. People are busy, and the last thing they want is to read 3 pages on why they should use Email Bacon.

How did you come up with your pricing model?

We wanted Email Bacon to be affordable, but we didn’t want to give the farm away. We also wanted to dissuade anyone not serious about using it. Thus, we don’t offer free setup (even with a stock template), since even account setup and walking clients though the product takes time.

We are pretty fast coders, so we kept the setup fee small and manageable for most clients, yet enough to cover the development costs even if a client never sends a single email. In addition, we make a profit from clients sending their campaigns via Campaign Monitor. It’s our goal to have some automated income without tons of handholding.

How have you been spreading the word?

We are keeping Email Bacon semi low-key. With so many players in the email marketing services arena, we can’t justify spending much on ad campaigns. So we have been sticking to our current client base. With over 100 unique visitors to our factor1 site daily, we hope to see some of them convert to Email Bacon. Many of our existing clients ask us about email marketing – viewing the Email Bacon website is 10 times better than any brochure we can send them.

What are your plans for Email Bacon in the future?

Right now, we are letting it cook a bit longer. We have some other big projects hovering around factor1 - all these projects cross-promote our additional services. So, as we sell full web or branding services to our clients, we promote Email Bacon.

In the future, we’re planning to reduce our setup cost (to as low as $99), and further automate our sign up process, potentially with the API. But that’s a bit down the road. We also have plans to include video demos, as we understand the power of video to promote our message. We already have the equipment, we just need the time to record and edit.

Any tips for other designers considering reselling Campaign Monitor?

Be remarkable. There are thousands of email systems out there, but most do not have the great features that Campaign Monitor has. This should be a huge advantage, but you will still have to be competitively priced, as email marketing is considered to be a commodity these days. If you are remarkable, a ’purple cow’ as Seth Godin says, at least you have a shot. We hear daily that Email Bacon is fun, light hearted, and looks like a great service. People are talking, and it’s not about how low-cost Email Bacon is, but how they remember our brand.

Campaign Monitor has generated over $2 million in profits for designers like yourself. Find out how you can use our white-label product to set your own prices and make money when your clients send their own campaigns.

Keep the tax man happy with detailed invoices

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-03T04:55:24+10:00

Felt that your invoices were lacking important information? You can now add additional details like your address and VAT number to both the invoices we send to you and the invoices sent to your clients.

It’s easy to customize the invoices we send to you, simply head into your Account Settings and add any additional details you require in the new Address field:

You can also customize the invoices that are sent to your clients. In a similar fashion, click on Client Settings and click ‘Edit Client Details’. You will also see a new Address field:

The updated invoices to your clients will feature all the details in the Address field, including any tax information you enter:

This new feature shouldn’t just keep the tax-man happy, but also means more professional invoices for you and your clients. As always, do feel free to drop us a line if you have any suggestions as to how we can further improve our billing and invoicing facilities.

pulse8

Travis Bell — 2009-11-03T04:52:44+10:00

There’s something to be said for the exceptionally simple and clean message here. For an email that would normally include a set of maps and directions, pulse8 chose the simple text approach. The center justified text and relatively narrow width ensure that it will look good on even smaller resolution screens.

They link straight to a Google Map for easy reference and should you be wondering how to contact them, make it easy to find their phone and email details.

Set and Profit: Clients can now purchase their own email credits

Ros Hodgekiss — 2009-11-02T06:42:33+10:00

If you have been poking around your account this morning, you may have noticed that under ‘Client Settings’ and ‘Account access and billing’ that there is a new billing option for clients to purchase their own email credits.

What this means is that if you have clients sending their own campaigns via your Campaign Monitor account, they will be able to top up their email credit balance at their own discretion. Even better, you have the choice of either charging your clients for email credits at the base rate, or charging at your own set rate and pocketing the difference as profit!

For example, if a client plans to purchase 50,000 credits for their upcoming campaigns and you have set the price of email credits at 3 cents per credit, your client will pay $1500 for the credits and you will pocket $1000 in profit (base rate is 1 cent/email).

Allowing your clients to purchase their own email credits

Setting up the facility for clients to purchase their own credits is simple. Simply head to the ‘Client Settings’ tab and click ‘Account access and billing’ to edit. Ensure that alongside the ‘Create/Send’ tab, ‘Create and send their own campaigns’ is checked, then click the ‘Billing’ tab:

Now, you can you can allow your client to purchase credits, either at the base rate or at a price set by you:

Once you’ve set the rates that you want to charge for email credits, click ‘Save Access and Billing’ and you’re off!

What does the client see?

So, say you’ve set the price of credits at 3 cents for the first 50,000 purchased. When the client clicks on ‘Billing’, then the ‘Buy credits and save’ link, they can now enter the number of email credits they want to purchase and click, ‘Calculate cost’. The total bill and credit card facility to pay for them will be displayed. You will also see the pricing structure for email credits, as set by you:

Client Settings, now prettier

You may have also noticed that as part of this update, we’ve cleaned up the ‘Account access and billing settings’ section to make it much cleaner and easier to navigate:

If you have any suggestions or comments regarding the new design, please feel free to comment below.

How can I get my clients sending their own campaigns? Offering our white-label product to your clients is a great way to add value to your existing services and bring in additional revenue. Take control and set the prices, bill clients automatically and make some sweet coin. In fact, we’ve already raised over $2 million in profit for designers like you!