Vencio News

Announcing M&A Executive Search

2008-08-18T12:58:00.005-06:00

Vencio developed a website for a new executive search firm in the twin cities, providing leadership solutions at senior executive levels of their client organizations.

Visit M&A Executive Search

Minnesota Bicycle Festival

2008-08-18T12:52:00.003-06:00

For the second consecutive year Vencio has volunteered its services as an e-Marketing to the Great River Energy Bicycle Festival and Nature Valley Grand Prix, which raises money to benefit the Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.

This year we also volunteered as developer of the 2008 web site featuring dynamic photo and video galleries, and multiple blogs.

Visit the 2008 Minnesota Bike Festival Website

Photofetti Custom e-Commerce site

2008-08-18T12:44:00.003-06:00

Vencio designed a new website and developed a custom online ordering application for Photofetti. The ordering application features a photo-cropping tool, and the site houses many other fun features such as their own blog.

Check out Photofetti's new website.

A Vencio Recommendation: LogMeIn

2008-02-20T12:01:00.006-06:00

For the past few years, many of us at Vencio have been using a program called LogMeIn to access our work computers when we are away from the office. LogMeIn is a remote-desktop application competing with the likes of PC Anywhere, GoToMyPC, and even the built-in Windows "Remote Desktop Connection" feature. Basically you can sit in front of your PC at home or on the road and interact with the desktop of your work PC (or any other PC that has LogMeIn installed on it). My opinion is LogMeIn beats all these other applications in both functionality and price.

LMI has several versions with varying costs. There are versions for IT network professionals, help desk and support, or even just controlling a single machine. We actually use the level that is free - yes, FREE. You can't beat that price, and it includes all the features we need.

But isn't Windows' Remote Desktop Connection also free? Yes, but LMI has two distinct advantages. First of all, it's browser based so you can access your PC from any standard browser such as IE or FireFox. With Remote Desktop Connection you need to be on a machine that has RDC installed. Second, RDC is a MAJOR pain to try to set up through a corporate firewall. I could not even get it set up through Vencio's firewall. With LMI, all I had to do was download a little tray item to my work PC and I was ready to go. No firewall could stop me.

LogMeIn is one of my all-time favorite apps, and I highly recommend it for any scenario where you need a remote-desktop solution.

[e-Marketing] NEW! Design and SPAM testing and e-Mail Verification

2008-01-11T14:51:00.000-06:00

In case you didn't catch it in our latest e-newsletter, Vencio is now offering two new e-Marketing services: Complete Design and SPAM Testing, and e-Mail Verification. These new services will help optimize your e-Marketing for optimum delivery, consistency, and help protect you as the sender.

Design and Spam Testing

Email clients are programmed to weed out potential SPAM e-mails. Vencio offers an e-mail design and SPAM testing service to help assure that your subscriber-list messages and newsletters reach inboxes, not their spam filters.

Design testing in all the major email clients
Vencio will review exactly how your email will look in more than 15 of the most popular email clients like Outlook, Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Lotus Notes, AOL and many more.

Tested against popular spam filters and firewalls
Instead of just scanning your content for "spammy words", we'll pass your email through real spam filters and tell you exactly why you failed. A simple keyword scanner just doesn't cut it these days.

Not only this, but we'll also run your email through a number of popular spam firewalls, which are the gatekeepers for most ISP's and large corporations.

e-Mail Verification
Don't send to bad addresses... verify the list beforehand!

Vencio will check every email address from a database or a mailing list and determine if the e-mails are still valid. List hygiene plays a role in the delivery race. It is important to maintain a clean mailing list because a lot of ISP mail servers have been known to block a senders for repeated sending messages to non-existing email addresses.

Exhibits Development Group now Online

2008-01-09T10:14:00.001-06:00

Exhibits Development Group specializes in developing, distributing and managing traveling exhibitions, cultural projects, and corporate exhibitions. Their corporate site, new to the web, and showcases the depth of their experience, international prowess, and vast resources.

Limelight Generations Web Site Goes Live

2008-01-09T10:10:00.000-06:00

Vencio is pleased to announce the launch of the Limelight Generations web site! Limelight Generations is a combination of the former public relations firm, Limelight Communications, and association membership marketing company, Limelight Associations. Limelight Generations is now one of the only generation marketing companies in the United States.

Limelight Generations is home to publications, services, presentations and tools to help their clients effectively reach the next generation of executives, employees, clients, and consumers. Contribute to their blog, subscribe to their e-newsletter, and read their articles—everything on their new web site is tailored to helping organizations capture the market share of generations X, Y, and soon Z.

Vencio Receives 2007 Minnesota Keystone Program Recognition

2007-12-20T14:11:00.000-06:00

On December 12th, 2007 the President and CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce Todd Klingel recognized Vencio as being a participant in the 2007 Minnesota Keystone Program "Building Communities through Two and Five Percent Giving".

Each year the The Minnesota Keystone Program recognizes and honors companies that donate at least 2% of their pre-tax earnings to the community. Vencio is proud to share the stage with other Minnesota companies such as Carlson Companies, Inc., Medtronic Inc., Target Corporation and Wells Fargo Minnesota.

[e-Marketing] Improved Results & Statistics

2007-09-21T13:52:00.000-06:00

Vencio is pleased to offer improved e-Marketing Results & Statistics*!

One of the frustrations with many marketing activities is that it can be very hard to tell what is working, and what is just costing money. When you conduct e-Marketing with Vencio’s improved Results & Statistics you can see very quickly what is working, and what is not.

Some enhanced features include:

Visual snapshot
Forward-to-a-friend
Spam Complaint monitoring
Timelines: Opens, Subscribes, and Unsubscribes
Link Activity Report

As well as existing features:

Deliverable, and Undeliverable ratings
Total and unique opens
HTML Clicks
Bounces

*Some campaigns may not be eligible for improved statistics, contact emarketing@vencio.com, 651.290.0602 ext. 2 for details.

More on Results & Statistics
Guide to e-Marketing (PDF) - includes info on stats

[e-Marketing] Helping Ensure the Best Possible Deliverability

2007-09-21T13:39:00.000-06:00

Vencio wants to make sure your campaigns receive the best possible deliverability and open rates. One step we take is to help minimize the chances of your campaigns being reported as SPAM by ensuring they follow permission email marketing guidelines.

More on Permission and CAN-SPAM Compliance
Guide to e-Marketing (PDF) - includes definitions of spam, permission, and compliance

USPS Postage Increase

2007-04-19T10:57:00.000-06:00

As you may have heard, the United States Post Office has announced another postal rate increase beginning May 14, 2007. This increase will affect all classes of mail with an average increase of .02 cents per piece. Please visit the USPS website to help better define the postage increase.

Save Money - Mail Before May 14th
If you are planning any mailing campaigns before the increase we ask that you have all material and data to us at least 7 working days before the postage increase goes into effect (May 14, 2007).

How do you Communicate?

2007-04-19T10:35:00.000-06:00

How do you communicate with your customers and prospects? Have you thought about an e-Newsletter (email newsletter) for your company? e-Newsletters are not spam, they are Opt-in e-mail advertising to your contacts. Offering an e-Newsletter is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to your business today, allowing you to communicate information and form long-lasting relationship swith your prospects and customers.

What makes e-Newsletters so effective?

I just may be giving away the secrets to effective e-Newsletters in this article. In fact, this information just may be so useful, you might want to send me a personal thank-you (or a request to start your own newsletter!).

Useful. Including information valuable to your customers is one of the best ways to develop your relationship with them, not to mention initiate new relationships (offer a valuable newsletter, and guaranteed you'll begin receiving new subscribers). In addition to your e-Newsletter being a communication medium for your business, make your newsletter impact your reader's success, and they'll be compelled to read every issue.

Interesting. With the volume of emails today, its no secret just by looking in your inbox that there is competition for reading them. Who said a profitable business had to be boring? Conversational language, and an occasional joke just might be the trick to make your email stand out from all the rest. Make your newsletter interesting, and make your subscribers feel if they delete your email, they may miss some information that would impact their success.

Simple. Your email newsletter shouldn't be cluttered, it shouldn't read as a thesis or study. Offer simple insights, tips, and concepts small enough for readers to dig into and remember.

Vencio's in-house design staff can create a customized, personalized HTML email (there's no such thing as stock-templates here!) and distribute to your list as often as you want.

Don't already have an email distribution list?

It's never too early to start building your email list! Let Vencio set your website up with an opt-in page, and begin building a permission-based email list today.

Introducing e-Commerce at Vencio!

2007-04-19T10:04:00.000-06:00

Vencio is proud to announce the launch of its e-commerce division.

Vencio now has the ability to provide a completely customizable online shopping experience, including a shopping cart, real-time shipping rates, online payment, and the ability to support up to 500,000 products including a detailed product search.