Now the reason we say that something is a “need” is because there are strong consequences if the need is not met. You need to eat, because if you don’t eat then you won’t survive. You need to sleep, because if you don’t sleep then a lot of very bad things will happen to you. So in order to demonstrate that your product is not just desirable but necessary, you have to figure out what will happen to a person who fails to buy it from you. (more…)

However, as important as positive reinforcements are for successful marketing, they are only a part of what it takes to motivate people to take action. And this is doubly true when you are trying to market your products or build your brand during a slow economy. When fragile markets and shrinking budgets are making people more and more hesitant to invest their resources, you have to develop an understanding of their hesitation.

(more…)

You probably interrupt your work every 10 minutes or so to check for new messages, even though you are completely aware that the computer will tell you as soon as a new message has arrived. You might leave the window open in the background for a while, so that the next time you have to check for mail it will take less time to load.

And if you do decide to close the window, you probably click the refresh button just one more time before you do. (more…)

We develop software to extend your business, improve your operations, and ultimately help you succeed.  With each new update we are constantly thinking about how you could further utilize & customize the solution to fit your specific needs.  From our central language file, Smarty template files, CSS files, and more you have been able to customize & tweak our products.

We have a lot of changes taking place here with 1-2-All 5.0, the latest version of KB just released, and SupportTrio 3.0 in development.  As part of these new updates we are also implementing a very significant change… Including full source code with all of our products.  That means there are no more zend or ioncube requirements.  Our commitment to ensure security of our intellectual property does remain - but we have managed to come up with a solution that forms a great balance between licensing and being able to customize the product as much as you would like.  As of today all products are now available with the source included.

We hope you will find this change and our future changes to benefit you and if you should have any feedback at any time please let us know!

You know you should cut your losses and fold, but you’ve already invested so much. You feel that you have a right to win, even without the cards to back that feeling up. And so, with some hesitation, you push your chips into the center even as you lament your poor chances at getting the chips back. What happened? (more…)

E-mail marketing is a powerful way to build and maintain relationships with your clients over the long term. All too often, though, even savvy businesspeople forget that a real relationship goes both ways. (more…)

As we near the general beta release of 5.0 we are have setup a 1-2-All Beta blog.  You can view screenshots, read about the new features, and let us know what you think.  The download will be available shortly as internal and alpha testing is nearly complete.

Click here to view the 1-2-All Beta Blog (Current 1-2-All clients only)

“Flash improves your email marketing campaigns effectiveness”

I am not sure who on earth came up with that - OR - if it was automatically generated, but it most definitely does not.  On that topic, here are a couple of things you should avoid when creating your email campaigns.

• Flash
  You will experience compatibility issues along with security warning issues.  If you want to include a movie you can include a screen capture of the movie and then have the movie launch in their browser once they click on the image.
• Javascript
  You will experience compatibility issues along with security warning issues.
• Forms
  I realize some people may disagree with this - but forms are not fully compatible and they can trigger some security warnings.
• Background Images
  Background images are very tricky if you wish to get maximum compatibility.  Outside of placing a background image in the body tag you will experience a number of issues.
• Setting a background color without using a wrapping div
  Many web based email clients will not show your body background color.  Thus if you are requiring a background color we suggest to also include a wrapping div around your content that is also set to have the same background color that your body tag has.

These are just a couple of the things you should keep in mind when creating your next campaign.

This is part of a series of email design articles.  Subscribe to our blog to be notified as we release additional email design tips. 

I wanted to share how dead simple it is to get started creating a new login source using your own authentication system. We’ve included some of the more popular applications like Joomla, PHPBB3, and vBulletin, as default external login sources, which can be enabled at any time. (more…)

Test Example: Applying padding to a single cell in a row

It is easy to get used to the idea that tables work across clients and would be a logical thing to use in our HTML emails.  The unfortunate truth is that it really is not that simple.  Cell padding works fine across most clients except in Outlook where it can produce some non-logical results.

Most email clients:

Outlook:

As you can see - Outlook (or rather the word rendering engine in outlook 2007) will take the padding from any cell in a row and apply it to all of the cells in the row.  This could result in some visual changes that you do not want.  You should try to either apply the same padding for all cells in a row OR place an inner div or table (that has padding) within the cell that you would like to have padding.

You should also watch your set width on cells when using padding on any cell in your tables row.  As always I would definitely suggest to test your templates in multiple clients before sending.  Your template can make or break your campaign.

This is the first article of what will be a series of email design articles.  Subscribe to our blog to be notified as we release additional email design tips.