Here is an example of an email that I just received from my car dealership:

What do you think about that email?

Needless to say, I can’t see this email achieving any of their objectives since most people probably would not click to download the entire message after opening up and seeing it was blank.

In addition, the likelihood of this email going to junk/spam is higher (it actually went to my junk folder) because there is no legitimate content. Everything is hidden in the image, so when contact-based spam filters skew towards the sides of caution, they will most surely raise a red flag at this email.

When I choose to display images, it ended up displaying a dreadfully long flyer.

I get the feeling they took a print flyer and sent it out, which is hardly the best course of action.

This surely isn’t the reason the car industry is struggling, but maybe with better marketing they’d sell more cars!

Unlike with traditional print flyers where you have to get your flyer designed, then printed, then packaged for mailing, with email it’s just point, click, send. There is no massive lead time, no waiting for ink to dry, no stuffing into envelopes, no driving to the post office, no walking door-to-door … and, since you’re not using paper it’s also more eco-friendly (and everyone loves an organization that goes green!).

Yesterday, I saw a truly excellent example that highlights this big benefit and really showcases just how quickly a business can blast out an incredibly relevant and timely email to their customers.

While millions of TV viewers were watching as a giant Mylar balloon flew through the air in Colorado apparently carrying a 6 year-old boy (see video on CNN), one of our customers that runs a “Home Safety” store was busy preparing an email blast.

The email featured a summary of the story essentially with the tag line “how safe is your home?” The email then went on to showcase several new products.

While this customer’s email was probably going to send out anyway, the fact that they were able to make a quick last-minute adjustment to include a current event literally as it was happening, makes it a much more effective email when it lands in his recipient’s inboxes. After all, some people may not have heard the story yet and it was their ‘home safety’ email that broke the news.

Being timely in your email marketing campaigns can really take your newsletter to the next level.

During the past couple weeks, I’ve heard many customers of Elite Email ask their account executive if it was too soon to be sending out a Halloween themed email to their contacts. There is not exact answer to that question, but based on the trending I’ve seen from today, it appears as though this year Monday October 12 is the tipping point.

The emails sending out today, specifically focusing on North American customers, are showing a huge spike for words like “Halloween” and “trick or treat”.

I personally think it’s great to send out themed emails, as it sort of automagically makes your content more timely and helps show your customers that you’re organization is in-touch with reality.

One thing to keep in mind while re-tooling your email blasts for Halloween is to make sure it is still clear to your audience who is sending them the email. If your typical newsletter is blue & green and you’ve sent out countless emails in the past, then your contacts are somewhat conditioned to know that those are the colors of your newsletter. So, if you up and change it all of a sudden to a more themed orange and black, make sure your company name or logo is still prominently displayed (and you use an easily identifiable “from name”). This way there is no confusion about who is sending this potentially spooky email.

Happy Halloween Emailing!

In Canada, Bill C-27 (A.K.A. the “Electronic Commerce Protection Act”) was introduced last spring (by Industry Minister Tony Clement) and has steadily made its way through the legislative process. The Standing Committee on Industry is likely to conduct it’s ‘clause by clause’ review this week.

The proposed law has similar limits to the laws already in place in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

There are, however, a growing number of business groups who have mounted attacks against the proposed law claiming that it will create new barriers to doing business online in Canada.

While the final rules in the law remain to be seen, Canadian’s have been down a similar road before with the “Do Not Call List”. The original proposal of the Do-Not-Call List was so gutted by the time it was passed that the end result is that the majority of telemarketing calls are still perfectly legal, even though there is a huge amount of numbers on the do-not-call list.

Since all of our Elite Email clients are sending permission-based messages adhering to email marketing best practices, this new legislation will likely not affect us. But, as always, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this as the story develops.

This past weekend I went to Nuit Blanche in Toronto and there was a perfect example of why you have to test (and then test more!) an application before you release.

Prior to heading out to the event I downloaded an iPhone app especially made for Nuit Blanche (published by Simply Good Technologies Inc.).

The app had some very cool features, including a GPS locator that would tell you nearby exhibits. The feature that most interested me, however, was the Capturefy technology (more info) . This technology was supposed to let you take a picture on your iPhone of specific “Capturefy” enabled signs put up around the city and then give you additional information on the exhibit.

I have seen technology like this all around Asia (location on billboards, in magazines, on subway ads, and everywhere else you can imagine!) and I was eager to see how it would work at this major event in Toronto.

It turns out the technology was a BUST and did not work at all.

First of all, the vast majority of the event took place outside and all of the Capturefy signs were very dark. How the event organizers overlooked the fact that it gets dark at night and iPhone users won’t be able to take a clear picture is beyond me! So, that was blunder number one, which right off the bat tells me that no one did a trial-run of how this was supposed to work.

I did find some Capturefy signs inside in good lighting and was excited to see if the technology actually worked. But, once again, it did not.

I even had two other people try on their iPhones to see if it was something I was doing wrong (…although I wasn’t sure how I was messing up the ‘point’, ‘click’ wait for results, instructions in the app!), but it didn’t work for them either.

I’m not sure whether they rushed to release this app and skipped over testing or if their test scenarios were under very specific conditions that couldn’t possibly be replicated the night of the event. But, regardless of the reason, the app simply did not work even close to the way it was supposed to and I’m sure that all could have been avoided if they had done proper testing.

Just as a point of reference, we currently have hundreds and hundreds of automated and manual test cases that we run against Elite Email. This way we know that when we release something it actually works the way it’s supposed to!

One of the things I have always preached to our clients, whether they are big or small, is that the “image” they portray on their website or social network is very important. And, in addition, once it’s out there in cyberspace, you can’t pull it back.

This is actually a more important theory to take to heart than ever because one wrong Tweet could land you in seriously hot water.

The new campaign for the coal industry is located at http://facesofcoal.org/.

On their homepage (which has been edited since this story came to light) there are a bunch of big images that flash across the screen to show you the FACES that coal helps. Their entire campaign is based around this idea of “FACES”. I guess this is their way of connecting coal to the people in our everyday lives.

Apparently the coal industry couldn’t find any REAL faces to support their cause because all of the images they are showing on their website are from iStockPhoto.

Now, let me be clear, I have no problem with iStockPhoto or stock photography in general. I think it’s highly practical and is a resource that should definitely be used.

But, if you’re running a campaign where the focus is on the FACES of people who are supporting your cause, then maybe… just maybe… buying photos online for a couple of dollars is NOT the right way to go.

Credit goes to the Appalachian Voices blog who, based on my research, were the first ones to break this story. You can find more of the examples here.

One way to really spread awareness is by creating a ‘viral video’.

Creating a viral video is, in the current market, very difficult to do. What makes a video so catchy that it makes people want to forward it to their friends, gets people talking about it, etc, etc. In the past when viral videos were a new sensation this was a bit easier because not everyone was trying to produce the next viral video sensation.

Recently one of my friends showed me a YouTube video that right away I knew was a marketers dream.

DJ Steve Porter had taken the Slap Chop infomercial (which I’m sure everyone has seen) and created a rap re-mix.

The video has over 6 million views.

That is 6,000,000+ new impressions that the marketers at Slap Chop could only have dreamed of.

The cost to get those impressions on television would be very expensive, but since this video went viral it is just more and more publicity without the hefty price tag.

It’s interesting to note that the person who actually made (or re-mixed) the video is not affiliated with the company at all. It’s just some random guy, who had a clever idea, and Slap Chop it reaping the benefits in a big way.

Everyone at Elite Email feels this is great news because it allows for much greater and instant communication between mail box providers and ESPs.  With better communication I firmly believe that both the receiver and sender benefit. Tucows joins a long list of other ISPs who provide feedback loops. While many people may not be familiar with Tucows, it is worth noting that it has registered more than 8 million domains and hosts millions of inboxes. 

I’m sure most major ISPs that don’t already operate feedback loops (or “FBL” for those that want to use the cool industry lingo!) will start doing so in the near future.

Even big national brands seem to still be making mistakes.

Just this week Air Miles, a huge rewards program in Canada, sent out an email apologizing because a link to a coupon did not work properly in a previous email. This link was actually for a partner company announcing new locations.

I’m sure they weren’t very happy when they got absolutely no one redeeming the coupon! And, the whole situation could have been avoided if someone would have just tested the links. I bet it would have taken less than 30 seconds to check every link in the email, but it seems no one did their due diligence on that. Opps…!

I also think it’s amusing that it took them an entire week to realize and correct their mistake.

The subject line of their email was: COUPON CORRECTION – New locations! Visit and receive 25 reward miles

It must be a rough week for Air Miles because even now when I clicked on the link in their email marketing campaign, I landed at their website only to find this:

Sheesh!

I can’t stress this enough, check your links, make sure they work, and keep your website online. It’s that simple.

This upgrade, without getting too technical, puts a ton of new horsepower under the hood of Elite Email!

Emails will now send out faster than ever before (…adhering to ISP guidelines, of course).

This upgrade includes major enhancements to both the underlying hardware at our data centers and also major improvements to the sending software.

During this upgrade we’ve also added several new servers, which increases the stability of our network. In case of network failure, we can now route customer’s emails through different data centers in the USA and Canada.

This upgrade was meticulously planned to ensure almost unnoticeable downtime for our customers so that sensitive email marketing campaigns were always delivered on time.

While all of us at Elite Email are exciting about the upgrades, we also want to thank our loyal customers. It is only because of our tremendous and rapid growth that such upgrades were required and for that we are incredibly grateful.