Celebrating 10 Years of Excellence

& The Launch of CoolerEmail 3.0

Thursday, June 17th & Friday, June 18th
Island Palms Hotel (Best Western) – San Diego, CA

Learn about how to be better at Email Marketing, Social Media, SMS Marketing and Brand Management in a casual, fun and friendly atmosphere.

TO REGISTER: Click here

Island Palms Room Rates from $129 to $155. Call (619) 222-0561 for reservations.

Seminars • Demonstrations • Meet & Greet • Fun & Festivities

CoolerEmail Rocket Rider Contest

Name our Rocket-Cycle Rider!  Our super-cool logo dude has been sitting nameless long enough, what do you think we should call him?  Write your suggestion on our Facebook Wall and you could win a free month of CoolerEmail!  Not a CoolerEmail user, yet?  This is a perfect opportunity to get to know CoolerEmail for free!  Vote for your favorites by giving them a thumbs up (like) on our page!

See below for official rules and details.

Some Quick Tips from Cooler:

> Always send yourself test messages before broadcasting to your entire Mailing List.
> Send the Test Send to several different email clients (Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, etc.) and check out the rendering.
> Check out the Test Sends in different browsers as well.  If possible, take a look at the most common browsers for both PC and MAC.

MediaPost article (Rendering is Only Getting More Difficult):

Retailers who only check their rendering using Internet Explorer got a wake-up call yesterday when we released new research showing that the majority of major online retailers suffered rendering issues when their emails were viewed in Hotmail using Firefox. While the rendering issues were sometimes subtle, many other times the rendering severely deformed affected emails.What’s clear is that too many marketers aren’t paying enough attention to how their emails are rendering across all the email client and browser combinations. Rendering’s tough to stay on top of, because issues can arise from a variety of sources:

Updated email clients and new functionality. “Improvements” in email clients can release suddenly and can impact a significant slice of your subscriber base. For instance, Gmail made the decision in January to default to HTTPS for all emails. In announcing the change, Google talks about sacrificing some speed for greater security. But what the company didn’t acknowledge is that people viewing Gmail with Internet Explorer get constant — and poorly worded — security warnings about nonsecure content. If you’re hosting your images on nonsecure servers, then you’ve likely seen a dip in opens among your Gmail subscribers due to blocked images because of this switch to HTTPS.

More…

MediaPost.com’s article “Microsoft Joining the Three Way Mobile-Social-Email Race Three Ways” makes some great observations about Microsoft’s newest endeavors to link social networking with email and mobile.  MediaPost reminds us that this isn’t Microsoft’s first attempt to do so – and that their previous efforts had unimpressive results.

The moral of the story, though?  Even with constant updating through Facebook & Twitter – Email is still as strong and essential as ever – and this is great news for email marketing.

Whether the new Outlook succeeds or not, some analysts see the broader trend quite clearly: Email is here to stay. “Not only do moves like this reinforce how important social media has become to business, but they also reinforce the staying power of email,” explains WebProNews. “There has been a great deal of discussion in the past about how social media could kill email, but to the contrary, we’re seeing more and more moves by social networks to become more integrated with the email channel … For email marketers, this is great news.”

Read more at MediaPost.com

February 9, 2010

Social Media Is Nothing New

Nor is it anything to fear. The key is understanding how popular online tools make the difference

Social media has always been with us.

Who hasn’t recommended a product to a neighbor, received a tip from a colleague, or asked for a referral from a friend? From grocery store aisles to cocktail party asides, the “social media” we’ve commonly called word-of-mouth or relationship marketing have always been the most trusted form of outreach.

In the last few years, however, a dramatic transformation has taken place in this oldest and most effective form of media. It’s been a cause for celebration for many, confusion for others, and consternation for a few. What it should not be to anyone, however, is surprising. It’s the same transformation that has happened to industry after industry, from computers to cars, televisions to telecommunications.

Read More….

Founded almost 10 years ago, as the new millennium dawned, CoolerEmail is entering its second decade in 2010.

Reaching that milestone is an opportune time to look back at CoolerEmail from its beginnings to now. Examining the email marketing industry as a whole, we see how it and CoolerEmail have grown and developed together in dramatic fashion over the decade. So put your nostalgia hat on and get that faraway look in your eyes as we return to 2000 and compare then and now.

Early in the development of Internet marketing, permission-based email was identified as an economical and powerful tool for direct communication. Founders Leif Youngberg and Lars Helgeson wanted to make it easy for anyone to capitalize on this new opportunity in direct marketing by offering a reliable tool to send professional-looking, permission-based communications and track responses. CoolerEmail was one of the first companies to integrate robust customer relationship management software with HTML e-mail campaign tools.

From its inception, CoolerEmail promoted best practices by emphasizing the importance of sending solicited communication only. The term spam is traced back to 1993 and actually predates the legitimate use of email marketing. By the time CoolerEmail was founded, spam was already an annoyance, but Congress was still three years away from passing the CAN-SPAM Act (new regulations later went into effect in July 2008). Thus CoolerEmail’s founders made it their mission to work diligently with ISPs to develop the industry’s highest deliverability rates while helping their clients send legitimate, opt-in email.

From those humble beginnings with just a handful of clients utilizing CoolerEmail’s robust functionality, CoolerEmail now sends millions of permission-based, trackable emails on behalf of thousands of clients each and every day. Working directly with all the major ISPs, CoolerEmail is proud to offer its clients the highest deliverability rates in the industry.

In 2000, Gallup found that only 54 percent of Americans used the Internet, and 89 percent of them used it for e-mail. Today, most Americans use the Internet, with a vast majority of them using it to send and receive email regularly.

CoolerEmail has always led the industry with innovative features and unmatched reliability. CoolerEmail’s founders believed then, as they do now, that customer service is paramount. Our Cooler Support Team is “fanatical” about support, providing live help during business hours by phone (866.4.COOLER), email or through social networking sites.

Speaking of social networking, the sites Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn didn’t even exist in 2000, but now they do, and CoolerEmail was, of course, an early adopter of all three. Social networking continues to grow in importance, as an adjunct tool for Internet and email marketers. In 2010, you’ll see more robust CoolerEmail functionality and integration for social media sites.

The team at CoolerEmail is looking forward to our second decade as the email marketing service that stands out from the rest in technology, usability and customer service. As we like to say, It’s Just Cooler!

Understanding how your recipients view your emails to effectively organize your content:

Let’s say you have a phone message to relay to your roommate.  You decide to leave a note for them- and you’re hoping they’ll get this note before they leave for work the next morning.  Where do you leave it?  It seems a simple answer: on the bathroom mirror; the refrigerator door; atop the coffee pot… etc.  If you know your roommate’s morning routine, you can leave the note anywhere their eyes will be during that routine.

If you’re especially clever, you may consider not leaving the note in the first place your roommate visits in the morning – as they may be too groggy to pay any attention.  You also might consider not leaving it in the last place, as they will be in a hurry to get out the door.  Either way, you’re not going to leave the note someplace you know your roommate will not be visiting, say, under the bed.  Why?  Because you want them to see it, of course!

This all seems common sense, right?  Well what may not be so “common sense” is applying this same concept to your email newsletters that go out to your client.  If you knew your client’s email reading routine, wouldn’t you use that knowledge to organize the information you wish them to receive?

There are countless elements that play into how your contacts receive your messages. The time of day it is sent off or received, the day of the week, the time of month, attention span of the reader, how busy their business is at the time, whether or not they had a bad day… etc.  But let’s talk about one of the most basic – the layout of the content itself.

So your contact OPENS the email – success! But are they getting all the information they want and you want them to have? They may not receive the message as you intended it to be received because you are making crucial placement mistakes.

Many studies cite an “F-Shaped” reading pattern of web content when studying eye tracking in those who read their language from left to right, top to bottom.  This shape suggests that readers usually begin at the top left corner of the page and move across the top to the right.  They then go back to the left side and read across again, but before long their movement across from left to right gets shorter, like the second limb of a capital F.  Once they lose interest in the main body of the article, they’ll move on to content placed in sidebars.

Of course there are variations on this F shape, sometimes users will read across the entire article creating more of an E shape.  I also found studies that show more of a U shape (down the left and up the right side).  However, the F-shape is by far the most popular when studying web content eye-tracking and some things are pretty much agreed upon:

Headlines get read. Make sure you’re putting the most important information, in the simplest way possible in your headlines. Though it doesn’t need to be as short and sweet as your subject line, you should continue to think about creating interest.

Keep it fairly short – remember, this is an email, not a novel.  Your contacts have other emails to read and business to do.  In most situations, your contact does not have the attention span for your email that they do for other reading material – say, the Sunday paper.

Not everything will be read. What is it they say, on average a person only retains 25% of what they are told?  So think along those lines when creating your newsletter.  Put the most important info at the top, at least in the first part of your article, and think of the rest as “extra”.

Define paragraphs or sections with “mini-headlines”.  Make the first sentence in a paragraph an introduction to the following information – engage readers and create interest.

Smaller type encourages focus. The same way that speaking softly will cause listeners to lean in and tune up their ears, smaller type forces readers to pay more attention.  Just make sure you keep it legible! (Note that some studies found that smaller text will sometimes be ignored when it is placed alongside larger text, as with sub-headlines)

Remember, just like your roommate receiving their phone message from you, your readers want the information you have for them, otherwise they wouldn’t have opted-in to your correspondence.  You just have to give it to them in a place they can easily find it.

Conduct your own research and let us know your findings!  Did you get better click-through rates when links were on the left or the right side of your newsletter?  Are your articles getting more attention that the advertisements on your site?  Are you noticing a difference when you send out more text-heavy newsletter versus the short and sweet?

Articles I used to write this entry:
“The Best of Eyetrack III: What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes” http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/main.htm
“F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content” http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html
“11 Striking Findings From an Eye Tracking Study” http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/05/20/11-striking-findings-from-an-eye-tracking-study/
“3 Hot Marketing Tips from Heat Map Analysis” http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/1499/3-Hot-Marketing-Tips-from-Heat-Map-Analysis-images.aspx

You can now look back at your grammar school days and think, “Wow – the nerds really do end up inheriting the world…”

Right?  Right.  Why? Because the nerds paid attention in class.

Were you one of those A-earners getting stuffed in lockers?  If so, you probably already know about the weekly Cooler E-Classes.  If not, I’ll fill you in:

Cooler E-Classes are live, interactive, webinar courses hosted by Betty Cooler (aka Lettie Taylor of the CoolerEmail support team).  These Cooler E-Classes are a tour through the 2.0 interface.  Lasting usually between 45 and 75 minutes – they cover:

• Importing and organizing contacts- Learn about importable file types and how to create them, where to import your contact list, how to create and manage lists and groups and all about custom user fields.

• Building an edition- With the all-new Build module, creating an edition is so easy you’ll be able to send out your newsletters more often – or in a hurry!  Betty shows you, from start to finish, how to create a newsletter edition using a system template.  You’ll learn how to insert images, links and text as well as how to customize each email sent out to it’s recipient.

• Sending a broadcast- Choose your contacts, select the edition and Send!  It’s really that easy – and Betty proves it with a look at the Send module of the 2.0 interface.  She also covers questions like, “what if one contact is on the list twice?” and “how quickly does it actually get sent out?”

• Tracking results- Dive into the Track module with a look at all of the different charts and graphs available for your tracking pleasure.  You’ll learn where to find all the information you need to have.  And how to keep track of it on a regular basis.

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Questions are welcome throughout the session – and the end of the class is completely dedicated to Q & A – so if you need a live demo on a certain feature or want to see your question answered live – ask away!

Cooler E-Classes are every Wednesday afternoon at 1:00pm Pacific Standard Time, and unlike a lot of higher education – they’re completely free!  To request an invitation, email EClasses@CoolerEmail.com

Already attended once but just can’t get enough? – You, and everyone from your team is more than welcome to join any time.

To get more proof that school is cool – email EClasses@CoolerEmail.com and ask for more info on the Cooler E-Classes.