Close (X)

Blog

Email Marketing, Business & Monkeys

Archive for the ‘IMHO’ Category

« Older Entries

Surveymonkey’s new “create chart” feature

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Whoah, I just noticed a new feature in SurveyMonkey. Thought I’d share it with everyone else out there, in case you didn’t see their announcement.

A little while ago, we posted a survey link to Facebook, Twitter, and The Jungle. I was looking at the data today, and noticed a new “create chart” link:

create-chart-link

I actually jumped in my seat a little from excitement. I mean, normally I’d have to download the data to Excel (and I never do pick the correct export options) then generate my own charts. But now, they’ve gone and made it a single-click link. Woo-hoo!

(more…)

Posted in IMHO | No Comments »

How MailChimp Uses CoTweet

Friday, May 15th, 2009

cotweet-logoWe’ve been using twitter for quite some time now (you can find us @mailchimp). At first it was supposed to be a way for me to post announcements to our customers about server maintenance. Then it morphed into a powerful tool to stay connected with our users and learn more about them (we follow our followers, print their profiles & hang them on our walls to remember our audience).

Twitter gets messy. Fast.

But as more and more customers started using twitter to talk to us, we had to get more staff involved. We even hired Amanda, our full-time CTO (Chief Twitter Officer). Obviously, giving multiple employees access to one master twitter account can get hairy (like the day 3 of us replied to one question with the same answer).

“How business does twitter”

So we looked into CoTweet (still in private beta). So far, it’s been really handy. If you run a business and use twitter a lot, you should definitely consider CoTweet. There are other reviews of CoTweet out there, but they’re from social media sites, who imho incorrectly describe CoTweet as “an inbox for tweets.” Who the heck wants that?  There are other reviews from big companies managing their brand, like this post from Microsoft. Nice post, but not very thorough.

What if you’re a small business using twitter to connect with customers? Is CoTweet right for you? Here’s our review…

(more…)

Posted in Emarketing, Business, IMHO | 23 Comments »

Switching transactional emails from plain-text to HTML email

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

html-twitterI just noticed that our Twitter “follow notifications” are in HTML email format instead of the old plain-text format (cnet noticed too). HTML email has many advantages over plain-text, so whenever companies make this move, they tend to go nuts with all the bells and whistles, just because they can.

Twitter did a much smarter job (imho), by showing restraint and focusing on usefulness. Here’s what I mean…

(more…)

Posted in Email Design, IMHO, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | 4 Comments »

Tell me what to write

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

firefoxscreensnapz0021I’m trying out a service called Skribit.  It’s this thing where readers can tell me what they want me to write about, and then other readers can vote those suggestions up or down (Digg-style).

They call it a “cure for writer’s block” but that doesn’t do it justice imho. My problem is the opposite of writer’s block. I can write stuff all day long, but I have no idea if it’s the stuff our customers actually want to hear about. Some customers contact me directly with questions. Our customer svc team gives me topics too.

But Skribit is finally a way for me to see how many other readers are interested in that topic. Suggest a topic for me to write about

Posted in Ask MailChimp, IMHO | No Comments »

Can I Use A Purchased Email List?

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

A lot of people who are checking out MailChimp will call or email us and ask, “Can I use a purchased email list with MailChimp?”

So we created this: http://caniuseapurchasedemaillist.com/

If you run an abuse desk somewhere, and you’re tired of answering that stupid question over and over, feel free to link people to it. If you’re not sure why importing a purchased email list into a 3rd party ESP is a bad thing, then promptly turn off your computer and unplug it from the wall. Thanks.

Posted in Abuse Desk Stories, Ask MailChimp, IMHO | 8 Comments »

Selling PDF Reports in Emails: Buy vs. View Sample

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

Here’s an interesting email I got from Ad Age:

The keywords, “Great Depression” and “deep recession” got my attention (they appeared in my preview pane), so I scrolled down to read about this report.

The first thing I thought was, “I bet the gray VIEW-A-SAMPLE button got way more clicks than the red BUY-NOW button” Nice idea. Then I wondered what kind of effort they actually put into converting people from “sample-to-trial.”

(more…)

Posted in Email Design, IMHO, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | No Comments »

Cool packing idea for internet retailers

Monday, December 15th, 2008

One thing we like to do at MailChimp is buy stuff from our customers. We buy t-shirts, art, candy, coffee, food — anything we can to support our small business users. It also reminds our team of “who we’re serving.” Nah, it’s just cool free stuff for everybody. :-)

Being a car nut, I recently purchased a 1953 Corvette Autoart replica from MailChimp user ZIp-Parts (who we just showcased here).

When I opened up my box, I noticed they packed it with old newspaper. More specifically, the car classifieds section. Nice detail for a car nut. And you bet I actually read what’s for sale in Mechanicsville, VA.

If you sell sporting goods online, why not pack it with your local newspaper sports section? Sports fanatics would probably love reading about your local high school football standings. Sell comics? Use the funnies. Sell collectibles? Use the classifieds.

Posted in Emarketing, Business, IMHO, MailChimp Customers | 2 Comments »

You Push A Button, And A Picture Comes Out.

Friday, November 21st, 2008

By now, everybody knows how Polaroid instant cameras work: You push a button, and a picture pops out. It’s not even all that fascinating anymore, is it?

But when they first came out, it was rocket science. I mean, we’re talking about space age, high tech stuff here. Transistors, aspheric lenses, turquoise opacificier films, and self-powered film modules.

Check out this classic “product demo” of the Polaroid SX-70 (awesome movie for geeks and photography buffs).

They took from 0:55 to 1:28 to explain that basically, “you click a button, and a picture comes out.”

Granted, when this was new, they were talking to “early adopters.” And that’s how you talk when technology is new. It wasn’t a “pack of instant film.” It was an “integral, self-processing film unit, which when exposed…”

But eventually, new technology gets simple, more powerful, and easier to use. You click a button, and it works. Then the whole world can use it. Then, you can make it fun.

Today, most people talk about email marketing like this film talks about the SX-70. It’s complicated, there’s lots of back story, technology, spam laws, best practices, ISPs, and on and on. True.

But at MailChimp, our goal is to make email marketing easy and fun.

We take powerful email marketing stuff like:

and we make it easy.

You just push a button, and it works.

We’re even working on making email template design an easy, one-click process. Gentlemen, we have the technology…

Posted in IMHO, MailChimp Labs, MailChimp News | No Comments »

Is Your Email an Invited Guest or a Drunken Frat-boy?”

Monday, October 13th, 2008

Neil Schwartzman from ReturnPath asks, “Is Your Email an Invited Guest or a Drunken Frat-boy?”

“Now, when an invited guest comes into my home, and I suspect yours as well, they must ring the doorbell, be polite on their way in and during their visit, perhaps bring me a bottle of wine or other consideration, and thank me upon departure…Do you act like a honored guest, or a drunken frat-boy who shows up for 

the fifth time this week with a keg at 1 a.m., pounds on the door, breaking in through a window, vomiting on the couch, and finally passing out on the kitchen floor, and refusing to leave when roused?”

That’s the difference between permission email marketing, and “I-have-a-right-to-email-them” marketing.

If you request permission, send a proper welcome email message (with gift), and send relevant, expected emails to your subscribers, you’re an invited guest.

If you tell your sales team, “Okay, we’re blasting out an email campaign tomorrow, so everybody export your Outlook address books and CRMs and send me your batch of prospects asap,” you are that drunken frat boy.

Tags: ,
Posted in Emarketing, Business, IMHO, Spam Topics, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries
http://www.mailchimp.com/nonrestrictiveocean.php