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I want to let everyone know that Delivra is about to release our Microsoft Dynamics CRM Integration via Cazoomi. 

Similar to our NetSuite CRM integration, the Microsoft enterprise solution supports both MS CRM 2011 and MS CRM 4.0 with: 

• Unlimited Sync Profiles 
• All Sync Templates
• Sync on Demand 
• Flexible Sync Scheduling 
• Premier Support
• Customization (additional charge)

This is fully tested, productized integration that takes minutes to install. 

Cazoomi is offering a free 14 day trial which Delivra is supporting. 

Interested? Call our email marketing consultants for more information at 866-915-9465 toll free. 

Email is an integral part of marketing. But if not used properly it can turn into spam. Or worse, it could end up alienating your customers and prospects who are already tired of seeing ‘sales’ emails in their inbox.

So how can you make email prospecting effective? Like in the sales process, the first thing you should be doing is to build trust. Email prospecting should be used to initiate conversations, generate interests and create awareness about you, your company and your products. Some pointers to keep in mind when prospecting via email include:

• Keep your emails short: Long emails are usually not read until the end and usually gets deleted without a second thought. They look intimidating and your prospects may not find the time to patiently go over it. Therefore, it is necessary to keep it simple and short.

• Have a short subject line: Your subject line should be comprised of just a few words rather than a long sentence. It should be clear, purposeful and should relate to your email.

• Personalize your email: Compose your email as you would to your friends and colleagues. You can use short sentences and informal language, but not at the risk of sounding sloppy. It doesn't have to be a standard template either - make it creative by adding the contact information of the Business Development Manager they will be talking to if they respond. 

• Pique your prospect's interest: Your email should spark your prospect's interest. This means your message should be about them and not about you. You can highlight a specific problem or interest you think your prospect is facing right now and suggest a solution for it.

• Show what you can do: Rather than just telling them you know about their problem and offering your solution for it, show them exactly how you can help them. Illustrate with an example or better yet, with customer testimonials or third-party product reviews.

• Make it easy for them to connect: Make it easy for them to act immediately adding “reply”, social share buttons, or including important links on your website for contact info, etc. 

At Delivra, we have perfected the art of creating email campaigns to build brands and sell products. Consult with our email marketing experts to create a campaign just right for you.

I own two cars. A 2009 4-door sedan and a 2008 SUV. 

The sedan is quiet on the road and handles like a sports car. The SUV, with its high profile and all wheel drive, is perfect for maneuvering after a snowfall. Plus it holds the big stuff that won't fit into the sedan. 

I wouldn't want to choose between them. This got me thinking, can there be a parallel argument for email service providers (ESPs)? 

If I send a simple bi-weekly templated newsletter to the same audience, a basic low-cost ESP may fit the bill just fine. 

However, if I need a high-touch provider with strategy consulting, analytics integration, and transactional messaging capabilities, I will need a more robust solution.  It will cost more, but if the ROI (return on investment) makes sense - I'm good with that. 

So next time an ESP calls, don't say, "I already got one of those." Ask yourself if you need another one. 

I attended a webinar hosted by Justine Jordan of Litmus last week. Litmus, by the way, provides email preview assistance as well as spam testing and analytics.

Believe it or not, Litmus reports that the percentage of people reading email on a mobile device has increased 150% over the past 12 months to 15% or nearly 1 out of 6 viewers. They should know as their tools report on this kind of information. 

For detailed analysis, as well as more great viewer stats, check out their infographic. 


Now that you have the info, what are you going to do about it? 

At the very least, convert to a skinny email template meaning less than 500 pixels wide for best cross-environment viewing. 
 

Email marketing isn't just for huge companies with a lot of budget to spend.  It can be a great way to help small to mid-sized companies level the playing field. 

By teaming up with an email marketing company that can provide email software, smaller companies can share information with their audience quickly and efficiently in the same way that a large company can. 

By working with an email marketing service provider, a company can:

• Provide a central hub for storing their email lists. 
• Give assistance in setting up the appropriate email opt-in for subscribers. 
• Receive templates, making the design of emails much easier. 

Being small doesn't put you at a disadvantage when it comes to email marketing. In fact, an email marketing company is a resource you can use to help you become a powerful player in the game. 

Is it even possible to use those two words together? Some people would say no and have the idea that email marketing is a time consuming, difficult process.

In fact, these words can coincide. The best way to make your email marketing campaign less time consuming is to start with the PLAN. Jot down the objectives of your campaign and the steps it is going to require to accomplish those. By doing so, you can manage your efforts to eliminate wasted time and eliminate mistakes in the email marketing plan along the way.

Once you have a plan in place, create a template.  Have several templates created that you can use over time for different email campaigns. By having templates created and ready, you can just plug in the content and continue with other business.

If possible, have one person create the email marketing campaign and another edit it. A new set of eyes on the email marketing campaign may allow for errors to be quickly spotted.  Changes made quicker means sending the final email to your audience quickly and without mistakes.

Time management and email marketing can coincide. Mainly it starts with having a plan that outlines in detail the email marketing campaign. Do you have other ideas for effectively managing your email marketing efforts?  Please leave them in the comments.

Lavon Temple | Marketing

Long ago, before the days of email marketing and Internet-based communication strategies, businesses had to be pretty bold in reaching out to customers. You might send an attractive, well-designed piece via postal mail. Perhaps there was a telephone number printed on your collateral, but chances are good that you will still have to follow-up and follow-up and follow-up again to generate real business.

Email marketing certainly makes it easier to send lots of high-quality, unique marketing pieces to thousands of customers. You can do this at the click of a button at incredibly competitive rates. But I'm shocked how many email marketers seem to forget that at it's heart, email marketing is still email! If you want your customers to engage with you, why not simply ask them to reply?

Virtually any email service provider can customize the "From" field of outgoing messages. When an email is received, customers can hit the "reply" button in their client with thoughts or questions. That's not just an "open" or a "clickthrough", but an actual, intentional reply! These kinds of interactions are gold. Why not encourage your customers to start a conversation over email?

If your email marketing templates include disclaimers like "Do not reply to this email" or "This message is sent from an unmonitored address", get rid of those statements right away. Sure, you might find yourself receiving more than handful of customer inquiries, but that's a great problem to have.

Next, change your boilerplate text to request feedback. "Like what you see? Want to learn more? Just REPLY to this message and we'll get back to you right away."

When you start to think of email marketing as a conversation, you realize that not all campaigns need to be slick, multi-column newsletters with tons of content. Instead they might be a couple of sentences just to try to trigger a response. After all, that's the point of email marketing. We send messages so that customers might be interested in getting back to us to make a purchase. Use those email messages to actually request feedback!

Guest Blogger | Robby Slaughter

Robby Slaughter is a Principal with Slaughter Development, an Indianapolis - based business process and workflow consulting company. His new book, Failure: The Secret to Success is available now at www.failurethebook.com.

In Indianapolis, the forecast is heating up which means summer is right around the corner. Hopefully, you have already started creating some fun, festive emails for the summer season, but if not - here are some summertime tips to get you started:

1. Re-design. Have you had the same email template for several months now?  Summer is the perfect time to create a new email design that adds freshness to your email marketing campaign.

2. Bright Colors. If you are creating a new summer template, we encourage you to use bright summer colors like red, orange, pink, and yellow. Incorporating these fun colors can really make your email design POP!

3. Images. Adding bright colors to an email template may be too much for some businesses to incorporate.  Instead, if it is more appropriate, add a summer time image!

4. Content. It may seem easy to do with the sun shining and birds singing, but remember to include upbeat content that is fun for your subscribers to read. Great content will encourage them to click to read more.

Any other summer email tips you think of? Please share in the comments!

Lavon Temple | Marketing

Human beings are suckers for consistency. We love it when people show up on time, we love it when a system works the same way as it did before, and we love it when bills are paid like clockwork. In general we love it when we know exactly what to expect. That's why when people ask me about their email marketing campaign, I tell them the most important factor of all is to be consistent.

In truth, however, that answer is a little bit of a cop-out, because "consistency" refers to everything:

• Deliver your messages at a consistent time and day of the week
• Produce content that is at consistently high level of quality
• Make consistent use of your partners, employees and customers to drive content
• Treat your subscriber list consistently and fairly
• Respond consistently to problems, issues or questions that arise

That's not to say that you need to be an email marketing robot that sends out exactly the same message each time. But rather, that you are consistently in control of any variations. If you do make a change, it should be part of a conscientious test. And if you do make a mistake, follow up in a measured and appropriate manner. That's what people like!

There are a lot of email marketing service providers out there, and most of them are pretty good at the basics. But there's more to the story than just deliverability, usage statistics, custom templates and campaign management. A great email provider will also treat you consistently and encourage you to reach out to your customers consistently. That's the hallmark of great service, and it's the one characteristic that human beings love.

Be consistent!

Guest Blogger | Robby Slaughter

Robby Slaughter is a Principal with Slaughter Development, an Indianapolis-based consulting company. His new book, Failure: The Secret to Success is available now at www.failurethebook.com.

Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB) is a not-for-profit organization who works with communities to improve public spaces through environmental improvement. Each year, KIB supports an average of 500 community improvement projects with 30,000 volunteers. Since 1995, KIB has helped its neighbors plant more than 14,000 trees, and has been supported by more than 1,000 individual donors.

KIB participated in Delivra's Extreme Email Makeover Contest hoping to receive an email communication piece with more impact and streamlined navigation. "Our old template was unattractive and hard to manipulate, we would spend precious time testing and retesting to make sure that it was correct," said Ashlee Fujawa, public relations associate at Keep Indianapolis Beautiful.

Find out how the new template is working for KIB by reading their case study!

Lavon Temple | Marketing

This past weekend, I had an opportunity to visit my favorite comedy club (The Comedy Cellar in NYC) and had a blast (as usual).

Stand up comedians have always amazed me. The process of developing and refining a routine is fun to watch. If you've ever seen the movie "Comedian" about Jerry Seinfeld's return to stand-up, you know what I mean.

And the Comedy Cellar is a great place to witness it first-hand. It's a well-known club, so there are up-and-comers who have already gone out and tried their material out in smaller venues, but there is a good mix of big-name comedians who live close-by and may walk in to try out their new stuff.

The process reminds me of good email marketing practices. A comedian has to deliver value in the form of making his audience laugh. And a key to that is listening and incorporating the feedback that they're getting back.

One act on the bill the night I was there (Anthony Jeselnik) was preparing for the upcoming Comedy Central roast of Donald Trump. Toward the end of his routine, he ran through some of the jokes he's planning to use. At one point, after a big laugh, he stopped and made a note to himself, telling the crowd, "Maybe I need to open with that one." I won't give the joke away, but I will be watching and hoping he does.

A marketer who isn't paying attention to which mailing and/or links are generating the most inquiry, is missing an opportunity to improve their future sends.

A good comedian is clued into what is on people's minds. If you're still making jokes about Tiger Woods' affair, rather than, "Tiger's blood", you're not staying up-to-date (though I realize that my reference to Tiger's blood is probably already passe, which is one good reason for me to stick to my day job).

Making sure your emails are delivering new and desired information will keep your audience engaged and looking forward to your next email. If you continue to send the same old thing, without delivering value, you'll find your audience seeking out what they're looking for elsewhere.

Good comedians often ask questions. Whether they're targeted specifically at the front-row folks ("How long have you two been together?") or at the audience in general ("Anyone here from Europe?") they're an excellent way to get/keep the crowd engaged.

And the questions, while often targeted as a seguay to an already planned joke, can result in a new, fresh direction or new joke.

In email, this could be as simple as asking for more information at the time of sign-up, or regular surveys asking "How relevant was this article?".  Treating your subscribers as one large, homogeneous group (or assuming that your audience hasn't changed over time) can mean missing out on great opportunities to connect, or sending information that is meaningless.

I also noticed that the other acts weren't cloistered away in sound-proof rooms while not performing. They're watching each other, seeing what works and what doesn't. They're picking up on how people are reacting to others and using that to help determine the direction of their own set. Is this topic going to be taboo? Does this crowd need more explanation or are they sharp? Marketers who aren't staying abreast of what others in their industry are doing can find their programs out-of-date. Sign up for competitors' mailings. Are they making use of video, or social sharing? If so, and you're not, you might want to step it up. Does your template still look like it did 5 years ago but the competition is fresh and slick? Check with our design team about creating a new one.

Timing and cadence are crucial to stand-up. Refining an act means figuring out when to give some time for the joke to sink in and when to circle back on a punchline. You want to figure out which jokes work together and in what order. Or even when what started as an unintended stammer broke the joke up in a newer, funnier version.
Do your mailings do better if sent on a specific day of the week? Does the time of day make a difference? Are you sending too often? Or do your subscribers want to hear from you more often? If you're not testing you could be off the mark.

If you want to do more, and are looking for help, let us know. We're here all week. And don't forget to tip your waitress.

Kris Dougherty | Director of Operations

PS: I mentioned the movie "Comedian" earlier, and it still has my all-time favorite trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi995033369/.

Just this week I received a curious box in the mail at the office.  Some even asking me who this Pete is.  I had no idea what anyone was referring to, nor did I really have time to sit down and open some mail.  If any of you are like me, your time is critical and is often divided among many different tasks throughout a single day.  But I have to say I was curious...

So, I open the box and was completely surprised at the messaging.  Here was Pete and he was here to make my life stress free.  You see Pete is a stress ball.  This package was sent as a preface to a cold call to pitch advertising specialty products.  I now have Pete as a reminder along with the handwritten (or so it looks) note from the sales representative that plans to follow up directly with me.  His final pitch to me....was to give him a chance to speak "for Pete's sake."

I have to say, this method is literally ingenious.  As a busy marketer, I get contacted dozens of times in a day with cold calls and businesses of all types trying to sell me something.  In fact, so much so that earlier this week when I was at sales training at Lushin & Associates, I outlined my cold call avoidance tactics and the tricks that I will employ at times when I don't have time or budget to talk.

Why all this talk about sales, cold calling, and Pete?  This sales representative and company did something that so many of us marketers tend to forget after we get caught up in all the logistics of what we do each day.  We're jugglers, creative, innovators....the get 'er done group.  I will tell you though that Pete has given me pause....

Pete reminded me how very important it is to stand out and be different.  This representative not only caught my attention, but earned the call.  When he does reach out (which by the way is what his note promised) I am sure I will be much more willing to pick up the phone.  Pete has now earned an honored spot by my phone as a constant reminder to, "have mercy for Pete's sake", but more importantly...for all of us to BE DIFFERENT, STAND OUT!

As I drove home after meeting Pete I began thinking about this...how can marketers be different with their email campaigns?  Their daily strategies?  But really it is easier than you think.  We simply need to dust off our creativity hats and put them back on.  I will take a shot at getting both of us started...so our email campaigns- How can they be different?  How will they stand out?

Here are just a few ideas I had:

• Put your call to action in your subject line.
• Use less copy and add in something unexpected...maybe a video.  Or a rich media landing page?
• Change your cadence (i.e. the frequency in which you send), but make sure you obtain your members preferences along the way.  Delivra did this recently and actually saw a spike in our overall engagement.
• It's okay to use templates, but mix it up once in a while....switch up areas in your newsletter to different sections.
• Use images, but don't make that your whole email.

See, was that so hard?  Not really if you ask me.  Just something we need to slow down and remember....if not for anything else, do it for Pete's sake!

Can't wait to see how different you will be and how greatly you will stand out.  I tend to signup for lots of email, so you never know when yours may have a chance to cross my inbox.  So tell me, how will you be different?  Comment today, I would love to hear what you think and what ideas you have.

Carissa Newton | Marketing

Recently I have been working with organizations that have many administrators in different departments or branches sending out email. Implementing an email marketing plan with different departments/branches/locations that all have different opinions about email marketing and technical skill sets can be challenging. Here are five tips I have learned along the way that may help you if you are in the same boat.

1. Maintain consistent branding— Provide departments with templates that maintain your brand and messaging while allowing them to change and edit their own content.

2. Listen to your subscribers (and unsubscribers)— It’s important to give your subscribers a way to manage their preferences. Remember, to them you are one organization and not multiple departments. If it is possible for one subscriber to be a part of multiple lists, then they should be able to unsubscribe from multiple lists in one place.

3. Create an email calendar— Be careful not to inundate your email subscribers with email. If departments have overlapping subscribers try to not send out email simultaneously. Use an email calendar to manage when emails are going out. Better yet, create a marketing calendar that reviews all marketing efforts (changes to the website, direct mail, tradeshows, postings to social media…etc) so all of your marketing efforts are working together.

4. Help the administrators with best practices— Have a meeting to share best practices and tips. If you have a dedicated account manager with your email service provider see if they could also attend. Even if this meeting happened once a year it would be worth it to share the knowledge that everyone is gaining. This is also a good time for your account manager to review any new features or refresher training.

5. Have departments or administrators establish goals— Maybe it’s an improvement in clickthrough rate or an increase in subscribers or an attendance increase at an event due to email marketing. Setting these goals will help them and you understand what it is the organization is getting out of email marketing and creating a plan to get it done.

There is a lot to consider when implementing any change or new program across multiple departments. Have questions about adding email marketing to your mix of marketing efforts (whether you have 1 department/branch/location or 100), give us a call—1-866-915-9465 or contact us at info@delivra.com. That's what we're here for.

Rachel Rewerts | Account Management

Wow - I stepped outside to let my dog outside this morning and it was cold, which can mean only one thing. Fall is finally here. It was only a month ago that Rachel was writing about the Dog Days of Summer and now we have to quickly switch to the fall season. But, like she mentioned in her blog post, it's time to start planning for those fall and holiday email campaigns.

Hopefully, by now you've already planned your email marketing campaign for the holidays and now you can start implementing the decisions you've made.  Here's a brief reminder as to some items to consider in your plan:

• What are your holiday email campaign goals and objectives?
• When and how often are you going to send emails?
• What are you promoting or trying to tell your audience?
• What creative holiday design can you add to your content?

But, relax - there is still time to work on your holiday email campaigns. In the meantime, here are a couple of  links to help boost your email marketing campaign in the fall season:

Take time to sit and watch the leaves turn - Outlines some emails you can send to readers that reflect the fall season, including:

• Fall Back Reminders
• Appreciation or Thank You Emails
• Sales & Promotion Announcements

What's IN/What's OUT: Email Trends for the Fall Season - explains some email marketing and email trends to look for in the upcoming fall season and points out those things that may be dying out.

Our application even offers some various Fall and Holiday templates to help get you started.  If you need help creating an effective fall season email campaign and preparing for the rush of the holiday season, contact us here at Delivra and we'll be more than happy to help you to plan (and remind you to breathe).

Lavon Temple | Marketing

In a world of multiple web platforms, companies are faced with having to decide which platforms to use when marketing to their current and potential consumers. Of course, they want to have a website where all of their information, products, services, and promotions can be housed, but as we all know, social networks and blogs have emerged as places where people go to find information. While social media has its marketing benefits, one of the simplest and often forgotten mediums is email, something that we use every single day. Even though social media can be more unique and appealing, I think that email still has some great benefits that people commonly overlook.  The benefits can be explained with a simple equation:

Email Marketing =Value + Consistency + Accessibilty

Here's why:

1. It's Permission Marketing

While you're always going to have those email subscribers who immediately delete the newsletters or promotions you send, you still have a list of people who specifically asked to receive emails from you. Take this opportunity to consistently stay in contact (and stay top of mind) with your subscribers. Furthermore, send them the information that's going to provide them with the most value. What's going on next week? What's in your store? What's on sale? How can you increase sales?

2. It's Branded

Most newsletters or promotional email templates are designed to look like the website and also guide visitors back to the website. This not only increases a company's chance of customer contact, but it educates the customer on what the company provides. Having this consistency between the website and email creates a positive correlation for the customer. The consistent branding gives the company an identity that potential customers recognize.

3. It's Everywhere!

Almost everyone has an email account, while not everyone has a Facebook or Twitter account. Furthermore, you have an email account in order to setup the social media accounts. Therefore, when marketing through email, you have much more accessibility to your designated target marketing. Your marketing messages can also be easily forwarded to friends, family, coworkers, etc. And you can send it to anyone as long as you have their email address. You don't have to be friends with them or following them.

So next time you think about immediately deleting a promotion from a company, stop and actually look at the email. The company is sending you the email because they have something relevant to say. It will provide you with relevant information, it will educate you about the company, and you might be able to help someone else. Remember, you were the person who subscribed to that newsletter or company's website in the first place. Why do so if you don't get anything out of it?

Guest Blogger | Jenn Lisak

Jenn Lisak, Project Manager, is a recent graduate of Butler University, where she majored in Marketing and Business Development.  She currently resides in Broad Ripple with her new kitten, Delilah.

Jenn's role at Fusework consists of client management, social media marketing, and creative development of the company. She loves helping clients reach their marketing objectives,and she acts as an in-house social media consultant.

In the future, she plans to publish a novel and eventually own her own business.

Every now and then, I take a blog post and introduce our readers to a new technology or something I find valuable in my day-to-day marketing work here at Delivra. I’d like to tell you about a brand new startup application called Tinderbox.

TinderBox is a web-based application that makes it easy for individuals and teams to create, manage, deliver, and track interactive business proposals. TinderBox includes a library where organizations can store all of their proposal building content including templates, pictures, and video. The library and proposal editor allow for quick, elegant, and consistent proposals or business communications. Finished proposals can be securely sent and tracked delivering back helpful information on whether it has been opened, accepted, or rejected.

Now you might wonder why I am so excited about a proposal system. It’s pretty simple actually, with Tinderbox I am able to brand online web-based proposals that are consistent with my messaging, but also are personalized to the prospect and the account manager. Just like in email, follow up and personalization are two powerful tools that make this application really unique.  Not to mention the tracking on the back-end once it goes out!

Can you imagine creating, sending, and tracking all within an application where you can easily template out the messaging and brand. If you are a marketer, make sure your sales team knows about Tinderbox and if you are the owner of a company, what better (and more innovative) method than an online proposal to your prospective clients. It makes my job a whole lot easier! Our brand stays consistent and I am not required to touch every document that comes through. Want to learn more? Click here today!

Carissa Newton | Marketing

For the past month,  we've been running our first ever Extreme Email Makeover Contest.  Well, today is the day that the winner is finally announced; actually, because of such a great lineup of entries, Delivra has chosen to award two participants an extreme email makeover.  So,  this is the day the winners are announced.

The winners of the Extreme Email Makeover Contest are...Keeping Indianapolis Beautiful, Inc. and Mainstyle Flooring.

Keep Indianapolis Beautiful is the Delivra client winner of the contest.  KIB is a non-profit organization that supports an average of 500 community improvement projects with 30,000 volunteers.  According to the KIB website, "since 1995, KIB has helped its neighbors plant more then 14,000 trees, and has been supported by more than one thousand individual donors toward these efforts." KIB entered the Extreme Email Makeover Contest in order to improve their current email template, stating that their current one is "serviceable, and we haven't changed it in years."

Mainstyle Flooring is the non-client winner of the Extreme Email Makeover Contest.  Mainstyle Flooring is a small, locally owned flooring company.  Mainstyle Flooring is determined to offer great service to their customers and is always striving to exceed their expectations.  Mainstyle Flooring entered the Extreme Email Makeover in hopes of receiving help to initiate their email marketing efforts.

Delivra is excited to award each of these winners an Extreme Email Makeover and improve their email marketing efforts.  Stay tuned to the Delivra blog because both winners will be showcased in a case study.  Also, for those participants that didn't win or for those of you who didn't get a chance to enter the contest, don't worry - Delivra plans to run more contests! The best way to stay current with Delivra news is to read the Delivra blog or to follow the Delivra Twitter account: @Delivra.

Lavon Temple | Marketing

For those of us that have not been hiding under a rock, you've probably witnessed the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, where Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Ron White (my personal favorite), and Larry the Cable Guy put on a comedy act that has entertained the masses.  One of the more infamous segments of their act is the "You might be a redneck if..." piece.

If you have, you'll recognize my spin off: You might need an email makeover if...

• You do not have a strong call to action in the email telling your readers the next step you'd like them to take.  A strong call to action should be placed in the email subject line that also shows up in the preview pane.  In the content of the email, there should also be a hyperlink to the call of action.
• You are using too many pictures and not enough text.  Sometimes all your pictures won't load and you want to make sure people aren't losing the message because they can't see all of it.  Put enough words in your content so that people can understand the message without the pictures!
• You haven't considered how it looks on mobile devices.  Many people are checking their email on mobile devices, so shouldn't you be considering how your emails look to them?
• You haven't inserted social media links into your email marketing campaign. So many people are involved in the social media world, you want to make sure you give them the opportunity to share your emails or parts of your emails to their followers and friends.

So, I have to ask...are you guilty of making some of these email marketing mistakes?  If so, DON'T PANIC!  Delivra can help!

Lucky for you, Delivra has launched its first ever Extreme Email Makeover Contest and you still have time to participate because the contest doesn't close until July 31st.  That gives you plenty of time to upload your email designs.

Don't forget what you could win! If the winner is a current client of Delivra, they will receive a custom made, sophisticated email template placed into their established account for use in future mailings.  If the winner is not a Delivra client, they will receive one custom designed email template, one hour of email strategy consultation, access to Delivra 101 and 201, and a 90 day trial account.

So, don't be embarrassed if you have a terrible email design, enter it in the Delivra Extreme Email Makeover Contest and save yourself!

Lavon Temple | Marketing

I often hear dramatically different definitions and interpretations of what "Full Service" means as it relates to email marketing.  Please don't confuse the quality of service with the level of service...these are two very different things.  "Level" describes the agreed upon ownership of various activities between the customer and the contractor/vendor.  These activities could range from creative design, automated email campaign setup and management weekly or monthly coaching/consulting all the way to "here is my vision...let me know when you are there." "Quality" on the other hand describes how well or poorly those activities are handled in the eyes of the customer.

Let's face it, marketers are continually being asked to do more with less.  If by chance I temporarily forget this and need to be reminded...I need only look across our office at our Director of Marketing, Carissa Newton, as she navigates through the constant barrage of requirements and requests: e-newsletters, product releases, press releases, SEO optimization, website improvements, sales collateral, speaking events, whitepapers, blogs, company Facebook page updates, tweets, clicks, PowerPoint templates, etc...all of which need to be done yesterday.

So what level of service is right for your organization?  If I had to group our industry into buckets, I would give you these three:

Full Service - This relationship is where you tell them what you want and they do the work for you.  Typically, you would never have a need to see their user interface.

Self Service - This is the typical SaaS model.  You pay money for access to software...you get training and off you go.  There is usually a phone number, web chat, or email address available if you have a question or concern.

Hybrid - This gives you the flexibility to control those items you wish to control and outsource those that you wish to outsource...either all the time or case by case.

So which one is right for you?  Take a look at your email requirements and your core business over the course of the next 12 months.  Maybe you have a marketing team that can get the job done 6 months out of the year, but will fall short during the trade show season.  Maybe email is the number one most vital component to your business so you would like to have the professionals drive the system.  Maybe you are great at the business aspect of email marketing, but lack a team member with design talent.  Depending on your department and situation, there is a solution out there for you.

To find out if Delivra is the solution for you, please visit our website or give us a call at 866-915-9465.

Scott Cramer | Director of Sales

Delivra has just announced its first ever Extreme Email Makeover contest! If your current email design is in desperate need of a major "face lift" and you want to take advantage of the design skills and various other talents of the Delivra team to help then this is definitely the opportunity for you! 

Wondering how you can participate and get in on all the action? It's really simple! All you have to do is go to the Delivra Facebook Fan page and click "like" this page. From there, you can simply upload your current email design. Then, you can vote on which email you think should win! That's it! 

The sweepstakes runs through the month of July, so there is plenty of time to get your emails in. Then, on August 3rd, 2010, after waiting so patiently, Delivra will announce who is in the most desperate need for an email "makeover" - the winner of the Extreme Email Makeover!

Wondering what you win? I thought so! If the winner is a current client of Delivra, they will receive a custom made, sophisticated email template placed into their established account for use in future mailings. If the winner is not a Delivra client, they will receive one custom designed email template, one hour of email strategy consultation, access to Delivra 101 and 201, and a 90 day trial account. Pretty sweet, huh? 

To learn more about the Extreme Email Makeover, you can read the press release located on the Delivra website or go straight to our Facebook page. 

You do not want to miss out on your chance for an Extreme Makeover!