Thanks to our growing customer base, we’ve successfully planted 16,050 trees since January. I’ll spell that out, just so the significance of that number really soaks in: Sixteen thousand fifty trees. Some may call that a friggin’ forest. And I’d agree.

So let’s keep the proverbial ball rolling, shall we? Take a moment to vote where the trees from our new October customers will be planted.

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September hit the bullseye in the Buckeye state. With 397 new accounts coming on board, we planted 1,985 trees in Ohio. If you’d like to get your state on our tree planting list, reach out to the sweet folks at Plant-It 2020 and let them know. How ’bout a goal of getting all fifty states up there by 2010? Who’s with me now?!

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Chances are, if you’re reading this blog, you’re a bit of an email marketer. Probably a stylish one, at that. So, to reward you for your email savvy (and your blog subscribing prowess), I thought you might be interested in MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Email Marketing Awards competition.

Dig through your archived campaigns to grab your best examples - perhaps you had a record number of sign-ups for a promotional campaign, or an engaging newsletter that boosted web traffic. Whatever the email, this is your opportunity to receive those accolades of praise you’ve deserved all along.

Click here for the entry form and information, and good luck!

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This summer, I unexpectedly found myself planning a cruise. Not a bad gig, I know. As always, I was handing out my email address when I inquired about trips, curious to see the email campaigns of another segment of the email marketing world.

That was early July.

Now, it’s nearly October, and I’m just now getting the first email campaign from one of the cruise brokers. Three months ago, I would have loved to have seen the specials. Today, I opted out.

How can you make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to your brand? Here are 3 quick ideas.

-> Send a welcome email note. People are most interested in your newsletter right when they sign up for them. Sending an automatic welcome note (through your email service provider’s trigger email or autoresponder feature) matches the timing of your message with your subscriber’s interest.

-> Send regularly. The ideal email frequency varies for each sender, in unique industries, based on individual goals. But letting three months go between email campaigns can cause once-interested subscribers to forget why they wanted your updates to begin with. If you’re not sure where to start with email frequency, try sending every three weeks and adjust accordingly.

-> Think about new subscribers every time you send an email campaign. It’s easy to think of your upcoming email campaign as the next in long line of emails you’ve sent, but remember that it’s also the *first* campaign that some folks will see. Look at your email from the perspective of a first-time reader, and see how that mindset shapes your content.

What are you doing to shape your a subscriber’s experience in the first few weeks of joining your email list?

Technorati Tags: email marketing, myemma.com, email frequency

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Part two in a multi-part series on alt tags (read part one)

Do you use a preview pane when reading your email? If so, how do you make your way through a full inbox? If you’re like me, you start with one email and click the down arrow to move from message to message, all the while scanning the *content* of the email. What’s the big deal, you say? I’m skipping over some fundamental elements (the from name, the from email address and the subject line) that most email marketers are relying on to brand their emails and let me know who the email is from.

I think Sephora chose their alt text with readers like me in mind. They identified themselves by placing the brand name in the valuable top-left spot. It’s even in all caps, just like when the image loads. I thought that was a nice touch. Here are a couple of screenshots of the email - one before the images loaded and one after.

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344 new Emma users later, California is 1,720 trees more golden than before.

Again, Emma is planting five trees for every new customer in the month of August. A big thank you goes out to all of you who voted for the location of those trees. California received August’s planting, courtesy of our partnership with Plant It 20-20.

Take a moment to vote on where September’s trees should be planted. And, if you’ve got some extra time on your hands, take a look at the work the fine folks at Plant It 20-20 are doing to improve the environment.

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This week, we’re sponsoring Next Big Nashville right here in our fair city. It’s a music festival showcasing the best bands in Nashville’s music scene, but it’s also a conference with sessions designed to help artists use technology to promote their music.

We’ve been talking about the reasons that artists should add email to the ways they stay in touch with their fans, and I thought we’d share ‘em here on the blog:

1. Promote an upcoming show, CD release, tour, video, or limited edition rocker headband, if that’s how you roll.

2. Upload songs, videos, pictures and more, then link to them from your email campaigns.

3. Create web-based email signup forms to capture your audience on MySpace, your website, your blog, or anywhere else your fans watch you (in a normal, fan-like way, of course).

4. Use zip-code radius segmenting tools to find the folks within 50 miles of your next tour stop.

5. Send a welcome email that automatically thanks new subscribers with a song download, merchandise discount or perhaps a thank-you haiku of some kind.

6. Promote your signature style with HTML emails featuring images of your latest merchandise and shows.

7. Make it easy for people to visit your blog, website, or MySpace page — and use response tracking to see who’s clicking, opening, forwarding and more.

8. Keep your fan lists organized with audience groups — one for your street team, one for your CD release show RSVP list and one for your mom.

9. Turn listeners into loyal fans by offering email-only news, ticket prices and merchandise discounts to your newsletter subscribers.

10. Focus on specific sets of your fan base, creating unique messages to appeal to your fans based on their gender, age, purchase history, or any other information you know about them.

Technorati Tags: email marketing, marketing for musicians, next big nashville

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Alt tags: Part one of a three (or four, maybe five) part series.

These two emails arrived in my inbox within about 20 minutes of each other. They’re similar at first glance. Almost identical, really. Both are very image heavy, both came from brand name clothing retailers, both include simple calls to action, both drive traffic to an online store, on and on I could go. This time I took a look ‘under the hood’ to see how these two email marketing teams prepared their campaigns for the all-too-common scenario of images being blocked.

The Gap team (left) coded their html with a backup plan, since about half of the email programs out there don’t display images by default. That backup plan is known to the html-savvy as the alt tag - the alternate text that shows when the images don’t load. For a visual, peek at the screen shots to see how the message of free shipping still comes through, even when the images don’t.

Next time you create a campaign, be sure to think about your own backup plan. The general rule is to set an alt tag for all of your images. Sound complicated and technical? It’s not at all. We’ve made it easy by offering to ‘add a description’ each time you upload an image into your campaign. (If you’re working with an html designer, they’ll add the alt tag before uploading the code your Emma account.)

Last, but not least, don’t forget to test the email and see the alt tags in action. A simple preference tweak in your email client of choice should let you see the test email with the images blocked.

One note to Outlook users: Outlook has a default text that overrides these tags. You’ll see a note about clicking to download images.

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With only a handful of web-safe fonts out there, I find myself having to get a little creative with what’s available. As you may know, a font that is considered ‘web-safe‘ comes pre-installed on a wide range of computer systems and is used to increase the chance that the content gets displayed in its chosen font. If your recipient does not have the specified font, their browser or email program will select an alternative. The most current list of web-safe fonts include: Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, Georgia, Comic Sans, Trebuchet and Courier New.

In my quest to take full advantage of these web-safe warriors, I’ve learned a few tips & tricks.

1. Pick a font and stick with it.
While a menagerie of Times New Roman, Comic Sans, and Verdana sounds eye-catching, too many font faces can really take the look of your email ‘over the top.’ Instead, maintain consistency and style by using variations of the same font. There are many ways to explore this method through use of color, weight, and size. It should still allow for plenty of variety within the email and it’ll also make your font choices easier.

2. Create headers with images.
Ever find yourself just wishing that you could use that awesome, free font you just downloaded in your next email? You can always use the font in an outside program and then bring it into your email as an image. I tried out this trick recently to add a bit of jazz, pizazz, whimsy, whatever-you-wills to my header sections. What do you think?

3. Gray’s the new black.
Here’s a new trend in email design: try using medium and dark shades of gray for your body copy color instead of black. It’s a quick and effective way to transform the look of your emails into something a bit more friendly and casual (assuming that’s the look you’re going for).

Hopefully, this ‘moment of fonti-ness’ has inspired you to get out there and get creative with web-safe fonts. Feel free to stop by and let us know what tricks work for you.

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There are all kinds of things to look forward to in October. Cooler weather, of course. Halloween, obviously. Columbus Day, maybe not so much. But we’re also eagerly awaiting the MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer in Scottsdale on October 22-23, where lots of marketers are going to be gathering to talk about email, search and social media. We’re sponsoring the event, but we’re also looking forward to all the sessions, presented in the stylish way that the ‘Profs pull off so well.

If you’re thinking about going, you can save $200 on your registration just because you know Emma and you’re reading this right now. Get more details and register here, or sign up elsewhere and use the code ESPNA08.

And perhaps the $200 you save might be a nice starter fund for a certain Columbus Day party you were hoping to throw?

Technorati Tags: MarketingProfs, Digital Marketing Mixer, myemma.com, Emma

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Are you at the Creative Freelancer Conference in Chicago this week? We are. But you knew that from the headline of this post, didn’t you? Our own Steve Turney is there, talking with freelance photographers, copywriters and designers about showing off their services with email marketing. If you’re there, email Steve and say hello.

Technorati Tags: CFC, Creative Freelancer Conference, myemma.com

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