To aid you in your online marketing efforts this year we’re pleased to announce that 12 brand new, free email marketing templates have just arrived in all Sign-Up.to accounts. The templates are available in the Campaign Designer email editor. You can add as much content as you need to them and easily customise them to your brand.

The templates include a cool retro theme, a set of ‘courgette diner’ emails, perfect for restaurants and the like, and two ‘Uhoo app’ templates, ideal for showcasing apps or smartphone updates.

Courgette diner voucher	Courgette diner news	Courgette diner menu
Retro	Uhoo app 1	Uhoo app 2
Dotshop main	Dotshop products	Showcase
Louder	Page curl	Featured

We rolled out 10 templates in December and a further 10 a couple of weeks ago so we really hope you’ll find the perfect design for your brand. Please drop us an email (or comment below) if there are any template themes you’d like to see in your account.

To kick start the new year we’re very pleased to showcase 10 brand new free email marketing templates, available in all Sign-Up.to accounts now! The templates include a snazzy thank you template (perfect for post-Christmas niceties), two gallery themes and a couple of rustic ‘Teabreak’ templates (my personal favourites!).

As always, all of the templates are available in the Campaign Designer email editor and are customisable and suitable for any amount of content you might need to add.

Letter	Burger geeks	Burger geeks promo
Quickshot	Teabreak news	Teabreak triple
Template noir	Cup of Joe	Gallery
Gallery small

Watch out for even more templates arriving in your account very soon. We hope you like these, and look forward to seeing you use them. Please get in touch with us if there are any template themes you’d like to see!

Following on from my post last week looking at what’s happened in 2011, it felt only right to think forward and look at what we might expect to see in the next 12 months. As always with posts like this, there are a massive number of topics that could be covered. However to keep things manageable here are the main things that have come to our minds.

Gadgets and gizmos

The iPad 3 is expected to launch in the early part of 2012 and I’m sure this will be welcome news for Apple fans globally. Looking at the tablet market as a whole Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, has this week announced the ‘Nexus’ tablet which is set to be released in the next six months. Along with Amazon’s Kindle Fire offering coming to the UK soon, the tablet market could develop substantially in the new year. What about you gamers out there? Well, there’s the Nintendo’s Wii U arriving and also Playstation Vita - which one are you more excited about?

Events in London and beyond

In June the UK will be celebrating the Queen’s Diamond jubilee and in August, The Olympics are taking place in London. In November Nokia announced a free wi-fi trial taking place in London giving the public free Internet access in parts of the city, and it’s thought that this is in preparation for The Olympics. In addition to these events there is also the US Presidential election taking place and it’ll be interesting to see how the candidates use the Internet, and social media specifically, for their campaigns. In October Barack Obama joined Tumblr to kick start his campaign and as Tumblr is a personal favourite of mine, I will be especially interested to see how his team use this newer social platform.

Digital marketing in 2012

In 2011 Facebook grew to 800 million users, Twitter to over 100 million active users and Google + arrived, so social media is likely to continue to grow and become a prominent marketing channel for businesses in 2012. Google+ have confirmed they’ll be adding more features for business pages too, and brand pages on Twitter have already arrived for a select few. Email marketing will most certainly have its place in 2012 and, in actual fact the DMA have predicted that more emails will be sent than ever before. However next year the focus, more than ever before, has to be on combining marketing activities across the board – email, social media and SMS. We can’t ignore the fact that the economy isn’t as strong as it could be and businesses of all sizes need to think smart about how they market their offering online to get the best ROI. In lighter news, Emailblog.eu reported last week that spam emails have fallen to their lowest volume since 2008, let’s hope that trend continues into 2012 and beyond!

Other things to look out for

The usage of HTML 5 is likely to become more prevalent in 2012 and we wonder how much it’ll impact email and website design in the coming year. We’ve already seen Chrome pass Firefox as the most popular browser of choice so it’ll be interesting to see how Chrome continues to grow – especially with the launch of IE10 to keep an eye out for. Netflix is also set to arrive in the UK next year which could change how we view our TV shows and favourite films. Finally, are you looking for a new design/colour scheme in 2012? Pantone have announced Tangerine Tango as their colour of the year for 2012. Are you ready to go orange?

Are there any social or technological changes you’re looking forward to seeing in 2012? Share your thoughts in the comments box below or drop me an email!

As Christmas draws ever closer and our thoughts turn to the new year, we’d like to take a nostalgic moment to think about the year gone by, as it’s been quite a big one really. Here’s our round-up of significant social and technological events from 2011.

All things social

Where do I begin? Social media platforms have again had a triumphant year; from the launch of Google+ at the end of June to the growth of Tumblr, the way we communicate continues to evolve with the growth of the key social players.

Twitter reported that the announcement of Beyonce’s pregnancy hit a new record of tweets per second in August, but for me the biggest news story was the Japanese earthquake in March. It really demonstrated that social media is the first place that I (and a lot of people) hear of those big news stories.

As well as hitting new records Twitter redesigned their platform at the beginning of December and launched promoted tweets in the UK. Let’s not forget Facebook either; in September Mark Zuckerburg announced both the launch of Timeline and that the platform now has 800 million users. There is also talk that Facebook will float on the stock market in 2012, so the next 12 months could be interesting. LinkedIn also hit an important milestone this year, 100 million users.

The growth of the smartphone

The war between Android and iOS continues, with Gartner reporting that 52.5% of smartphones sold worldwide in the third part of the year were Android. Second was the Nokia Symbian at 16.9% followed by the iOS at 15%. While Apple may have sadly lost Steve Jobs in October this year, they also launched the iPad 2,  iPhone 4S (Siri in hand) and iOS 5. The iPhone 4 is also the most popular device for taking photos - beating all other smartphones and cameras, quite a statistic! Android launched their latest operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich and Google purchased Motorola Mobility for £7.7 billion in August. Apple also listed Instagram as the best iOS app of the year, no surprise really when you consider they have grown to 50 million users this year and plan to launch an Android version very soon.

Security breaches galore

This year we saw an unprecedented amount of security breaches – from the outage of the Sony PlayStation Network, to the phishing attack on Xbox users and security breach at Steam – to name but a few. There was also talk of a Facebook hack taking place in November but this never materialised. Security can never be taken for granted, and the Sign-Up.to team certainly shuddered when we saw the ‘worst passwords of 2011′ list.

Things to come…

In my next post I’ll talk more about what’s to come in 2012 but let’s not forget that Windows 8 was announced this year, as was Amazon’s Kindle Fire – a potential rival for Apple in the tablet market. There’s also the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics coming to London, so it’ll be interesting to see how the world of technology responds to those events.

What stories were important to you this year? I am certain that there are plenty more stories I could have covered here, but I hope this post has given you a nice little summary of the year gone by in technology. As always, please do get in touch with me via email or just leave a comment in the box below.

Last night (Thursday 8th December) Twitter announced and began rolling out a brand new design for web, iPhone and Android applications, as well as Tweetdeck. Here’s a shot of how our Sign-Up.to Twitter page looks this morning on the web, compared with the old style.

So what do we think? Well, on first glance it appears that they’ve just flipped the design round – trending topics used to sit on the right, they now sit on the left etc. On closer inspection it feels a lot tidier though; we no longer see profile pictures of our followers, just a link to view them. Images are still present (though smaller) and photos posted alongside a tweet now sit quite nicely on the feed. As well as this, the ‘similar to you’ section is smaller and sits lower in the page. Our tweets, following and follower information still remains, but sits at the very top of the page.

Overall it feels that they’ve tried to make the design more concise and slick, and I think this is where they’ve succeeded. The design is smart, allows me to see everything I want to see, and explore further if I need to. There are just three links at the very top of the page now – home, connect and discover. ‘Home’ is where we see the usual timeline of follower tweets, ‘Connect’ is where ‘the conversation begins‘ and ‘Discover’ is the newest tab to arrive. ‘Discover’ not only displays the trending topics we’re all so used to seeing, but also displays a story section – taking the most popular topics that one step further. The stories give a brief summary as to why a topic might be trending, links to a news article and gives users the chance to view tweets about that topic. This is where Twitter have excelled themselves, they recognise that social media is fast becoming the place that people see news first. The ‘Discover’ page takes advantage of this and makes those topics even more prominent than before.

The new designs we’re seeing on web, mobile applications and desktop are consistent –  the Tweetdeck update is particularly prominent and the blue colour scheme already seen on mobile has come into play. Econsultancy reported that Twitter want the user experience to be consistent no matter where or how the message is being sent, and I think this demonstrates how their brand has evolved. They recognise that their platform has become global and have responded.

While the rollout has begun, some of the Sign-Up.to team are yet to see the new look in their personal accounts. Over to you all, what do you think of the new look? Are you impressed with the mobile and Tweetdeck updates? We’d love to hear what you think and how you think this redesign will aid Twitter’s growth in the new year. Get in touch with us in the comments box below.

Christmas is all about being generous and in the spirit of giving we’ve just added 10 exciting new free email marketing templates to all Sign-Up.to accounts. The templates range from themed save the date, gift voucher and offer emails to birthday templates and a couple of cool product showcase designs.

All of the templates are available now for you to use in our Campaign Designer email editor. They’re highly customisable and suitable for any amount of content. If you’re looking for some festive themed templates for the Christmas period, why not check out our seasonal templates? Perfect for the occasion.

Outdoor	Voucher	Save the date
Gift offer	Stack	Birthday
Retro gift grid	Retro gift showcase	Best sellers
Flight Inc

We’ll be rolling out even more templates in the New Year, but enjoy these in the meantime. We can’t wait to see how you use them! Please do get in touch if you have any email template design ideas.

You may have heard about Shippam’s Paste, a Twitter story unlike anything we’ve seen in a long time. @Shippamspaste has been on my radar for a few weeks now, and while I had other social stories in the pipeline, today their story has escalated into something quite interesting indeed. In fact as I write this #paste is the second highest trending topic in London, and that’s not bad for a company that started in the 18th Century!

How did it all begin?

On Thursday 13th October my colleagues and I came across the delightfully funny @shippamspaste and unsure if it was a joke or not, we quickly followed.  The page told the story of ‘Ben’, an intern at Princes Group/Shippam’s Paste, who was keen to help followers engage with their brand. He told us of his boss Paul, how you could enjoy paste and how he spent his weekends. Real or not you couldn’t help but laugh at the tweets, the appalling grammar and the lack of understanding about how social media works (oh, the irony).

#Paste goes viral

As time went on it was very obviously a fake account but it didn’t matter, the page continued to grow and attract attention. We couldn’t help but laugh at tweets such as “why not try beef spread on toast as a delicious start to your day”.

We were impressed enough to see it at 2,000 followers before it quickly jumped to 8,000 – this account had captured the imagination of some users on Twitter. It cleverly added some humour to, let’s face it, a pretty dull brand. It even encouraged one of my colleagues to look for and purchase it in our local supermarket. Talk about increasing brand awareness!

What went wrong?

This morning (4th November 2011) @shippamspaste was no more. I was their 6th follower and three weeks later at over 8,000 the account was suspended. A search of Twitter highlighted how popular this account had become, and people were obviously saddened to see it go (including some of the Sign-Up.to team). While there’s no official word, it would appear that the account was pulled for being an impersonation on a trademarked name.

What happened next was an interesting twist, Princes Group created (what we believe to be) an official Shippam’s Paste Twitter account (@Shippamsofficia. No, really). They painfully demonstrated a clear misunderstanding of the situation, filling their page with some awfully impersonal and corporate tweets before deleting the account all together. The #paste bubble had officially burst.

What can we learn from Princes Group?

While I can understand the need to protect a brand, Princes Group have perhaps mishandled the situation; their social media presence was covered and loveable, even if it was unconventional. My colleagues and I didn’t start following @shippamspaste because we like crab paste, we followed it because it was funny and painted a picture of a young intern in an old fashioned company trying to spark a bit of life into their brand. Twitter doesn’t always have to be serious (for any company), it can be funny and it can show personality about the people behind the brand. Yes the account was fake but wouldn’t it have been nice if it was real? If the young intern really was stuck in this improbable situation and spent his days coming up with ideas about how to enjoy different pastes on toast? I for one am sad to see it go, and amazed to see the reaction it’s generated. All publicity is good publicity, right?

Were you a @shippamspaste follower? Are you as sad as us to see it go? Get in touch in the comments box below, we’d love to hear from you! #paste

Within Sign-Up.to we have five key sections; Collect, Create, Send, Share and Analyse. All of them hold some excellent tools to help you get the best from your online marketing. In this post I’ll be looking at our newly developed Share section and some of the tools available.

1. Send your email campaigns straight to Facebook and Twitter. That’s right, share your emails on the two most popular social media sites on the planet. A great way of allowing your subscribers to promote your brand and message with their friends and followers.

2. Post comments and photos to both social media sites, simultaneously. Posting an important update online? With Share you can write your update and post it to both your Facebook and Twitter page at the same time, making life just that little bit easier.

3. See your Facebook and Twitter feed all on one page. No more flicking between tabs on your Internet browser, view both feeds on one page.

4. Create a data capture form to catch new subscribers. In Share you can quickly add a data capture form to your page, making it really easy for your Facebook fans to sign up to receive your latest newsletter, enter a competition, offer etc.

5. Mark comments and mentions as positive or negative. Seen a negative comment you’re unhappy with? Well, firstly don’t delete it and secondly mark it as negative. You can do the same with positive comments and it’ll quickly help you assess your customers’ opinion of you online.

SMS messaging is a great way of reaching subscribers while they’re on the move; so we’ve come up with 5 ways that you can use SMS marketing for your business, all from within your Sign-Up.to account. This post is designed to give you some practical ideas, so we’ve given examples for each concept.

1. Ask people to text you their email address

The Sign-Up.to platform lets you capture email addresses straight from an SMS message; all the subscriber needs to do is text you and the data will be stored. How are you going to get people to subscribe? Well, how about incentivising the process or giving them a reason to get in touch with you?

Customer call to action example: “The first 20 people to text us their email address will win a 20% discount card”.

2. Sending out bulk campaigns

Bulk SMS campaigns are a good way of spreading your message further, so perhaps you could use this for announcing a new product or advertising events coming up soon. In making your messages consistent and the content interesting your subscribers may begin to anticipate their arrival.

Customer call to action example: “Text us your favourite band/singer and we’ll tell you all their exclusive news first!”

3. Send appointment reminders

As well as sending out bulk campaigns you can also send individual, one off messages. You may like to use this to remind customers of appointments they have with you; or if you’re a hotel you may like to text them the day before their stay and tell them what’s on the menu in your restaurant.

Customer call to action example: “We haven’t seen you in the last few months; come and see us soon and we’ll give you a 10% discount.”

4. Mobile subscribers come first

If you’re someone who often announces events, gigs, shows or exhibitions etc, why not set up a ‘mobile club’ where people can text in their details and hear your news first. It’s a guaranteed way of increasing engagement, and if people are signing up then you know they’re interested in your business and what you have to say.

Customer call to action: “Want to hear about our exclusive events first? Text us your details and join our mobile club!”

5. Viral campaigns

Asking your customers for their opinion is always a sure-fire way to boost loyalty; they’ll appreciate being asked for input. Why not take advantage of this by setting up campaigns where you ask people to vote, or voice their opinion on a new product or service you’re thinking about offering?

Customer call to action: “We’ll soon be adding new dishes to our menu; text us and tell us what you’d like to see on it!”

These are just five examples but there are hundreds of ways you can use SMS marketing for your business. All of these ideas can be nicely tied in with email and social media marketing and if you’re new to SMS marketing all Sign-Up.to customers get 25 free SMS credits, so give mobile messaging a go. If you’d like some advice on setting these ideas up in your Sign-Up.to account drop us an email or leave us a comment below.

At the F8 conference on the 22nd September 2011 Facebook announced the launch of Timeline, a new design for user profiles. It’s due to go live for all accounts at the end of September (though you can get it now if you prefer!). I love a good social media announcement and this one didn’t disappoint; so without further ado I give you my thoughts on Timeline.

Firstly, for all the skeptics out there it would be easy to say “hey, what do these changes matter? Facebook are always making them”. It’s a fair point but ultimately any changes they make go live to over 800 million people so it’s big business. The difference with this news is that the latest offering is aimed to encourage people to start telling their life story, all from one place. Interestingly the reaction of a friend of mine to this news was “Wow, so Facebook really are here for the long run?”, perhaps quashing any of those “it’ll end up like Friends Reunited and Myspace” rumours? Maybe.

Let’s look at Timeline and what it has to offer:

Visually beautiful

We’ve already seen photo albums appearing bigger on the News Feed of accounts but Timeline goes that one step further, and one aspect of this new design that grabbed my attention is the cover image. As well as having a profile picture Facebook have introduced a cover image which prominently sits at the top of the page. Suddenly users can individualise their profile – not just being one of those 800 million users that blends into the crowd. I like this; I can customise my page to reflect me, or put bluntly I can proudly display an image I like – be it one I’ve taken or otherwise. It’s my page and I can take ownership of it.

As well as cover images Timeline introduces a two-columned profile. Your feed is still organised chronologically but by essentially splitting the feed into two it allows you to see more as you scroll further down. As well as this, the places where you’re tagged now appear in a map. I geekily enjoyed browsing it; it gave me a visual reminder of some of the places I’d visited and enjoyable times I’d had with friends and family in times gone by. This might just encourage me to tag myself in places more often.

Now, and then

In the announcement post Facebook’s thought process behind Timeline was that stories quickly slip down the page, disappearing forever. Suddenly with Timeline that’s not the case and to the right of the page you can go back to your feed a month ago, 3 months ago, 3 years ago, all the way back to the day you were born. It’s not just about going back, you can also start adding significant events to that time – so for example I can now add a picture of me on the day I was born, or add a story about when my little sister was born. Facebook could now become the place where you document your whole life story.

Is that a good thing? I think it’s easy to raise the privacy question here as you can now reveal so much more, but ultimately it’s always your call as to how much you document online. I do have reservations about adding details about my life, but I don’t have to – users have the choice. I can think of lots of my Facebook friends who will embrace this and add photos from the past and I think that’s where Timeline is going to add an interesting dimension to Facebook, and social media as a whole.

Express who you are

Facebook have developed their apps to allow users to really express who they are; from documenting the music you are listening to, to the book you are reading and even to the food you are cooking. Apps are being integrated into the concept of telling your story. I like this idea, using Spotify I can now tell my friends what music I’m listening to and if a friend then listens to the same song it’ll pop up on their page – sharing in a whole new dimension. There are the concerns that now my feed will be full of the songs people listen to, but I’m certain there will be ways of controlling how frequently updates are posting. Interestingly since the launch of Timeline, Spotify have announced that users must have a Facebook account to register with them and this suggests an exclusivity deal with Facebook that perhaps hasn’t publicly been seen before?

To conclude

I’m writing this in anticipation of the full roll out and expecting there to be some complaints when it goes live. However, the bottom line is that Facebook will always change and develop, it’s part of evolving and staying ahead of the game. Timeline is smart, adds something new to social media not seen before, integrates itself with some big players like Spotify and makes user profiles enjoyable to view. Well done Facebook, Timeline might have just cemented your future.

Have you tried out Timeline yet? What are your thoughts on it? I’d love to hear your opinion on it so drop me an email or leave a comment below.