We’re looking for the very best examples of UK email marketing and to celebrate, we’re giving away a brand new Apple iPad to one lucky winner, as well as 10 Sign-Up.to goody bags! The competition is open to everyone, not just our customers, and we would love to see your creative work!

To be in with a chance of winning, post an image or link to the best, most creative email marketing campaign you’ve run in the last 12 months on our Facebook page. Don’t forget to tell us your name/company name and when the email was sent!

We’ll then select a shortlist of our 10 favourite campaigns and open up the competition to a public vote on Facebook. The winning entry will receive an Apple iPad and shortlisted campaigns will receive an amazing Sign-Up.to goody bag.

The competition dates are:

• 1st – 29th September: All entries welcome.
• 4th October: We’ll announce the 10 shortlisted entries.
• 11th October: The competition closes at midnight.
• 12th October: The winning email campaign is announced.

Don’t forget to check out our Facebook page for competition updates and we look forward to seeing your campaign!

Terms and conditions:

• Competition open to UK registered organisations and UK based sole-traders only.
• Campaigns must have been created and sent between 1st June 2009 and 29th September 2010 in order to be eligible.
• The closing date for entries is 29th September 2010. Entries received after this date will not be considered.
• Campaigns can be entered by the agency or end customer only, entrant must be able to provide a copy of the actual HTML code on request.
• Only entries posted to the Sign-Up.to Facebook page will be accepted.
• The shortlist of entries will be selected by Sign-Up.to with the winning entry decided by a public vote.
• Only one vote per person, we reserve the right to discount duplicate votes and disqualify entries where we have reasonable grounds to suspect that fraudulent voting is taking place.
• No purchase necessary, you do not need to be a Sign-Up.to customer to enter.
• By entering the competition the winner agrees to participate in such promotional activity and material as Sign-Up.to may require.
• The prize will not be transferable to another person.
• No cash alternative is available.
• If the advertised prize is not available we reserve the right to offer another prize of equal or greater value.
• We reserve the right to amend these rules at any time.
• This competition is being run by Sign-Up Technologies Ltd. 60 Maltings Place, London SW6 2BX
• Any queries regarding this competition or the rules should be sent to support@sign-up.to

Google have today announced the launch of priority inbox, a new Gmail feature which automatically prioritises important emails using algorithms. Mashable have reported that inboxes will never be the same again.

During the many months of testing the feature internally, the search giant found that users spent 16% less time reading insignificant e-mail. If you do the math, that’s about a full week’s worth of time saved.

The feature uses algorithms in order to determine emails of high priority, as the Telegraph reports. This is used in a similar way to how Google scan email content to target their email adverts effectively. While users can still access their other emails, the benefit of the priority inbox is that they can quickly see their most important emails.

The priority inbox is currently being rolled out and will be appearing in Gmail inboxes in the next couple of weeks.

What does this mean for your email marketing campaigns? To be clear, all emails will still display in the usual inbox. However, now more than ever interesting content will be crucial. As the algorithms are based upon emails previously read and replied to it’s crucial that you give your subscribers a reason to open your emails. Subject lines, special offers and encouraging subscribers to add you to their contact list are tips that we, at Sign-Up.to, would recommend.

Are you a Gmail user? What do you think of the priority inbox? We believe this is a smart way of email filtering, and will ultimately lead to the best emails being read by the most relevant people. From a business point of view, it’ll ensure the most valuable subscribers will be prioritising your email and what you have to say. Let us know what you think in our comments box below.

What is Goal Tracking?

Goal Tracking is a powerful tool that provides much greater insight into your email marketing campaigns than the standard open and click-through rates.  By recording the true effectiveness of your campaigns in terms of completed goals you can gain insight that before was not possible.

A ‘Goal’ is simply a recordable action, for example the downloading of a White Paper, submission of a request for more information, a booking or a purchase from an ecommerce store or website.  Goal Tracking is the monitoring how many of these goals were met and, where applicable, the value of the completed goals.  Importantly, you can also identify easily which of your subscribers met your goals, which opens up all kinds of possibilities.

At a glance and in real-time you can view reports showing, for example, how much revenue your campaign generated, who made purchases and what they actually bought.  Calculating return on investment (ROI) is easy as you can see clearly how much revenue your campaign generated, or how many of your other goals were completed as a result of the campaign.

Using this insight properly you’ll be boosting sales and steaming ahead of your competitors!

How does it work?

Using Sign-Up.to’s Goal Tracking API it is possible to record within Sign-Up.to information relating to the completion of your campaign goals.  Simply insert the relevant code onto the webpage on which your goal will be completed – for example, the purchase confirmation page or booking form – and create your campaign as normal.  As people click-through and complete your goals Sign-Up.to will record this information and you’ll be able to see this in your account.

How does Sign-Up.to report goal completion?

Sign-Up.to highlights the details of goal completion in the Analyse section, within each individual campaign report.  Along with other key statistics including open, click and unsubscribe rates, you can see at a glance the goal completion for each campaign, in real time.

By clicking on the ‘Goals’ icon you can see a summary of those goals, broken down into non-ecommerce and ecommerce goals, with the option to view a full goal report for that campaign.

The detailed report presents clearly the details of the goals that have been completed, providing further information for each goal. This particular report refers to ecommerce goals, highlighting:

• each subscriber that made a purchase
• the reference for that purchase
• when they completed the purchase
• the total value of the purchase

What can I do with the findings?

Now you can identify who completed your goals there are many ways in which to apply this knowledge and make your email marketing campaigns even more effective.

Taking the example above of the ecommerce goals this knowledge makes it easy to calculate the ROI from the email campaign.  You can compare this with previous campaigns to identify what it was that made the campaign so successful (or not), and use this insight to improve future campaigns to boost ROI even further.

With Goal Tracking, Sign-Up.to’s “Create lists of subscriber who performed certain actions” tools really come to life.  Being able to create new lists of subscribers on the fly from their activity makes it easy to enhance your email marketing.

Using this tool you could make your email marketing more intelligent, for example:

• Drive sales by targeting those that completed your goals to up/cross-sell them complimentary products
• Keep a list of regular purchasers to enhance future campaign testing
• Build a list of those that clicked but didn’t convert and pass it to your sales team so they can work their magic and turn failure into success
• Encourage those that didn’t complete your goals to do so using a different campaign with a stronger Call to Action or extra incentive

Sign-Up.to makes all this and more easy; helping you achieve returns you previously only dreamed of!

How do I get it?

To activate Goal Tracking on your account and start seeing the enormous benefits it can bring, simply contact your Account Manager or call 0845 644 4184 to speak to one of the team.

We’re very pleased to announce that Sign-Up.to will be sponsoring a new a networking event in the Woking/Guildford area. The new event begins on the 1st September at 6pm, and then the first Wednesday of every month.

Web Wednesdays will be an informal networking drinks for people who earn their living online. It’s a place to discuss new technologies, online trends and the business of the web with like-minded people in a relaxed environment. With alcohol. That’s optional of course, but there are free drinks provided by us (until the tab runs out!).

Web Wednesdays is an invite-only event, but we welcome new members – simply drop us an email (webwednesdays@sign-up.to) and tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. Alternatively, we’ve set up a group on Meetup.com so why not join us there?

Please feel free to forward this on to people who you think would be interested in joining us, and we look forward to seeing you on the 1st!

About our videos

As a web technology provider we face a constant battle to make it easy for our customers to use complex e-marketing techniques. Our interaction and development teams are always beavering away to keep our applications simple, intuitive and effective, and we have always taken pride in our total support. As an Account Manager I’m always looking for ways to ensure our customers can get the most from our service, so soon after joining the Sign-Up.to team last year I set to work on producing a set of video tutorials. The aim is to provide online visual direction to both explain common marketing practises, and to highlight some more advanced features.

Initially I tried a few different techniques and styles, gathering both colleague and customer feedback to ensure that the videos are both easy to watch and informative. Having gathered some momentum, earlier this year I successfully campaigned for a custom built recording studio in our recent office expansion. Our initial videos were recorded directly on a MacBook using the built in microphone; now things are rather different!

Technology & production

The studio was constructed with sound insulation to isolate me from the busy (and sometimes rather lively!) office environment. The videos themselves are recorded using Screenflow on a Mac Mini, and I use a 1080p monitor to allow me to record high quality video at a good resolution (1600×844). I use a filtered, unidirectional microphone to minimise background noise; my voice now sounds so much more natural than it used to when recorded using the MacBook’s built in microphone!

Before recording I produce a script and a hand-sketched story board for each video. I use Adobe Fireworks to prepare additional visuals and effects, and then it’s all about putting it together in Screenflow, starting with audio recordings and then adding the video. As I’m a bit of a perfectionist some stages, particularly the audio, require a few ‘takes’!

Results!

To have a look at our selection of videos please see our Youtube channel. Over the last year I’ve realised how much I enjoy making videos, and love hearing feedback from our customers as a result. I hope you enjoy our videos, and if you have feedback or would like to see a new Sign-Up.to video please let us know in the comments box below – we’d love to hear from you!

Last week Facebook announced that they will be making some important changes to the layout of Facebook pages as well as removing some older features including boxes. These changes will begin on the week of August 23rd.

What does this mean? Well, the boxes functionality will be taken away (these normally sit to the left of any Facebook page) so any applications developed for the left of your page will no longer be tehre. As well as this the width of tabs will reduce down to 520 pixels.

In order to help ensure the process run smoothly, Facebook have provided a layout preview to help administrators see the exact changes that need to be made. Check out the image below of how Sign-Up.to‘s page will look.

As you can see, we’ll need to adjust the size of our newsletter data capture form and we’ll be doing this in time for the 23rd!

These changes will begin the week commencing August 23rd, which gives businesses (including us!) almost two weeks to ensure applications and tabs fit with the new format.

According to Facebook the reason for these change is to simplify user navigation and although these changes have long been anticipated, we’re left wondering what their purpose is? What do you think? Will these changes will make the pages look smarter and more user friendly? Let us know in the comments box below.

Over the past week we’ve seen some great Twitter stories which we thought we’d share.

On Friday Twitter launched a “suggestions” page which suggests people you may be interested in following. We’re told that the suggestions are based on several factors, including people you follow and people they follow. We’ve tried this ourselves and were quite impressed by the new feature. The suggestions page is slowly being rolled out and you’ll see it in the find people section of your account.

Last week we heard about the death of Ivy Bean, the oldest tweeter. At 104 Ivy Bean had become a Twitter favourite, with over 62,000 followers including Stephen Fry and Gordon Brown. Ivy even met the former Prime Minister and tweeted that he was “really very nice”. Although it’s sad that she has now passed away, it really promotes how Twitter can be for people of all ages. Ivy Bean was born in 1905, seven years before the national telephone launched, yet she was able to use and enjoy social media.

Finally, Saturday marked a Twitter landmark with the 20 billionth tweet being sent. The Telegraph reported that the tweet came from a Japanese user who was having an conversation with a friend. While it took four years to reach 10 billion tweets, it took less than five months to double that figure, an excellent demonstration of the rise of social media.

We’ve really enjoyed reading these stories, but have you seen any other interesting Twitter stories recently? Tell us about them in our comments box below!

Hello. Today I’m going to cover the most common email marketing mistakes and how you can avoid them.

Not having permission
We start with the most important point, not having permission. Sign-Up.to is built on the foundation of Permission Marketing. This means a subscriber must have opted-in to receive information from you, because they are interested in the products or services you offer.

Purchasing lists is also a big no no. The bottom line is that if a subscriber hasn’t given you permission to contact them, they shouldn’t be contacted. It is more beneficial to focus on people that do want to hear from you, than those that don’t.

Assuming your customers remember who you are
It’s very easy to assume that your customers remember who you are. However, your customers may be receiving emails from several companies in your area of expertise and not just yourself. As a result of this, we recommend that you add a sentence at the top of your emails reminding them who you are, what you do and why they are receiving emails from you.

This will immediately remind them and as a result, your customers may be more inclined to read your emails, click the links and see the special offers you are advertising.

Targeting the wrong subscribers
Before you send out an email, have a think about who your audience are and who will benefit most from receiving such information from you. This will help you target the correct subscribers and hopefully lead to higher open and click through rates.

To find out how to do this please visit our help guide. You also may want to filter your subscribers even further, and send your email out to subscribers who meet the profile selection that you choose. Using Sign-Up.to, you can create a profile search for gender, marital status, employment status, country, county, town or even a subscriber profile you have added yourself. For example a nightclub may have an offer where ladies get half price entry, so they can easily create a search to target females only for their campaign.

Incorrect links and spelling errors
We recommend including links in your email campaign as they provide a way of tracking the success of your emails, using the click through rate statistics. However, it’s important to include relevant links that the recipient will be interested in viewing.

It is very easy to make a spelling mistake in your newsletter, or even type the wrong word completely and not notice this yourself. Our campaign editor has a built in spell check function that I recommend using. Just click the spell check icon to run a spell check on your campaign. Of course, this is no substitute for a second pair of eyes, so if possible ask a colleague or friend to read through your campaign and test your links before you push the button.

Not testing to all email clients
By testing your email across all the main clients you can make sure your design is compatible and readable for all your subscribers no matter what email client they view this in. Many email clients treat coded emails differently. For example, Outlook 2007 won’t show background images and browser-based email clients like Hotmail , Yahoo, Gmail will strip out your “HTML”, “HEAD” and “BODY” tags, causing some content to be ignored. See our easy to digest article on Outlook 2007 and its effect on email marketing for further information.

Banana-Split Testing

Use our Split Testing feature to send the same campaign but with different subject lines to your subscribers, to see what gets better results.

For example, you can create your newsletter as normal in the system, then duplicate the campaign several times and give these all different subject lines. Using our Split Test feature, you can send each version to either a number of subscribers or a percentage of your subscribers. After an amount of time (between 1 hour and 7 days) the winning campaign (either decided by open rate or click through rate) can be then sent to the remaining subscribers, ensuring the best possible results for your campaign.

We’ve just released the new 2010 version of our Email Marketing Benchmark Report

Based on an analysis of more than 200 million emails (yep, that’s a lot of number crunching we had to do!) sent through Sign-Up.to during the first 6 months of 2010 (where the sender declared their industry sector), the report compares open, click, unsubscribe and engagement rates for more than 23 industries.

Did you know we have a Facebook page? We like to use Facebook to talk to our customers in a casual and friendly way. It’s also the place to see photos of our lovely Sign-Up.to team!

We all really love our Facebook page and often add photos of the latest goings on, for example any birthdays (we have lots in January!), exhibitions and our recent office expansion. In May 2010 we expanded and doubled the size of our office, updating our Facebook fans on a regular basis.

As well as photos, we also have links to our blog and Youtube channel so it’s a great way of finding out all the latest information on Sign-Up.to features and industry-wide information.

To reflect our belief in the power of social media we’ve added a data capture form to our Facebook page, allowing fans to subscribe to our email newsletter. If you’d like to learn how to do this for your business visit our handy guide, and to see our form check out our Facebook page.

We would love to hear from you on our Facebook page, so why not become a fan today?