While some of the new features seem to be a response to what other webmail clients already offer, Hotmail added some unique features to their inbox. This release specifically attacks graymail, or mail that a person legitimately signed up to receive, but may no longer want. The new release removes graymail from the inbox and focuses on email from family and friends along with social media updates.

Hotmail has five new features that you, as an email marketer, need to be aware of:

• Sweep
  The Sweep feature moves all emails from one or more users to either a specific folder or the trash bin. The sweep easily eliminates graymail for the user, without having to build complicated filters.    If a user sweeps your email into a folder, Hotmail will remember this setting and continually send your messages into folder purgatory, without even tempting the recipient to take a glance at your compelling content.
• Filter Power
  When a user logs into Hotmail, they’ll be greeted with Hotmail Highlights, a dashboard showing new email from personal contacts and social networks. Once a user dives into his inbox, he can filter his messages with a single-click to show only email from personal contacts, groups, or social alerts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn).    These filters push a marketer’s email further away from the user’s eyes, changing the last message on top priority of the inbox.
• Prompted Unsubscribe
  If your contacts are consistently deleting your messages without reading them, Hotmail will prompt the user to unsubscribe. This feature most likely will help move unengaged users off your list using the “unsubscribe,” rather than them lazily hitting the “Spam” button.
• Sender Reputation
  Hotmail now uses the Trusted Senders logos from email sent from specific legitimate senders that are targeted for phishing scams (e.g. banks). Microsoft uses a combination of properly setup email domains and sender reputation to validate these trusted senders. Also, if you balance on the edge of deliverability, and Microsoft deems you as a spammer even though you comply with CAN SPAM regulations, Hotmail will retroactively remove your emails from your customers’ inbox and place them into the spam folder. Your reputation now affects not only your future email campaigns, but also your previous sends as well.
• Active Views
  Active Views provides more dynamic interaction for the user in the email itself. For example, a user can view photos from Flickr galleries, watch YouTube videos, and find updated shipping information directly from the email.

This new partner platform gives businesses the next challenge of embedding more Web functionality where contacts can interact directly within the inbox, instead of being redirected to a website to find this information.

What this all means:

If your content is engaging and your lists are targeted, then your contacts will pull your email out from the bowels of Hotmail functionality and back into their inbox. The customers you truly connect with will miss hearing from you. And as an added bonus, you don’t have to compete with as much clutter to distract your user once you get into the inbox.

Before the new version is fully released, you may want to consider adding a link to your emails that provides instruction on how to add you as a safe sender. This should also prompt you to look deeper into your Hotmail contacts’ actions over the next few months. If their engagement takes a turn for the worse, you should consider finding another medium to contact them. Some sophisticated ESPs and contact databases provide you with the ability to manage alternate channels to contact your target with, and you can use these additional channels to reengage your users (e.g. iPhone applications, Facebook, or Twitter).

I’m also excited to see how we, as marketers, can begin to leverage Active Views and similar functionality in other web clients. Now not only can you segment your list based off personal data, preferences, and message history, but now you can separate a contact list based off features the webmail client may have.

All in all, the new Hotmail release reminds us that we must work to engage our users within different channels (email, social, etc.) and to provide them with the relevant content to allow us to be invited to contact them in these different channels. For more information on Hotmail’s new release, visit the Windows Team Blog.

The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals®) launched ASPCA ScreenMate, a new desktop application that allows supporters to stay even more connected to the animal welfare cause.

ASPCA supporters now can receive desktop news alerts throughout the day that range from useful pet tips to inspiring pet stories to ASPCA rescues. ScreenMate users will also receive ASPCA Advocacy Alerts to stay informed and updated about legislation that affects animals and how supporters can take action to help strengthen animal laws.

“We are thrilled to launch this exciting new desktop application for our supporters,” said Betsey Fortlouis, Vice President of Member Communications for the ASPCA. “With the ASPCA ScreenMate, pet parents and animal advocates alike can easily access valuable information and updates about the ASPCA’s vital work right from their desktop.”

Dashboard features of the ASPCA ScreenMate include a look at the newest ASPCA products and information as well as the work of various corporate partners who are helping improve pet health and safety.  For example, because 30,000 car accidents per year are caused by unrestrained pets, the ASPCA, with the support of Red Lion Hotels and Bergan Pet Products, is offering advice on enjoying safer car rides with four-legged friends. Users can control the various updates through the desktop dashboard.

ScreenMate Users can also select a virtual dog or cat to name and play with on their desktop.  Whether playing fetch with your virtual pet or rewarding them with a treat afterward, the pet will stand in as a loyal friend when users are away from their faithful companions at home.  Virtual pets can be hidden from the desktop or “fall asleep” when users aren’t playing with them.
To support the ASPCA from the convenience of your desktop, go to www.aspcascreenmate.org.

The ASPCA is dedicated to providing effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Whether fighting against animal cruelty, promoting pet adoption and spay/neuter, or helping change laws to improve our pets’ lives, they are the acting voice of our pets.
About the ASPCA^®
Founded in 1866, the ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) is the first humane organization established in the Americas and serves as the nation’s leading voice for animal welfare. One million supporters strong, the ASPCA’s mission is to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States. As a 501 [c] [3] not-for-profit corporation, the ASPCA is a national leader in the areas of anti-cruelty, community outreach and animal health services. The ASPCA, which is headquartered in New York City, offers a wide range of programs, including a mobile clinic outreach initiative, its own humane law enforcement team, and a groundbreaking veterinary forensics team and mobile animal CSI unit. For more information, please visit www.aspca.org.

To become a fan of the ASPCA on Facebook, go to http://www.facebook.com/aspca. To follow the ASPCA on Twitter, go to http://www.twitter.com/aspca.

After you get approval from the App Store on releasing your app, the hard work begins: it’s time to get people to invest their time and money into you, which is not an easy task. A Marketing Plan is key to the success of your app. Most likely, you will have an application that will build interest over time with quality marketing and a quality app.

These steps will help guide your mobile app’s success.

Building up to the release:

• Production – What type of app do you want to build? What are your hobbies? What are your needs? Where do you work? These things in your daily life make a great app – dog park finder, calorie counter, accounting calculator – etc. Build a tool – whether entertaining or useful – for your mobile toolbox.
• SWOT – What makes this application unique? What could it do better? How can it grow? And that leads to your target. Understand your target and be realistic with how many downloads your target will entertain you with.
• Success/Goals – Also gauge what your success will be. Is it ROI? Is it brand recognition. What will be the benchmarks to make this app successful.
• App Icon – The icon is the packaging of your product. It should symbolize the functionality of your application. Make sure you review your competitor’s icons before you make the final decision.
• Landing Page/Site -  Build a site specifically for your application. Make sure you spend the time and effort. It will be a direct reflection of how well your application works. I’d recommend using a blog style site for this. Then you can both promote the cool features of the application and the new releases/updates that you are doing. Also, you can do A LOT more with your site compared to the App Store page.
• YouTube Video – Use video in a problem/solution/demo format. I would also add a little flare to your video whether using humor or something else unique. Then a little before launch, post your video to your site, which can lead into building up the hype.
• Relationships – Begin building relationships with other bloggers in the targeted demographic. If you have developed a football application, develop relationships with sports bloggers. Also, start putting industry articles on on your Facebook profile and Tweets. Tease this target to become interested in you. Don’t be a sales guy right off the bat or you will find only your Mom and sister follow you.
• Reviews – Once the application is available to download, have others review it. Get them to provide you with feedback.  Also, make sure you are priced appropriately. (Keep in mind many corporate applications are free.)If you have an app that’s not free, Apple can provide you with promo codes for a free download. Don’t request these all at once, but give them to the people that you’re asking to review your app.
• App Store Page - Make sure you have family/friends review your copy. You may want to even consider a copywriter for this task to develop engaging content for you to attract, engage, and convert someone with your app. This is where people make the final decision to make the commitment to your app; it closes the deal, so don’t take this page lightly with the photos and content you put there.

The Public Launch:

• Website – After building up the hype of what you’ve been working on, let people know when you plan on release the application. And once this date is settled, LAUNCH! The website is the first place you will want to point people to be able to find the download.
• Email – If you have a list of hungry subscribers, now is the time to update them of the new application. You could also partner with bloggers/content producers and see if they will put a blurb for you on their mailing list.
• Follow Icon Set – Usually in your emails and your websites, you will have your social media links (Facebook logo, Twitter logo, etc.). It’s time to update this and include your mobile logo as well.
• More Reviews - Get as many reviews as possible. People make their decision based off the reviews. Also, have other bloggers look at your app and critique/praise it. This will give you valuable information on how to improve. It will also start spreading the word. On the app store, maintain a positive ratio, 10 to 1, for people giving positive to negative reviews. You can’t please everyone, so please mostly everyone.
• Facebook Page – Get people to join your Facebook page. This could be a good route for you to have two way conversations with your followers. Be sure you are actively maintaining this page.
• Twitter - If it makes sense for you, you could use a Twitter account to help push information to Facebook and your website. This could be used to publish industry articles for engaging content. You’re helping build your brand, but this shouldn’t be forced.

Maintain and Build:

• Repeat – The above steps still need to be followed through. Continue to get people from the targeted industry to review your application and talk about your app. Continue to update the website with what you’re working on, and also continue to keep your Social profiles engaging.
• Review Analytics – Is your target getting what they need? How much traffic is the website getting and are they converting to a sale by going to the App store? Whose downloading your app? The greatest thing about digital media is if you are not on target, you can quickly adjust you’re strategy.
• SEM - Search engine marketing is a good way to get people to your site. You can get targeted advertising to help create interest. You can also track this directly back to your site.
• Promotions: If you’re application costs money, you may want to run a promotion some time during the year to help boost interest. Schedule this around a time when you’re target is looking to buy. (e.g. Football apps should go on sale at the beginning of the season.) Don’t do this too often, or you will train your target to wait for the sale.
• Contests – If your app can include user generated content (e.g pictures), run a contest. This will help spread the word and get people interested in your product.
• Don’t stop now: Keep developing your mobile app. Add new features; fix issues, and let people know on your site. You can even tease people with upcoming releases. As soon as you stop this, you have decided to take down your application.

I unexpectedly found one one of his books in Rob’s office, so I asked if I could borrow it. Purple Cow is the thing that stands out in the every day scheme of life. Ordinary thoughts will never make a great memory. Doing your regular tasks at work will never get you that promotion you deserve. And the normal effort will never make that extraordinary ending.

So what does that mean? Godin was driving through farmland. Cow after cow after… cow. Then he stopped and pointed. “Check out that cow. It looks purple!” The cow stood out. His kids took interest. They stared. They took the purple cow down as a memory. They stared in curiosity. But soon, the newness faded. They grew bored, and they carried on. But the purple cow stood out.

The Purple Cow was then put on the product stage. Godin believes that the majority of people follow the “early adopting sneezers”. These are the people that take risk in buying something new and different. And then they recommend it to their friends. Take the iPhone. Initially people didn’t know what the heck it was. Then some of the Mac enthusiasts decided to try, and after their positive review, they told someone (sneezed), and now everyone owns it.  And so, the strategy  strays from targeting the general public. Rather, target and change your product, so “sneezers” will start telling others. Overall, the early adopters make the decision, so appeal to them.

How to do it.  Interesting things aren’t normal. Friends don’t tell friends that they had a regular banana. Friends tell friends that they had the most extraordinary banana bread from  “X” bakery. And their friends listened and remembered. They were the purple cow.

If you’re going to sell plants, do something different. Offer extraordinary customer service; when someone pays for seeds, show a picture of the “dad”; Or become the experts on music/human touch to extend a plant’s life. Do something … anything to separate you from what others are doing. And as soon as the others are doing it? Do something else.

Back to the iPhone. The iPhone revolutionized the mobile industry. What did they do recently? They …  tried to revolutionize it again with “FaceTime”. They keep becoming “new” after their success. As the same with musics -  Led Zeppelin, Madonna, Rolling Stones – they revolutionized themselves. And that’s how “new” brands last.

Godin is even a bit scared of the testing process. His point is that how can you be creative if you don’t get out of the general public’s comfort level. If you stray from the normal, people get uncomfortable and it fails. But it’s truly the remarkable ideas that fail in testing and excel when it reaches the market. He even used this example today. How well do you think shareholders thought of the idea to get Jack in the Box back on the map was with a guy with an oversized head. Point taken. It worked well.

Godin did seem to be a little too optimistic. Being different takes courage. And it’s the girth to try it – and either fail miserably or do well. But sometimes you need the right environment and the differentiator to make it happen. Everyone wishes they could do that. Everyone wishes they could come up with the idea that revolutionizes the industry. But it doesn’t happen.  And he almost made it seem that others weren’t hungry to do this.

Either way, it was a good read. It made me think that if you aren’t personal branding than you’re normal. So how are you making yourself stray form the norm?

Here are some recent thoughts that I found intriguing from his blog:

• One in a million

• Expose yourself…

• The difference between running and managing a project

• The non-optimized life

Email is the most cost-efficient marketing medium available today. According to the book, every $1 spent on email marketing can represent $48 in revenue. But it doesn’t start with a beautifully laid out design, it begins by delivering of the five types of messages at the right time.

Here are the top 10 points that were worth noting:

1. The Five types of email -
   • Awareness – To make the customer aware of your product.
   • Consideration – To bring your company into consideration with y0ur purpose.
   • Conversion – To close the deal and drive customers to sales channels.
   • Product Usage – The upsell – stimulate interest in other products and services
   • Retention and Loyalty – Broaden and deepen the relationship (Create loyalty for people to recommend to their friends or providing related insight and helpful tips.)
2. Subject Lines
   • Less is more (50 characters).
   • Make it personal and special (Be the first to see our new fall collection.)
   • Don’t use capital letters, symbols. And avoid misleading.
   • Another note is that more detailed subject lines drive higher click rates, but more general subject lines drive higher open rates.
3. Strategy
   • Begin with the end in mind
   • Develop acquisition, retention, and reactivation programs
   • Develop key performance indicators (e.g. open rate or sale conversions)
   • Focus and strategize based off of the email interaction behavior. e.g. Use split testing
   • Develop landing pages that are aligned and branded with your strategy
4. Email acquisition strategy: Your email acquisition strategy should be a part of your overall email strategy. It is very important to increase your target market. You not only should list how to join your newsletter on your website, but look into campaigns such as SEM landing pages, call centers, offline promotions, trade shows, etc.
5. Errors: Errors will happen. If the error will mislead, you should quickly follow up with a response. Not responding will do more damage.
6. Viral Marketing – Viral marketing can be sales-related and effective if delivered at appropriate times.  To do this right, you must build trust, speak to your customers – not over them, make friends with thought leaders, make it easy to spread your word, and always make it a two-way dialogue. On a side note, I like how Seth Godin uses email to push email to his subscriber base. And I then forward it to friends.
7. Email Content:
   • Don’t assume your message is compelling. Why do your subscribers care?
   • Make sure your primary message is “Above the Fold” (in the preview pane).
   • Email is about content, not design. Design is the icing on the cake
   • Always use Alt images for people who block images.
   • Don’t forget your physical address,  your unsubscribe, and perhaps other channels of marketing (e.g. follow on twitter).
8. Brand equity – If your brand equity is low, use email marketing to build trust. This will change your approach if it were higher since you cannot rely solely on your brand to get open rates. You must build trust and set expectations, such as showing what type of newsletter a person will receive and a welcome email.

You should also break the rules, but not the law. Always follow CAN-Spam compliance, which includes provide an unsubcribe link and a physical address on each of your emails.

The world of email is constantly changing, and you must stay on top of it. I’ve listed a few sites you may find interesting: emailstatcenter.com, mediapost.com (email blog),  marketingprofs.com.

“You want to read this? I don’t want to. My friends in New Zealand say it’s good.” I looked at it and wasn’t too interested. But while I was waiting for Bridget, I managed to read the first 20 pages. Ehhh… what the hell. So I gave it a whirl.

The story is about Steve Gurney, an adventure racer who won the Coast to Coast across New Zealand, a record, 9 times. He wasn’t the fastest runner, kayaker, or biker, but he had the spirit to keep improving and moving forward. In fact his Grandma told him to study hard because athletics wasn’t something that he was given any talent to do.

The story was written with a humorous tone, and some of Gurney’s stories had me chuckling to myself while I was riding a bike in the gym. For example:

“I recall a real pet goat we once had. … He was called Masport, although he got called something else after he munched on the leg of my favourite jeans hanging out to dry. It was a grave mistake, for student budgets were tight and eventually he was called Stu. Ah, sweet, tender Stu… It was a sad ending for Masport, but it was reality.”

The book goes through his races, his ability to market adventure sport, his kiwi pranks, and life after racing.  He’d invent things to show his oppenents on race day just to screw with their minds. He also had to fight off Leptiospirosis after racing in the Malaysia jungles.  It’s a good read, and there’s some great insight in the book. It wasn’t a motivational book, but rather a good story with some motivational tips. Here’s what I pulled out:

• Where attention goes, energy flows. Don’t focus on the problem, or it’ll occur. Focus on your goal and enhance the postive things about it.
• Remember to enjoy the ride to the finish line. People who only focus on the outcome tend to quit. To be a multi-winner, you must enjoy the ride. I did this in my marathon. I was absolutely focused on crossing the finish, but I realized that the training and 26.1 miles should be as enjoyable as the last tenth of a mile. (And even now I remember the long runs in the fall through the older neighborhoods, the run in Verdi across the stream, and the Bower mansion loop.)
• Winners always train as if they were second place
• He suggested that things such as recovery runs don’t do much. When you train, train hard. Otherwise, you should rest.
• Losing isn’t failure. Failure is not getting back up and trying again or a different way.
• Every hear this story? A donkey fell down a well. The farmer didn’t think the well or the donkey was worth saving, so the farmer started to fill in the well with dirt and bury the mule.  However, the mule realized if he could shake off the dirt, he’d soon be able to climb out of the well. Moral of the story, adversities that come to bury us usually have the potential to benefit us.
• When Gurney was recovering from his illness, he wasn’t looking for pity. The negative comments (“Oh poor you…”) would not let him heal. Rather, he pushed for more positive reinforcement (“Oh that’s great!”) to keep his energy positive, so he would be able to keep moving forward.
• On public speaking, use personal, funny stories. The audience will think you are more authentic.
• A champion team will always beat a team of champions

Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head, but either way, it was a good book.

Catering to the Mobile User

Today, the term cell phone is now only a feature of your mobile device. Mobile devices can be used for taking pictures, video-taping, playing video games, and “oh yeah” communication. I use my phone 80% of the time to read text messages, tweets, and email. The other 20% is used for talking.

And no matter where I am – at lunch, in a store, or even a quick glance at a stoplight – I have access to my email. So with a medium that is consistently with your contacts, how are you optimizing your emails to be read for the mobile audience?

1. Use the Power of the MIME

The content that gets delivered to mobile users should be customized to fit within this smaller medium. To do this, you should have the ability to send both an HTML and plain-text version of your email. This is known as multi-part MIME or Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions, which lets the email client decide what version of the email to render. This gives your customers the ability to view the text email on their phone and the same email in HTML on their computer.

A large majority of mobile devices will render emails in text. Likewise the majority of your subscribers will receive the HTML-rendered email at their computer. So the text version of your email can be targeted with the mobile audience in mind. The overall general message of the text version shouldn’t change, but the content should be more direct (See Point 2.).

Also, it is always within email marketing best practices to send both HTML and Plain Text versions in your email campaigns. So when you send both versions in a multi-part MIME version – you will less likely be tagged as a spammer, and your deliverability will likely increase.

2. Be interesting. Be brief.

With mobile screens you obviously deal with smaller real-estate, so make sure your message is to the point within both your content and subject line. Keep in mind the message you send risks being cut off, so if your customer is asked to download the rest of the message, it is not likely to happen. So make sure the meat of your content is in your first few lines.

Try avoiding long sentences and long paragraphs, so you don’t force more scrolling than necessary – this can be a source of frustration for some readers. Long URLs are also an annoyance, so you may want to remove tracking URLs from your message.

You can also use some of the services that are directed towards mobile users. There are plenty of Twitter services that allow you to publish video (twitvid.com) and photos (twitpic.com), which will provide you with links to those media to use in your message.

Scared? You shouldn’t be. Emails are generally more about the content than the design.

3. Rethink the end goal

When you are marketing towards the mobile user, what action do you want the user to take? Sure, we’d like them to purchase our product or read our compelling newsletter right there, but let’s be realistic – this isn’t easy to do with a phone. Rather, we want to tease the user in hopes that they return to their computer where they can read and interact with our email.

A similar thing happened to me right before I started writing this article. I received a tweet that introduced a great gallery of mobile sites with a link attached. I left this message in my phone unread, so I could return later when I had my laptop to look at the site with ease.

People love to be teased with content, so keep your text version short, and give your mobile users a reason to save it for later.

4. In the beginning, there was…

As with any email, make sure that the first lines of your text are compelling. This is especially true in the mobile world. You only have a few lines of text to get your point across, so save the best for the beginning.

Your contacts may only read the first sentence and decide to delete or keep it. I recommend not wasting your first line on trying to get them to visit the HTML email. You need to grasp a person’s attention right away, so if they sense little value in the email, then it’s quickly on its way to the trash.

Make your first sentence genuine and direct. And, avoid using links or imagery at the beginning of the message. Save that content after you get your point across.

5. Continue best practices

Keep to your best practices. Make sure your content matches your subject. Don’t mislead your subscribers. And continue to send at your normal frequency. The mobile side is not anything to be afraid of; it’s simply a different medium that many people use on a daily basis. A mobile marketing plan should compliment what you are already doing.

Sources:

1. http://www.emailstatcenter.com/Creative.html
2. http://www.dmnews.com/Mobile-e-mail-marketing-musts-for-2008/article/107033/
3. http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20523.asp
4. http://blog.simplycast.com/2009/07/08/think-mobile-when-email-marketing/

The Art of War by Sun Tzu
This book is a classic that I’ve heard about for awhile. In fact, I think I remember my old optometrist reading this and recommending it to me over eight years ago. Either way, I saw it on the discount shelf, and decided to give it a whirl.

The book is pretty interesting. Sun Tzu was a general in one of the kingdoms in China around 500BC. He comments that war should be a last resort. And one should find other ways to find a common ground with other people. However, if war must be decided, one should use these tactics.

Here are some of the things I grasped.
- All warfare is based on deception. I guess this goes with the saying that all is fair in Love and War. But, perhaps that was the genius behind such great war leaders as Hannibal or Alexander the Great.

- Know yourself, know your enemy, and you will succeed. Tzu has a whole chapter based on the importance of spies where once must know exactly what your enemy is doing. This is of interest, and I think this compares to the business world, where you need to understand your own strengths and what your competition is doing.

- On the commentary, this was an interesting point. “Knowing yourself allows you to take offensive. Knowing oneself allows you to stand on the defensive. Attack is the secret of defense. Defense is the planning of an attack.” This was an interesting point, meaning that the best defense is to attack, and to go on the defensive is to only give time to plan for the next attack.

- Always be clear in your orders, so you are understood. Don’t allow for any confusion. With that, to put the keenest of spirits up front (high ranking officers) as this will boost the morale of the army. In other words, don’t be afraid to lead by example or by doing the dirty work.

- Some other interesting notes that I saw were that the best soldiers usually will whimper before leaving for war. They feel as if they are going to war to give their lives, and retreat is of no consideration in battle. No looking back. Also, a general will not listen to higher-ups. The general’s goal is to be the victor and must go to the necessary lengths to do this. However, they must not overwork their soldiers or they will not get very far.

Digital Marketing: Strategies for Success by Godfrey Parkin

This book talked about digital strategies that one should take in setting a strategy.The book has a lot of good points.

- When attempting to think about your e-marketing, you should think about your entire strategy. Don’t think that you just need about your website to be successful. You must also include email marketing, social marketing, online advertising, search engine marketing, and search engine optimization.This will depend on your research on your target and how to get them to visit your site.

- To find your strategy: define your mission/vision; review your environment/competition; define your goals with tangible/measurable results; identify your obstacles, create your strategy,  and then manage your project.

- 20 % of your customer will come to your site off of email marketing, 20% more will come via advertising, and about half will come through search engines (1/3 will come off PPC, and 1/5 will come via natural search)

- With your website, make usability and information architecture are at the forefront. Also, be sure you are on target with your target. Search engine architecture needs to be built from the beginning. Also, after the site is ready and the SE Architecture is ready, then register your site at dmoz.org.

- Importance of landing pages: build your site so it can easily support and maintain the landing pages. Whether this be a main navigation item or a marketing section, you must be able to create landing pages on the fly. Your email marketing and online advertising should direct to these. And even your SEO and meta tags should be optimized. When the search engine views these pages, they should go within the site, instead of going to the home page all the time.

- This book recommends a double-opt in process in your email marketing to avoid being labeled a spammer and to comply with CAN-SPAM.

- Create interesting subject lines: Front load the subject line (mobile users can only receive so many characters), be clear and direct, and set a deadline. Never use capital letters and no more exclamations. Also, don’t be afraid for A/B testing with subject lines.

- Want to know where the word Spam came from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljUpN7_6_JU

There were some parts of this book that I completely disliked. He didn’t agree with the use of a CMS for a website, and didn’t provide a good explanation. Also, I felt some of the case studies were a bit optimistic. The real world provides trial and error, and the greatest thing about e-marketing is that you can quickly adjust your campaign to accommodate any changes. It would have been nice to see how he handled failure.

Many other good parts to these books, but I wanted to keep this post relatively small.

There’s a lot of major things going on at 12 Horses these days, which I’m excited about. I’ll be able to spill details later.

The camp was held at UNR in my old stomping grounds, the journalism school. I was even able to catch up with an old professor while I was there, and he even stole my coffee away from me.

There were lots to learn about WordCamp, which kicked the day off with one of the original developers, Matt Mullenweg,  speaking about what’s new with WordPress. Two cool things that are gaining momentum are BuddyPress, which is built off of WPMU. This allows a site to provide blogs for their visitors, but BuddyPress allows you to add all the social media plug-ins. It becomes more of a social network than a simple blog. The other thing he was excited to discuss was P2, which is focused more on a conversation than a blog. Instead of writing a 400 word post, people drop one liners (similar to twitter), and people respond back and forth. We’ll see where that goes.

The day went on and I listened to some really interesting speakers. After Matt spoke, people could go into two different tracks: one for developers and another for business people. I found myself in the developers track learning how to create themes and plug-ins.

The other half of the topics weren’t focused on the code. Some of the other seminars covered focusing soley on one topic to show expertise, another showed the advantages of using WP as a CMS for websites, and another 60 minutes was spent on a guy who used WP to keep sane in his house arrest.

WordPress is a very robust CMS, and this day taught me the advantages and disadvantages of using it. It’s a very powerful tool. Check out the links below. These cover some great basics for customizing WordPress to work for you:

- Create your own theme
- Create your own Plug-In