Officially launched two months ago, Frame optimizes online stores into iPad-friendly purchasing experiences. In fewer than five minutes, online stores are able to adapt their entire website—from the product catalog to the shopping cart—into Frame’s mobile format.

With Frame, shoppers will find that browsing on their favorite brand’s site via iPad is more beautiful and intuitive than ever.  What’s different about them is that they not only focus on helping the user make a purchase as seamlessly and quickly as possible, but they also have built the user experience to align with consumer’s desire to browse, explore and engage with the brand.  Integrated swipe gestures allow users to flick through photos of items before going into a collection, animations simulate the flipping experience of looking through a catalog, and the site adapts to look flawless regardless of the iPad’s orientation.

As the tablet space becomes increasingly important in the e-commerce market, it was a priority for us to apply our insight and personalization solutions to this channel. We chose Frame because of their incredibly quick uptake in the marketplace and deep talent in user interface design. They currently have over 1,000 eCommerce customers using their solution through Shopify and are multiplying those numbers every week. It became apparent pretty quickly that they’d be a good match for us.  The acquisition allows our clients to gather even deeper customer insights and translate them into increased engagement in yet another channel.

Check out a couple of stories and the press release:

PandoDaily:  Personalization Company Sailthru Acquires TechStars Alum Frame

PR Web:  TechStars-backed eCommerce Start-up Acquired by Sailthru

There have been numerous other changes at Sailthru the past few months as well. We recently launched a brand new look we think is much better suited to who we are as a company. The size of our team has quadrupled, and continues to grow. And, as of yesterday, we officially moved into new quarters at 10 Hudson Square (160 Varick St).

With beautiful views of the city, everyone on the team is excited to return to being surrounded by natural daylight (those of you who saw our temporary space will appreciate this too). I know it’s only going to make us more productive.  It’s also going to be an amazing space to host events for the community.

Keep a lookout on our Twitter account and Facebook page for events happening in the space over the next few months.

Cheers,

Neil

If you haven’t integrated social media into your e-mails and vice versa, you’re missing out. Give your subscribers the ability to share email content with their followers, and you stand to potentially grow your mailing list, increase ROI, raise brand awareness, and reach new markets and subscribers.

In fact, a Marketing Sherpa study found that 42% of daily social media users check their email four times a day or more, compared to just 27% of non-social media users.

Going “social” in email can be as easy as adding buttons into your template to invite subscribers to join or “Follow” on social sites.

Sailthru makes it easy to allow subscribers to share content as well. Use the public_share or social_share functions in your campaign with options to “Like” or “Share”.

Public_share posts the entire newsletter, while social_share allows users to post or like a specific article:
<a href=“{ {public_share('fblike')}}”>Like this on Facebook</a>
<a href=“{{social_share('fbshare', 'http://blog.sailthru.com/specific_article/')}}”>Share on Facebook</a>

Or, encourage your readers to forward your newsletter to a friend by including an easy e-mail forward button. Just drop in Sailthru’s zephyr syntax {forward_url} to your campaign, and create a template named “forward”.

Share your campaign on social sites by posting a link to the Web-based version of your e-newsletter. And remember to include {view_url} in your template so readers can click to view it online, too.

Let users sign up for your email list on your Facebook page via a signup box and use Twitter to redirect users to a signup webpage, which can be easily hosted on Sailthru.

Finally, create a Facebook wall post that encourages fans to opt-in to your email list. Consider an email promotion to only your most engaged users to boost their awareness of your Facebook page. Offer incentives such as discounts or advance notice of sales for subscribers who choose to follow your social media page. Offer rewards or discounts for those who opt-in to your campaign via a form on your page or blog.

Remember that quality content is the key to engaging your readers. Readers will be inspired to share content for a few reasons. Incentives such as contest winnings or discounts are motivation. Sharing items of value or significant savings opportunities provide the subscriber with feelings of validation in their social circle. But the most influential reason to post is quality content. Sharing dynamic content helps subscribers feel they are contributing to their social circle and can also integrate them with others. So be creative, relevant, and engaging across all platforms. Social media is based on sharing, not advertising.

So what can you do?

FLOAT & POSITION

1. Avoid these CSS properties. Instead use the align attribute in the image tag.
2. Use tables instead of CSS. Set the width of each cell, not the width of the table. Instead of margin and padding, use nested tables.

WHY? Float and position are unsupported in Outlook.

BACKGROUND

1. Include background element on both the “wrapper” table and body tag OR apply inline styles to fill in body background images and use background element on only the “wrapper” table.

WHY? Outlook 2010 does not render background images on tables/cells and requires inline styles or a background element applied to the body. Gmail, AOL Mail, and Hotmail require the background element on a wrapper table and ignore the body background element.

IMAGES

1. Set the cell widths in your table to keep the structure of your layout even when images are not displayed.
2. Include the height and width of each image – and make sure images are sized accordingly before uploading.

WHY? Some e-mail clients will display the true size of the image, ignoring the coded dimensions.

TEXT

1. Set a margin for every paragraph, because each email client has different defaults.

FONT

1. Don’t use shortcuts for CSS font ― or HEX colors for that matter. Avoid @fontface and stick to fonts that are pre-installed.

WHY? Several email clients don’t support CSS shorthand.

RESOURCES

New HTML Email Full Page Background Fix (for Outlook & Webmail)

http://www.emaildesignreview.com/html-email-coding/code-fixes/updated-new-html-email-full-page-background-fix-for-outlook-webmail-1122/

We at Sailthru would like to help make your holiday messaging a great success, so reach out to your Account Manager if you’re planning anything special in the coming days or weeks.

We also wanted to share some tips for getting the most out of your Sailthru account to optimize your campaigns going into 2012:

1. Focus on your best customers by enabling the Sailthru Purchase API to assign true monetary value to each individual user based on their engagement levels.

2. Automate your process by utilizing data feeds and adding the appropriate javascript and metatags to work with Horizon, Sailthru’s flagship analytics product. Note: Even if you don’t plan to use Horizon immediately, the insight you could gain from taking this small step will be invaluable to giving you data to help achieve key company milestones.

3. Have a mobile app or simply want to understand how many users are reading your emails from a mobile device? Set up a Trigger to target mobile users by creating a new list from the Query Builder and filtering by device type.

4. Harmonize your marketing by engaging users with special offers without overwhelming your disengaged by using the Query Builder’s engagement level tool.

5. Treat each user uniquely and reach users with your campaign at the time they are most likely going to check their email by enabling Horizon Send Time.

As always, we’re happy to brainstorm additional ways you can leverage Sailthru’s analytics and other useful features to help measure your progress and plan for future successes.

Happy Holidays!

Is your email marketing strategy turning into a monster? Take a boo at this menacing menagerie and see if you have one or more lurking in your attic.

The Zombie

The zombie doesn’t have any personality and neither does his email newsletters or blog.

The Vampire

The vampire thinks that email marketing is all about sucking as much out of his list as he can without offering any real value to his subscribers.

Frankenstein’s Monster

Frankenstein creates an email newsletter monster by using the same template and just shoving more and more stuff into it without ever considering creating a new one.

The Werewolf

When you subscribe to the werewolf’s email newsletter, you think you know what you are going to get, but then out of the blue, things change such as frequency and even content.

The Mummy

The mummy never asks for permission. He just crashes through walls and goes shambling along with no regard for best practices or law.

Have a great Halloween and a safe one with more treats than tricks!

You can query for such devices and browsers as:

• iPad
• iPhone
• Android
• Opera Mini
• BlackBerry
• Palm
• Windows Smartphone
• Other Mobile
• Firefox
• Chrome
• Safari
• Opera
• Internet Explorer

In just 18 months the tablet has become very popular with consumers and shows no signs of any decline in that popularity. The IAB has released a table buyer’s guide to help marketers navigate this expanding market.

“In 2010 there were 9.7 million tablets sold in the U.S. representing 3% of the U.S. population. Of those 9.7 million, 8.5 million were Apple iPads (88%). Apple reported that it had sold nearly 29 million iPads from the initial launch of the product in April 2010 through July 2011.”

The guide addresses issues on planning, design, execution and measurement of three specific forms of tablet display advertising:

- In-App Ads – Ads delivered in apps downloaded to and resident on the tablet

- Tablet Web Ads in PC-Optimized Websites – Ads served to consumers using tablet web browsers, but browsing websites designed with the PC audience in mind

- Tablet Web Ads in Tablet-Optimized Websites – Ads served to consumers using tablet web browsers, in web pages designed specifically for tablet-based browsers

You can get more information at the IAB site here. You can check out our step-by-step tutorial on using Query Builder to list mobile users and browser types here.

1- Start your calendar by filling it up with the easy stuff, such as major holidays and major campaigns – then drill down to special events and occurrences which you might be able to tie content into.

2- It’s OK to use general topics initially and then fill them out with more detail as you move forward.

3- An editorial calendar is a guide and not a bible, make changes when required and be flexible.

4- Once you have the calendar started, share it with others in the office and ask them to fill in any ideas they may have or commit to a post for a certain date.

5- Use a master topic/subject target list to help you rotate the content effectively.

6- Use a document sharing platform such as Google docs to make the calendar readily available to others in the organization so they can contribute.

7- Once you have the major holidays and campaigns in your calendar, don’t forget to mark in the lesser events (sports play-offs, minor holidays, special days/months, industry conferences and so on) which will help you be more relevant with your content.

I definitely think you should use Google docs or some other sharing platform so that people can easily interact with your calendar and help you maintain and build it. Starting an editorial calendar can be a real bear, but if you begin with a very simple one and then build slowly from there, you’ll have a much easier time getting this going. Remember to do the easy stuff first and then circle back to the harder stuff. If your blog runs on WordPress (and it should) then check out this editorial calendar plugin.

For more tips on editorial calendars, check out this excellent post by Heidi Cohen!

1 – Tweet and post on Facebook each time your newsletter is sent out and link to the subscribe page.

2 – Tweet and post on Facebook, asking them to add you to their safe senders list (credit to Laura Wise for this one). Link to a post with step-by-step on how to add someone to the safe senders list.

3 – Tweet and post on Facebook a link to the online version of the latest newsletter and invite people to demo it.

4 – Tweet about the content in each newsletter: “Find out how you can save 20% in this week’s newsletter!”

5 – Build up some excitement by tweeting and posting on Facebook the day before the newsletter comes out with some teasers and subscribe link.

You’re only limited by your own imagination. Both Facebook and Twitter lend themselves very well to this kind of cross-promotion. It’s a two-way world now, so don’t be afraid to involve people in the process by interacting with them directly and get their input.

• Use email and other social channels to ask your customers what you are doing well, what you could improve on and what they want from you

• Test product ideas with your most engaged fans before you roll them out to the market

• Generate ideas for products and services you may not have thought of

Who needs to go to all the trouble of formal focus groups or other traditional methods when you can talk directly with your biggest fans and get their feedback? It’s not just the feedback which is gold either. It’s also projecting the message that you want your customers involved in what you do and our listening to them and taking their concerns seriously — that is a very powerful and positive message. Don’t forget to offer incentives to participate and recognize those people who contribute too.

Take a look at this report from WaveMetrix with examples of companies who’ve leveraged social media to test the waters with consumers successfully and some who haven’t.

A new study among ad agencies reported by eMarketer, backs that up with some very interesting figures. Remember our recent post comparing content marketing to a bicycle wheel, describing your blog as your hub? Well, some of the figures in this report suppport that strategy. According to the ad agencies surveyed, a blog is the most effective tool for generating leads for 27% of respondents, followed closely by email newsletters at 23%.

Now, it is interesting that only 41% of client side marketers report they actually follow such blogs, but as eMarketer notes, the reported lead gen effectiveness might just be due to leads originating from the blog are more qualified.

So what about the client side? What is their channel preference when being contacted by an agency? At 79%, email is the overwhelming preference among client side decision makers. Social barely ranks with LinkedIn coming behind the phone at only 16%.

Social has to be part of a multi-channel approach to online marketing. Use each channel depending on the strengths it possesses and cross-promote among them. At the core of that approach should be your blog and your email marketing campaigns.