'Net Features : mailchimp

6 Super Calls-to-Action (Plus Tips)

Amberly Dressler — Thu, 02 May 2013 18:20:00 GMT

Whether it’s completing a project or taking an action, people will take as long as you give them to do it. This is why in business, deadlines (enforceable ones) work and why, on the Web, calls-to-action (good ones) are integral to a website’s success.

IaaS and Web hosting provider SingleHop recently released an infographic (click here) that details five tips for a more successful call-to-action (CTA). In it, the company details that, unsurprisingly, the click-through rates (CTRs) of above-the-fold CTAs are substantially higher (72 percent) than below-the-fold CTAs (47 percent). While that may be best practice number one, SingleHop provides interesting data on the fact that buttons, as opposed to text, provide upward of a 200 percent higher CTR. With SingleHop’s tips in mind, Website Magazine has compiled six super CTAs.

H.BLOOM

Super CTA: Nothing creates urgency (and a sense of value) more than mom does. By providing the date for Mother's Day, the copy leading into the CTA enhances the urgency and the words "Shop Now" are direct. Additionally, this floral subscription service's CTA uses high contrast to grab attention.

SKYPE

Super CTA: In SingleHop's infographic, it's suggested to play with shape, which Skype uses in a purposeful manner. It's clear to the user that the CTA is part of the product description and the best course of action is to "Join."

NETFLIX

Super CTA: After offering a one-month free trial and then conveying value (e.g. you can watch your programs wherever you want), Netflix directs users to "Start Your Free Month." Notice that Netflix uses its above-the-fold real estate to confirm and then reconfirm that a one-month free trial is available.

MailChimp

Super CTA: This beautiful, sleek homepage uses a calming color palate, but hits users with a sense of urgency with its "Sign Up Free" CTA.

Volusion

Super CTA: Volusion wants users to try their product for free. If you couldn't tell, the e-commerce software provider uses the same CTA in the center of the page (larger) and in the upper right-hand corner (smaller) to reinforce where they want users to go and what they'll do when they get there.

PagePart

Super CTA: While PagePart's CTA differs from the rest on this list, it's appropriate for this mobile and social Web platform, because business owners want to create a mobile website, which is why they ventured to PagePart in the first place. The words "instantly" and then "Go" provide even more urgency.

Bonus: There are myriad factors to keep in mind when designing a website, but there are many seen repeatedly (like a missing call-to-action). Make sure your site isn't making these mistakes by checking out this article by Rafi Sweary, the co-founder of WalkMe.com.

The Top 15 Apps E-Commerce Websites Can’t Do Without

Administrator — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:50:00 GMT

:: By Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani,Co-founders and Co-CEOs, Bigcommerce ::

Statistics show that online shopping is growing rapidly — a trend that presents both opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs selling via websites.

First, some numbers. According to Forrester Research, online shoppers in the United States will spend $327 billion in 2016, up 62 percent from $202 billion in 2011. By 2016, Forrester adds, e-retail will account for 9 percent of total retail sales. Growth in the number of online consumers will climb 15 percent, up to 192 million in the U.S. from 167 million last year. And each buyer will spend more on average — up 44 percent to $1,738 from $1,207 in 2012.

Good news and Bad News

On one hand, this rapid growth presents a lucrative market of potential prospects. On the other hand, the proliferation of online shopping outlets means that small- and medium-sized businesses have more competition than ever before. A good inventory and well-built website will only get you halfway to success in this competitive market — if that.

Online retailers have several obstacles to overcome on their way to success. Among those is conversion — that is, converting visitors to customers. By some estimates, the average conversion rate in Internet retail is only 3 percent.

Another obstacle is shopping cart abandonment — when prospects add products to a cart but leave without checking out. Baymard Institute compared 18 separate studies on shopping cart abandonment, concluding that 67 percent of e-commerce transactions are abandoned on average.

Internet retail success demands that entrepreneurs learn how to keep their sites “sticky” — offering expert customer service, a robust shopping cart experience, customer-written product reviews, and any other means at their disposal to keep a prospective customer on their site hitting the “buy now” button (instead of wavering or going elsewhere for more information and a better deal).

Fortunately, there is now a wide array of applications designed specifically to overcome obstacles to Internet retail success for small- and medium-sized businesses. Software for email marketing, lead generation, customer service and support (including live chat), and streamlining accounts payable/receivable are all available — as are applications for revenue monitoring and inventory management, drop-shipping, order processing, retargeting and even buyer incentive and referral programs.

The Must-Have Applications for Internet Success

Let’s take a quick look at the software and services no fledgling Internet entrepreneur can live without.

HubSpot. When it comes to automated customer segmentation, this is the app. Users can sync their store data to one of the world’s leading marketing automation platforms, making email marketing and lead nurturing much easier.

MailChimp. Customer data seamlessly syncs with MailChimp for easy email marketing, newsletters, list management and measurement.

Zendesk. The leading cloud-based customer service software can pull in relevant customer data and display it right on the support tickets a company uses to track issues — leading to quicker support resolution and happier customers.

Webgility eCC. A powerful solution for connecting a store to any version of QuickBooks, as well as shipping processors and payment gateways — all streamlined and automated to save time and prevent errors.

Ordoro. This comprehensive shipping platform improves shipping times, reduces labor, decreases costs and gives them access to powerful drop-shipping capabilities.

Stitch Labs. Merchants today sell in a wide variety of ways, and StitchLabs pulls all those together into one order management tool. Whether orders are taken online, via phone or fax, or at events and trade shows, inventory is automatically synced across channels.

ShipStation. Merchants can integrate their stores with ShipStation’s sophisticated, easy to use solution to save time and money on shipping through automated order processing and batch shipping label creation.

Lexity Retargeting. Retargeting — once a weapon in the arsenal of only major companies— comes to small businesses with this Lexity app. By retargeting shoppers with professional, personalized display ads on other sites, this dynamic piece of software helps bring back some of the 98 percent of shoppers who don’t buy on their first visit.

Olark. Live chat and support have long been the linchpins for success among major players like Zappos and Apple. Olark gives merchants of almost any size the benefits of talking directly to their customers, including the ability to view cart contents for each visitor and offer upsells and special offers based on what they’re buying.

71lbs. Late UPS and FedEx shipments account for nearly 6 percent of all shipments. And what most merchants don’t know is that they are owed a full refund on orders that arrive late. When a merchant uses 71lbs, all their shipments are monitored for late orders, and refunds are automatically claimed and credited back to them.

SumAll. This is an incredibly powerful analytics tool that retailers can use to monitor all their revenue data in real time, including sales and discounts, allowing them to see which products and marketing efforts are worth investing in.

Yotpo. Internet retailers who install Yotpo on their stores get access to an easy-to-use, fully customizable review platform that allows customers to review products and share those reviews on social media, driving traffic and engagement.

RetailTower. With RetailTower, businesses can automatically submit their products into 15 shopping comparison engines, including Google Shopping, Amazon, Bing, SortPrice and more. Submission to these popular channels increases reach and drives sales.

Lexity Live. This app lets merchants track visitors on their site in real time, seeing which pages they view, which products they add to cart, and where they drop off. Lexity Live users can also chat with shoppers to close sales and get actionable marketing insights.

ReferralCandy. By using ReferralCandy, merchants can incentivize buyers to refer friends to their store by emailing them a shareable coupon after purchase.

As Internet sales continue to boom, it will take sophisticated tools and analytics to rise above the noise. Even the newest Internet entrepreneurs can enhance their websites — and their revenue figures — by taking advantage of applications and analytical capabilities previously reserved for only the largest, most popular online brands.

About the Authors

Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani are the co-founders and co-CEOs of Bigcommerce, the world's fastest-growing SaaS e-commerce platform that helps power over 30,000 small businesses online. Contact Mitchell mitchell.harper@bigcommerce.com, Twitter handle @mitchellharper. Contact Eddie at eddie.machaalani@bigcommerce.com, Twitter handle @eddiemachaalani.

Get a Better Newsletter By Curating Content

Michael Garrity — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Coming up with good content for your email newsletters can be a real pain for busy business owners, and even some marketers, but it’s such an integral part of many online marketing campaigns that it certainly can’t be abandoned altogether.

Luckily, for those Web professionals with a stockpile of email addresses and no idea what to send to them, the content curation publishing platform Scoop.it has integrated with the email marketing platform MailChimp to make it significantly easier to devise and send out “highly relevant and engaging newsletter campaigns.”

So now, both Scoop.it and MailChimp users, alike, can take advantage of this new integrated solution, which allows them to utilize the curated content from Scoop.it’s topic Web pages to quickly create brand new email newsletters that they can send to customers, prospective customers or key influencer contacts in their MailChimp mailing lists.

This means that Scoop.it customers will be able to select email as a distribution channel for their curated content, while MailChimp users can find and choose new “value-adding existing content” to put in their newsletters; plus, they also have access to the search and social discovery features that are already built into the Scoop.it platform.

“We know that creating successful email campaigns is all about delivering quality content,” said MailChimp COO Neil Bainton. “But that can be difficult for many small businesses who are pressed for time, as it is. We are excited that Scoop.it’s integration with MailChimp offers our users an easy way to pull together interesting and valuable content for their email campaigns.”

And just to make sure that everyone can take advantage of this new workflow integration, it’s been included in the free version of Scoop.it and can be combined with the “forever free” MailChimp plan, thus creating a totally cost-free all-in-one content curation and email newsletter solution. It’s been included in Scoop.it’s premium plans, as well.

Find Publishers on the Same Wavelength

Allison Howen — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:13:00 GMT

If you need help finding another newsletter publisher to partner with in order to increase your brand’s reach, look no further than MailChimp.

The email marketing provider has launched a new service called Wavelength, which helps users find similar newsletter publishers to partner with in order to promote their business to potential customers and grow their email lists.

Wavelength encourages cross-promotion by allowing users to easily locate and contact publishers that share similar subscriber bases. Once a similar publisher has been discovered, users can form a relationship with these like-minded businesses and develop a plan and partnership which will benefit all parties.

The service works by leveraging MailChimp data. When a user activates Wavelength, it will automatically analyze a selected MailChimp email list and then locate similar newsletters from MailChimp's 2 million users and their 2 billion subscribers. Then Wavelength displays screenshots of similar publishers' recent newsletters, while also keeping email addresses completely anonymous. Wavelength users can then take a closer look to see if the chosen newsletters could be a good fit, and reach out to the publishers and develop partnerships if desired.

Wavelength is powered by MailChimp’s Email Genome Project, which is an ongoing effort to better understand the email ecosystem. The service is currently available for free to all active MailChimp users.

MailChimp Extension Makes Email a Social Network

Allison Howen — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:00:00 GMT

The new Butterfly Publisher extension in the MailChimp Integrations Directory enables businesses to drive social engagement and marketing through email.

Butterfly Publisher is a social content management system from Socialize Your Stuff, which allows users to aggregate content within the platform’s social dashboard. The dashboard can be used to obtain, organize and publish content onto social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as blogging services like Blogger and Wordpress – and with the new MailChimp integration, email acts as another social network.

“Email is often thought of as functionally and philosophically separate from other social marketing efforts,” says Jeffrey Mesnik, President. “Butterfly Publisher instead treats email as an entry point to a broader social conversation. This integrated approach allows users to take their high-quality content and easily publish it across platforms.”

It is well known that email is a valuable tool for keeping subscribers informed and engaged, which is why users of Butterfly Publisher can leverage the platform’s Social Digest feature to send a summary of their social content to their MailChimp email list on a weekly or monthly basis. Additionally, Butterfly Publisher’s Social Promotions feature enables users to send out promotions and coupons in the form of time and limited group deals.

Butterfly Publisher also offers tracking of engagement and reach, so audiences can be segmented. For example, audience members can be sorted into groups based on metrics like their number of Twitter followers or friends on Facebook. Tracking users who have engaged with previous messages and promotions can lead to highly targeted email campaigns which go after a company's most enthusiastic fans with the largest social reach, or target those who haven't responded and could use some extra attention.

To get started, Butterfly Publisher users need to grant permission in MailChimp, and then pick which list they'd like to send to, while MailChimp users can visit here to receive a free 15-day trial.

Check out the platform's video below for more information:

HootSuite App Directory Adds MailChimp and More

Allison Howen — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:00:00 GMT

The ever-growing HootSuite App Directory has just gotten a little bigger.

The social media management platform just added new partner integrations from MailChimp, Chime.in, Identi.ca, Vision Critical Surveys and RSS Reader into their App Directory. These new apps are immediately available to all HootSuite users.

Check out more information about the newest apps below:

MailChimp – This app enables HootSuite users to send email newsletters, manage subscriber lists, track campaign performance, view and search for recent email campaigns and share campaigns to social networks.

Chime.in – This app from social interest network Chime.in, allows users to schedule and send chimes, leave and view comments, preview photos and videos.

Identi.ca – HootSuite users can use this app to post status updates, monitor timelines and messages, track replies and view conversations.

Vision Critical Surveys – This app enables users to design and share surveys with social networks and monitor results in real-time.

RSS Reader – Users can utilize this app for a quick and easy way to view RSS feeds in the HootSuite dashboard, as well as share stories and articles from feeds to social networks.

“Businesses today are social, says HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes. "Success depends on connecting with customers instantly across multiple social media channels and networks. The growth of our App Directory gives clients an impressive arsenal of tools to do this, all in a single place. Our goal, as we close in on six million users by end of year, is to continue aggressively integrating leading apps, turning our dashboard into the mother of all SaaS resources for the social business.”

This new set of apps joins the current group within the HootSuite App Directory, which includes applications from Digg, TrendSpottr, InboxQ, Constant Contact, Get Satisfaction, YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr and Orkut.

Email Marketing Management within Zendesk

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:30:00 GMT

Web-based support desk solution Zendesk, fresh off the release of its new search analytics feature, announced an integration with email service provider MailChimp to aid marketing teams in managing and tracking email recipients that have interacted with a message.

The widget provides marketers the ability to view all email campaign activities from MailChimp that a Zendesk ticket requester has been sent, to view details about those recipients' specific actions, and to manage a ticket requester's mailing list subscriptions from within Zendesk.

A view of how a customer profile looks within Zendesk, when the Mailchimp widget is active:

MailChimp Integrates with Aviary to Simplify Image Editing

Linc Wonham — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:30:00 GMT

Email service provider MailChimp has announced its integration with Aviary, a Web-based photo editing solution. Now when users create and format emails, they can seamlessly edit, fix and get creative with their photos by using Aviary, all within MailChimp.

Aviary is a simple, powerful and attractive platform. It’s also an upgrade over MailChimp’s previous image-editing interface.

The new integration’s feature-set means that users will no longer have to wait for Photoshop to load or mess around with iPhoto while in the midst of writing emails. Photo cropping, resizing and rotation are easy with Aviary, which will help MailChimp users fit their images perfectly into a variety of email templates.

Aviary also provides more advanced tools such as photo auto-enhance for one-click photo improvement; adjustment sliders for changing a photo’s saturation, contrast and brightness, and creative filters for adding effects such as vintage, soft-focus and monochrome.

MailChimp integrates with many third-party applications including Facebook, Twitter, Eventbrite, Salesforce, Wordpress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal and Google Analytics, and prices start at free.

Launchbit Email Ad Network Comes to Mailchimp

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:30:00 GMT

Email marketing service Mailchimp announced an integration with Launchbit, a recently launched advertising network developed exclusively for email marketing.

What makes the Launchbit and the Mailchimp integration interesting is the potential benefits for publishers and advertisers leveraging the services. Not only do publishers have a new opportunity to monetize unsold inventory, but advertisers can finally reach into smaller markets they may have previously overlooked.

Mailchimp email publishers must first sync their account with LaunchBit, and insert a snippet of HTML with merge tags into their template to show the Launchbit newsletter ads. Publishers can then select advertising partners within LaunchBit, and the selected ad content will be automatically placed into the appropriate spot within the email in MailChimp.

I’ve been in the business over 12 years and have not seen anything like Launchbit so expect a very warm welcome from both the advertising and email marketing community.

Ultimate List Segmentation with MailChimp's Hairball

Linc Wonham — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:00:00 GMT

MailChimp has announced the launch of a new desktop application to help email marketers manage complex list segmentation.

Hairball is an Adobe Air application that allows users to import their MailChimp account data onto their desktop computers and build as many segments as they’d like within the offline app. After the list segments are completed, Hairball re-syncs with MailChimp online and creates new static segments inside the application for sending campaigns.

Hairball has been tested with lists of up to 10 million email addresses and for accounts with over two years sending history. The application was created in part to meet the needs of MailChimp’s largest senders – currently sending over 40 million emails each month.

To use Hairball, customers must first install Adobe Air and then download the app from MailChimp.

MailChimp Announces Two New Integrations

Michael Garrity — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:00:00 GMT

Email marketing and list management company MailChimp has had a busy couple of days.

Donor Tools
On Wednesday, MailChimp announced that its services have been integrated with Donor Tools, an online donor management suite. The Donor Tools package is used by nonprofit entities like charities, churches and various other organizations "to manage the logistical gymnastics of running a not-for-profit enterprise."

This integration will feature a two-way sync between the two services so that users can efficiently keep current records in both databases, segment lists using Donor Tools tagging and take more control over donor-focused emails.

MailChimp will now be available with any Donor Tools account.

ExpressionEngine
The company will also be integrating its service with Web publishing platform ExpressionEngine to launch a new product called ChimpanzEE. The pairing will make it easy for users to integrate email marketing right into their ExpressionEngine-powered websites. It will provide a variety of new tools and features, such as member subscription and the ability to create and send campaigns, and it can all be done without ever having to leave one's site.

ExpressionEngine's tagging system will be the heart of ChimpanzEE; by simply including one EE tag, a user can create sign-up forms that are associated with any of his or her MailChimp lists, incorporate all of his or her merge fields and completely customize the design via CSS.

ChimpanzEE also helps keep track fo list health. Users will get a full analytic look at their lists through built-in reports, including the total subscribers, unsubscribes, new sign-ups, activity levels and engagement.

Other features include basic list management (like adding and removing subscribers) and custom email templates.

OnStage
Finally, MailChimp unveiled the OnStage application, "a collaborative email campaign editing solution." By providing a single location for MailChimp subscribers to display their email campaigns before sending them out, OnStage streamlines the feedback process to allow "for quicker and closer collaboration between colleagues."

This new feature aims to do away with the unpleasant review process associated with email marketing campaigns, and it will do so (in theory) by letting the email creators present an initial draft to all of their bosses and colleagues at once. Afterwards, all involved can discuss the content of the email in the "Peanut Gallery" and provide real-time critiques and changes; the participants can even make annotated changes, so that the creator can see exactly what to change and how they want it done.

The end result will be a "to-do list," which will go back to the creator, who will make the changes on the list. This process can be repeated as many times as necessary.

OnStage is a free service for all MailChimp users.

MailChimp Expands Drupal Integration

Linc Wonham — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:00:00 GMT

MailChimp has announced a new integration with the Drupal content management system that brings MailChimp’s feature set directly into the Drupal user interface. Drupal users can also now send emails using MailChimp’s Simple Transactional Solution (STS).

After install, there’s a MailChimp API key input, and the integration is ready to go. It supports an unlimited amount of mailing lists, anonymous user signup, increased subscription options (such as signup during site registration) and support for MailChimp’s STS that allows for sending and tracking email via Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) within Drupal.

MailChimp STS overlays MailChimp’s tracking and interface on Amazon’s SES, so users can benefit from Amazon’s reliable delivery and massive scale, all channeled through MailChimp’s interface. The front end is all MailChimp, the back end is a lot of Amazon, and users can do it all within Drupal.

The plugin also features a complete user interface overhaul that unclutters workspace and makes it easier to work with individual lists while managing the newly expanded list support. This module will continue to expand its features per user feedback, and complements the array of features offered by Drupal.

Drupal is a completely customizable and scalable CMS solution that stresses its constantly growing list of plugins and modules. The MailChimp platform provides email marketing and publishing features that are affordable enough for small businesses and powerful enough for larger companies.

Email and Mobile Working Together at Movylo

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:30:00 GMT

Email service provider MailChimp has integrated with mobile commerce platform (mobile CMS) Movylo Shop. http://www.movyloshop.com/

The integration will enable retailers to integrate their email lists with their Movylo Shop mobile commerce platform for deal-based promotions on their customers' mobile smart phones. Mobile store customization looks simple with several mobile templates available.

With the deal-based, mobile economy in full-effect, you have to give some credit to Movylo for being forward thinking enough to provide a mobile shopping platform with the out-of-the box functionality the service provides.

“We are excited to offer Mailchimp customers the ability to quickly and easily promote their business on mobile smart phones such as iPhone, Blackberry and Android,” said Movylo Shop’s CEO, Stefano Colonna.

Inbox Inspection Now Free for MailChimp Subscribers

Linc Wonham — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:21:00 GMT

MailChimp has announced that its popular Inbox Inspection tool is now offered free of charge for all monthly subscribers.

Inbox Inspections are a critical tool for email marketing, providing an accurate representation of how an email campaign will actually look in a reader’s email inbox. Since its original launch in 2007, more than 100,000 Inbox Inspection reports have been created. Inbox Inspection reports are now powered by Litmus, a leader in email rendering.

“We’re excited to partner with Litmus to power Inbox Inspections,” says MailChimp co-founder and CEO Ben Chestnut. “We are able to reduce our costs enough that we can offer the reports free of charge to our paid, monthly subscribers. We hope that more of our customers will take advantage of this feature now that it is free.”

Individual Inbox Inspection reports can also be purchased at $3 per test for Forever Free and Pay As You Go subscribers.
Litmus excels in fast rendering times and support for mobile devices. Litmus currently offers more than 34 variants of email clients as well as 12 spam filter checks.

In addition to the standard desktop and Web-based clients in both Internet Explorer and Firefox, Litmus also supports iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile 6.5 views. To date Litmus has prepared over 45 million previews.

Joomla Mailer from MailChimp

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 12 May 2011 19:23:00 GMT

Email service provider MailChimp today announced the launch of Joomailer, a new integration for the popular Joomla! platform.

Joomla! users are able to manage MailChimp lists, create campaigns and manage reports from their Joomla! dashboard, essentially replicating most of the MailChimp web-based features in a 3rd party site. This is the first extensive integration with a CMS for MailChimp.

The Joomla! community has been both active and vocal (in a good way) of late about the popular content management systems' new version (1.6). Joomla is currently powering almost 2.7% of all websites today. MailChimp's integration with Joomla in reality makes it quite late to the game. Constant Contact, Aweber, GetResponse, GraphicMail all have modules/extensions and a number of other freestanding extensions for all variants of email like autoresponders exist as well.

If you'd like to learn more about Joomla! stay tuned for Joomla in June - a new series launching from Website Magazine next month. Also, consider joining Website Magazine at Joomla Day Chicago in August.