The John Caples International Awards honors the best in direct and interactive marketing around the world.  It was founded in 1978 by Andi Emerson, a direct marketing pioneer, in order to honor well-recognized copywriter John Caples.

The Awards are open to any agency, client or individual involved in direct marketing and relationship marketing communication throughout the world.

For more information on the details of entering and what category may be the best fit, please click here!

Here at Delivra, we are excited to announce to our faithful readers that we’ve been selected by customer relationship manager (CRM) solution provider AddressTwo as its integrated email service provider.

AddressTwo is a great company that provides small businesses with technology and processes for managing sales, marketing and productivity.  With more than 1,200 users, the company eschews call center support and instead partners with local companies to provide hands-on support and a unique customer experience to small businesses.

“Delivra is a great choice for us because we have very similar customer service philosophies,” said Nick Carter, president of AddressTwo.  “I know that the Delivra email platform is reliable and I feel good knowing that I can talk to a real person at Delivra immediately if I need to.”

To read more about the Delivra and AddressTwo partnership, please click here to go to the full press release available on the Delivra website!

In yesterday’s blog post, we introduced the non-profit winner of the Infuse Initiative business grant.  Today, we’re going to introduce this year’s small business winner – Professional Conventions & Meetings (ProCaM).

ProCaM is a meeting and event planning and management company.  Working locally, nationally and internationally, they specialize in corporate meetings, sales incentive trips, educational seminars and training events, association and fraternal conventions, trade shows, government meetings, special events and motor sports hospitality.  The company was formed in 2000 and is a certified woman – owned business enterprise.

“We are happy to be part of the Infuse Initiative,” said Neil Berman, president & CEO of Delivra. “Effective communications is crucial to a growing company. We are glad that we will be able to help ProCaM communicate with their customers, prospects and other audiences with sophisticated email solutions.”

As mentioned before, you’ll want to stay tuned to future Delivra news because we’ll be offering case studies on both Infuse Initiative winners!  You’ll want to see how the Delivra software was able to help these companies with their email marketing efforts.

In an earlier blog post, we announced the winners of the Infuse Initiative, a business grant program.  In the next couple of blog posts, we’d like to take the time to introduce the winners in more detail for those of you interested in learning more about them!

Today’s blog post is highlighting the Indianapolis Early Learning Center, this year’s non-profit Infuse Initiative winner.  Indianapolis Early Learning Center, located at 3901 West 30th Street, Indianapolis, is a non-profit preschool that invests in a successful future for all preschool-age children, regardless of their socioeconomic status.  The school accomplishes this by ensuring that all families have access to the best early childhood education programs to prepare their children for school and for life.

The Infuse Initiative business grant also provides them with pro-bono marketing, technology, accounting, legal and sales training services.  Delivra will provide the Indianapolis Early Learning Center a free email software subscription, professional services and technical support for one year to improve their email marketing efforts.

Amanda Byrd

“Recently, I was able to attend the event announcing and congratulating the winners of the Infuse Initiative.  I had the opportunity to sit next to Amanda Byrd, the Founder & Executive Director of the preschool.  She seemed extremely grateful to be receiving the award and has big plans for the future and I can’t wait to see what she does!” said Lavon Temple, Marketing Intern at Delivra.

Stay tuned to the Delivra blog for more information on the other Infuse Initiative winner – Professional Conventions & Meetings.

Also, keep a look out for more news as we eventually share a case study and more details on how the Delivra and Indianapolis Early Learning Center teams were able to work together in order to improve their email marketing efforts.

PINK magazine is an online publication that offers professional women advice about career development, delivering tools, tactics and strategies to help them be more successful in business as well as in life.  A typical feature might be an interview with a female C-level executive or a feature story about raising investor capital.  The magazine’s average reader is worth $1.2 million with an income of 125,000 – an excellent target for any advertiser.  The magazine’s advertisers – including American Express Co., Dell Inc., Ernst & Young and FedEx Corp. – wanted a way to connect one – to – one with those readers without a lot of clutter, said Bridget Cody, PINK’s director of advertising, so Cody and her team started brainstorming.

To read more of the BtoB Magazine article, click here!

I was reading a report this week on the sources of our June 2010 new clients. The leading source of new clients, accounting for 50% (that’s right half) of our new business, was labeled as referrals.

Referrals beat out these other new client categories by a wide margin.

1. Return customers

2. Purchased leads

3. Trade show leads

4. Delivra’s incentive referral program

5. Website leads

6. Cold calls by our sales force, and

7. Call ins

Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that if you could come up with a process to generate referrals (without asking) a business could double its growth from new customers.

Do I have your attention? Good.  Here is what you need to do.

Buy the book, The Referral Engine, by John Jantsch.  Seth Godin says, “This book will pay for itself in one day.”

If you’re looking for a silver bullet save your money.  This book is about the transformation of your entire organization into a referral generating engine. Examples of how companies have done it abound in the text.

Delivra has adopted many of the suggestions presented but we have a long way to go. What if we could get 100% of our new business from referrals? Hmmm…

Neil Berman | President & CEO

Early last year, around the time of Delivra’s ten-year anniversary, we went shopping for a new mail transfer agent (MTA) technology partner to help sustain our growth for the next ten years.  We knew that our email sending volume was only going to increase over time, but we were still surprised, in December of 2009, to see how suddenly growth could occur.  That month, with the addition of new clients plus seasonal increases in emailing by our existing customers, our mailing volume jumped by 60% over previous highs!

That dramatic increase made us feel even better about our decision, just a few months earlier, to implement Message Systems’ Momentum.  Our previous MTA would not have handled that kind of rapid growth.  But with Momentum as the engine powering our email, we didn’t miss a beat, and delivered a record number of messages.  In fact, we’ve eclipsed that monthly record volume several times since then.

Our experience with Momentum has been so positive that Message Systems featured Delivra in a recent case study!

Click here to read the entire article.

Chris Broshears | Product Development

Delivra has just announced its first ever Extreme Email Makeover contest!  If your current email design is in desperate need of a major “face lift” and you want to take advantage of the design skills and various other talents of the Delivra team to help then this is definitely the opportunity for you!

Wondering how you can participate and get in on all the action? It’s really simple!  All  you have to do is go to the Delivra Facebook Fan page and click “like” this page.  From there, you can simply upload your current email design.  Then, you can vote on which email you think should win!  That’s it!

The sweepstakes runs through the month of July,  so there is plenty of time to get your emails in. Then, on August 3rd, 2010, after waiting so patiently, Delivra will announce who is in the most desperate need for an email “makeover” – the winner of the Extreme Email Makeover!

Wondering what you win? I thought so!  If the winner is a current client of Delivra, they will receive a custom made, sophisticated email template placed into their established account for use in future mailings.  If the winner is not a Delivra client, they will receive one custom designed email template, one hour of email strategy consultation, access to Delivra 101 and 201, and a 90 day trial account.  Pretty sweet, huh?

To learn more about the Extreme Email Makeover,  you can read the press release located on the Delivra website or go straight to our Facebook page.

You do not want to miss out on your chance for an Extreme Makeover!

If you are like me or anyone I know, you are likely always on the go.  Life today is not as simple as it used to be.  One of my saving graces has been my smartphone.

• It literally never leaves my side
• It serves as my alarm clock
• It provides me with entertainment
• It has my calendar
• It has my email
• It has my contacts
• I can get movie tickets with it
• I can watch videos
• And so on….and so on…and so on

Sound familiar?  I could go on all day, but simply put mobile devices have become a way of life for everyone these days.  It’s not just businessman anymore.  It’s every generation.  My kids are even using them non-stop.  I was in a restaurant earlier this week and saw an elderly woman pull out her cell phone to call her daughter since there was bad weather.

The point is this, while mobile may be exploding, email is just as important if not more than it ever was!  Why, you ask?  It’s simple…with smartphones today your email marketing campaigns become a quick way a mobile user can get to a phone number, an address, a map, or even a link.  In fact, I will often  forget to save a contact in my email.  My solution…my smartphone.  Where else can I get to a phone number, click on the link and be able to call that person quickly.  Not only that, but my phone is advanced enough to remind me to save that contact while I am at it.  I even use my smartphone to map out directions.  Don’t have an address?  I bet that email I just received has a link!  I was even recently shopping at a store that sends me email coupons.  And as usual, I forgot my coupon!  When the cashier asked me for my coupon I grumbled that I forgot it at home.  She asked if I had the email on my phone.  Can you believe I still got the discount because she was able to take the coupon info right from the email on my smartphone.  ONE DEVICE, but so many uses.  As technology evolves and cost goes down, people like me will be the bulk of your database one day.

Remember, when you are creating email campaigns to include some of those simple things you may think your recipients might already know.  Your website, phone number, address, or even links to email or maps.  Chances are that your recipients might have that info or have seen it in the past.  But if they are like me, they will refer back to emails from key senders for those very links they might need on a smartphone.

You don’t necessarily have to have an advanced or costly mobile marketing strategy.  But, what you should always keep in mind is where your emails might be read, how they render, and what information you include (even if you feel you are repeating often) that might link on a smartphone.

Need help making sure your email incorporates some of these strategies? Contact us today at info@delivra.com or at 877-915-9465 and we’d be happy to help.

Carissa Newton | Marketing

I know, just when you thought you had heard enough hype on the new iPhone~here it comes again!  Here’s the thing, Apple is genius when it comes to marketing and brand (no pun intended).  It’s not just them though, simple is something that works in this cluttered time we live in.  So earlier this week I received this email:

Now granted, for me (the early adopter on EVERYTHING) this long awaited email is just the cue I need.  You see I have a birthday coming up and really want my old (oh so old iPhone older generation) to be retired, so I can have this one!  So, I very discreetly forwarded this email to my husband.  No subject line, no additional pleas for the birthday girl.  Just a simple forward of a simple and clean message.  Well, I’m pleased to say I think he got the point.  He turned to his friend who is visiting with his laptop and showed him saying, “I take it she wants a new iPhone.”  Thanks dear, you got the hint.

I’m sure my birthday wish list is of no concern to you, but what should be important to note is that Apple achieves success over success because of ONE thing….they keep things SIMPLE.

This is a perfect lesson that every marketer can learn, re-learn, and re-visit!  I even have to do this myself.  As marketers we want to spit out every single thing that we have to say in one communication.  The result?  Well, I spare the detractors of simple from the embarrassment, but I will say that you can’t view their email in one, two or even three screens.  I know, I know, you have brand and messaging to convey.  Along with those slick graphics you designed.  That’s okay…you can still keep it simple in three easy steps:

1. Engage with Visuals, Video, and Rich Media: All are a great way to reinforce your brand and message without saying a whole lot in words.
2. Link Out: Don’t feel like everything HAS to be shown in the email content.  Link out to landing pages, other sites, your website, or even a signup form or shopping cart.  (Note:  There is also an added benefit with linking-TRACKING!  Now you will know what interests your recipients.)
3. Stick to Above-the-Fold: If you can’t see it in one screen on a test, then trim it down.  Link out or parse out what you want to say in more than one email.

Simple concepts I’m sure we all know by now, but worth repeating and certainly worth revisiting.  Are you keeping it SIMPLE for your audience? Just think to yourself…what would Apple do?  Need help with your email marketing?  Want to chat about other best practice strategies?  Contact me today at marketing@delivra.com or at 877-915-9465 and let’s chat!

Carissa Newton | Marketing

P.S.  I can tell you that while I am an early adopter, I won’t be in line for this!  I mean it will be my birthday  right after its release after all….someone is bound to go stand in that line for me, right?