Category: GMX Mail

IBM Named a Leader in Cross-Channel Campaign Management by Independent Research Firm

IBM was once again named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cross-Channel Campaign Management, Q1 2012.  The report states that “IBM’s acquisition of both Unica and Coremetrics was a clear signal to many marketers that the technology giant intended to dominate the enterprise marketing technology landscape.” In fact, IBM had the highest score in the areas of campaign design, campaign execution and data management.

Click here for the full report.

Unica

When I was a kid growing up in California’s Central Valley (the “Big Valley” made famous by the eponymous 1960s TV show [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058791/] with Barbara Stanwyck, Lee Majors and Linda Evans), I loved watching television. And despite the reference to a “western” show in the preceding sentence, I was actually a sucker for every sci-fi show known to humanity. I suppose you could say that westerns held little thrill for a kid growing up around ranches and farms. But robots and space? Now we’re talking.

In particular, I loved Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078579/], a cheesy camp-fest of a show that I used to watch with my dad. One of my favorite characters was Dr. Theopolis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Theopolis], a large, plate-shaped “super” computer carried around by a robot named Twiki [But it turns out that the reality of the 21^st century far outstrips an imagined 25^th century. How? Because where Dr. Theopolis was presented as a rare and precious (and let’s face it, cumbersome) computer, Smart Phones are all around us. We carry more computing power in our pockets than prior generations could even imagine.

Today, Altimeter Group’s [http://www.altimetergroup.com/] Chris Silva [http://www.altimetergroup.com/about/team/chris-silva] published his report, “Make an App for That: Mobile Strategies for Retailers” [http://goo.gl/77JaT]. Chris argues—and quite correctly, in my experience—that consumer shopping behavior has been forever changed thanks to the explosive adoption of mobile devices. In fact, as his report makes clear, mobile is quickly becoming the primary means by which people interact with a brand. Chris cites data from IBM Benchmark [http://www.coremetrics.com/solutions/benchmark-report-black-friday-cyber-monday-2011.php] data to make the case that retailers need to expand or rethink their mobile strategies to meet changing consumer shopping needs and demands.

So I’m taking it to the street: how do you use your mobile device? And do you think retailers are doing a good job? Let’s get the conversation started.

Unica

I spent the better part of the morning reading Altimeter Group’s report, “Make an App for That: Mobile Strategies for Retailers” [http://goo.gl/77JaT]. Chris Silva [http://www.altimetergroup.com/about/team/chris-silva], the analyst who published the report, makes some thought-provoking points about the approaches that many retailers are taking toward engaging people on mobile devices. If you haven’t read the report yet, you should; the report is available to everyone as open research and I suspect it will inform your thinking.

Here’s what stood out for me: the retail business is among the first to experience rapid and permanent change thanks in large part to the ways in which consumers from all walks of life are willingly loading shopping apps on their phones. People want to use their phones to research goods and services, complete a purchase and engage with brands when and how it’s convenient to them. And that leads to mobile.

Here’s an analogy: unless it’s Super Bowl Sunday, you probably don’t enjoy ads when you’re watching TV. That’s because you turned the TV on to watch a show, not to watch ads that may not be remotely relevant to you. But now think about online search. When you’re surfing the web, you’re often looking for commercial information: where to get those new sneakers for your kid, or whether that handbag your wife wants for Valentine’s Day is worth it, what other people thought of that hotel. Search ads, therefore, are not intrusive, but (hopefully) relevant and helpful.

The same holds true on mobile, where people are actively rewarding those brands whose mobile strategies are focused on consumer needs—the need to complete a transaction more quickly, to locate merchandise, to compare prices across multiple shopping apps. As Chris shows in his report, mobile has now become the primary way in which many consumers engage with a brand. That means that what many retailers once considered a nice-to-have has actually become fundamental to their business. If I flip that around, then it’s safe to say that if you haven’t developed a substantive, customer-centric approach to mobile commerce, you’re risking not just your career, but your business.

The brand implications are profound. Consumers expect a consistent brand experience regardless of channel. That seems obvious. But according to Chris and his report, not many brands have cracked the multi-channel nut. Consumers aren’t just using their devices to research an isolated product or two from the privacy of their homes: they’re walking into stores armed with their smart phones and tablets, ready to use their devices to augment their in-store information gathering, research other retailers that carry similar items, and even to discover related merchandise they hadn’t considered. Who knows, these informed consumers may even be teaching your sales teams a thing or two.

Unica

One of the most dramatic NFL games ever played was Super Bowl XLII pitting the undefeated (18–0) New England Patriots led by record-setting quarterback Tom Brady against the surprising NY Giants with young, unproven Eli Manning at the helm.   A thrilling, some say shocking victory for the Giants ended the Patriots’ bid to be the only 19–0 undefeated champion in league history.   And now Super Bowl XLVI –  The Rematch —   anticipated to be the most watched American television show in history, promises to take social media to a whole new level.

As my colleague, and former NFL player Kevin Nosbusch posted on Wednesday, IBM and the University of Southern California Annenberg Innovation Lab are conducting the first sentiment analysis of the two Super Bowl quarterbacks to illustrate how new analytics technologies make it possible to quickly assess the positive, negative and neutral sentiments shared by fans.

Why is this sentiment analysis important to IBM? In addition to being a longtime partner of the NFL, IBM recognizes that its clients, just like football players, are closely connected to their brand presence.

Using advances in analytics companies, academics, journalists can gain new insights into consumer perceptions via social media on endless topics from football and baseball to movies and retailing. Technologies can even distinguish irony and figure out which tweets are just background noise and those that are truly important.

Branding Upset on the Digital Playing Field

The Super Bowl analysis shows us that today the two quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Eli Manning are in statistical dead heat:  Brady earning 65% positive sentiment and Eli Manning earning 62% positive sentiment.  That actually represents a big branding upset on the digital playing field. Most sports and marketing followers would assume that Brady should be far ahead given his lofty status as an elite QB for many years and three championship rings.

Other noteworthy findings show that wide receivers have upstaged the quarterbacks, who are being positioned in the news media as the chief protagonists — Wes Welker is #1 in positive sentiment and Victor Cruz is a close 2nd.  Interestingly Brady leads by 3% points, exactly the point spread Las Vegas oddsmakers have favored the Patriots.

So while it looks like Tom Brady is going into the game as the Social MVP, now is not the time to get cocky.  Eli Manning is holding his own against the more experienced Brady in terms of positive sentiment.

The IBM USC analysis illustrates the potential insight and benefits that social media analytics can deliver to a brand — whether you’re a professional football player or a global enterprise. Businesses that ignore the impact of social media will be stuck on the sidelines.

Learn more about IBM and USC AIL social media analysis projects.

See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKJR6oTJsmw&feature=player_embedded

Unica

I feel compelled to say that I’m an avid reader of EaterSF; the recommendations have fueled numerous food adventures in and around San Francisco. That being said let me also state this is not meant to lambast or endorse the editors of this newsletter, only as a vehicle for creative analysis.

As you can see it’s a fairly straightforward newsletter: a two column design with clear branding at the top of the email. Looks good, right? Right, but a web preview is not the experience a reader has across email clients and platforms.

Email is a core channel for establishing and growing customer loyalty, increasing sales and driving activity across social networks. For an email to be successful and address the reading habits of the connected consumer it has to be accessible and readable across a wide variety of platforms. To be cross-channel and email has to be built according to best practices for cross channel design.

The template for this newsletter is set to 830 pixels; this is too wide when you take into account the viewable dimensions of mobile handsets. Even if you don’t take into consideration a mobile handset and you want to code for the 1990’s, a screen resolution of 800×600 would mean the recipient is forced to scroll left to right to see the full text of the email.

What should the width be?

There are generally two ways of approaching this: 1) either set the width to FULL in which case it gains a little elasticity and adjusts the dimensions of whatever device it’s viewed on. 2) Try shrinking the physical dimensions to 620 pixels or less.

Common formats for today’s newsletters are strikingly thin, many of them favor a single column layout. The less-is-more paradigm forces marketers two do a couple things: be selective about your graphics as they eat both vertical and horizontal space. More importantly, be selective with the information in the email as you don’t want to over power the recipients ever shrinking attention span.

Even in a webmail client like Yahoo! recipients are forced to scroll left to right when viewing this at 1024×768 pixels as seen through IBM Unica Email Optimization’s eDesign Optimizer.

One thing EaterSF’s designers should consider is shrinking this to a single column layout and using smaller images. But how do you know if eliminating a column would help or hurt the campaign? In a word: Data! Track each link and test varying versions of the email to random splits. If you are driving significant traffic from one column versus another then perhaps that should be the main column, or the content of that column is more appealing. Don’t take the plunge until you know the temperature of the water.

Another thing to keep in mind…

Width isn’t the only problem with this creative; the email has no left-right margins. When the email is rendered it comes to the very edge of the email client/device. Why is this a problem you ask? Words at the edge of a mobile device tend to be harder to read. Users are often forced to shrink or enlarge an email because black device borders tend to make black text abutting the border illegible.

Build your email templates with a little padding by either putting a DIV around it that gives you 5-10 pixels of breathing room on either side. If you’re thinking “well there’s so little room already with mobile devices” then you’re right. There is less space, but the space on a mobile device is incredibly precious, if your recipient can’t read the email quickly without having to use two fingers to interact with the message vs. 1 to scroll down to read more, you’re “leaving clicks on the phone.”

Make it readable!

There’s a reason webkit has a minimum font size, so your customers can read your messages. Sure, sometimes overriding the minim font size of 13 pixels will ensure layout integrity. However, if you’re protecting your layout at the detriment of the readability of the message then you should re-examine your layout and consider not shrinking your font to easily readable proportions.

So to summarize…

1. Keep your layout to 620 pixels or less to ensure the ability of your emails to be read on more devices and in more email clients.
2. Give your text and email contents a chance to breath and build your template with borders to keep text away from the edge of the template
3. Make it readable and if you have to override the default text size, but truly, use your judgment: if you have to squint to read it, so do your customers!

Cheers!
-Len Shneyder
Product Marketing Mgr.
IBM Enterprise Marketing Management

Unica

Let me start by saying happy New Year! We hope that the final days of 2011 were spent relaxing with friends and family and that whatever final marketing pushes you might’ve been engaged with went off smoothly and effortlessly. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way: welcome to 2012! What better way to start 2012 than by reviewing the last quarter of 2011? High points, low points, let’s soak up the learnings from the entire year; let’s take it all in and hope that it helps us steer the ship into smoother waters in the year to come.

Overall Deliverability

Sometimes no news is good news, or so the saying goes. In this case the news is the same as the quarter before: overall deliverability held firm at approximately 83.25%.

I don’t mean to sound despondent about it, and really I’m not. Given micro trends we witnessed with certain ISPs around the all important Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail events, overall deliverability holding firm is a good thing. We don’t have to brace ourselves for a cataclysmic shockwave; rather we can spend the opening months reviewing what’s worked and what hasn’t worked as a means of constant self-improvement.

What can you do with this information?

• Prioritize your efforts. Not every problem is mission critical. Deliverability is fluid and constantly evolving. Knowing that your overall deliverability is ahead of the average positions problems into perspective as they arise.
• Set your goals. If your overall deliverability is below average, then there’s an endemic problem in either your list or content or both and you should stop, take a long hard look at what you’re doing and make changes that will positively impact not only your deliverability rate, but your ultimate bottom line.
• Give yourself a pat on the back. If you’ve made it this far and found yourself capable of delivering at a sustained rate that meets your business needs, then you deserve a pat on the back. But don’t rest on your laurels; emerging channels have their own needs and nuances. You need to experiment in order to stay ahead. Take some chances. Be creative. Stagnation is the fast road to failure.

Deliverability Across Major ISPs

Delivery rates to AOL, Yahoo! and Gmail follow the trend of overall industry deliverability I mention above. In some cases one ISP is a little bit better than another. Hotmail continues to be a problem for numerous marketers with average inbox placement 10% or lower than other ISPs.

Remediating Hotmail Deliverability

Although Microsoft’s policies appear to make consistent inbox deliverability more difficult they do provide marketers with a significant number of tools to help them.

• JMRPP – The Junk Mail Reporting Partner Program is Microsoft’s feedback loop. Marketers that apply and qualify for this program will receive complaints generated by individuals who clicked the ubiquitous spam button to a preselected address. This is a critical mechanism to help sustain ongoing list health. Its important to establish feedback loops where possible and ensure whatever mechanism processes the complaints is constantly operational. Checks and balances make the difference.
• SNDS – Smart Network Data Services is a monitoring tool that yields valuable information about your IPs and domains, how many traps you may have hit in the course of normal operations, and how the smart screen filters have reacted to your mailing. Data is provided one day in arrears. Cross-referencing the data from SNDS with your own targeting and delivery data will yield valuable insight on the perceived health of your chosen segment or campaign at the domain or ISP level.
• SIDF Cache – To ensure a minimal latency between publishing your SPF/SenderID records and Hotmail picking them up, Microsoft has setup a manual method for you to submit those records to a cache. If you aren’t using SPF/SenderID well it’s a new year and you should resolve to add those records. If you are, then it never hurts to ensure all the records are properly submitted to the right places.
• List Unsubscribe Header – Help your customers help you by giving them an option to unsubscribe directly in the webmail header of Hotmail. By publishing a List Unsubscribe header (see RFC 2369) your emails will automatically appear with an Unsubscribe option as part of the Hotmail interface. Customers who no longer wish to receive your emails will not have to scroll to the bottom to find that carefully hidden link (which consequently you should make plain as day) but rather have the option, there at the top, to click the Unsubscribe link rather than the spam button.
• Adjust your targeting – One of the major reasons marketing email winds up in Hotmail’s spam folder has to do with overzealous targeting. Don’t send everyone the same message all the time. By sending emails to old, inactive addresses you’re setting yourself up for either a bounce or click of the spam button. Too many of either is potentially disastrous to the entire campaign. Chose your recipients based on recent activity and modulate your deliveries. By trimming the oldest and worst performing 5% of your list you give the other 95% a strong chance at the inbox.
• If all else fails contact the Hotmail Postmaster team using their online form.

Creatures of Habit vs. Creatures of Opportunity

Opportunity lurks around every corner, but in order to take advantage of that opportunity we have to get out of our old habits and adopt some new ones. For years I’ve been saying that the tribally accepted wisdom of Tuesday and Thursday as the best days for delivering email are based on assumptions and technologies that are dated.

Based on our data Thursday – Sunday trend higher than the first half of the week. Ok, so you have to change half your habits, not quite all of them. The point here is that tribal wisdom was based on limited mobility. Our audience is incredibly mobile wielding smart phones and shooting off texts and mobile emails with agile thumb work. Take into account today’s platform and device landscape and use your intuition tempered with good data to establish your mailing days. Business as usual may be leaving dollars on the table.

Ask yourself this as you ponder the possibility of shifting your chosen weekly delivery day: which day do you see the most number of your competitors’ emails in your inbox? If you’re mailing on the same day then congratulations, you’re following the cattle call. If you’ve spent time to isolate mobile users, determine when you’re seeing the most mobile traffic on your site, track high rates of web purchases, then you’ve a pretty good grasp on the opportunities that lay outside of what everyone else is doing.

The same rules apply to finding key opportunities by hour for delivering email. Ample delivery windows during high peaks of deliverability exist during the evening. Most marketers front load the day assuming that email will be digested as people arrive to the office. The truth is that email is consumed from the moment someone wakes up to the moment they go to sleep thanks to smart phones, I know you’re blushing, but seriously, I do the same thing! The optimal delivery window is the one you find based on the browsing and purchasing habits of your customers. Assume that delivery times are as fluid as days and should be established based on behavioral data.

The Mobile Year In Review

By now mobile marketing is old hat. There’s no news in the fact that mobile, as a channel and platform, is not only viable but also red hot! If you read our Holiday Benchmark you know that mobile devices played a major role in the success of this holiday season. Here’s another look at how mobile grew over 2011 and more importantly how it soared around the holidays!

Mobile is more than just a boon to retailers during holiday peaks; mobile connects people in ways never before imagined and empowers creative thinkers to come up with exciting new possibilities like the QR code driven grocery store in Korea. Mobile is an inbox in every user’s pocket and that liberates you from thinking of your campaigns, calls to action and content as something to be experienced seated in front of a monitor. What does this mean? It means be succinct, be timely, be selective and be direct in your communications. Always assume that they are being viewed and consumed on mobile devices.

Global Deliverability

However much excitement we may find in the possibilities surrounding mobile marketing and more importantly, mobile email, we have to keep in mind that different markets, just like ISPs in North America, have very different requirements surrounding email.

If you thought that living with an average deliverability rate in the low 80’s was difficult in North America then chances are that the delivery rates in the APAC region will leave you completely dismayed.

It should come as no surprise that delivering email to China is no easy task because Chinese ISPs have to comply with censorship laws and have added filtering and security in place to mitigate unwanted email traffic. Marketers would be well served to read Article 57 of the Regulations on Telecommunications of the People’s Republic of China and consult with their legal counsel.

Germany has some of the strictest privacy laws in the EU limiting the ability of German ISPs to offer feedback loops without end recipient permission. Marketers have to be aware of these nuanced situations and take into consideration local custom and law when deciding on how to approach digital messaging in a particular market.

Setting Your Sights On 2012

As I said before, resting on your laurels isn’t allowed. You may want to start 2012 by dissecting your successes and failures, capitalizing on what worked and adjusting what didn’t. But don’t stop there. Have you been monitoring your social presence and are you leveraging content that is driving traffic across channels? No? Do you know who your social influencers are? Well then you have your homework cut out for you.

• Re-examine your opt-in and registration pages. Do you really need someone’s Fax number for your records? I don’t think that today’s teenagers even know how to use a fax machine. Why not ask potential subscribers what their twitter handle is, or if they’d like SMS delivered to their mobile phones.
• Connect the dots. You have data in all kinds of places and you should find ways of not only merging data silos, draw unique conclusions based on multi-sourced data. Make your data paint a more thorough picture of your customers by tying these data sources to unique profiles thereby creating more customer centric profiles.
• Send smarter communications, not more of them. I regularly unsubscribe from newsletters and companies that think sending me 2-3 promotions a day is a good idea. I bet you do the same thing. If you you’ve done your homework and acquired more actionable data about your customers then you know you can reach them on Facebook (assuming you setup a welcoming company page), send them a tweet or an App message (if you have a dedicated mobile app).

In today’s world there are numerous means to reach customers; you don’t have to exhaust your customer’s inboxes in order to meet your bottom line. Staying relevant means cross-channel optimization and that doesn’t mean creating the same cadence across all channels but rather modulating them.

Personally I’m excited about 2012. With so many options and platforms to choose from the only thing holding you back is you. Go ahead, get creative, for every failure you will have two or three ground breaking successes. Experimentation will ensure that you remain relevant & in lock step with the opportunities of tomorrow.

Cheers!
Len Shneyder
Product Marketing Mgr. | @LenShneyder
IBM | Enterprise Marketing Management

Unica

It’s January and the beginning of a bright, shiny new year. I like to start the new year thinking about what happened over the last year—those things that stayed with me and that are likely to continue to affect my life in some way.

Like most people, when I heard that Steve Jobs had passed away late last year, my first thoughts were for his grieving family. But then I started to think about the many ways in which Jobs had shaped our lives, changing our culture and our collective frame of reference with his innumerable, ingenious devices. It struck me that the genius of iTunes—the first game changer that ushered in the Smart Phone era—was that it recognized for the very first time that people want to have total control over their music: where they listen to it, when, on what device. It sounds simple now, but it was far from obvious then.

This same notion that we as consumers are exerting greater control over the media that surrounds us is also playing out in a very real and compelling way in ecommerce. Consider that for the entire month of December 2011 [http://ibm.co/xCMtko], 14.6 percent of consumers used a mobile device, not a PC, to access an online retail site. That’s more than double the rate of 5.6 percent over this same period in 2010. Also in December 2011, 11 percent of online sales came through a mobile device, versus December 2010 when only 5.5 percent of sales came from mobile devices.

The fact is that consumers today are exerting greater and greater control not just over their media (if the iTunes example didn’t convince you, consider that we have collectively all-but obliterated Prime Time TV thanks to the time-shifting wonders of Netflix, Roku, Hulu, etc.), but over the brands that matter to them. Using an arsenal of social media tools combined with a dynamic and utterly transparent wisdom-of-the-crowds approach to evaluating the goods and services offered to them, consumers have turned commerce on its head.

Many consumers believe that they have the right to voice their opinions about a brand or good or service on any of a number of channels from Twitter to YouTube. They also believe their opinions to be as valid as anyone else’s, up to and including the top executives behind the brand or good or service under discussion. Their fellow consumers share this perspective, trusting in the opinions of complete strangers much more so than in advertising. It’s a dynamic we see over and over again across social networks.

The gotcha is that while consumers may believe that they’re now firmly in control of their relationships with brands, many brands have been slow to embrace this change. And by the way, this change is not in the process of happening. It has already happened. Or as my colleague, Steve Cowley, put it, “it starts on the street.” See Video.

Unica

Computers are one of the most interesting bits of technology and the key reason for this really is that they’ll do a lot of things at the same time and it’s really helped lots of people. Just the way in which people are captivated by the various things that some type of computer can do there are several who tend to be equally fascinated by what goes to their making as well as maintenance which is this group that must know about computer architectural. Basically, computer engineering is really a study which entails computerized methods to every problem that’s associated along with computer digesting like production troubles, research difficulties and program control. It helps you to save the above mentioned problems through merging the data of PC science as well as electronic architectural.

Included within the average PC engineering program are courses for example instrumentation, the concept of manage system, analog as well as digital consumer electronics and robotics. For someone to learn all they have to about PC engineering, they will need to make an extremely informed decision concerning the university that they would like to join. This will over time help all of them get high quality education which will make all of them greatly advance within their careers.

The to begin great ideas when searching for the correct college to go to is to select a main then locate a college that provides the main. When 1 chooses the school based on the majors they need they may have several options to select from and here they are able to further thin down the actual numbers by utilizing several specifications included in this quality associated with education provided, costs and also the reputation from the college. This may leave the actual aspiring professional with a number of institutions to select from and the very best route to consider here is to get just as much information because they can get concerning the institutions.

Among another basic things an individual should learn about computer architectural is which their job is vital in just about all industries exactly where computers are essential for business to use. In this kind of businesses some type of computer engineer is going to be required to generate new systems that may meet the actual ever changing requirements inside a business in addition to improve and gaze after the set-ups. Compared towards the other specializations in neuron-scientific engineering, computer engineering is probably the ones using the highest remuneration when it comes to salary.

Most from the modern conveniences we now have today had been made via computer engineering plus they include security alarm systems, x-ray devices and cell phones. When it involves software as well as hardware, it isn’t a should that PC engineers make a decision as these people enough to is going to be skilled enough to take care of both. There will also be many specializations with regard to computer engineers plus they can make a decision in areas for example artificial cleverness, computer structures, computer techniques, integrated circuits as well as computer systems. With all of the above options there’s almost no reason anyone wouldn’t make it within the field.

Computer Technology Information

It most began when using seriously inventive Acer would like 5738DG-6165 (really unimaginative naming occurring there, by how) with regards to 1 -5 year ago. At some time, the merchants didn’t need 3-D tv sets. If you happen to be a little sick and tired with having csceneblock. That Acer portable computers was a new phenomenal product due to the time occasion. Total, it was an attractive middle-of-the-line mobile computer: the Core2Duo brand, 4GB RANDOM access memory, and ATI high-definition 4750 visuals card most positioned it as being a solidly mid-range appliance. It has to be completely unremarkable Acer portable computers in every single way in case it has not been for the belief that it got something no person had heard of — a 3-D monitor.

That form of performance would’ve been adequate previously. No one particular else got the great 3-D feature that they, and that has been with regards to enough. Cut to your year after, and there exists competition concluding in in every side for the Acer portable computers that started all this. A straightforward 3-D monitor with polarized glasses isn’t longer ample. Which is the reason why for this coming year, we contain the new would like AS5745DG. Keeping way up with that the state-of-the-art throughout notebooks features progressed during the past 12 a few months, the brand-new 3-D Acer notebook has an robust key i5 brand, Nvidia GeForce GT4210M visuals, and your party trick on this piece, the particular 15. 6 inches 1366 by simply 768 BROUGHT about 3-D screen that you just view using active shutter cups. And virtually as interesting too is the belief that it comes available at underneath 0.

The Acer would like 5738DG from recently really satisfied buyers along with critics alike which consists of fine 3-D performance of ancient 3-D movies as well as impressive capacity to convert 2-D videos effectively. The means it sorted out 3-D online games seemed nothing less than remarkable way too. 3-D computing is more preferable accepted currently and Acer doesn’t need to build their devices with an aggressively affordable anymore. This year’s style, the would like AS5745DG, takes your laptop’s 3-D references forward. To commence with, the 3-D knowledge through productive shutter portions of the kind the thing is that on the most up-to-date 3-D tv sets. The cups keep touching the computer using an IR phone.

The major reason Acer believes you can like considered one of its 3-D laptops would it be believes you would want to dive in the world involving 3-D games – while supported in its range by Nvidia’s 3d images vision technological innovation. But Acer doesn’t need to limit the good thing about its 3-D mobile computer to gameheads alone naturally. Part will be the beauty on this Acer portable computers is who’s has a new Blu-Ray drive that one could play 3-D videos on. Even additional exciting however is the belief that if you play a 2-D video, the 3-D serp will turn it for you to 3-D for the fly. This is often a feature mind you that even if it’s just HP’s additional expensive Covet 17 3-D involves. It surely speaks effectively for Acer’s expertise in its viewers.

Computer Technology Information

With the holiday week upon us marketers are kicking their programs into high in hopes of achieving maximum inbox placement, clicks and ultimately, conversion.  The economy has made the battle for holiday dollars fierce. Consumers are looking for the best deals and marketers are eager to pack their inboxes with as many relevant offers as they can.

It’s understandable that sending a volley of emails detailing fantastic products, promotions, specials, exclusive savings, buy one get one, two for the price of one, discontinued stock discounts and other offers seems like a really good idea. And in essence it is a good idea when you consider how important it is for you to make sales and impressions ahead of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday super retail events.

However, I would urge caution before letting lose your creative advertising talent without first thoroughly vetting the deliverability of those efforts. You see your competition is doing the exact same thing. In order for you to succeed you have to differentiate yourself from every offer in the inbox, but we’ll get to that in a moment. First you have to actually reach the inbox and let me caution you by saying, not all inboxes are created equally.

As we start the holiday week it appears as though 3 of the 4 major global ISPs, AOL, Gmail & Yahoo! all show deliverability in what we commonly accept as the industry standard range: approximately 80% inbox. As you can see there are fairly broad variations with AOL at times slipping below 80%, while Gmail appears to offer the best deliverability with a peak of over 90% inbox placement.

If we accept that 1 in 5 emails never reaches the intended inbox, and winds up either blocked or in the spam folder then Hotmail appears to be doubling that metric with deliverability averaging just over 66%. This means that almost 2 in every 5 emails lands in the spam folder or doesn’t reach the intended recipient.

By now your lists have been pulled and your segments readied with offers and digital collateral to engage your customers across any and all channels simultaneously.  However, it’s never too late to spend a few minutes and consider tactics and methods for ensuring your messages actually reach your customers.

• Less is more – email is not a volume sport where you deliver every message to every person who ever signed up for an email. Quite the contrary, the less you send, and the more targeted your messages are, the more likely you will build a positive reputation at the receiving ISPs.
• Email only active users – consumers change email address, close accounts and ISPs routinely turn closed or inactive accounts into spam traps or honey pots. If you email every one on your list since the dawn of time you will invariably deliver messages to spam traps that will cause the rest of your wanted mail not to arrive.
• Find your optimal delivery window – track your competition’s emails, see when they send them, most marketers believe that Tuesday and Thursday AM are the best times to deliver email, look for opportunities where your brand can stand out from the crowd because you’re not launching your emails during the thickest marketing pushes. Remember, the first email to reach the inbox is often the message at the bottom of the list.
• Authentication is key – test your domains and IPs, ensure that you have the proper and valid SPF/SenderID, DK & DKIM records for all outbound email traffic. Help the ISPs by differentiating your email traffic from the vast volumes of SPAM lobbed at ISPs on a daily basis.
• Send constant volume – in keeping with the paradigm of less is more, less more often is often better than more at one time. By sending constant manageable volumes you will establish and build a strong reputation, given you’re emailing people who want to receive your messages, rather than that one final push where you launch a major campaign across IPs that irregular amounts of traffic sent across them. Active IPs with positive reputation have more chances of delivering email to the inbox than inactive IPs that suddenly show volume spikes.
• Test your email templates – creativity abounds around the holidays, but keep in mind you have a brand to protect. Make sure whatever special templates you use are single column, include a text part if you’re sending multi-part mime, and that you’ve thoroughly tested the content to ensure deliverability at the major ISPs before going to market with one-off designs.
• Stand out from the crowd – leverage data across channels to make smarter decisions as to where and when your customers are engaging with your brand. If you can track activity and link shares across social networks instead of sending social fans emails, try and communicate with them through social media.

By taking a few basic steps marketers can help ensure that they will stay at the top of their customer’s inboxes rather than at the bottom of their spam folders.  As the week goes on we will be providing you key information to help you see and contextualize your efforts. We’re tracking deliverability and other metrics across mailers and ISPs around the globe. Look for updates as we get closer to Cyber Monday and then a post-mortem analysis the day after.

Cheers!
-Len Shneyder | @lenshneyder
IBM EMM Product Marketing MGr.

Unica