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You know what I love about the beginning of a new year? Things like resolving to try something new, the sense of turning a new leaf and the desire to start something fresh. So I thought we'd round-up a couple of our favorite emails around the theme of 'new beginnings' - let it be the launch of a new site, product, or moving to a new space. Lets get started.

Cabedge: Putting personality into it

A few months ago, our great friends at Cabedge launched a radically new company site. So radical, that they decided to send this proactive campaign in anticipation of what their subscribers would say. They're a funny gang and know it - the 'Top 5 beefs' does as much in the way of sharing their identity and brand of humor as inducing people to visit their site. Ten points for personality, a lovely layout and nice use of type, I say.

Alertful for Business: Graceful in all conditions

Talking about uplifting, here's a great example of a launch email that sure may look detailed, but comes back down to earth gracefully when images are blocked. The use of 'backup' calls to action (note the red 'Click here to try the service for free') is a technique we don't see enough of - but undoubtedly does its part in pushing response rates sky-high. Great work by the Email Spring team!

Flexibits: Focused on one task

When it comes to email designs, we've always said, 'keep it simple'. The Flexibits campaign designed by Komodo Media is a perfect example of this in practice, with its easy-to-skim message and a single call to action ('Grab a Free Trial!'). There's absolutely no visual clutter, or confusion as to what the email recipient should do after receiving the message - which I'm sure was their goal to begin with.

Different Projects: Picture this

Now, I know what we say about images in email (ie. be careful, they often get blocked), but this campaign by Different Projects has added some really eye-catching ones to great effect. The text-boxes tacked on top of the illustrations give visual depth to the design. As they contain actual text, won't disappear when images are turned off.

All around, a great way to announce a move, while wowing clients with a little creative flair.

Virb: Getting the message across

Finally, I wanted to showcase a corporate-style campaign. One that carefully balances copy with visual elements to communicate detailed information. If only to prove that such a thing exists. Duly, I came across this email announcement by Virb, which has a serious side, but doesn't forget to have a little fun while it's at it.

In appearance, it's totally austere - all clean lines and shades of business-like blue. But the text is full of personality, easy-to-read and is complimented by images of their upcoming product. It's almost the opposite of what many of us imagine a corporate email to contain: stodgy layouts, stock photography and endless columns of teeny-tiny text.

Hopefully you've enjoyed our brief round-up. If there are any particular themes you would like to see us cover (eg. emails for hotels, charities etc), let us know - we'd be happy to shine the light on some great examples for you.

I thought we’d kick off what should be a particularly fruitful new year by introducing a useful integration - Digital Delivery App. For those planning to sell digital content like eBooks, a Louis CK-style video or software, or paid subscriptions, this is a full-featured and remarkably easy-to-use service at a modest price. With Campaign Monitor integration built-in, this app can automatically add email addresses of paying customers to a subscriber list, which is ideal if you’re planning to send post-purchase autoresponder emails, notifications and product-related campaigns.

What’s better, the Digital Delivery App team offer fairly comprehensive support, via both their site and email. We took a moment to set up an account, upload products and get both Campaign Monitor and PayPal integration happening. Now, if only we really had something fancy to sell...

Add a 'Buy Now' button to your site in 10 minutes

The loveliness of Digital Delivery App is that it asks for so little, yet gives so much in return. Upon creating an account (free for the first 30 days), you are run through initial setup process that sorts out the fundamentals of selling content online - namely, selecting a payment gateway and adding something to sell. The fastest way to get up and running is to have a PayPal, Google Checkout, AlertPay or Stripe account already linked to the email address you signed up with... And of course, to have that ‘something’ either ready to upload, or already hosted somewhere.

What we found particularly generous is that the app offers to host your sellable digital content. Once you upload your files to the app, simply take the ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Add to Cart’ button code it generates for each product and add it to an existing site. It even generates license keys to prevent software products from being looted.

Alternately, you can host everything yourself and only use Digital Delivery App to handle the transaction side of things.

Once you’ve gotten to this point in the setup process, you probably would have noticed how all-encompassing the app is. It unfurls like a flower as you click on top-level options, revealing the facility to offer discount codes, create referral codes, send post-purchase order emails, sell packages of products and view detailed reports. There’s even an API and web interface for webhooks. While Digital Delivery App shares much in common with the big-name shopping cart and e-commerce apps out there, it does so without feeling bloated, or requiring you to install anything on your end.

Automate your post-purchase email marketing

Digital Delivery App scratches two little itches that we’ve had for a while now, being the sending of transactional email and pushing email addresses from checkout to subscriber list. As mentioned earlier, the app handles the sending of customizable, plain-text order emails, with a link to the digital item the customer just purchased. As a template already exists in Digital Delivery App for this, the app will automatically start sending these personalized emails from the very first order.

Secondly, once you’ve set up Campaign Monitor integration, you can count on Digital Delivery App to add the email addresses of new customers to an existing subscriber list in your account. All you need is your account’s API key and a List ID.

As a result, you can start sending a series of autoresponders upon purchase - for instance, polling new customers for feedback - or simply add email addresses to a ‘Paying customers’ list to receive relevant updates (taking into account permission, of course). Digital Delivery App also offers subscription-based transactions, meaning that you can offer paid newsletter subscriptions, access to exclusive tutorials or similar paywalled content for a recurring fee.

No win, no fee

Just like those legal practices you see on late-night TV, Digital Delivery App doesn't charge unless you make a sale during the monthly billing cycle. So if you take a few months off selling things, you don't have to cancel your account. All accounts come with a 30 day free trial (during which you don't have to commit your credit card/PayPal details), after which your plan comes into effect. With monthly plans starting from $9 USD per month, it's not exactly a wallet-burner, either.

After spending a few entertaining moments setting up a faux store for Minecraft maps, it was fairly clear to us that this will be a useful integration to customers who would like to offer paid content without having to use a fully-blown eCommerce platform. If this sounds like you, swing on over to their site, take a tour and give it a try. After all, good content sells - just ask Louis CK.