Blog: Interviews & Buzz

In the last few months, we've focused on producing useful case studies that reflect the diversity of Campaign Monitor's customers. Our most recent addition to this mix showcases Campaign Monitor's role in growing a successful online storefront. Thanks to Adam Neilson of Keiki Enterprises, we had the opportunity to discuss how his online store for the minui HandySitt high chair fused both Campaign Monitor and Shopify to seamlessly transform leads into customers across the US and Canada.

"We sent an email campaign to key buyers in the fall... The same people that called us after getting the email had not returned our calls previously."

The minui HandySitt seating range is distributed by Adam and his partner, who do all the website, email design, video production, SEO and PR work required between themselves. In this interview, Adam shared with us some practical insights as to why they prefer email over channels more conventionally used for marketing furniture (eg. direct mail), alongside how they collected their subscriber list. So if you're planning to launch an online store, or currently manage one, take a look at this case study and minui HandySitt's elegant newsletter design!

Read the full minui Handysitt interview, or browse through our other case studies, including Q&A's with 37signals, Xero and more.

Thanks to Adam Neilson of Keiki Enterprises for participating. Visit minui HandySitt for a great example of Shopify & Campaign Monitor in action, or download the Shopify app for your own store.

We have the honor of getting behind 5by5's excellent new podcast, The Pipeline, as hosted by Dan Benjamin. Featuring interviews with the who's who of web innovation, it kicked off to a strong start this week with an interview featuring Jeffrey Zeldman.

"If there's one thing I can advise everyone in our field to do, it's to get better at speaking... And listening."

In this inaugural episode, Zeldman provided some great insights into his ever-expanding enterprise, which now includes the web design and user experience consultancy, Happy Cog Studios, and the Apart franchise, including A List Apart, An Event Apart and now his new publication, A Book Apart. Alongside discussing his current and upcoming projects, he dispenses some great advice on planning your own event and the importance of designers acting as an advocate for the user's needs, not just the business imperatives of the client. He also stresses the importance of developing effective communication skills - an area in which he believes many designers are lacking.

We're looking forward to future episodes of The Pipeline, given not only its great delivery so far, but a high-profile line-up including Jason Kottke, John Siracusa from Ars Technica and Gary Vaynerchuk (who we featured in this blog). So if you're into design, development, publishing or have an entrepreneurial streak, it's certain that there will be something in these interviews for you.

Subscribe to episodes of The Pipeline either via iTunes, or by simply downloading them from the The Pipeline's site.

We're pleased to share with you a great interview with Cabedge, being the most recent addition to our collection of case studies. The Tennessee-based agency and runner-up in our holiday email competition provided insight into how email marketing and social media fits into their service offering, alongside advice on billing clients and keeping your message simple.

There are some real gems in there and on the cusp of certain hyped product announcements ("iPad, anyone?"), a solid reality check, too. From Chris Blanz at Cabedge:

"Technology changes so fast and opinions change even faster. What is cool now, will likely be passe not too long from now. The one thing you can count on being the same is the need for companies to reach out and stay connected with their customers."

Read the full Cabedge interview, or browse through our other case studies, including Q&A's with 37signals, Xero and more.

Thanks to the team at Cabedge for participating. Take a look at their portfolio for further examples of clean, cohesive design, as well as an impressive array of integrated projects.

Questions? We're running a series of Q&A's with established designers, developers and agencies regarding email and marketing in general, so let us know in the comments below if you have a question you would love to have answered in our interviews.

Email Bacon has combined all the best elements of a successful Campaign Monitor rebrand – a striking design, sense of humor, business-savvy and the smell of bacon. Matt Adams from factor1 spent a moment apart from the fry pan to tell us about offering affordable email marketing services and being a ‘purple cow’.

First things first - why is everything better with bacon?

It’s consistently advertised that bacon makes everything better. You can’t watch an hour of TV without seeing at least one commercial with bacon. When we market to a potential customer, we can count on the bacon concept being reinforced all day long. Hopefully customers will find Email Bacon to be memorable.

The Email Bacon site is brilliant, how did it come together?

We try to align all of our factor1 branded sites to a minimalist, core message approach. We like to have fun, and want things to be simple for our visitors and clients. Everything we create has the aim of keeping the heavy thinking on our end, so clients simply receive the content they came looking for. People are busy, and the last thing they want is to read 3 pages on why they should use Email Bacon.

How did you come up with your pricing model?

We wanted Email Bacon to be affordable, but we didn’t want to give the farm away. We also wanted to dissuade anyone not serious about using it. Thus, we don’t offer free setup (even with a stock template), since even account setup and walking clients though the product takes time.

We are pretty fast coders, so we kept the setup fee small and manageable for most clients, yet enough to cover the development costs even if a client never sends a single email. In addition, we make a profit from clients sending their campaigns via Campaign Monitor. It’s our goal to have some automated income without tons of handholding.

How have you been spreading the word?

We are keeping Email Bacon semi low-key. With so many players in the email marketing services arena, we can’t justify spending much on ad campaigns. So we have been sticking to our current client base. With over 100 unique visitors to our factor1 site daily, we hope to see some of them convert to Email Bacon. Many of our existing clients ask us about email marketing – viewing the Email Bacon website is 10 times better than any brochure we can send them.

What are your plans for Email Bacon in the future?

Right now, we are letting it cook a bit longer. We have some other big projects hovering around factor1 - all these projects cross-promote our additional services. So, as we sell full web or branding services to our clients, we promote Email Bacon.

In the future, we’re planning to reduce our setup cost (to as low as $99), and further automate our sign up process, potentially with the API. But that’s a bit down the road. We also have plans to include video demos, as we understand the power of video to promote our message. We already have the equipment, we just need the time to record and edit.

Any tips for other designers considering reselling Campaign Monitor?

Be remarkable. There are thousands of email systems out there, but most do not have the great features that Campaign Monitor has. This should be a huge advantage, but you will still have to be competitively priced, as email marketing is considered to be a commodity these days. If you are remarkable, a ‘purple cow’ as Seth Godin says, at least you have a shot. We hear daily that Email Bacon is fun, light hearted, and looks like a great service. People are talking, and it’s not about how low-cost Email Bacon is, but how they remember our brand.

Campaign Monitor has generated over $2 million in profits for designers like yourself. Find out how you can use our white-label product to set your own prices and make money when your clients send their own campaigns.

Have you ever "brought the thunder", hussled or "crushed it"? If you have, you'll know Gary Vaynerchuk, the wine business guru who has exploded into the internet and social media world over the last couple of years. If you are an awesome designer but struggling to find new clients or build your business, he's an excellent source of advice and motivation.

Gary's personal style is hugely excitable and passionate, he's like what Australia's Crocodile Hunter would have been if he was hunting $10 bottles of Merlot instead of crocs. At Campaign Monitor we've watched Gary's videos and talks and been impressed with the way he approaches marketing and branding. Although his delivery is a bit different to ours, his advice and direction really match the way we like to work.

So it was awesome to get the chance recently to ask Gary a question. We wanted to know what he would say to web designers about building up their business. Watch the short video below to hear his advice. You may already know the theory, but hearing it from someone who has actually done it, and who is a consumer of design services is really valuable.

That's quite a challenge, to dedicate a good chunk of your day to doing things which are not the actual design work. If you've got your passive income happening, you might be able to spend a bit more time listening to what people are looking for, and working out how you can provide it.

Gary also dropped in an extra special plea on behalf of Fix Outlook:

All the design chops in the world won't help you if you can't get the attention of client's who need them. If you need to get pumped up about building your brand and your business, definitely check out Gary's new book, Crush It! which focuses on turning your passion into real money.

Did you find the video helpful? Or maybe you have some advice to share on building up your web design business. Leave us a comment below and we'll send a sweet Campaign Monitor shirt, plus a copy of the book to our favorite commenter over the next week.