Blog: Interviews & Buzz

We love hearing from Campaign Monitor resellers, especially when they focus on, or take an interesting approach towards selling email to a specific niche market or industry sector. So it was a pleasure to chat to Anna Penrose about her new business, MailAway. With a focus on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, MailAway has worked tirelessly to make email attractive to folks who may not have large marketing budgets, or loads of staff.

Educating clients with user guides

"The video demos serve to show prospective clients how easy Campaign Monitor is to use."

In our case study, Anna explains that one of the first challenges in engaging clients from the SME sector is the lack of knowledge about basic email marketing concepts. To address this, the MailAway site has been designed to be not only very presentable, but detailed. Alongside sample reports, an email design gallery and clear-cut pricing information is a series of freely-available video user guides.

So, why video user guides? Not only do they give new clients a simple, visual idea of what this email marketing thing is all about, but it cuts back on the hands-on time that clients need to get started with their own campaigns. A great example of this is MailAway's 'A whole campaign in five minutes' video, which reassuringly explains the process of getting a campaign out in the time it takes to brew up a coffee:

Accompanying this guide are excellent resources regarding subscriber management, reporting and even the use of custom fields.

That's not to say that MailAway is entirely hands-off. Anna stresses the importance of offering solid email marketing advice to your clients, as it will pay off handsomely in the long run. If anything, the great results that their campaigns have experienced are a testament to the success of this approach.

Many thanks to Anna for her insight into marketing to SMEs. To read more on MailAway's approach to email marketing, check out our case study, or browse through our other customer stories from Xero, 37signals and more.

If you've been keeping an eye on our growing collection of customer case studies, you may have noticed our latest with Matt Weinberg from Vector Media Group. Based on his experience with a client base that spans from small online stores to large publishers, we asked Matt to explain how email marketing has complimented his design agency's service offering. He also touched on some of the challenges that his design agency has experienced in selling email, then shared a neat success story, after one of his clients turned around their email marketing efforts with a combination of testing and a review of their newsletter content. Finally, we asked Matt for a 'pro tip' - his response may give you a little food for thought! Don't miss the full case study.

Even though most of our customers are on the other side of the world, we still actively make a point of getting in touch with individuals to find out what they love, or think could be improved about Campaign Monitor. Firstly, it's because we're a pretty social bunch here... And anyone can tell you that I personally love a good chat. Secondly, it's simply awesome to hear it from folks like you that use Campaign Monitor as part of a day's work.

"The design needs to work in the email clients their customers use, not just on the web browser preview we show them!"

So it was with great pleasure that I got to meet up with Matt during a flying visit to New York City. Over coffee, Matt shared with me how his design agency uses Campaign Monitor and what could be done to make it a more competitive service to use. I didn't want his thoughts to go to waste, so afterwards, we stayed in touch and got rolling on this case study.

Many thanks to Matt and Vector Media Group for providing a design agency perspective to our questions. Check out the new Vector Media Group case study, or browse through our other case studies, including Q&A's with 37signals, Xero and more.

Imagine a conference that's only 1 day long, has 1 solid schedule of talks and comes at the price of a fancy lunch. Sounds crazy? Then perhaps you should check out Web24, a web design & development conference launching on 14 August in Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

So, apart from the above, what makes this gig different from other web events? For one thing, Web24 isn't limited to practicing web professionals - students and those new to the web industry are welcome to join and learn from more experienced folks on the day. Like most meets, Web24 is also a great chance to pair and network, however this time it's with local web folks and doesn't require the usual 2-hour drive down to Sydney.

Best of all, Web24 is looking for speakers, so if you're keen to warm up the mic, take a look at the talks lined up in Web24's schedule and get in touch with the organisers. Our very own Mathew Patterson will be there talking up an email storm, so expect to be in great company, too! Regardless of whether you're a ninja and novice developer, get on up to the Central Coast and make a day of Web24. The fancy lunch can wait.

Campaign Monitor are excited to sponsor (and speak at) Web24. If you have an event you would like us to get behind, get in touch via our Giving Back Program.

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.