Voting is underway for SXSW 2011 panels, and this blog post is a shameless plug to drum up support for our MailChimp guys and gals who need your votes. Since SXSW is a community-driven event, the staff and organizers rely on community input to help gauge sentiment for the panels they’ll ultimately select. That being [...]

We recently attended a Microsoft event hosted by @glengordon on Windows Phone 7. Microsoft showed off a prerelease version of Windows Phone 7. And it looked pretty good. That said, it wasn’t without its shortcomings. Interestingly enough, Microsoft pulled an unMicrosoft and ditched the cruft of Windows Mobile <=6. You still create apps for Windows Phone 7 using .net — specifically Silverlight [...]

You probably already know that MailChimp has lots of ways to segment your lists and send a targeted campaign, but did you know you can also create a segment under the lists tab? By creating a segment under lists, you can see everyone who fits a certain segment’s criteria without having to create or send a [...]

In just under a year, MailChimp grew from 85,000 users to over 430,000. We couldn't have grown 5-fold like that without Omnivore.

We’re working on a new MailChimp website, and have been doing lots of usability tests. Not just on our own website, but on other websites we visit. We’re just using them to do everyday stuff (one test involved ordering Thai food on different mobile devices), and then observing the overall user experience. We’ve learned a [...]

Feast your eyes on this stylish email by Wordplay Media. The layout is brilliant, with just enough photos to keep it interesting and color blocks to organize an otherwise, quite lengthy, email. Along with the large headers, the blocks of color create a richness that is not only functional, but easy on the eyes as well.

We especially liked the small touch with the 3D-like footer image at the end of each section. It brings a nice separation while giving a kick to the content block.  The only thing we would have changed here would be to have the headers in actual text and separate them from those images. When images are turned off, the headers go away.  Overall, the email degrades with excellent grace.

Moving down to the end, the footer is quite nice with the Forward and Unsubscribe information being very clear and sized well.  They even saved room for a permission reminder in that small box.  All in all, this email by Wordplay is well thought out packing tons of information and creativity into a great campaign.

Like a blanket for taking convenient naps, there are some innovations that we get very excited about. This includes the Salesforce Connector for Campaign Monitor by SNB Apps, an integration which allows you to export your Salesforce contacts to one or more Campaign Monitor subscriber lists in only a few clicks.

The connector is available via a limited 30-day free trial, which you can use to kick the tyres on up to 5 Salesforce licenses. All you need is either a paid Salesforce Enterprise Edition or free Developer Edition account, plus your Campaign Monitor API key & API Client ID.

What can I expect from the trial version of the connector?

The trial edition of Salesforce Connector for Campaign Monitor does two things really well. First of all, it allows you to select contacts to add to one or more Campaign Monitor subscriber lists. And no, this doesn't mean that folks can mass-dump sales leads to an email list - you can only transfer contacts in batches of 10 at a time, plus the usual permission policies apply. Secondly, it allows you to manage your Campaign Monitor account from within a Salesforce tab, providing a unified, white-label email campaign workflow for you and your clients. The full, paid version of the connector extends this even further, which we'll discuss in a moment.

Note that due to limitations on the use of Salesforce's Apex Code, you cannot use this connector with 30-day trial accounts, or anything other than Enterprise and Developer Edition accounts. If you want to try Salesforce and this connector for free, sign up for a Developer Edition account.

Installing the connector

Unless you're the type of person that regularly solves Rubix cubes in 18 moves or less, you're going to find the installation and setup of a Salesforce connector to be relatively complicated, if not downright overwhelming. In anticipation of this, SNB Apps have provided an absolutely essential installation guide. The need for a guide (and at least 15 minutes of your time) isn't necessarily the fault of the developers - Salesforce really does try hard to do every task conceivable for salesfolk and marketers alike. And it results in setup screens like this:

Note that the setup options on display extend two across two page-heights and widths respectively. Don't know what you're looking for? As they say in developer-land, RTFM.

Adding contacts to Campaign Monitor

We fired up our Developer Edition of Salesforce to give the Salesforce connector for Campaign Monitor a go. Sure enough, after following the installation guide to the letter, we got it rolling. Our first taste of success was when we added a new Campaign Monitor tab to Salesforce:

You can name this Salesforce tab whatever you like, which is great news for resellers. Barely a few clicks later, we were also successfully adding contacts to our Campaign Monitor subscriber lists:

Just to double-check that the Salesforce Connector did as is marked on the tin, we took a look at our Campaign Monitor account. Lo and behold, the names and email addresses of our selected contacts had been added to a specified subscriber list:

One notable downside is that updates to subscriber details do not automatically sync between Salesforce and Campaign Monitor. If for instance, you change the email address of one of your Salesforce contacts, you have to add them again to your subscriber list and manually unsubscribe the original subscriber within Campaign Monitor. This is something that we've let the developers know about and hope to see improved in future releases.

The paid version of this connector includes unsubscribe management between Salesforce and Campaign Monitor (ie. 'unsubscribed' Salesforce contacts are marked as so), as well as the import of email campaign and subscriber activity reports into Salesforce. Although full-version pricing has yet to be announced, SNB Apps have noted that it will probably not cost more than $20 license/month. To try a full version of the connector, or to request further customizations, contact SNB Apps.

Given the considerable number of requests for Salesforce integration with us, we're expecting this will be well met by all manner of marketers. The ability to import and manage contacts and campaign results will hopefully improve the email campaign workflow by removing the steps between signup and sending email newsletters and updates to your active customers. At last, the power of Salesforce, combined with all the campaign creation, delivery and reporting goodness that you know Campaign Monitor for!

So if you've been hanging out for Salesforce - Campaign Monitor integration for a while now, we'd love to know how you go with the trial version of Salesforce Connector for Campaign Monitor. Please feel free to leave your comments and feedback below, or get in touch with the contact SNB Apps directly. And finally, happy customer relationship managing! At least, I think that's the term.

Using some design queues gleaned from our very own case studies, the creative tribe over at Carbon have come up with a very simple and effective email. First off, we really liked the fact they went for bold use of text instead of using images. The bright, purple title expresses the fact Carbon has a new look, simply put. Then, as a way to visually mimic the “de-emphasizing” of the text in question, the second part of the message is simply, light gray. A brilliant use of typography! Following, they give a short bit about their work including clear links and some vital contact information all the way to the footer. To sum it up in the words of the Carbon folks - “Bam!  There you go”!