In the context of visual and user interface design, chrome is a moniker that refers to the elements in design that gives users the ability to control, operate and manipulate the screen’s content. Chrome elements are part of the underlying system of a program, regardless of whether it’s a website, application or operating system. Chrome likely takes its name from how old automobile bodies had chrome on the exterior; this is a similarity to chrome elements placed around the screen’s edges. Think of the taskbar for computer operating systems such as Windows, toolbars and ribbons for word processors, and URL fields and browser toolbars for web browsers.

Chrome Problems

By far the biggest problem associated with chrome is that it eats up space on your screen—space which should ideally be allocated for content. Chrome is particularly a cause of design issues on mobile devices, where space is more important than ever.

However, even larger desktop screens can run into issues caused by chrome obesity. Take for instance the ribbon or toolbars of Microsoft Excel, which use up space that would have otherwise allowed users to view more rows and more data.

In web design, chrome obesity is also evident. Facebook, undoubtedly one of the top 5 most-visited sites in the world, features chrome elements that eat up over 50% of the screen space. The social media site’s news feed gets half, or 48%. If you factor in the browser and operating system’s chrome elements, Facebook’s news feed only makes up for 40% of screen space. It’s a figure that’s consistent with most sites on the web today.

Addressing Chrome Obesity

As a rule of thumb, it’s always best to be aware of chrome obesity, particularly its accumulative effects on the user’s experience of reading or viewing content. Many designers have found a workaround to chrome obesity by building features that temporarily hide some chrome elements, however care must be take when choosing this option. Controls for hiding chrome features must be very consistent and simple but not obtuse to operate. Controls such as hovering the mouse pointer are poor, since they are prone to accidental use.

The bottom line is that chrome elements play an important role in delivering a seamless user interface experience. However, it’s important not to overdo it. Don’t you think?

The advent of behavioural targeting in online marketing has forced many marketers to redefine their strategies. The concept behind behavioural targeting lies in building profiles around web users by inferring what their interests are based on the websites they visit.

For a search engine like Google, ads are targeted by recording data on what searches users make. Google’s ‘Demographics’ is an analytics feature that gives valuable insight into how Google targets users with online ads.  For website owners and marketers, making proper use of Google’s Demographics feature helps ensure that you’re getting the most out of the mileage of your ads.

Why is this a big deal, you may ask? For one, this option helps marketers running PPC campaigns through Google save time and money by not targeting ads to web users who are either not interested, or are negatively predisposed toward the products or services being advertised. Moreover, having direct access to information about what a target market wants has always been the holy grail of sorts for marketers.

However, it must be pointed out that despite the usefulness of Google’s targeting tool, it still uses a lot of guesswork at its heart. The guesses may have become more educated, but they are still guesses nonetheless. This is glaringly evident in Google Ad Preferences, a search engine feature that allows users to select what type of ads they want to see. Here, Google places its assumption of a user’s demographic data, such as age and gender. Unfortunately, the search engine often gets such data wrong, which again proves that much of targeted marketing is still guesswork.

Whether or not targeted or fixed Internet ads and results are the future of online marketing is up for debate. However, it would be foolish not to give it a try as a marketer. Any information to go with is better than no information at all, and that’s what targeted marketing is about at its core: providing the most accurate audience data as possible.

Talk with Enform to know more on how best to take advantage of this internet marketing tool.

Outlook’s Junk Filter can cause major issues for campaigns when it comes to message with images. Default settings on Outlook don’t resolve images which is not only an inconvenience but also increases the risk of your audience not getting your message. Outcome? Recipients simply delete the message.

Spam filters have gone beyond just detecting key words and phrases in emails, forcing spammers to insert their content in images. Filters in turn have been designed to be suspicious of image-heavy messages. As a rule of thumb, emails must not be composed of over 40% percent image coverage. Text on the other hand, must be at least 60% larger or more prominent than images.

Other particulars email marketers need to take note of when it comes to images in emails include the number of images in a message, which should not exceed three, the web host of these images, which must be credible and the layout of these images, which should not be touching. Large images are also a major trigger of spam filters, so make sure you make clever use of banners instead.

Finally, be careful when using image banners to fill the top of message headers. Send yourself a test and think of what your customer or recipient will see if images are disabled in their mail client.

• Does the message clearly show who is talking to them and what it’s about, despite the lost images?
• Is there sufficient content to encourage action like click-thru or further reading?
• Does it LOOK like Spam?

Also, remember that despite having standards, HTML code is an imperfect medium as it’s interpreted differently by different mail clients and browsers. Too often we imagine (and obsess) over how our message looks to the recipient in a perfect environment. Reality is that the environment they will use is rarely perfect so your message needs to be adaptable yet clear.

Take a look at the example below from Google. If anyone has the money and the smarts to do whatever it takes they have.   Enform Automailer has Spam and mail client test capability built in to help you check this stuff and make sure you get maximum audience engagement and conversion.

In this time and age of mobile devices capable of streaming web content and digital media, having a website that has a separate mobile-optimised version is an investment that pays for itself over the long run. Mobile devices have grown to become a staple in web usage, so much so that analysts observed a 1000% rise (0.7% to 7.1%) in mobile browser usage from 2009 to 2011.

Problems in Mobile Usage and Web Design

The advent of mobile browsing has not surprisingly, thrown a proverbial wrench into the business of web design, what with the smaller screens of mobile devices. It’s a common mistake for people to believe that offering the full website to mobile users is important to having the best experience possible. However, what good is that content to mobile users when they can hardly use it?

Mobile Site Experience, Richer

That is the problem mobile-optimized websites attempt to solve. Numerous studies on mobile usability have all found the same results: mobile users have a richer and more convenient experience on mobile optimized sites than full sites. Mobile optimized sites may be leaner and have lesser web features, but users will have a better time navigating and interacting with a well-designed mobile site. Besides, most features available on full sites are also available on mobile sites—they just require an extra click or swipe for access.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, the basic desktop user interface is just poorly suited for the mobile platform. Desktop and mobile UIs differ greatly, from interaction controls and techniques, to the way users read and view online context, to the manner of sending and receiving data to and from the site. This isn’t to say that desktop-based web design can now be shelved, as it is still the best option for the majority of desktop users. There is a symmetry to all this, which is why the best solution is to offer both options alongside each other. Creating a mobile-optimized site doesn’t have to be costly and it allows you to tap into multiple segments of your market.

If you need help in deciding the mobile or full site question, Enform’s always a click away.

Findings from the e-tailing group’s 11th Annual Survey are in, and the results are hardly surprising.

According to e-tailing group President Lauren Freedman, the survey’s findings have encouraged them to adopt a forward-thinking mindset for 2012. She predicts that this year will be messy for retailers, as they juggle the importance of new marketing channels and device growth with the mainstay power of websites when it comes to delivering a worthwhile shopping experience. The key, she notes, is adapting to the needs of today’s customers and making the necessary changes to strategies in order to take advantage of today’s highly connected market.

The 11^th annual survey involved 147 senior executives tasked with ecommerce responsibilities. Respondents were asked a total of 55 questions to glean insight on their marketing strategies for 2012, channel initiatives as well any marketing and merchandising initiatives for the year.

Priorities

One of the questions asked in the survey is, “What are the 3 issues that will take up the most time in 2012?” to which 31 percent responded by saying that focusing on enhancing customer experience is the most important. This is followed by 22 percent of respondents who said they’d be spending the most time on marketing and 19 percent who would choose to concentrate on channels.

Marketing Channels

In a world full of channels, the survey found that 99 percent of respondents were selling on the Internet, while 61 percent already developed a mobile commerce presence. When it comes to specific channels, 86 percent of those surveyed ran email marketing campaigns, 54 percent have store channels, while 48 percent still ran the traditional catalogue-based model of business.

Tactics

The survey also touched on the top merchandising tactics respondents looked to employ in 2012. Respondents were asked to rank 50 features by importance using a 5-point scale, with ‘5’ being highly important and ‘1’ not being important at all when it comes to increasing revenue and generating leads.

The survey showed that keyword search is at the top of the list, with 98 percent of those surveyed giving it a neutral/somewhat important/highly important rating. This is followed by the traditional technique of sales and specials at 95 percent, email marketing and seasonal promotions at 94 percent, new stuff at 93 percent and product reviews and ratings at 91 percent.

Source: http://www.e-tailing.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/04-12-12_Press_MerchantSurvey12_FINAL-2.pdf

One of the goals of implementing an effective email marketing campaign is to be noticed, but how do you do that when emails don’t even make their way to the receiver? This is a question tackled by a blog post by Being Smarter.

These days, it’s no longer enough to just think about ways to get emails past the watchful eyes of people wary of SPAM. People are no longer the biggest problem, as software and SPAM protection tools have taken their place. One such piece of software that’s indiscriminate in blocking emails with the slightest hint of SPAM is the Outlook Junk filter, the bane of every email marketer.

To help marketers get past this overzealous gatekeeper, Being Smarter highlighted a few rules to take note of in order to get emails to the intended receivers. The rules are based on a discovery by MAPILab, a company that reversed engineered Outlook’s SPAM filter from its 2003 version and beyond. MAPILab points out the steps Outlook takes when determining whether email is SPAM or not.

Some of the rules are:

For subjects and email details

• Messages sent on weekends are more likely to be identified as SPAM than messages sent on weekdays.
• Messages with a subject composed primarily of uppercase characters are more likely to be connected with junk email
• Subjects with multiple duplicate characters are more likely to be labelled as SPAM, particularly when duplicate characters resemble the meaningless sequence of numbers, symbols and letters found in SPAM messages.

For email addresses

• Outlook’s SPAM filter is programmed to detect and make a correlation with email addresses that contain numbers in their first 8 characters.
• Email addresses with the words, “Sales,” “Profit,” “Success,” ”Enhance,” and”Mail,” are more likely to be recognised as SPAM.

For message body

• A message body that contains keywords such as “advertisement,” “extra income,” money back guarantee,” “credit cards accepted” and more are likely to be labelled as SPAM.
• A message that starts with “Dear friend” will set off some red flags on Outlook’s junk filter
• Messages that contain symbols such as “000,” “$$,” and “!!” are likely to be marked as SPAM.

The good news is that Automailer automatically tests for a lot of these when running design and anti-SPAM tests however you need to be mindful of some finer points that relate to different industries and product types.

We’re also happy to review your other EDM programs or channels to make sure your message gets through and gets read.

According to a recent forecast by ZenithOptimedia on the global spend on advertising, expenditures in the industry are set to grow by at least 4.8 percent this year, crossing the $489 billion USD mark. This shows a slight increase from the 4.7 percent forecast done in December last year; the upgrade is attributed to recent moves by corporations making substantial investments in marketing, and the increasing unlikelihood of a total economic collapse of the Eurozone. ZenithOptimedia also predicts a 5.3 percent increase in spending by 2013 and a 6.1 percent by 2014.

Areas to Undergo Growth

Both TV and Internet advertising are expected to undergo significant growth this year until 2014. It’s expected that expenditure in TV advertising will cross the $193 billion USD threshold in 2012, increasing by another 13.5 percent or $215 billion USD the following year.

Spending for Internet advertising on the other hand, is forecasted to grow to$88 billion USD in 2012, growing further by another 35 percent to $118 billion USD by 2014.

Other advertising platforms expected to experience growth, albeit at a far smaller rate, are cinema, radio and outdoor ads. The old powerhouses of newspapers and magazines on the other hand, will face a slow decline over the next few years.

TV Still Reigns Supreme, For Now…Internet at a Close Second

TV advertising still dominates global ad spending, with a  market share of around 40 percent, which is expected to remain steady well until 2014. However, industry signs show that Internet ad spending is only set to increase up to 22 percent by 2014.

The growth in Internet ad spending is expected to be powered by display ads and paid search. Spending for display ads alone is expected to top $33 billion USD in 2012, reaching an all-new high of $48 billion USD by 2014. Likewise, paid search spending is expected to increase from $42 billion USD in 2012, to $55 billion USD in 2014.

Enforms believes the continuing growth of internet advertising is for good reason. If you want to know more, we’re just a call away.

Beginning an email marketing campaign can be somewhat tricky, since you need two things to get started. The first is a solid email strategy, the second, a good list of email subscribers. It’s crucial to have the two factors together; a good strategy without a list will stagnate in no time, while a list of subscribers without a solid strategy only causes people to unsubscribe to emails.

Most marketers concentrate on designing email campaigns, focusing on how to code and send campaigns to subscribers, but not too many people many consider the importance of building a list effectively through a set of techniques.

Here are some tactics you can employ to build your newsletter audience to actually put your email strategies to good use.

1. 1.       Offer an opt-in option at the purchase stage

Your customers are most interested in what you have to offer at the purchase level, that much is obvious So it definitely makes a lot of sense to make it easy for new customers to sign up to your newsletter when they’re about to check out. Fortunately, there are many web apps and buttons designed for this sole purpose, so just take your pick.

1. 2.       Want signups? Offer high quality content

When it comes to sending and receiving emails as part of a business-to-business campaign, the webinar has shown to be one of the most effective tools to grabbing the attention of business people and turning them into solid contacts.

Yet even for the average Internet users, high quality Web content is one of the best ways to send as much relevant information as possible to an audience. Videos are by far the most popular medium, but don’t be limited to them.

1. 3.       Don’t forget the basic subscribe form

Having a subscribe form on your website may seem too obvious, but there’s a good reason behind its popularity. Research shows that around a 3^rd of email marketers swear by subscribe forms, and they claim that it’s the most effective in acquiring new newsletter subscribers. The key here is to make the form subtle yet grabbing enough to warrant a click.

Tactic #1: Catch new subscribers at checkout

If you’re selling a product or service on your site, providing the option to join your email list during the purchase stage may seem like a bit of a no brainer, but it’s often overlooked. Web apps like Lemonstand and Digital Delivery App make it super-easy to prompt paying customers into signing up, as do these e-Commerce integrations for WordPress, Shopify and more.

Considering that ”90% of email marketers say adding an opt-in request to the purchase process is at least “somewhat effective” at growing email lists”, shouldn’t it be a tactic to make sure you have place in 2012?

Tactic #2: Offer valuable content, get email signups in return

If you send or receive business-to-business (B2B) campaigns, you’re probably aware of the power of the webinar when it comes to educating customers and making contacts. MarketingSherpa’s research backs this up, with 90% of email marketers saying they are at least “somewhat effective” at building lists and 41% saying they are “very effective”. For the rest of us, offering great online content can substantially lift email subscribe rates. In one A/B test, it was shown that featuring a video demo on a contact page could result in 80% more responses!

Keeping in mind that not everyone is a webinar or YouTube star waiting to happen, there’s always the option of having your customers sign up for exclusive content, or a sneak-peek of an upcoming product.

Tactic #3: Slap a subscribe form on your site

Thankfully, one of the most obvious and easy-to-implement tactics is also one of the most effective. It’s no surprise that “75% of email marketers” use a subscribe form on their, or their clients’ site to collect new subscribers. They don’t have to be as subtle as the customary ‘subscribe to our newsletter’ in the corner of a page, as this round-up of inspiring subscribe forms illustrates.

To get started with adding a subscribe form to your site, grab our ready-to-use code in your Automailer account, or check out our collection of subscribe form plugins. We’ve even got a neat little AJAX subscribe form which you can use!

What else can I do to grow my subscriber lists?

As you can see from MarketingSherpa’s results, list-building isn’t limited to the 3 tactics above. Collecting signups in-real-life through events or in-store promotions still ranks highly in the effectiveness stakes, as does collecting email signups through a Facebook page.

Don’t forget that the cornerstones to growing your lists are to stand out, offer value to subscribers and respect permission - once you have these sorted, the sky’s the limit!

Enform recently announced the release of its PARts product application data solution. The solution was created as part of a deal between Enform and TecDoc Australia, and is specifically geared towards dealers, wholesalers and manufacturers in the automotive aftermarket industry.

PARts is the first integrated system of its kind to use a global vehicle industry standard for sharing information about products with staff, clients and dealers. PARts is also capable of powering a company’s entire printed catalogue through a cloud database on the Web acting as a single product management solution.

Enform collaborated with TecDoc Solutions to tap into the company’s vehicle and product  classification database. From there, Enform developed a host of web based and desktop tools to control the system. Enform’s PARts system features a web hosted master database giving the convenience of cloud storage, paired with a unique range of SaaS (software as a service) tools.

Perhaps one of the best things about PARts is that it focuses on end-to-end solutions, and can even be connected to other standard data systems, such as North America’s ACES PIES standard. This effectively makes it far easier for manufacturers to transfer information and manage their customers’ web stores, regardless of which major market in the world they’re in.

Enform has designed PARts in a way that allows retailers and wholesalers to use the system to view supplier data registered with TecDoc. Users can do this thanks to a system-enhanced module that enables one to add unique “enhanced” data along with supplier data.

PARts is especially suitable for manufacturers of 4×4 and performance aftermarket products thanks to its ability to power retail websites that require media-rich content and higher levels of product detail.

Converting RSS to email for marketing campaign purposes is a functionality that’s been around for quite some time, however, Enform now offers a novel way to send RSS to email in a way that’s easier than ever for both email marketers and the target audience.

Enform is pleased to introduce Automailer Recurring RSS, a new approach to email campaigns. Recurring RSS essentially allows marketers to fire away a campaign email to subscribers each time an update or post is made on their website or blog. We can then provide with you with reports that help you understand where your site or blog visitors’ interests lie.

Some notable features of Automailer Recurring RSS include:

Comprehensive and Precise Reports

Similar to typical one-off campaigns, our tweaked RSS to email feature provides marketers with detailed reports on how well marketing campaigns are performing over time. This allows you to catch trends, see which posts were generated the most interest and even get a detailed look at the most popular posts ever.

Included in our reports are demographic data, location of readers by country and more.

Customizable RSS Design

Another notable feature of our new RSS feature lies in the ability for users to come up with their own design for recurring RSS, instead of being limited to an array of pre-designed templates. To customize the design or layout of your recurring RSS design, all you have to do is add some tags in the template language, giving you freedom over your Automailer campaigns.

Social Media Touch

We’ve also made sure to integrate social media sharing into your recurring RSS campaigns. Again, you can add social sharing HTML tags that allow users to share and “Like” posts on Facebook and send Tweets on Twitter to followers on the network.

Talk to us about Automailer and the new opportunities with RSS.