dotMailer's Christmas and New Year opening hours

Just a quick update on our opening hours over the Christmas break.

All 3 of our offices will be closing at 12pm on Christmas Eve, remaining shut until Dec 29. We'll be running a skeleton support service (by email) from Dec 29 to 31. We then close, reopening on Jan 4 for business as usual.

Have a great Christmas break!

dotMailer monthly invoices are now downloadable

Hot news from our Accounts Department... you can now download your monthly dotMailer invoices, for your convenience.

Just click on MY ACCOUNT in the top right hand corner of your dotMailer screen, then choose 'My Sends Invoices'. A full list of all your current and previous invoices for the year will be displayed.

Click on the Preview icon to open a printable PDF of each invoice.

By the way, paper invoices will still be sent to you by post, and paying by Direct Debit means you need take no action.

dotMailer forecasts your next month's numbers

We've introduced a nifty new reporting feature for dotMailer white label account holders.

Called 'Predictions' the reports use your previous week's email sends and billing data to estimate your next week's and month's numbers.

To access these reports for your dotMailer white label account, just go to Admin in your account, choose Statistics, then choose Predictions.

Remember, dotMailer can handle all your invoicing for you, free of charge - all you have to do is collect the money. If you're not already taking advantage of this service, call your Account Manager on 0845 337 9170 to find out more.

Getting the best performance from your systems and our API

At dotMailer, we provide a rich and versatile programmer's API which can be used to integrate any system with dotMailer.

It's really popular with users, and we're keen to make sure you're getting the best performance out of the API - so we've introduced a 'usage monitor' to your account.

If you use our API to integrate with other systems, the usage monitor will show you how many 'calls' your software is making to our API. A 'call' is an exchange of data, to and from your system and dotMailer.

We don’t impose any limits on the number of API calls you can make (unlike other large software-as-a-service businesses), although a fair usage policy applies.

The monitor located under ‘My Account -> Current Month Activity’, so if you use our API, keep an eye on this section to see how your integration is performing.”

API partners sought

We are always looking for partnerships with any developers wanting to build a connector to dotMailer. If you have any ideas you'd like to discuss, please give us a call on 0845 337 9170.

New dotMailer feature - triggered emails following 'free trial signups'

We've just released a new feature in dotMailer that is perfect for dotMailer White Label account holders.

Our new Trial Signup triggered email option enables you to set up campaigns that dotMailer will send automatically, following any of your prospects signing up to a free trial of your white labelled email marketing service.

You can set up a single triggered campaign, or a series of campaigns that are sent automatically over a period of time/milestones.

For example...

1. Right away after a prospect signs up on your website to an email marketing trial through your dotMailer white label account, they are automatically sent a personalised HTML email. Your email thanks them for signing up, offers them document links to useful quick start guides and provides reassurance and contact information to encourage them to start using the trial.

2. Five days after your prospect signed up for the trial, they are automatically sent an email with practical hints and tops for successful email marketing, and some useful downloads.

3. One week before their trial is due to expire, they are automatically sent an email reminding them of this, and offering them the chance to call you to extend the trial or get more help.

You can set up as many triggered emails as you choose, and subject line split test them to determine the most effective series.

All these steps can help to increase your conversion rates and build profitable prospect and client relationships for your business - without you having to lift a finger.

How to set up your Free Trial triggered campaigns in dotMailer

It's so easy to set up these triggered campaigns. Just create your content as a normal campaign, and in Edit Settings, choose Advanced Settings and Campaign Type as Triggered.

Next, go to Triggered Campaigns in the right hand menu, under Campaigns. Choose 'Add New', and at stage 2 select TRIALACCOUNTCREATED as your data field.

For detailed guidance on setting up triggered email campaigns download our Triggered Email Quick Start Guide or use the Help option in the app.

What's new in dotMailer?

Here's a quick catchup on just some of the new features and tools we've added to dotMailer over the last month or so.

'Email Client' analysis tool.

Do you know how many of your recipients use, for example, Outlook 2007 or Hotmail to open your emails, or are viewing your emails on their iPhone or Blackberry?
Our new Email Client analysis reporting tool will tell you.
Now you can focus on getting your templates and campaigns right for your own users, ensuring your emails are designed for maximum impact within your key email clients, with images switched on and switched off.
Access your Email Client Analysis report by clicking on the magnifying glass icon next to the Unique Opens link in your campaign reporting overview screen.

Website sign up forms can now include field validation

We've made it easy for you to make sure your website visitors complete all the form fields you require when signing up on your website.

Just tick the 'Require all fields to be filled in' in the Contact Forms tab under Contacts: Advanced features.

For detailed guidance on how to create web signup forms using dotMailer, click here.


ATOM & RSS Feeds

dotMailer now allows you to add RSS & ATOM feeds in your email campaigns. You can specify the address to call the feed from and on sending your campaign dotMailer will include the items in that field.

You control the number of items shown and the format of the item. Easy peasy content for your campaigns!

Just use the Insert Action button at the top of the Editor and choose the RSS Feed tab on the far right. It really is that easy - a classic example of dotMailer's 'NASA technology, with a Fisher-Price interface'!


New, even larger file size limit for the dotMailer Document manager
We've just scrapped the 5 mb upload limit on our dotMailer document manager, and increased the limit to 10 mb.
Now you can host even larger files online through dotMailer, and your contacts can download them directly from your emails.We've loads of new features for dotMailer planned for 2010. Keep watching this space.

dotMailer's Inside Knowledge seminar returns for 2010

Our hugely popular 'Digital Marketing Inside Knowledge' seminar returns this January 21st to London.

This half-day seminar is for every marketer who wants to learn the industry secrets, tricks and techniques for getting more response, more web traffic, more conversion and more business from their email and digital marketing.

• Create emails for maximum response
• Drive quality search traffic to your website
• Convert more visits into more actions

Three practical sessions from digital marketing experts at the dotDigital Group

1. Email Effectiveness in Practice

dotMailer Director Tink Taylor kick starts the afternoon with Email Marketing - Effectiveness in Practice.

Providing a checklist for email best practice alongside the results from our Hitting the Mark email marketing benchmarking study, Tink reveals the practical lessons to be learned from the expose of over 40 major e-tailer's email marketing campaigns.

2. Making your email marketing campaigns work for you

Skip Fidura - MD of website design agency, dotAgency- shows you where, how and why you should be using triggered email campaigns to up sell, cross sell and convert your site visitors and customers.

This session will open your eyes to the potential for your business to create highly effective, targeted, automated email marketing campaigns and maximise your ROI.

3. Search - the 10 things you need to know for 2010

Alex de Albuquerque, Head of Search at dotSEO - dotMailer's sister SEO agency - takes you step by step through your top 10 rules for effective search marketing in 2010.

Stay for drinks with the dotDigital Group team

Make sure you stay for drinks and the chance to talk to Tink, Skip, Alex and digital experts from the dotDigital Group, as well as other guests at the seminar.

During this time we will also be providing a practical demo of dotMailer Enterprise and showing you how to use the platform to build powerful triggered email campaigns in double-quick time.

Hurry - Limited number of free seats

Initial free places are limited for this seminar. To reserve your seats contact us now at marketing@dotmailer.com or call us on 020 7654 8664.

Central London venue to be confirmed. Seminar starts at 2pm on the 21st January and winds up at 5pm.

Digital marketing company jumps 174 places in a year

dotMailer is part of one the UK's most successful digital marketing agencies - called the dotDigital Group.

I'm proud to say dotDigital has been enjoying a great deal of press and accolades recently, the latest of which was our receiving a prestigious Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA award at the end of November.

We were awarded with a Fast 500 ranking last year, but this year we jumped no less than 174 places, from number 456 to number 284 in the list of the top 500 fastest growing technology companies.

So much of dotDigital's phenomenal growth is down to our dotMailer email marketing customers coming back to us for help with developing their websites, SEO and ecommerce solutions - all services we can provide through dotDigital.

So a big "thank you" to all our dotMailer users who have already discovered that there are many more ways we can help you succeed in your digital marketing, and have helped to put dotDigital Group firmly on the map.

What do days make? Prizes!

By Cliff Guy

We've had some great feedback on the digital advent calendar game we're running right up until December 25.

Users are liking the fact that it's not a gimmick - we really are giving away a stack of prizes every day - each one hidden behind our special advent calendar windows.

We launched the dotDigital Group advent calender on December 1st and after 4 days we've already given away...

• A Fortnum & Mason's luxury Christmas hamper


• 14 £5 Amazon vouchers


• 25 dotMailer Site and Survey builder licences


• 17 dotMailer Lead Vision licences worth £150 each


• 34 personalised Christmas e-cards - worth £99 each


• 42 bundles of 10,000 dotMailer email sends - worth £225 each


• 1 email health check from our Consultancy team - worth £500


• 44 SEO health checks


• 48 website health checks


• 306 Digital Marketing Guide downloads
  

All that, and we're only on day 4! Eat you heart out Father Christmas.

Online 'games' like this are a great way to interact and engage with your customer base. We've had lots of really positive comments from people using the calendar, and several enquiries from clients who want us to create a similar calendar for their own business next year.

If you haven't registered on the dotDigital advent calendar yet, then waste no more time. There are still 21 days of prize giving left, as a write this blog.

To checkout our prize-packed digital advent calendar and to register to play, go to
http://advent.dotdigitalgroup.co.uk/