Here is what you get;

- full featured Savicom Pro license for 30 days
- send up to 300 KB or 10 to 20 mailings (estimated)
- no send limit on number of recipients during the promotion
- no credit card or payment required for the offer, just use it
- reconfirmation of your list is not required (no double opt-in like AWeber, Constant Contact, MailChimp and others require)
- value can be anywhere from $19 to $4,999 US depending on the number of recipients
- after 30 days, then the standard Savicom Pro pricing applies
- valid for new Savicom clients only

To redeem this exclusive offer, you must visit the link below, sign up for a free trial account by clicking on the “Free trial” button on the right-hand side and then call Patrick Scoggin directly at Savicom (415-962-8016).

http://www.charlwood.com/savicom

Step #1

Rather than going to the OpenID Foundation site and sifting through various relatively complicated code libraries and documentation, I suggest you visit JanRain (the leading OpenID solution provider) and sign up for an account at RPXNow.com. Once logged in to your account, click on the “Create New Application” button, “Get Started” under the “Basic Plan” (free for up to 6 leading social networking sites – all you really need to hi 95%+ of social network users).  Then enter your application name, and the domain on which you want optimize your registration process.

By signing up for an account with JanRain, they save you time by instantly connecting you with the numerous social network APIs to figure out what user information can be shared with your site.  They also provide a nice little reporting interface on user login activity.

Step #2

Now it’s time to add some code to your website.  While still logged in at RPXnow.com, under the “Setup” area in the right hand margin, go to “Quick Start”. Choose if you want your sign-up menu to pop-up, or be embedded.  I always prefer embedded code since many browsers will block pop-ups these days. So, click on “Embed Instructions”, and be sure to copy and paste the code provided onto the page where you want users to sign-in or register.  Note: you will need to change the code where it say “your_token_url” to the URL where you send people after then login in (this is the PHP page of code I provide in Step #3).  This token URL will be a coded page (e.g. PHP) where you receive the open ID authorization for this user (and get information from their social network, such as Google Account username if available etc.) and then redirect them to a user dashboard or elsewhere.

When logged in at RPXnow.com, under the right hand side “Setup” menu, you’ll also have to click on “Configure Providers” to choose which social networks you want to allow into your sign-in process. Under “Settings” you can add URls to your Privacy Policy and Favicon image.

Step #3

Now here’s the trickiest part: setting up the code on the token URL page to authenticate the sign-in.  This really just means that you need to have code here that proves or validates that the user is a member of a specific social network, and then receive a coded URL (their OpenID) which is unique to them.  This coded URL (identifier) will allow you to retrieve all kinds of fantastic user information (without having them input it all over again) from their social network user account. Bear in mind that passwords are now obsolete with the use of OpenID.  I realize this is a bit hard to get your head around, but it does make sense, since you only need a single unique variable to track users who already have accounts at Facebook, Google etc..  As a result, passwords are never available for retrieval using this single sign-in process.

Using PHP, I’ve provided working sample code here for your review and implementation (commented for PHP newbies and just anyone who can cut and paste).  On line #10 of the code, you’ll need to input your “API Key” code which is found on the main page of your specific application which you set up at RPXnow.com.

'apiKey' => 'CUT AND PASTE YOUR API KEY HERE FROM YOUR RPXNOW ACCOUNT PAGE',

Note, in this php code that I’ve just requested the user’s unique identifier (their OpenID url) as well as their preferred username (if available, some social networks don’t share this) and saved them in session variables as per below.  There is more information available depending on the social network, but this is what I’ve decided to provide in this example.

$_SESSION['user'] = $profile['preferredUsername'];
$_SESSION['open_id'] = $profile['identifier'];

As you can see from above, all the user information is stored in the $profile array, and so you just have to look up what user info you want here, and pull it into a variable.  So if you wanted to pull gender info which returns “male” or “female”, then use: $sex =  $profile['gender'];

For you techies, I’m using the “json” and “curl” coding methods to retrieve data, which most servers support but if not, talk to your ISP. And finally, at the bottom of the page, you’ll see a redirect to “logged_in_page.php” which is the destination (or dashboard) page a user will find themselves at once logged in.  And that’s really about it!

And the benefits to your website registration and conversion rates are enormous.  Did you know that for every extra date field of information you ask for at your website, you lose 5% to 10% of your visitors? Even if you don’t ask for fax#s anymore, many people these days don’t even like to use email addresses for user IDs anymore, due to the risk of SPAM or overzealous email marketing.

1. Social Visitors Don’t Do Anything

If you’ve signed up for any of the leading social networks, then signing into an OpenID enabled website is a breeze. As of September 2009, participants in OpenID included most of the social networking big guns : Google, Microsoft, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo, AOL  (LinkedIn, Bebo and Friendster are not yet onboard). And now with major retailers like Sears and Kmart, as well as open source software leaders such as WordPress: if you don’t implement OpenID, then you are missing out on a huge opportunity to improve your web service adoption rate.

2. No More Passwords…

The best thing about OpenID I think is that passwords are now obsolete.  At first, it’s hard to get your head around this, since we are so ingrained with a username/email and password combination implying security. In fact, I remember the days of Automated Form Completion software (Gator) which saved lots of time with filling in usernames and passwords.  Then came more intelligent browsers such as IE 8 and Firefox 3 which automatically prompt you to have this sign in data remembered. Well, now with web 2.0 sites requiring usernames and passwords, the amount of registration data you have to hold onto is ridiculous.  Thankfully, OpenID solves this by allowing you to sign in by simply choosing which social network service you are already signed up with, and then signing in using their login data without even having to renter that username/password.  If you already have that social networking service live in a browsing session, then you will be able to login with only a single click.

3. Improved Registration Rates

The OpenID foundation website provides all the resources you need to get OpenID up quickly on your site.  That said, this is not for novice developers to use, since there are a series of programming language libraries and scripts to load onto your server prior to doing so.  The fastest way I’ve found to add OpenID to your website sign-in process is via JanRain’s hosted OpenID service.  They allow you to quickly offer a friendly user interface for letting your site visitors securing sign-in via up to 6 major social networks for free.  It took me under 1 hour to integrate OpenID into my blog discovery site.  I also used their support forum, and quickly addressed a specific PHP issue I was having within the first support reply.

1. Fast To Get Started

You can download a free version of WordPress from WordPress.org, or sign up for a free account at WordPress.com. Downloading and installing your own version of WordPress gives you by far the most flexibility for customization for your internal blog, extranet or intranet. If you want to customize your theme to better match your corporate look and feel or colours, you may need to have your in-house IT folks do that. WordPress is built on the most widely used programming language (PHP and MySQL) and is easy to install on any server in less than 5 minutes.

2. Cheap For A Customized Theme

If you want enhanced options such as a more highly customized and optimized theme or design, you could hire a specialist (like us!) for a small fee.  A developer who is a WordPress expert will be more well versed in any coding customizations and plug-ins to apply to get you the features/functions you want. I may also recommend buying a custom theme with more additional features (such as a Flash slide show on the home page), will cost you generally under $100 US, and provide even more out of the box functionality and fantastic design. StudioPress.com and ThemeForest.com are 2 of my favourite WordPress theme sites.

3. Private and Secure

There are many ways to ensure your intranet (or extranet) is kept secure and private from competitors.  The first and easiest way is to install it within your corporate firewall.  You can also place it in an internal directory and use an .htaccess file that secure it via username and password.  Other options that enable a secure and private intranet (extranet really) outside your firewall include plugins that require a user register prior to posting or commenting.

4. Easy To Control Content

Your blog administrator can easily setup permissions to allow your company to keep tight controls on published content.  As a administrator,  you can setup a user account for employees which is specific to their content publishing abilities.  You may choose to allow one department to post content which is then approved by you the administrator or editor (in WordPress, this is called a “contributor”.  You may also choose to restrict posting ability to those who are set as “subscribers”.  When you log-in to your WordPress Dashboard, user permissions are found in the “Users” menu on the left hand side. After clicking on “Add Users”, you then assign a username, password, and other details for that new user.  At the bottom of the new user setttings, there is a pull-down menu for setting the “Role” of your users (administrator, editor, author, contributor or subscriber).

5. Leverages Social Networking

If you are looking for some honest (and even anonymous) feedback for human resource issues, your corporate retreat or even your website – then WordPress plug-ins can help.  Implementing an internal survey such as SurveyGizmo can allow you to create a customized contact us page, survey and even connect those results into SalesForce.com or othe CRM software.  You may also want to allow your employees to follow your blog on Twitter or Facebook, and so can download a plug-in that instantly posts your company content to Twitter.com so employees on the road (e.g. sales staff) can pickup secure and private updates which on the road.

So, I took their free “test drive” for 30 days for $1, and then $19 per month after which includes up to 500 subscribers in my list.  The reason they say it’s not free is to reduce SPAM/hackers taking a test drive and then sending out unsolicited emails and then dissappearing. They offer a 30 day money back guarantee, so I thought that’s a reasonable risk I’m willing to take (even though I’ve got more than 500 subscribers alone from my free b2b email marketing ebook).

When you finish signing up, you are brought to a main control panel where you can name your list, add subscribers and set up options for a web sign up form and confirmation email.  A wizard guides you through the process.  Unlike other email software providers, AWeber guides you through every step in detail, including cutting and pasting a subscription form onto your site.  They also get so detailed as to allow you to customize your unsubscribe page with your logo and custom copy – very impressive!

When you import your list, you are limited to 2,000 per day (Savicom allows you to import up to 50,000 emails before they ask for a faxed contract to ensure SPAM law compliance). Also, any emails you import will receive a subscription confirmation message (which you can customize) to confirm that they have agreed to receive information from you.  Optionally, if you’ve done this already with another email software vendor, you’ll need to prove to AWeber that they were double-opted in using your old email service. Many other email providers do not take this extra step to ensure that they are double opted-in. Note that your sign up confirmation email will be manually reviewed after 1 business day by AWeber. This is a little labour intensive, but again ensures the maximum likelihood for optin legal compliance.

Their help wizard also guides you through writing a welcome email to those who just subscribed via web form.  This email includes many tools such as an HTML set of templates, personalization and automatic wrapping of text to be optimized in most email applications. If you are stuck along the way, AWeber includes some really great video tutorials.  They range from getting started with your account, to setting up an HTML email template to adding a web form to your site.

There are some great RSS options with AWeber.  Firstly, you can automatically convert your HTML email or newsletter to RSS with a simple checkbox option.  There is also an RSS to Email function (Blog Broadcast) which allows you to instantly convert your RSS feed from your blog to a nicely formatted HTML email newsletter format.  You can choose to send automatically when the number of new blog posts reaches a specific threshold, or send on a specific day immediately or on a regular schedule every day of the week.

Well, there is a solution, it’s free and you may not need to sign up for any new accounts at all.  If you currently use either WordPress for your blog (WordPress.org is the most popular blogging software available), and/or Feedburner (an RSS feed service now owned by Google) for managing / tracking your RSS subscribers, then you are all set.  If not, both are easy to sign up for and setup.  Here’s how you do it;

WordPress

OK, there are 2 ways to get a blog set up with wordpress, both of which are free.  If you already have a web hosting account (I’d likely think you do if you host a website for your business), then they should very likely support a custom installation of the WordPress blog software (you just need them to support PHP/MySQL – most do since these are open sourceE).  Just go to WordPress.org to download it right from the homepage, or check with your host if they already offer the latest download.  My hosting provider at DreamHost actually provides WordPress blog setups with a 1-click install – super easy and fast to get up and running, especially for newbies. I’ve set up over a dozen blogs using this service alone.

FeedBurner

Now owned by Google, Feedburner has expanded it’s features to include not only RSS hosting and tracking services, but also email marketing.  If you already have a Google Account, then you can simply login to Feedburner and start tracking your RSS feeds. You need to copy your WordPress RSS feed to Feedburner to start tracking it.  Then, just click on your RSS feed, and go to the “Publicize” tab.  From there, under “Services” on the left, you’ll see an option for “Email Subscriptions”. This function allows you to automatically send email updates every time you update an article via your RSS feed.

There is a 24 hour delay prior to sending out an email, so that you can finalize edits or updates.  You can then add a snippet of code into any HTML page which will allow visitors to subscribe via email.  Or you can simply include a link to a form hosted on Feedburner. Either way, your articles are nicely formatted in HTML and sent out with images and links all as you lay them out on your blog.

Webinar Promotion Timeline Best Practise

2-3 weeks prior to the event	1st opt in e-mail list rental to gather new prospects 1st internal email deployment to existing clients
1 week prior to the event	2nd e-mail list rental and internal mailing (back out those already registered!)
2-3 days prior to the event	Mail all those registered with a reminder of date/time of webinar
Day before	Send a reminder e-mail with date/time and agenda
2-3 days after	Follow up with 2 e-mails: 1) E-mail presentation link and product info to registered attendees 2) E-mail a “sorry to have missed you” message to those who registered but didn’t attend with product info and dates for next webinar(s)

HOT TIP: Often publishers offer remail discounts on 3rd party lists from 10% to 25% off or even free during non-peak times of the year.

In a recent survey, b2b marketers were asked, “Which offers are ‘very effective’ for generating high-quality leads?”  Their top five picks, ranked in order, were:

1. Free trial demo or download – 54% of software marketers and ASPs ranked free demos as highly effective B2B lead generation tactics, compared to 28% of hardware marketers and 24% of those marketing services calling them ‘very effective.’
2. Webcast or webinar – 41% of business software marketers and ASPs ranked webcasts as highly effective, compared to 31% of business-to-business hardware marketers and 33% of those marketing business services.
3. White paper – All business technology marketers rated white papers as highly effective B2B lead generation tactics, with 35% of software marketers, 36% of hardware marketers, and 31% of those marketing services calling them ‘very effective.’

Here are 3 proven techniques to improve email delivery rates;

1. Keep your subject lines short and benefit oriented (the US Law requires that subject lines are “non-deceptive” and free of problem keywords). Do not include adjectives or adverbs which are too sales oriented. Words such as “free” or “save” or “discount” will often get blocked/filtered as a false-positive. The US Law requires that you display your legal company name as the FROM label (vs a personal name), and this also helps improve your open rate.

Poor subject: “Download our free comprehensive white paper on low cost SAFE and *SECURE* online storage solutions for your business!”

Issues;
- way too long at 117 characters including spaces – should be not more than 75 characters to avoid getting cut off in e-mail programs
- “free” and even “cost” are SPAM trigger words that may cause filtering
- “comprehensive”, “safe” and “secure” are adjectives that are too sales oriented, and not benefit oriented
- ALL CAPS and using extra characters and punctuation such as “*” and “!” will increase the likelihood of SPAM filtering

Good subject: “Complimentary white paper on storage solutions”

HOT TIP: Shorter subjects get higher responses.  Keep subjects under 75 characters – which prevents them from being cut off in the majority of e-mail applications such as Outlook. Subjects as short as 15 to 25 characters work best on mobile devices such as the Blackberry and iPhone.

2. Use e-mail filter prediction software such as SPAMAssassin.org open source e-mail filter software to give your HTML e-mail a SPAM rating score of 0 to 5 – with 5 being most likely to be caught in filters. This software offers specific coding tips and modifications to allow you to lower your SPAM rating. Many hosted e-mail marketing solutions such as Savicom.net (I use this service) come loaded with SPAM Assassin software to use to test your HTML e-mails.

HOT TIP: On average, 80% of people use “Preview Panes” in their e-mail application, so include your main offer copy and call to action in the top 2 inches of each message. Be sure to add descriptive text to the “Alt” tags on each image for those whose e-mail programs disable images as the default setting.

3. Optimize HTML e-mail code by keeping image size to a minimum (less than 50Kb, preferably 25Kb), and maximizing visible HTML text. Too many large images that contain non-coded text will raise a red flag to e-mail filters. Be sure to add descriptive “ALT Tag” text to each image you do use in case images are blocked. Test text only e-mails when sending to vertical markets who have savvy IT recipients – e.g. I always recommend sending text only e-mails to CIOs or CTOs.

HOT TIP: Optimizing your HTML e-mail content with short subject lines, few images and over 100 words of visible text in the HTML email will greatly help prevent false positive SPAM filtering. Ignoring this can reduce your response rates by up to 50% or more.