Web 2.0 A Definition

Web 2.0 can be really difficult to define but I've just a read this post on web 2.0 by by Sean Carter at ClickZ Experts which makes some real sense.

So what is Web 2.0? Here are six elements that define the change in how we all think about and use the Web:

Web 2.0 is about data abstraction. All those Web 2.0 functions people love to talk about, such as tagging, sharing, XML, open APIs (define), and mashups, only became possible because we now understand how to free information from containers. Though the Web credo "information wants to be free" has been around for a while, we've only recently been able to make it happen. Pulling information out of proprietary containers allows you to do pretty much whatever you want with it, whether driving collaborative sites, interfacing with mobile devices, or something else.

Web 2.0 takes broadband and Moore's Law for granted. Sites like YouTube and Google Docs & Spreadsheets wouldn't be possible in a non-broadband world populated by powerful computers. All Web 2.0's multimedia features, especially video, start with the assumption bandwidth is basically free and readily accessible.

Web 2.0 is about connections. Connections between people, between sites, between the Web and mobile worlds, between buyers and sellers. Web 2.0 includes all of them. At its heart, the new Web is about moving from a one-to-many publishing model to a many-to-many one.

The Web 2.0 revolution puts people first. All the tagging, social content, social networking, blogging, and virtual communities people point to as examples of Web 2.0 come out of this. It's perhaps the most widely recognized aspect of what's changing. But putting people first is more than just connecting them or allowing them to post content. It's also understanding people use the Web. The needs of the user (not the programmer, marketing director, or information architect) come first.

Web 2.0 is about allowing people to manipulate data, not just retrieve data. The AJAX revolution isn't that it lets you make zippy interfaces that kind of look like real desktop applications in a browser. It's that it does away with the old Web 1.0 model of request page/get page/view page technology all of us were used to. Contrast the old MapQuest "point and zoom and pan with buttons" interface with the revolutionary interface Google Maps deploys. All of a sudden, we're actually in there with the data, moving it around, playing with it, and interacting with it in real time.

Web 2.0 is about doing stuff on the Web that can't done in any other medium. Functionalities that have generated so much Web 2.0 hype are all things that wouldn't be possible without the Internet. Period. Much of Web 1.0 tried to shoehorn old media models into the new technology, often with bad or even disastrous results. All the bad thinking of the past decade or so revolved around the misperception that the Web is "like medium X, only different." The Web isn't TV with clicking. It isn't print with the ability to link and embed multimedia content. Podcasting isn't radio you can download.

You get the idea. To truly do Web 2.0, you must do something that absolutely can not be done without the Web.

Email Marketing Why Bother?

• A well-targeted email marketing campaign is an extremely responsive way of raising awareness or prompting any given action. Open rates and response rates can vary, anything from 10 - 50% are not uncommon depending on degree of targeting
• It allows you to send very targeted messages to specific customer groups
• It allows you to reach very large numbers of people very quickly
• It allows you to take advantage of other “media” owners email lists through placing your content onto a well-known and trusted media portal’s newsletter or outbound email
• It is very easy to track open and response rates as well as resulting behaviour e.g. which web pages were visited and for how long, what content a visitor interacted with etc.

Email Staying on the Right Side of the Law

• Email campaigns must comply with Data Protection and Anti Spam Law
• Websites must use a Data Protection Notice when collecting personal information such as email addresses.
• You cannot send unsolicited marketing communications by email to individual subscribers unless the recipient has given his prior consent.
• Websites should obtain prior consent by including an opt-out tick box as a part of the data protection notice.
• All marketing emails should provide an easy way for users to opt-out or unsubscribe from receiving future email.

Email Lists and where to get them

• Email works best when it is relevant and timely - campaigns should always be segmented.
• Outsourced email lists are expensive but if well targeted can provide high response rates.
• Response rates vary between 2-5 % from outsourced lists to 3-40% for own customer lists
• Your own customer email list can be built organically using traditional marketing to attract customers to your website
• Make sure the email list you do use is permission based

Top Tip: Email works best when it is relevant. Relevant campaigns drive 9 times more revenue and deliver 18 times more net profit than broadcast email. Jupiter Research.

Email Marketing - How To Not Get Lost In The Spam

• 40% of all email is considered to be spam – 12.4 billion spam emails are sent everyday.
• Filtering out spam from genuine email is achieved using content filters by ISPs and individual users.
• Content Filters differentiate spam by identifying spam techniques or “spam signatures” with in email. Increase delivery rates by ensuring that your emails do not contain these signatures by mistake.
• White lists and Safe Sender Lists are compiled by Internet Service Providers and by email clients such as Microsoft Outlook 2003. Messages from white lists will always be allowed through.
• Emails where delivery has not been possible are said to have been bounced – bounce rates should be monitored as they are a measure of the quality of your email list.

Email Filters and How To Get Past Them

• Make sure your HTML code confirms to W3C standards - broken code will trigger email filters.• Avoid using inappropriate punctuation such as @ and ! with in words.
• Do not use phrases such as for free! and order today in the message body.
• Do not use white as a text colour.
• Marketers can encourage recipients to add you to their safe sender lists by including an Add To Contacts button on all emails.
• Make sure your emails are always relevant and timely so that recipients do not add you to their Junk Folder.

Email Marketing - Bounces & How to Minimize Them

• Monitor email bounce rates - if your rate continually rises above 5 percent, you may have list input or quality issues.
• Add an e-mail address update link to your e-mail and a profile update form to your web site.

Email Marketing - Designing An Effective Email

• Emails can be sent as HTML or plain text - most newsletter subscribers today prefer the attractive nature and usability of HTML emails.
• HTML creates well branded, usable and attractive email messages that have much higher click through rates.
• Email promotions seek to get the recipient to take an immediate action.
• Email newsletters are about building long-term relationships with customers
• In the commercial environment Microsoft Outlook has a penetration of 75% and Lotus Notes a further 5 to 10% of the market.
• In a consumer environment AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail/MSN comprise almost 66% of email recipients.

Email Marketing - HTML Design Issues

• Keep emails between 500-600 pixels wide
• Use fonts such as Arial and Times New Roman
• Do not use white as a font colour.
• Include a link to a profile update that allows recipients to update their format preference.
• Message file size – aim to keep message size down to 40-50Kb

HTML Dos:

• Code emails as a single web page
• Make sure your HTML code confirms to W3C standards. Check your code as broken code will be picked up email filters.
• Keep emails between 500-600 pixels wide – the message windows of popular web based email services such as MSN/Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail are 500-600 pixels in width. Wider emails will force the recipient to scroll horizontally.
• Use universally supported fonts such as Arial and Times New Roman.
• Use a font point size no smaller than 10
• Cascading File Sheets (CSS) – avoid using css if possible as many email clients do not render css correctly. If you have to use CSS then choose embedded styles known as inline. This means that the link to the style sheet is placed inside the HTML body tags.
• Include a link to a profile update that allows recipients to update their format preference.
• Message file size – aim to keep message size down to 40-50Kb

HTML Don’ts

• Do not include scripting
• Do not embed images in emails – images should be hosted this ensures proper rendering and minimises file size.
• Avoid using forms as these are stripped out by MSN/Hotmail
• Beware of using white as a font colour as many spam filters are suspicious of the white font tag as spammers often use white on a white background to hide information from recipients.
• Phishing is the online industry nickname for the effort to collect sensitive personal and financial information by sending forged emails that purport to be from authorised agencies such as a bank. Mozilla Thunderbird and AOL 9.0 feature phishing scam detection that will effect how your email is treated. These email clients look for where the display text is a URL. If the displayed text is different from the actual url then the recipient is alerted. Most email providers encode urls for essential tracking of clickthroughs therefore always use a word or phrase as the hyperlink anchor text.

The Subject line

Top Tip: Subject lines should be branded, brief and convey urgency

The Sender Line

Top Tip: Configure the Sender or “From” line to show the company or brand name
Email Marketing - The Message Body
• Always put the most important information at the top left.
• Place hyperlinks throughout the email and make sure that all images especially logos are clickable links – the more hyperlinks the better!
• Use images with strong calls to actions to encourage recipients to click through to the website.
• Use image Alt Tags so that recipients on dial up can see the information during loading.
• Make sure you have a balance of text and image links in case images are disabled.
Email Marketing - Measuring My Return on Investment
• Integrate your email campaigns with your web analytics programme so that you can track return on investment.
• Marketers who integrate web analytics with their email marketing programs improve the results of their campaigns.
• Campaigns that are integrated with web analytics on average produced much higher open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates.
Track the following metrics:
• E-mails sent
• E-mails delivered
• E-mails bounced (hard bounces, soft bounces)
• E-mails undelivered
• E-mail forwards
• HTML open rate
• HTML click through rate
• Text only click through rate
• Time and day of responses (as a chart)
• Unsubscribe requests

Email Marketing - Testing & Optimisation

• Time of email delivery is an important driver to campaign success. Avoid weekends when most spam email is sent.
• Wednesday is the most popular day for opening emails.

Good Calls To Action

This post at grokdotcom.com compares the calls to action appearing on web browser sites:

"First off is the Firefox page. Their Call to Action does so many things right. The non-standard shape stands out from the background of the page, and has been given a persuasive color that draws the eyes to it. They've even used it to reinforce their brand. Within the Call to Action, Firefox lists the benefit and tells the visitor exactly what he is getting. Directly below the Call to Action, Firefox provides links that answer visitors' questions if they aren't quite ready to take the action Firefox wants them to take.

Opera is up next. There is a lot going on with this page, and the Call to Action isn't necessarily the main focal point on the page. The arrow doesn't necessarily speak to me, but the button is a bright green and stands out some. There are no links to answer visitors questions and the shape is pretty standard and ordinary. The shadowing certainly helps it stand out as something that should be clicked. Opera does a good job, but can certainly find ways to improve.

Example 3 last (and least) is Internet Explorer. The Call to Action doesn't stand out anywhere on the page. In fact, the only thing that stands out here is their branding. This seems to be all about them. The only thing they could have done to make it stand out less is placing blue text on a blue background. The key is having your Call to Action stand out. Microsoft needs to distinguish its Call to Action so people can tell that this is where they need to click to download their browser. Highlighting some text in blue isn't enough."

The post then goes on to out line a small number of recommendations for good calls to action: which should be:

*Distinctive - they should look different from other actions people can take on your page.
*Obvious - don't crowd your Calls to Action or confuse people by making the click anything less than intuitive.
*Communicate benefits. - tell people the value behind taking the action.

And the one I had not really thought about before and will be addressing from now on:

Answer questions - if there's a reason someone might hesitate to click, address it as Firefox does.

Good Calls To Action

This post at grokdotcom.com compares the calls to action appearing on web browser sites:

"First off is the Firefox page. Their Call to Action does so many things right. The non-standard shape stands out from the background of the page, and has been given a persuasive color that draws the eyes to it. They've even used it to reinforce their brand. Within the Call to Action, Firefox lists the benefit and tells the visitor exactly what he is getting. Directly below the Call to Action, Firefox provides links that answer visitors' questions if they aren't quite ready to take the action Firefox wants them to take.

Opera is up next. There is a lot going on with this page, and the Call to Action isn't necessarily the main focal point on the page. The arrow doesn't necessarily speak to me, but the button is a bright green and stands out some. There are no links to answer visitors questions and the shape is pretty standard and ordinary. The shadowing certainly helps it stand out as something that should be clicked. Opera does a good job, but can certainly find ways to improve.
Example 3

Last (and least) is Internet Explorer. The Call to Action doesn't stand out anywhere on the page. In fact, the only thing that stands out here is their branding. This seems to be all about them. The only thing they could have done to make it stand out less is placing blue text on a blue background. The key is having your Call to Action stand out. Microsoft needs to distinguish its Call to Action so people can tell that this is where they need to click to download their browser. Highlighting some text in blue isn't enough."

The post then goes on to out line a small number of recommendations for good calls to action: which should be:

• Distinctive - they should look different from other actions people can take on your page.
• Obvious - don't crowd your Calls to Action or confuse people by making the click anything less than intuitive.
• Communicate benefits. - tell people the value behind taking the action.

And the one I had not really thought about before and will be addressing from now on:

• Answer questions - if there's a reason someone might hesitate to click, address it as Firefox does.