What a genius.

No, really. Anyone who hangs out with and composes songs for John Hodgman gets my vote. He’s been a featured interviewer for a popular magazine, he’s a former software developer, and he’s very involved in making sure that he consistently crafts his personal brand.

What Jonathan Coulton has done for online music (a la Radiohead) is about to make him into more than just a cult icon. I believe it’s about to make him a very wealthy, front-running music industry veteran who will be sought out for his strategic services as well as continuing to build his own catalog.

If you haven’t heard of Coulton’s work, check out his site and take a listen. It’s seriously entertaining and sometimes hilarious.

We had a great launch on the second phase of a large-scale project (mostly rebuilding their entire back-end) for Vantel Pearls. Their home-grown content management system and e-commerce solution gives them a huge opportunity to utilize their nationwide network as both an online and offline revenue generator.

This is an important step for not only Vantel Pearls, but for other Direct Selling companies as they move from party or distributed services models to the online world in hopes of adding revenue from their field sales force.

The press release may be read on the Visual Activity news section, or you can visit the Vantel Pearls main Web site.

Some e-mail marketing campaigns being sent these days are being sent by, as my friend Ethan Marcotte would say, SPAM Cannons. He would be right.

The traditional e-mail marketing methods are still in practice and they still get clicks if you design and develop them correctly.

Don’t Spray It

Creating one e-mail with many calls to action is probably not the best method if you are following the latest trend of personalization in e-mail marketing (and, to be honest, all online marketing). Rather, it’s nice to know that the content is being delivered to you because you’ve shown a genuine interest in a product or service.

With the degree of competition and the level of frequency with which we all receive electronic marketing, there should at least be an effort in keeping the message clear and quick.

Target

In a smaller organization, it’s even more important to target the correct audience for an e-mail campaign (there’s more revenue riding on it). Start out by selecting the list of people who have joined via the Web site. They will be your first line of communication. They’re also more likely to get involved in a word-of-mouth campaign once they receive the mailing.

Second, use the same messaging for the list of people who were automatically added and never opted out, but try to increase the messaging to an awareness piece rather than a sales piece. The awareness piece should have the same calls to action, but it should also include information about the company and why they’re receiving the e-mail.

Test

Time is tight and resources are limited, but how will you know if what you’re doing has enough impact without testing the e-mails or by even reviewing in  detail the results of the conversion report?

Testing can be expensive. It can leave you with a mixed response that doesn’t always give a clear cut answer as to whether it was the messaging or the design. Our answer is to test both. Send one targeted e-mail with a text-based call to action that has more information than glitz. Send the second e-mail with images and more pizazz  and then wait for the conversions.

There are studies done regularly regarding the usefulness of images and/or text, but not every audience is the same. It’s sometimes costly, both in resource and cost, but it’s well worth it to know how to effectively sell to your audience.