The subject of the newsletter below was the first thing to get my attention. It read: “Is this goodbye? CNET will miss you.” I couldn’t help wonder what it was all about, as I skimmed that subject line (I skim due to the volume of email I receive on a daily basis). In an instant, they had piqued my curiosity and I found myself opening their email!

Next, I saw the big CNET logo, and then I read their first paragraph, where they explained that they “loved it when I would click “open” on their emails” and that they wanted me back. Cute. The rest of the email was very simple, and set out to show me why I should be opening and reading their emails based on the value they provide. So, now that their brand is firmly back in my mind, I may well open more of their emails in future.

What do you think of this strategy? Have you used a different “list refresh” strategy or had someone use a successful one on you?

Landing Page Design Trends for 2012 – Website Magazine – Website Magazine.

You can read more about iOS5 here.

You can read more about the new iPhone 4S here.

But why would you go to the trouble of making your website mobile device friendly? Browsing the internet via a mobile device is at an all time high, and increasing exponentially. Some statistics: in the US mobile data traffic increased by 260% from 2009 to 2010, and the sale of smart phones outsold the sale of PCs in Q4 2010 for the first time ever.

The availability of the iPhone 3 with it’s superbly easy to use interface, followed by iPhone 4, and the proliferation of HTC and Android devices together with improving data plans from the major telecommunications companies I believe has changed the way we think about browsing the internet. You can find out when a movie is on, answer your question or solve an argument immediately, check what your friends are up to, and find the weather report, all in a matter of seconds without even thinking about booting up your PC or Mac.

Click through to read our “3 preliminary steps for creating a mobile device friendly website“, followed by the “5 activities required to implement your strategy”.

This article gives more details about the change.

You can take the tour from here: https://plus.google.com/up/start/?sw=1&type=st to learn about it.

I think that the concept of Circles really fixes a difficulty with other social sites – the ability to replicate online the different “circles of people” that you mix with in real life.

As soon as Google Plus is readily available, we’ll be exploring it to see how it can help our clients’ businesses, so stay tuned.

Here’s a great article which considers the differences between Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus, and what the advent of Google Plus may mean for social media.

What do you think about the article / my comments?

Unfortunately they got the company name wrong!

A couple of years ago, we added Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter icons to images available in eNudge and suggested that you should use these to point people to your organisation’s presence on these social sites (review our June 2009 newsletter). Sharing your email content in this way requires you to hyperlink the icons to a version of your email message that you have placed on your website. However, to make this less work for you, we’re considering adding the ability to insert automated links to “tweet this” and “share this on Facebook” to your eNudge email messages. That will allow your contacts to share an online version of your email message (of course without the personalised content) which will be hosted on the eNudge server; a bit like the functionality to “View this email in a browser”. So that we can gauge interest, please let us know by commenting on our blog if you would like the social sharing functionality added!

An article by David Ramli in the Financial Review yesterday with the title “Cole’s high-octane online shopping push” described Cole Supermarket’s trial program allowing customers to purchase groceries online and then collect their order at Coles Express store at a Shell petrol station.  It seems that customer feedback indicated that uptake of online grocery shopping in Australia has been slow, because customers don’t want to wait around at home for their order to arrive.  This new model will allow the customer to collect their order anytime between 3pm and midnight on the appropriate day.  The Shell service station will have large fridges installed to hold customer orders.

Personally, I can see the merit in their new distribution method, having been put off myself from ordering groceries online for the reason mentioned above.  Having groceries delivered to work is not usually convenient either, due to lack of space in the fridge at work and the awkwardness of getting the food home.

Will other retailers be able to piggy-back onto this new distribution channel, particularly those with temperature sensitive products??!  Will impulse buying move to the Coles Express store instead of the supermarket?

In the same article, reference was made to new and significant increases in spending on online stores planned by Woolworths and Harvey Norman (yes, the same Gerry Harvey who condemned online shopping because of it’s impact on Australian retailers).

What do you think?  Would you spend more or less if you ordered your groceries online?  Are you participating in the Cole’s Click and Collect 6 month trial?