This is a guest blog post contributed by Chris Byrne of Newsletter.ie.

So youʼve used email marketing tools to send email, are comfortable with designing effective newsletters and you track email open rates for your campaigns. So whatʼs next? This article on welcome series will show how you can produce more effective and meaningful results than just knowing who opened your email or clicked on a link.

Whilst a single welcome or activation email is useful, a welcome series is a more effective strategy to continually engage, connect and up-sell with your subscriber over time. Let’s admit it, we’ve often purchased something online, then months later cannot recall where we bought it, right? This lack of recall could, and very often does, drive your hard-won customer to the competition. A Welcome series can help avoid that. Let’s look at an example of how this might work:
Amy buys a pair of running shoes online on Monday. Great, she gets an activation email with the usual shipping and returns info. All good so far. Now let’s look at how a Welcome series differs to sending repetitive promotional emails that could drive Amy away from your product.

On Wednesday Amy getʼs the running-shoes and goes for her first 10k in them; all is good. The next day she gets an email asking “How was your run?” and reminds her of the basic steps to share her running experience online. 3 weeks later Amy gets an email survey asking for feedback “How are the running shoes working for you?” and “Here’s some great stories from other runners just like you” . A special offer for a sports bra is included; f this were Keith, heʼd have an offer on running socks. 6 months later Amy getʼs an email with an offer on the latest running shoe and because sheʼs purchased before, a coupon code is included that she can redeem online or bring in-store. So how do we do that, without sending the same email to every subscriber or worse, in the wrong order? With Autoresponders, you can set these messages up ahead of time and create the rules that will only send the relevant email at the right time and importantly, in the right sequence. And knowing gender with integrated apps like Rapleaf saves some embarrassment too; Keith would not be too impressed with a Sportsbra email !

These welcome series emails can be completely automated if your email platform supports this and can be easily integrated with your transaction systems. Communications which are relevant to your subscribersʼ preference and behaviours are more likely to result in repeat purchases from you -not your competition.

CHRIS BYRNE
NEWSLETTER.IE

This is a review of last week’s Annual Conference by Mark Rodgers of Cipherion Translations. Mark is also chair of the IIA Internation Working Group. This review was originally published on his own blog and he very nicely (cos he’s a very nice chap) allowed us to republish it here. Thanks Mark!

IIA Annual Conference: Open Data, Cloud Computing and the Future for Irish Entrepreneurs

The location, the speakers and the networking all contributed to making it a great event. Wonderful conference!  Another superb event by Joan, Roseanne and the IIA team.

Cloud Computing and Open Data

A tech-conference in Dublin these days is not a conference without an appearance by Josh Holmes – Microsoft’s evangelist. And Josh didn’t disappoint either, with some wonderful insights into deep fried mars bars and other Arkansas delicacies. Tech-details aside, the convergence of cloud computing and open data is starting to show signs of becoming a reality, well done to IIA for showcasing the strategic nature of this convergence. Check out our thoughts on m-cloud.

Future for Irish Entrepreneurs – a European Content Hub?

The final panel discussion really started to spark the imagination. Neil Leyden, joint-winner of “Your Country, Your Call”, outlined his fantastic ideas and visions for an Irish Content Services Centre (ICSC) here in Dublin. In short, it’s the IFSC Part II.

However, instead of funds, Neil suggests that we focus on our unique position and ability to play a central role in Content distribution to the European market – and beyond. Disney (www.disney.com) , EA (www.ea.com) , Sony (www.sony.com) etc could all be invited to set up European “content” centres here in Ireland.

Constantin Gurdgiev loved the opportunity to speak publicly and not mention the words “bailout” or “crisis”! Instead he focused on the opportunities for organisations to develop new technologies, not based on a defined and known market, but more along the lines of: build it, go to market and try and sell it, take on customer feedback, modify the product or service and go to market again. The future is un-known, as soon as you do market research, it’s out of date!

This is real entrepreneurship – heading into the future, not certain of where or how you’ll get there but knowing that you have the people, tools, resources and abilities to get there. With a sprinkling of deep fried “self-belief”, as Josh might say.

So instead of spending your €1million of investment in technology, spend €250k on the sales channel and sales person… and spend the next €500k on upgrading and improving. “K”s can also be dropped above ; – ). A bit like the Japanese Kaizen approach.

This approach ties in very nicely to a current LinkedIN debate in the Irish Software Association group on how tech start-ups can find the right sales people.  What’s emerging is that IRELAND INC, as a collaborative community, could be doing a better job at supplying already existing information and / or contacts and networks to our entrepreneurs – so that they are better equipped to face into what is ahead.  Perhaps Michael Gerber’s “E-myth” be made mandatory reading before anyone sets up a business. In reading the book it becomes clear:

• Most businesses are set up by folks who know the “technology”, myself included.
• The more successful they get, the busier they become in delivering product / service
• This leaves a gap in the business: Who’s going to sell my services
• Sometimes this realisation comes too late: the business goes under
• Successful entrepreneurs either delegate the technical aspects or hire a great sales person
• All businesses are the same; all entrepreneurs are the same – only with different challenges.
• So let’s just recognise the problem, consult others to see if it’s valid, and change our approach.

In Ireland, there are ever more green shoots appearing. The harvest is still some time away.

However those that are just starting along the road to global success can learn from those who are one step ahead, those that are one step ahead can give back to those that are just starting.  Just check the newspapers last weekend, the Turley brothers netted €80m for the sale of their business CarTrawler.  One of the brothers was in sales, one was in operations – it works!

A huge congratulations must go to Emma Henderson and the team at dotConf, who put on a fantastic day on Thursday in the National College of Ireland. It was a great turnout and the feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive.

We’d love to grab your attention for just another couple of minutes and ask you to give your thoughts on the day. Please fill in this quick survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PPWZGMR

Of course, there was a great many people who helped make the dotConf a success, from the superb speakers and presenters to the people who helped shape the day and, of course, everyone who came along, watched the live stream and blogged, tweeted or generally talked about the event.

We will update you when the videos of the day are available on the dotConf blog. Please, feel free to share them and tell the world about the dotConf.

Once again, be kind, take a moment to be surveyed: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PPWZGMR

To anyone who has ever struggled to maintain their site using a Content Management System (CMS): you’re not alone, we feel your pain.

Chris and Paul in DesignByFront.com are doing some research into the user experience of content management systems, so if you’ve ever been involved in managing a website, they’d love to get your insight.

Click here to take the short survey!

Why are they doing this?

Front believe that every website should get better and better and better over time. Unfortunately, many people find it difficult enough to look after the site they have, rather than getting to focus on continuous improvement.

Almost every site delivered at Front uses a content management system so that non-technical users can take ownership of the site once its live.

Key to this is the regular addition of high-quality content. However, too often the design of Content Management Systems don’t reflect the way that those involved in authoring, editing or reviewing content actually work; despite claims to the contrary, almost all CMS tools are designed around how a site works for its users, rather than focusing on the needs of those who’ll be responsible for it once live.

This creates a barrier to publishing good content, and restricts the growth and quality of the site. A better CMS experience should result in better content being created for a site, which in turn results in a better experience for the site’s users.

Front are not the first to think about this. Jeff Veen wrote about the problems inherent in Content Management Systems way back in 2004, but things haven’t changed much since then, and now it’s time to get the discussion started again.

So, if you’ve ever been involved in managing a website with a CMS, they’d love to hear your thoughts.

According to Front:

To make sure we really understand what the key issues are, we’re carrying out a small piece of design research on content management. We want to know how the experience of using a CMS could be improved, and so along with performing user interviews and usability testing, we’ve put together a quick survey to gather input from the broader web community.

We’re doing this research because we realise that while we put a lot of time and attention into creating beautiful online experiences for our client’s users, we perhaps don’t give enough thought to the experience of our clients themselves.

To take part, fill in our quick survey

Last night, Dylan Collins was announced as the IIA and Enterprise Ireland Net Visionary 2010.

Congratulations to Dylan Collins, Net Visionary winner 2010. This award recognises his commitment to innovation and excellence within the Irish Internet industry.

Yesterday evening, in the Crowne Plaza Northwood, 15 category Awards were presented recognising the achievements across the gamut of the Irish Internet Industry. Closing the Awards, Maeve Kneafsey, Chairperson of the IIA, and Jennifer Condon of Enterprise Ireland, announced Dylan Collins as the 2010 Overall IIA and Enterprise Ireland Net Visionary.

Dylan Collins, serial entrepreneur of DemonWare and Jolt Games success is a true internet visionary.  His meteoric success is unprecedented within the Irish Internet industry.  In his early 30s, Dylan’s ability to innovate is unrivalled in the online gaming sector on an Irish and international stage.  He is the embodiment of all that is great about this industry – ingenuity, pace and determination.   Yet of all these qualities, it is his unstinting generosity in mentoring other internet start-ups and his commitment to the industry as a whole that truly sets him apart as a most worthy winner of this industry accolade.

(Guest Post: Paul Browne is a Development Advisor at Enterprise Ireland, working with  Irish Software companies to increase exports, and export led jobs. A key area is Cloud and Software as a Service)

While the IIA is busy digitizing the nation this week, let’s roll back 25 years when a previous digital revolution was lapping our shores. Readers of a certain age will instantly recognize the picture of WordStar, doing roughly what Microsoft Word does today. I say ‘roughly’ as WordStar belonged to an era without touchscreen or Mice, and where users had to had to use ‘ctrl-s’ and ‘ctrl-d’ to move right and left. While WordStar users understood copy and paste to mean actual glue and scissors, it was so dominant that even as a business studies student in the ‘90s, we were expected to pass an exam in its use.

So why do you now (most likely) use Microsoft Word instead ? The answer is Windows 3.1. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t even the first computer to use a mouse – but Windows  was a revolution for mainstream computers. While there was (and still is) a version of Wordstar for Windows, when the dust had settled MS Word had came out on top.

Right now another revolution is happening as computing moves from your desktop to Cloud Services delivered over the internet. This time the revolution is bigger; Computers are more widespread, other devices (such as Mobile, iPads and Netbooks) are hooked up to internet, and the revolution will transform more sectors of the economy. It would be a pity if we digitized the nation, only to leave traditional software companies behind on the desktop.

The IIA Cloud paper shows  as many opportunities as threats in this Software as a Service (SaaS) revolution.  As a key driver of Exports, and export led jobs, Enterprise Ireland wants to help software companies to seize the opportunities. In the next part of the it’s ongoing SaaS activities (including the well regarded SaaS transition programme)  Enterprise Ireland has two upcoming events to help Irish Software Companies;

• On May 19th, Companies can learn about how their business model needs to react to implement software as a service (Event: The Commercial Realities of Sofware as a Service).  Speakers include John Appleby of SaasPoint,  Gerry O’Connor of Zarion ,  Philip O’Doherty of eSpatial and   Charles Cameron of  Encore Ventures.
• On June 16th, it’s the turn of the Mananged Services (Event: Managed Services and the Cloud). Alongside speakers from Finance and PA Consulting, with be  Gerry Power,  Chair of the IIA’s cloud working group.

For more details of these, and future events to avoid your company losing out on the transition,  sign up for Enterprise Ireland’s  www.BestConnected.ie blog.

Lucey and Microsoft will officially launch the IIA Digitise the Nation Week on Monday morning with the first DTN Event, Ditch Your Servers!!

This week is the big push before the first ever Digitise the Nation Week. The IIA, is calling on companies and individuals across Ireland to help ‘Digitise the Nation’ from May 16th to 21st 2010.  The week long campaign is designed to showcase the power and capabilities of the Internet to the broadest set of groups from businesses, consumers, students, children to grandparents.

The week encapsulates five themes covering:

• Monday 17th – Business Productivity
• Tuesday 18th – Connectivity
• Wednesday 19th – Entrepreneurship
• Thursday 20th – IIA 2020Vision Conference and Net Visionary Awards
• Friday 21st – The Consumer and Social Media

Some of the events coming up include:

• Drimnagh will be taking part in the Digitise the Nation event on Tuesday’s Connectivity Day, the 18th of May. They will be holding 3 open, informal Social Media Surgeries from 10-12pm, 2-4pm and 7-9pm. The venue for this event is in the St John Bosco youth centre on Davitt Road, Drimnagh, Dublin 12. It will be free of charge and open to anyone who wants to learn more about any of the social media tools.

• Kavaleer (award winning digital animation business based in Digital Hub) will be showing primary school students how digital art is created; sharing with the children how cartoons are made and inspiring the next generation of Brown Bag Productions and Oscar winning “Avatar” creators.

• Cipherion Translations are experts in bringing businesses global – and helping them to market locally in over 40 languages. They support organisations in ICT, E-learning, Tourism, Technology and Life Sciences sectors as they translate their materials for overseas audiences. As part of Monday’s Business Productivity Day, they want to share the steps you should take to translate and localize your website for these markets.

• In Dublin, local computer training business A&A Computer Training have successfully approached their local “Golden Oldies” community group and are showing them how to make Skype calls and send emails.

• In Cork, Puddleducks.ie is running an interactive competition for children. Children and families are invited to take part in an online treasure hunt which is a wonderful opportunity for parents to introduce their children to the internet in a safe, supervised and fun way.

• There will be webinars conducted by Krishna De, Ann Donnelly and Peter Fry.

• Tim Willoughby from Local Government Computer Services Board (LGCSB) is supporting us by allowing our members to use the local libraries to host suitable events.

This week is a superb opportunity to help demystify the Internet for everyone in society.  The internet now forms a daily part of many peoples life but much of the capability from video calling relatives in other parts of the world to using social media for business are still largely untapped.  We are inviting companies and individuals to organise their own events during the week, based around the themes and to reach out to people who would not ordinarily have the opportunity to take advantage of the digital world.

This is an opportunity for every one of our members to bring their skills and capabilities to the very widest audience, showing everyone how the internet can be used to communicate with friends and family, transact business to business and business to consumer.  We are also hoping that this initiative will help show the diversity of internet usage throughout the country.

A specially designed site promoting all the activities taking place throughout the country is  available on  www.iia.ie/DTN.

It’s an exciting morning in the IIA. We have just announced the Shortlist for this year’s IIA Net Visionary Awards. It’s now over to you to start voting. Please take the time to choose your favourites among those shortlisted. I really think it’s a representative shortlist and that is down to all of you who took the time to nominate last month. You can vote once in every category and please do vote in every category if you feel like it.

Congratulations to all the nominees and here is the full list:

Best Business Blogger

* Amy Dillon: Makeup and Beauty.ie
* Fiona Hilliard: ArgusCarHire
* Karl Deeter: Irish Mortgage Brokers
* Krishna De: Biz Growth News
* Peter Donegan: Peter Donegan Landscaping Ltd.

Best Business Video & Podcasting

* Amy Dillon: Makeup and Beauty.ie
* Andrew Jenkinson & Niall O’Driscoll: vStream for Digital Marketing School
* Colm Hanratty: Hostelworld.com Videos and Podcasts
* Marcus Doherty: RTE Player
* Ruth Kearney: DIT Hothouse

Best Online Financial Service

* Debbie Kiernan: Ge Capital
* Elaine Murphy: insure.ie
* Tony Doyle: Bestquote.ie

Best Online Trader

* Ciaran Crean: MicksGarage.ie
* Daragh Murphy: HairyBaby Clothing Company
* Darren Grant: The Oragnic Supermarket
* Grainne Barry & Kevin Greene: AnotherFriend.com (WebDev Ltd.)
* Stephen O’Sullivan: Printing.ie

Best Use of Social Media

* Aedan Ryan: PuddleDucks
* Amy Dillon: Makeup and Beauty.ie
* Brid O’Connell: Truvo Ireland
* Israel Finnerty: Firesale Limited
* Michele Neylon: Blacknight Solutions

e-Government Award
sponsored by AIB Merchant Services

* Joanne Grehan: Western Development Commission for LookWest.ie
* Larry McEvoy: South Dublin County Council for Mapping South Dublin County in Time
* Professor Eamonn Murphy: University of Limerick for BlueBrick.ie
* Rick Love: Mayo County Council
* Ruth Kearney: DIT Hothouse

Innovation Award

* Conor O’Neill: LouderVoice
* Ed Hendrick: Sonru Ltd
* Eoghain Ryan: Mocks.ie
* Ian Lucey: Lucey Technology
* Tony Corrigan: TenderScout

Internet Entrepreneur

* Amy Dillon: Makeup and Beauty.ie
* Chris Watson: Chain Reaction Cycles
* Darren Grant: The Organic Supermarket
* Dr Des O’Mahony: Bookassist
* Ronan O’Brien: Zatori Results Ltd

Internet Marketer

* Eoin Ó Súilleabháin: Bord Gais Energy for The Big Switch
* Mark Leech: MicksGarage.ie
* Mick Dillon: CarsIreland.ie
* Steven Courtney: Lovely Productions
* Vanessa Johnston: Pigsback.com

Journalist Award

* Adrian Weckler: Thomas Crosby Media / Sunday Business Post
* Barry Alistair: IrishDev.com
* John Collins: Irish Times
* Mark Little: Mark Little
* Sheila Averbuch: ElectricNews.Net

Mobile Internet Innovation

* Bob Nixon: Georgina Campbell’s ireland-guide.com
* Donald Douglas: Return2Sender
* Gavin Burke: Future Audio Workshop
* Greg Cawley: Snap2Interact
* John Clarke: WorldNet TPS

Online Tourism Award
sponsored by Failte Ireland

* Bob Nixon: Georgina Campbell’s ireland-guide.com
* Christy Tighe: Cromleach Lodge 4* Country House Hotel
* Eoghan O’Mara Walsh: BookAnAttraction.com
* Fergal Walsh: DayOut.ie
* William Cotter: Net Affinity

Social Contribution

* Jimmy Cahill: DSPCA
* John Handelaar: KildareStreet.com
* Kevin De Barra: Comhdhail Naisiunta na Gaeilge
* Michelle Farrell: Gaelick
* Ruth Kearney: DIT Hothouse

Web Designer Excellence

* David Behan: Web Together for Fetch.ie, Medguard.ie, ManagementBriefs.com
* John Mooney: Xwerx for Ecocem.ie, PrimaryScience.ie, Skip.ie
* Laura Hodson: Dara Creative for Campus.ie, ITForce.ie, InsureMyVan.ie
* Lisa Westermann: Fusio for Unicef.ie, ButlersChocolates.com, BarrysTea.ie
* Niall Reck: Graphedia for Medentech.com, SenatorWindows.ie, WestgateCC.com

Web Developer Excellence

* Ciaran McDonnell: Newmedia for Toyota.ie
* David Henry: Modus for Phantom.ie
* Kevin Gill: CastingZone.ie
* Michael Crean: MicksGarage.ie
* Morgan Lynch: Strata3 for RDS.ie, BusinessAndFinance.ie

Voting closes on 30 April 2010 at midnight.

The shortlist appears in alphabetical order by first name.

1. You may vote only once in each category.

2. Only one set of votes per person will be counted, and a maximum of three sets of votes from any one organisation.

3. Only the FIRST three voters from any one organisation will be counted.

4. You must complete the details required on the voting form (name, email address and organisation name).

5. The IIA will analyse the votes and disregard duplicate votes.

6. The choosing of the Overall Net Visionary winner will be decided on by the Board.

The full set of rules is available to download

Contact the Net Visionary Team with any questions.

I’m just packing my toothbrush before getting the 6pm train to Cork for tomorrow’s Bank of Ireland Business Advice Show. The IIA took part in this show as part of the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Enterprise Week earlier this year. Unfortunately, we were unable to make it to the Galway show as our annual Congress was taking place around the same time.

As usual I would like to extend a welcome to any members of the IIA to come and join me at our stand to meet potential members and help me advise them. Obviously I could tell them in my sleep what the benefits of IIA membership are but sometimes living proof is good too. That’s where you come in!

Also representing the IIA I get asked all sorts of question about anything from Wifi to email to ecommerce to SEO to blogging. The latter two I can usually handle to varying degrees of success but I often wish there was an expert in web dev or design here to respond to these questions about developing a site, finding a good designer or eCommerce. So come along, you never know, you might drum up some business! So if you’re near the Maryborough House Hotel tomorrow from 2pm to 5pm pop in and say hello! This is your Association!