The model's ideal for an economy like this one. American consumers increasingly confine their discretionary spend to the internet, hoping both to save gas and find deals.

Not surprising, the early adopters on this new product are younger:

37% of SmartyPig users are 26-35 years old
30% are 18-25 years old
20% are 36-45 years old
13% are 46+

Other SmartyPig features that appeal to the younger demographic include social networking widgets—enabling users to share savings goals via MySpace and Facebook, for example — and Twitter-based contests. Thanks to MarketingVox for info on SmartyPig.

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At its simplest, your "brand" is what people believe you to be, what they believe you will deliver and what they believe that experience will be like. Brands reside in the minds of your customers and potential customers and they drive their relationship with you. Brands are built on promises that you must deliver on with consistency and reliability at every customer touch point. From the cash register to your marketing materials, from your website to employee clothing and attitudes, even the location of your storefronts. So while you may have a strong brand mark (logo) or a name that is well-known in your community, do you really know what your brand stands for and how it differentiates your organization from the competition? Even though your brand lives in the minds of your customers and is an intangible perception, there are hundreds of things you can do to shape it. The first is to accurately and objectively map out your brand attributes and make sure every person in your organization knows them. A guided "Brand Mapping" exercise is one way to do this.

In the meantime, I dare you to take a few minutes to write down what you believe your brand is all about. Then ask five other people both inside and outside your organization how they would define your brand. Find out who the market thinks you are. You might be surprised. Most successful companies identify their brand as their most important asset. Don't minimize the value of yours.

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Most major ISPs such as AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail have a setting which allows users to block images in their email reader. Many email clients even have it set as the default for all new email accounts. What does that mean for your next email campaign?

1. Don't Push Readers to Unsubscribe - If your email blast is made up of just one big image file and your recipient has images blocked, the first thing he or she will probably see is your unsubscribe message. Not good! Whether they're annoyed to get an empty-looking email, or don't want to take the time to manually download the image, you've just made it super easy for them to hit unsubscribe and for you to lose them forever.


2. Open Rate Tracking Isn't Perfect - Open rates are measured by including a tiny invisible image in the email. It may only be a few pixels big. When your reader opens the email, this image is "displayed" (although the person can't see it), and it tracks back as an "open." This allows us to track which email addresses have opened and presumably read the email. When a recipient has images blocked, this little trick doesn't work and the open can't be counted. So, if your email is a mix of text and images, the reader may actually open the email and read it, but if they have images blocked they wouldn't be counted as an "open." This is especially common for people who are receiving email on a smartphone like a BlackBerry®. So, your open rate may be better than your numbers show if you do a good job of mixing text and images.


3. Offer Up Lots of Links - Give your readers plenty of opportunities to click through to see more, do more, learn more and get more. Pique their interest with an attention-getter such as a short survey, a free something, the inside scoop, etc. Make sure you have click-through links in the beginning, middle and end of your email--even if they all link to the same place. More links equal more chances your reader will click. And don't make all of your links images!

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Halloween may have passed, but you still have time to don your labcoat and play like an evil scientist. At M&M's CandyLab, you can upload a face (yours, your kid's, your crazy co-worker's, or one of the faces they provide) onto an M&M and then make it talk or sing. You can even email it to a friend. What a fun way to get people to interact with your product and make it their own!

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Thanks for reading. Be sure to give us your feedback. Have an idea? A question? An opposing opinion? Found a good web site lately? Let us know.

Privacy: AOR will never sell, rent, or otherwise share your email address with any other company. That wouldn't be cool!

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