Gilmore Design Group :: Design InSight April 2006

	*April 2006*

Happy Easter!
This month, we'll address mass emailling and how to send an HTML email to your mailing lists for the purposes of non-SPAM oriented advertising and/or newsletters. We'll also take a look at aliasing and anti-aliasing in graphic images, and the basics of broadband.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please send them to info@gilmoredesigngroup.com. You can also view past issues of the Design InSight newsletter at www.gilmoredesigngroup.com/company_newsletters.html.


Esprit Flash Announcement & Campaign

Client:	Esprit Productions Inc.

Project:	Flash Email Campaign

Services

	Project Management
	HTML Email Design & Development
	Flash Design & Development
	Custom Audio Creation

Objective: To create a campaign that showcases Esprit's abilities by evoking a sense of drama and excitement while getting the brand in front of potential clients.

Solution: The initial Flash animation was created as an announcement for Esprit Productions, Inc.

The additional Flash animations were created as part of an email campaign sent out to reinforce the Esprit brand and offer clients and prospects informative articles and entertaining visuals.

Testimonial
"Since the time that I began my new company Gilmore Design Group has provided extraordinary design and website services for my firm. ... The flash mail that became part of our announcement emailing has drawn so many positive comments from so many of the people that have received it and the number of actual click throughs to our site is amazing.

Thank you for your great ideas and responsive service and our team looks forward to working with you in the future."

- Ron Springer, Esprit Productions, Inc.

Anti-alias / Alias
If you remember from a couple months ago, we defined the term pixel. Since the pixel is the smallest form of graphical element on the computer screen and is square in shape, when a line in an image runs at an angle, then it will often appear with jagged edges. This effect is caused by the regular pixel grid in the image and is called aliasing.

To avoid this effect, the process of anti-aliasing paints some nearby pixels in an intermediate color or brightness. That way, the visual appearance of the line (or an edge) is smoothed out. To the right are examples of an aliased (top) and anti-aliased line (bottom). Usually, anti-aliased images are much more pleasing to the eye than aliased ones.

Broadband
Broadband or Broadband Internet does not refer to a single type of Internet connection, but rather refers to all high-speed connections. Cable and DSL Internet broadband access are the most commonly used home and small office high-speed alternatives. Although T1 and T3 connections are older and much faster than either cable or DSL, they are extremely expensive and used for the most part through big businesses and universities.

The most common connection methods and maximum speeds (bandwidth) for each:

Dial-up - An analog modem using twisted pair (phone) copper lines.
	56k	56.0 Kbit/s
	ISDN	128.0 Kbit/s

Cable - Uses coaxial copper cable.
	Average	2.00 Mbit/s
	Maximum	10.00 Mbit/s
	Upstream avg*	500.0 Kbit/s

DSL - Digital Subscriber Line. Uses twisted pair (phone) copper lines.
	IDSL	128.0 Kbit/s
	HDSL	1.50 Mbit/s
	SDSL	2.00 Mbit/s
	ADSL	8.00 Mbit/s
	ADSL up*	1.00 Mbit/s

Trunk - Usually delivered by fiber optic or microwave, although T1 may use twisted pair (phone) copper lines (HDSL).

T-1

1.54 Mbit/s

T-3

44.74 Mbit/s

Ethernet - Used for LANs.
	10	10.00 Mbit/s
	100	100.00 Mbit/s
	1000	(Gigabit) 1,000.00 Mbit/s

Wireless - May be fixed or mobile. * Some connections are asymmetrical, they download faster

HomeRF

1.20 Mbit/s

802.11a

54.00 Mbit/s

802.11b

11.00 Mbit/s

802.11g

54.00 Mbit/s

GPRS

171.2 Kbit/s

Question:
I would like to send out an email to a mailing list I've compiled to announce the launch of my website, how can I do this?

Answer:
This is a great question. We all use email every day, so to send an email to 10 people is no big deal, but we wouldn't recommend using your email program like Outlook when you want to email 50 or even 50,000 people. Because of the SPAM laws today and all the unsolicited email, it's better to use a company that specializes in sending out mass emails. Our recommendation is Vertical Response (VR) simply because that's what we use, but there are other companies out there that do the same thing.

You may be wondering, "If I need to send emails through a third-party, how much will that cost?" Well, the good news is the cost-per-email is very inexpensive. For example, to send an email out to 1000 people is only $15.00 through VR. Another cost you may incur is to have Gilmore Design Group design and create an HTML version of your email (like this visually dazzling newsletter you're reading now ). The beauty of VR is that you will have to send out both an HTML and text version of your email. This is so people who are able to view HTML emails will see the "pretty" version of your email, while other people who don't accept HTML email will see the text version. Since AOL won't accept HTML emails, by default, this is an important feature.

Another great feature of sending out emails through VR is that you have the ability to track your emails. You can view how many people have opened your email, clicked on your email, how many of your emails bounced or how many people have unsubscribed. Since VR requires you to only do what's called Permission Marketing, people on your mailing list will have the opportunity to unsubscribe so they do not receive emails from you anymore. This is a good thing because we all know how frustrating it is to receive SPAM emails that won't go away, no matter how many times we unsubscribe. This is why it is important to allow people to unsubscribe and to abide by their wishes.

Overall, sending out periodic emails to your clients, leads, franchisees, etc. is an easy and inexpensive way to market your business. It's a great way to get your brand in front of your audience on a consistent basis which will keep your business in their thoughts and will hopefully translate into more business for you.