Meet our new Director of Deliverability!
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008CakeMail is pleased to welcome a new member to our team. You may have received an email from Kevin Huxham in the past few days. If you haven’t read it yet, we suggest you do so carefully. We all know how important delivery is in the email marketing business, and Kevin is definitely someone you want to have on your side since he is now our Director of Deliverability. We recommend you make him your new best friend by following his precious advice!
Although Kevin has just started with CakeMail last month, he has an extended background in the email software community. After managing a successful Internet business in Australia, Kevin came home to work on the receiving end of things in both the Technical and Abuse departments for Canada’s largest Internet Service Provider. After 6 years, he decided to switch to the sender side, and has spent the last 2 years working for one of the world’s leading ESPs based in Montreal. This man knows what he’s talking about, so if he insists you add a postal address at the bottom of your email (a mandatory requirement of the CAN-SPAM Act), you do. Not only will this help you improve your company’s reputation and avoid any messy legal trouble, it will also ensure you don’t get blocked by any spam filters!
Kevin is working with all CakeMail clients to help them increase their deliverability and resolve any associated issues. He is intent on making sure every client sets an example of email best practices, which will not only increase their deliverability, but also improve the results of their campaigns, boosting their ROI. After he is settled in, Kevin also plans to start contributing regularly to this blog, so stay tuned, and get ready to take notes! In the mean time, if you have any questions, we invite you to use our Help Desk.
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CakeMail Combines Master User-Interface and Customer Management Hub in Version 1.6
Monday, August 11th, 2008CakeMail is pleased to announce its latest release of the CakeMail open interface, version 1.6. This new CakeMail version eliminates the need for a separate Customer Management Hub, including the Customer Management functionality directly inside the new Reseller Master Account – All within one seamless interface.
Single-Click Administrator Account Access
The new CakeMail Administrator “single sign-on” one-click administrator feature allows you to log-in and work as any one of your client accounts, allowing you to review overall usage, mailings and content and send on behalf of your customers. Most importantly: all without having to create a separate user account!
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| Sample client administration screen. Visit our Client Administration Tour page for more. |
Improved Client Management
As with the old Customer Hub, you can still use this area to review client’s sending history and track usage growth. But now you can quickly create, suspend or delete client accounts, set usage limits and manage client contact information in a single place, easily navigating between accounts with a single mouse click!
Linked With Master User Account
Of course, you can still access and use your own CakeMail user account to deliver your own corporate newsletters and automated messages as well!
All Hosted CakeMail interfaces are updated automatically. If you are hosting your own interface, you can download it at: http://www.cakemail.com/downloads
Become a Fan of CakeMail on Facebook and Win a Tasty Prize
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
It’s time to show your love for your favorite email marketing software by becoming a fan of CakeMail on Facebook.
As a member of CakeMail’s community on Facebook you will gain VIP access to information updates about our product and email marketing best practices. You’ll network with other professionals passionate and preoccupied by the same issues as you are. We’ll use this space for surveys and share results with group members, set discussions and build an active community. Invite friends interested by email marketing to chat with us.
Become a fan of CakeMail and have a chance to win a CakeMail-special package of those fabulous little treats called cupcakes, delivered straight to your office. Your colleagues will love it!
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To Better Support You
Friday, July 18th, 2008Starting now on our website, come visit our new and improved support area, and help us help you.
Take advantage of our brand new open forum, complete with a help desk ready to respond to your online questions and comments. Look forward to your email requests being processed within 24 hours on business days. Be sure to look out for our updates on frequently asked questions, and resolutions to the most common issues. We hope you will use the forum to stimulate us with your ideas on how to continue improvements with your favorite email marketing software 
Because of its strong ability to organize our help desk and assure the best follow-up on your questions, we have chosen to use Zendesk Helpdesk software.
To log into the CakeMail Support Area, simply use your master account email and password. We hope you will find this new help section friendlier to use.
Posted in Announcement, Feature Release | No Comments »
Free Newsletter Templates for CakeMail
Monday, July 7th, 2008Need a professional template that’s ready to provide to your customer? Our new newsletter templates are free to use, distribute and modify under a ‘Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike‘ license. Almost 20 models, either basic or with a more sophisticated design, have been tested on email readers and are now ready to use on CakeMail’s white label email marketing software.
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New Features for CakeMail 1.5
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008Suppression List Functionality
You can now easily manage suppression lists to ensure emails don’t get sent to the wrong people. You can restrict specific email addresses or entire domains, which will help diminish overall complaints and increase delivery for all your mailings.
New Segment Summary Page
The new Segment Summary Page allows you to easily manage list segments, and view them as independent lists.
Advanced Search in List Members
You can now search for members with multiple criteria.
Two New Stock Interface Skins: Marshmallow and Midnight Mint
7 stock user interface themes are now available, so you can prepare your mailings in your own custom environment!
User Selectable Themes on Login Page
See the flexibility of the CakeMail first hand by selecting a dynamic theme directly from a scrolling menu on the login page, changing your interface skin real-time.
All CakeMail hosted interfaces will be updated to the new version automatically. If you host your own interface, you can access the new version at: http://www.cakemail.com/downloads
Posted in Announcement, CakeMail Interface, Feature Release | No Comments »
Changes to CakeMail’s Anti-Spam Policy
Monday, June 30th, 2008In order to comply with the industry’s best practices and to ensure the finest and most trustworthy service possible for both our clients and their customers, CakeMail announces 2 modifications to its Anti-Spam Policy. These changes have already been put into practice:
1- The recipient must have been contacted in the past 12 months: If the recipient hasn’t received anything from the emailer in the past year, a message requesting confirmation of the recipient’s opt-in to the list must be sent prior to sending them any other information or offer. This period was previously 2 years.
2- CakeMail requires notified opt-in: In the case of only a single opt-in, the recipient should receive a confirmation email following registration. This email should offer the recipient a clear link to opt-out, if he so chooses. We would also like to add that a double opt-in is, by all experts, strongly recommended in building a confident relationship with the recipients on your list.
If you have any questions following the implementation of these practices, do not hesitate to contact us.
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Dutch: The Fourth Language Available on CakeMail Thanks to ZennerMedia from Belgium
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
Following English, French and Russian, Dutch is now available for CakeMail users. The interface has been translated by ZennerMedia, an Internet company based in Belgium that is happy to have a way to serve customers in their 3 official languages.
We were fortunate to have an occasion to chat with Sam Zenner, CEO of ZennerMedia.
CakeMail: Could you please tell us about what ZennerMedia does?
Sam Zenner: ZennerMedia’s main focus is to help companies get their stories out there. Rather than helping our customers shout louder in a place where everyone is already screaming for attention, we want to provide them with solutions that “take people’s breath away”.
We try to be a full-service agency, serving custom-made websites that adhere to the highest industry standards. This also means that we manage our customers’ blogs as well as their mailing lists.
CM: Why did you choose CakeMail and how will it help your business?
SZ: We chose to work with CakeMail because of its entirely translatable interface. Not having to program an email application from scratch saved us a lot of time and working with CakeMail didn’t interrupt our regular workflow. We’ll be able to offer to our customers an entirely Dutch app less than 2 months after our first contact with CakeMail team.
CM: What language issue is CakeMail solving for your specific needs?
SZ: Even though Belgium is sort of a multilingual country (3 official languages), much of the “older” generation doesn’t understand English all that well. This Dutch version of CakeMail will help our business, in that we no longer have to confront our customers with an English interface. From now on we can direct our clients to the MailMarketing.be website and they’ll find a clean, easy to use interface in their native language.
CM: What were your specific challenges related to the translation?
SZ: Even though the translation module isn’t finished quite yet, everything was fully functional so I don’t have any complaints. The biggest challenge in translating was to abbreviate most of the interface, because the Dutch language tends to need more words than English to explain the same thing.
CM: Anything else you wish to add?
SZ: I hope we can continue to work with The Code Kitchen on new projects. I liked working with the team and there are a lot of app’s out there that would be used a whole lot more if they could be translated!
Posted in Announcement, Customer Profiles, Feature Release | No Comments »
CakeMail, Inc.
Monday, December 17th, 2007The Code Kitchen recently spun off CakeMail to establish it as a separate company. We did this for a number of reasons, the main ones being:
- The Code Kitchen is like a laboratory for cooking up new Web apps - once they’re served, they eventually take on a life of their own.
- Having CakeMail as a separate legal entity will facilitate operations, especially from a financial perspective.
- We wanted to offer an enticing options package to attract the best recruits to CakeMail.
What impact will this change have? For the foreseeable future, things will remain largely the same. CakeMail will continue to be based out of the same office as The Code Kitchen, and will continue to be the prime focus of both company’s efforts. François Lane is CEO of both entities.
