Consider this 72-character subject line, and see what happens as it begins to get truncated.

New herbal fresh soap available at special price at your  local Harry’s (full length)

New herbal fresh soap available at special price a (50 characters)

New herbal fresh soap available at speci (40 characters)

Also, be sure to place as much critical information at the beginning of your subject line, rather than at the end as a hedge against important content being truncated. In the examples above, the name of the retailer gets chopped off, as does the “special price” reference in the 40-character version. Those are pretty important pieces of information that the marketer surely would want front and center.

In a recent  Email Marketing Reports post, Mark Brownlow offers up this free Excel spreadsheet that shows you how your subject line looks at any length between 10 and 125 characters. It’s a great tool that’s definitely worth downloading.

Bottom Line

1. When writing email subject lines, keep character count limitations in mind.
2. Put the most important information up front.

For a more detailed look at the findings, the survey can be downloaded here, free of charge.

Why? Because that’s how vanilla is made. And who pays attention to vanilla?

No knock against vanilla (unless it’s in candles), but great marketing does not start with a strategy position that reads, “I hope every single person likes it”. Great marketing, and I’m talking about the kind that gets results, not just awards, is provocative. It challenges people to think differently about something.

Not everyone is going to like that. But you have to ask yourself, who are you trying to impress, everyone or your target? Then the question becomes, will this offend my target? If so, perhaps you should rethink the creative. Otherwise, go bold and don’t worry about ruffling a few feathers.

1. Discover all relevant communities of interest and observe the choices, challenges, impressions, and wants of the people within each network.

2. Don’t just participate solely in your own domains (Facebook Fan Page, Twitter conversations related to your brand, etc.). Participate where your presence is advantageous and mandatory.

3. Determine the identity, character, and personality of the brand and match it to the persona of the individuals representing it online.

4. Establish a point of contact who is ultimately responsible for identifying, trafficking, or responding to all things that can affect brand perception.

5. As in customer service, representatives require training to learn how to proactively and reactively respond across multiple scenarios. Don’t just put the person familiar with social networking in front of the brand.

6. Embody the attributes you wish to portray and instill. Operate by a code of conduct.

7. Observe the behavioral cultures within each network and adjust your outreach accordingly.

8. Assess pain points, frustrations, and also those of contentment in order to establish meaningful connections.

9. Become a true participant in each community you wish to activate. Move beyond marketing and sales.

10. Don’t speak at audiences through canned messages. Introduce value, insight and direction with each engagement.

Click for the complete list.

This should a big no-brainer. But my experience  tells me that the lines of communication are not as clear as they should be.

A little background first. I once had a boss who told me I had to “manage up” better. I had been working on my projects in a vacuum, not sharing progress or giving heads ups about potential obstacles. As a result, my boss would get nervous that things weren’t happening as they should be. Clients are like that too.

Personally, if a client has to ask how things are coming along, I know I’ve dropped the communication ball.  So why not go out of the way to make sure that doesn’t happen? This is especially important with new clients who are just getting to know you. To start with, at the beginning of an assignment set the proper expectations  in terms of timing and deliverables. Let them know what they’ll be receiving and when. Be clear about how many revisions they get before going into change order mode.

Once your client knows what to expect, keep the lines of communication open. Let them know that later in the day they’ll be receiving the first look at that new landing page. Or, if there’s been a delay, let them know why and how it will impact the overall time line.

I’ve found that a bit more effort on the communication front pays large dividends in two key areas:

1. It puts the client at ease and lets them know you’re managing their time, money and brand in a professional and accountable manner.
2. In the event that things do go a bit sideways, the client is usually more forgiving if they’ve been part of the process from the beginning. They’ll also be less surprised since they’ve been kept in the loop and were likely aware of potential issues.

Granted, these are not breakthrough insights, and successful marketers have been doing this for years. These are best practice basics that, in today’s fast paced world, we sometimes forget to do. And that’s a shame, because  the extra effort required to ensure that your clients are well informed goes a long way toward keeping them happy, and keeping them as your clients.

Click here to read the Los Angeles Times’ in-depth comparison of the iPad versus the Kindle.

In the past, a home builder that wanted to promote one of its communities or homes on 10 different listing websites would have to input then upload the same information 10 separate times. With NewHomeFeed.com, the information gets input once then sent out to the selected websites simultaneously. Updating listing information is just as easy. NewHomeFeed.com users make the change once, then with the click of a button that change goes out to all the sites that listing is on.

NewHomeFeed.com also features powerful reporting tools that compare site-by-site performance, allowing you to evaluate and optimize your online media dollars.

Currently the beta version is free. Home builders interested in registering for a free trial can do so at NewHomeFeed.com. The next enrollment for approved beta trial users begins May 1, 2010. Check it out, and tell them red rocket LA sent you.

Tired of carrying around those cumbersome, wallet-busting gift cards? Target wants to ease your burden by allowing you to keep their gift card right in your smartphone. The big box retailer just announced that customers can now  access their gift cards right from their smartphones by presenting the digital bar code to the cashier at time of checkout.

Clearly this is a big step forward in m-commerce (as in mobile commerce) and a likely look at the shape of things to come. “There’s been such rapid growth in m-commerce in the last two years,” Ben Rushlo, senior manager of Internet technologies at Keynote, based in San Mateo, Calif., told Marketing Daily.

Read Sara Mahoney’s article in Marketing Daily for more info.