August 16th is almost here! Everyone head up to Whistler because it’s Canada’s 1st Annual Cheese Rolling Contest!

So what the heck is a cheese rolling contest?

An 11 Ib cheese wheel is thrown down a hill and everyone who sign up chases it down a steep hill. On the way down, racers lose their footing and end up tumbling, rolling, sliding and bumping down. This is just straight up funny to watch. The first person to get down the hill to the finish line wins the race and the cheese.

BC’s lucky to have so many awesome cheesemakers and many of them are coming to the festival this weekend in Whistler. They’ll be providing free samples of all kinds of different cheeses.

You can check out the website here: http://www.canadiancheeserolling.ca

Constant Contact is an amazing online tool that allows users to send out mass emails or surveys to double opt- in lists.  A double opt-in email list is like any email based newsletter where users can sign-up through a webpage or by sending an email to mailing list management software. What makes an email list “double opt-in” is that any person who subscribes must confirm their request twice. This is a very important term to understand when one gets into email marketing. 

Constant Contact allows mailing list owners to send out mass emails to their list with almost a 100% inbox guarantee! This is a great tool to get information to your customers or subscribers! For those who know about spamming and email marketing, achieving a 100% inbox rate is quite exciting. This software is not for spammers and the owner of the mailing list must guarantee that they are not spamming. 

I use Constant Contact for PeopleVancouver.com and it has become on of the most important communication tools to the members of this online community. With almost 1000 members, emailing them all without being blocked by hotmail, google or any host is hard. These host think you are a spamming because you are sending out mass emails. This is where Constant Contact comes in a wipes all those problems away. You also able to creat branded and fun looking emails to send to your users. 

Here are some of their fancy templates:

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I find this a great way to reach your users in a professional way. Not only that you can track everything. You can see what user has opened the email and how many times through Email Tracking and Reporting.

Learn more about your contacts with eye-opening reports

Real-time email tracking and reporting lets you know how many emails were delivered, which addresses bounced, and why—within minutes of sending your email campaign. You also get reports on who opened your email, which links generated the most interest, and who clicked on each one. This valuable information will help you to determine your contacts’ interests, the best day and time to send your email campaigns and much more!

See who opened your email campaigns, and what they clicked on

• How many contacts opted in or opted out and Unsubscribe Comment Box lets you collect comments on why people are opting out
• What percentage of your contacts opened

See how your email list is growing and who is opting out

• How many contacts opted in or opted out
• How many contacts forwarded emails to a friend