Choose Your Email Marketing Software Wisely

Successful online business can't be led without email marketing. Many people know that it is very important to have a web site but having a web site is only one step in creating successful online presence. You have to stay in touch with your clients and prospects. You need to have a two way communication with your clients and prospects and best way to do this is to have an email newsletter. To send emails to your customer you need the right email marketing software.

Choosing your email marketing software is one of the most important steps you have to take in e-business. What are those necessary steps in choosing email marketing software?

Free or fee-based

The first thing you will have to decide in choosing software for your email campaigns will be whether you want to use free or fee based software. Some people may say: "There is much free software on the Internet. Why would I pay for email marketing software?" This is because some people still don't have a habit to buy things on the Internet, especially non-tangible items such are software and services. Many people still don't realize the power of email marketing so they think that can be satisfied with a free service.

One of the most famous contemporary economists, a Nobel Prize winner Mr. Milton Friedman said that there is no such thing like free launch. And there is another statement that says "You get what you pay for". I usually agree with these two statements. These have been proven on many examples, especially on the Internet.

You can choose to use free software for email marketing but you will be limited for some more advanced options. Some big portals offer free services for creating groups. This is OK, but in this case you will send your email messages without many important features like personalization, email tracking, sending SMS, using CSV files etc. I don't have to mention that many "free" email marketing software providers will include their ads in your email newsletter. I guess that you don't want that in your business email communication.

Some other free software like the free version of Group Mail will have limitation on the number of subscribers per one session. In this case you will be able to send your email newsletter to 100 subscribers at once and in paid version to unlimited number of subscribers and create unlimited number of lists.

It is recommended that you use fee-based email marketing software for your business email campaigns. However, you always have to look for a provider who offers a free trial, as well.

Important features

You have to check if your email service provider offers these several important features.

1) Personalization - personalization is one of the most important things that email marketing software has to provide. With good personalization you will have better open rates and click-through rates. Some more advanced email marketing software like Group Mail paid version offers if-then personalization for users who want to get the maximum personalization.

2) Monitoring - email marketing is popular and useful because results can be measured very effectively. You have to ask your email service provider if their product offers ability for detailed reports for open rates, click-through rates, deliverability...If their main product doesn't offer that it is important that they offer additional service that can be easily integrated with their main product.

3) Scalability - one of the main features of modern software is scalability. At this moment you might need software that will be able to send 1,000 emails at once but in 3 years your membership base can be 5,000. Will your software be able to handle that?

4) Creating HTML newsletters - HTML newsletters have better response rates than email newsletters in plain-text format so this is also another thing you have to consider in choosing your email marketing software. Without sending your email newsletter in HTML you won't be able to do email tracking.

5) Integration with existing applications and databases - your email marketing software has to offer you ability to import data from existing applications and databases like SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, Access, FoxPro and Excel. Also, it is very useful that it can be integrated with popular email clients like MS Outlook.

6) International Character Support - Online businesses have to have a global focus so it is useful that email marketing software provides support for International Characters.

7) Plug-ins and updates - it is very important that the email service provider constantly works on creating useful plug-ins and updates in order to make your work easier and more effective.

8) Technical support -If you are an average Internet user without technical knowledge you will probably want to get support for your software. How good is your email service provider when it comes to technical support?

Desktop email software vs. Hosted ASP

Now when you know do you want free or fee-based software and what to look in your email marketing software you have to decide do you want to have desktop email marketing software or so called Hosted ASP. Both types have limitations and advantages. You have to choose the best option for you.

Desktop email software like Group Mail Plus, one of the leading desktop email marketing software, has several very big advantages. The most important is that details of your subscribers are kept private and secure on your own computer. Dot com crash is not so far behind us. Imagine that you have several thousand clients and use web based service from a company that will later go out of business. You can only imagine how that could affect your business and credibility! With Group Mail Plus you can manage an unlimited number of groups with unlimited number of recipients in each. You will have a larger initial investment than with Hosted ASP which charge a monthly fee, but you will a full control of your email campaigns and after some time of using your software you will repay it.

With Hosted ASP you will usually have a lower initial investment. You don't have to buy hardware and software. However, price is usually determined by the number of emails you send so you will pay more how your membership base gets bigger so this option will be much more expensive than a desktop email marketing software option in the long run.

You can see that choosing the right email marketing software is very important. You have to bear in mind that the biggest investment is one that it is paid - twice. So, choose your email marketing software wisely.

Dejan Bizinger is a Contributing Editor for Infacta. Infacta is email messaging services company providing powerful, yet easy-to-use award-winning Group Mail, software for sending highly-personalized email messages and Group Metrics, software for email tracking. For more information visit: http://www.infacta.com

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7 Email Marketing Best Practices

Email is the most used service on the Internet and, doubtless, most useful. Many people use the Internet only for checking their emails. Email marketing can be useful only if done right. Otherwise, it can get you more harm that benefits. However, there are things you can do in order to ensure that your email marketing campaign is going to be successful. In this article we provide you with 7 email marketing best practices.

Deliverability

Deliverability is probably the most important issue in today's email marketing business. There are many spam emails and many legitimate emails are flagged as spam so they are not delivered. They are not getting through ISP spam filters. Good deliverability ratio is the first step in successful email campaign because if your emails aren't delivered then you don't even have an email campaign!

In order to ensure that your emails will have good deliverability you have to choose your email marketing vendors wisely. You have to check if they are on "Blacklist" or "Whitelist". There are different organizations like Spamhaus project and SpamAssasin that have their own lists which are used by ISP. If your email service provider is blacklisted your emails won't be delivered! Also, you have to ensure that your domain name isn't blacklisted. In order to maximize your deliverability it is recommended that your email service provider offers Habeas Sender Warranty Email Header.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

Your email newsletter should be CAN-SPAM Compliant. It is recommended that you require double opt-in subscription so that your subscribers have to confirm their request to be part of your email newsletter. Don't add your subscribers without their permission and you should avoid adding them manually even if you have their permission. It is good that they do it using double opt-in method. Also, avoid using pre-checked subscription boxes.

It is essential that you provide your subscribers with an easy way to unsubscribe from your email newsletter at any time, when they want. It is good that you offer one-click unsubscription process with an unique address. This way there will be much less requests from your subscribers that you remove them.

CAN-SPAM Law also requires from email publishers that they include their physical postal address so you should include it, too. Your have to show your subscribers that you are legitimate company which have a presence in "offline" world, too.

HTML and plain-text versions

It is essential to offer your visitors to choose if they want to receive your email newsletter in HTML or plain-text format. It means that you should regularly send both types. Sending HTML newsletters have more benefits than plain-text email newsletters. You can use email tracking only in HTML newsletter with image embedding, HTML newsletters have better click-through ratio because they look like the real web sites. You can hide long URLs so that they will look professional.

However, some people prefer plain-text versions and reasons are different. They use email clients that don't support HTML emails. Another thing is that HTML newsletter types are larger than plain-text newsletters. Also, one of the reasons why some people don't receive HTML emails is security. In HTML newsletters some people can embed malicious scripts or use them for phishing (when they pretend that they are representatives of one company and when people click on a certain link they are taken to their web site that is designed almost identically like original). It is mostly used in financial fraud attempts.

From and Subject fields

Your From and Subject fields are very important for getting better open ratio and therefore to have successful email campaign. You have to remember several simple rules.

It is important that your From field be consistent. You have to choose one name, whether it will be a company name or personal name and use it constantly. Once you change your From field it is most likely that your open rates will decline.

Speaking about Subject field, it has to be short and catchy, to grab attention of your subscribers. Your email has to stand out in usually overloaded inboxes. It is important that you don't shout so instead of

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH...

use

Exclusive Interview with...

It is very good that you make your subject field standardized and that the title be something related from the content of that current issue.

For example, if you have a newsletter called Email Articles your subject line can be something like this:

[Email Articles] How to Improve Your Open Rates, Issue #10, August 29th, 2005

If your email newsletter has a longer title, for example, Email Marketing Articles you can use this:

[EMA] How to Improve Your Open Rates, Issue #10, August 29th, 2005

Personalization & Segmentation

Personalization is connected with Subject fields, too. Some people like to include first names of their subscribers in subject lines in order to have better open ratio.

Personalization is also very effective when it is used in editor's welcome message or in articles.

For example,

Dear !*First_Name*!, welcome to the 10th issue of Email Marketing Articles.

Segmentation is the most important part in marketing. "What am I selling and to whom?" It is not the same to sell your software to novice users (newbies) or to seasoned users (knowbies). Also, it is not the same to market your software to small business companies and corporation. It is good that you make a good segmentation of your email newsletter. Best way to do that is to include several additional fields at sign-up process. Of course this doesn't mean that you have to ask 15 questions from your new subscriber because many people leave when they see that there are many fields to fill. After that, you will make several email newsletters for each membership type.

Timing is everything

Another very important thing in creating successful email campaign is timing. In almost every email marketing statistics you will find information about when to email your subscribers. So studies show that the best time for sending email campaigns are days from Tuesday to Thursday. However, it doesn't mean that someone can't have successful email campaign sent on Sunday. If you send your emails in days that are not "prime time" you can have a chance to avoid competition that will mail their campaign in prime time. Tuesday-Thursday are generally best days for mailing because, as you probably know yourself, too, not many people like Monday (remember that song?). After a good weekend, Monday is usually reserved for some consultation with the management about weekly plans and task. Friday is, on the contrary, favourite day for many people, because they are planning their weekend. People often come home earlier on Friday so your email can be buried in their inbox until Monday. And in Monday, to be deleted with many others (we have already wrote about Monday). On the weekend people usually don't work but many will still check their emails.

Also, you have to decide how often you want to send your email newsletters. It will depend on your content. If your email newsletter about latest industry news you can send your newsletter once a month, because then it won't be latest news anymore. If you send a corporate email newsletter with news about company and useful articles from your area of expertise, monthly frequency is usually the best one.

You have to make several email campaigns and see which ones get you best results.

And when we talk about best results the next logical step is tracking.

Tracking

How do you know if your email marketing campaign was successful? You have to know how many people opened your emails, what was your click-through ratio, your subscribers' behaviour on your web site after they had clicked and finally - how many subscribers purchased your product.

With user-friendly Group Metrics you will be able to do that and also to make polls to get even better view of your email campaign.

Dejan Bizinger is a Contributing Editor for Infacta. Infacta is email messaging services company providing powerful, yet easy-to-use award-winning Group Mail, software for sending highly-personalized email messages and Group Metrics, software for email tracking. For more information visit: http://www.infacta.com

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Email-Marketing - The Complete Guide To Email Newsletter Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most powerful, effective ways to market your company and its products, but it's often overlooked.

Email - What is Email?

Well, unless you've been hiding for a generation, email or electronic mail, has become the #1 form of communication in modern society. According to recent estimates, the number is approaching around 60 Billion email messages per day!

Email is popular. Friends and family use it to stay in touch across long distances. Co-workers use it when it's more convenient than getting up and walking over or picking up the phone. Email is used to verify who you are (on various websites)... email is everywhere.

Knowing that email use is so prevalent it brings us to our next section - why email marketing?

Why Email Marketing?

In preparing for this article I was able to come up with 5 major reasons why a company or entity should do email marketing. These 6 reasons really ignore email marketing's statistics - low cost, high effectiveness, etc. and really just concentrate on the benefits to your business after you've implemented:

The Amazing Return On Investment
Sales & Discounts
News
Surveys
Saying in Front! (of your competition, of your clients, of vendors)

Return on Investment - According to Direct Marketing Association, email marketing generated an ROI of $51.58 for every dollar spent on it in 2006. The expected figure for 2007 is $48.56, and the prediction for 2008 is $45.65. Email marketing to in house lists outperforms all the other direct marketing like print pieces, brochures, sales pamphlets, etc. Email marketing is incredibly inexpensive to produce and replicate, but incredibly effective.

Send Information - there's always stuff going on at your business. You have updates, you have changes, you have information that your customers would appreciate having, and would appreciate knowing. Email marketing allows you to get out this information in an extremely efficient manner. Compose one email regarding a recent change at your business - target an appropriate group of clients (more to come regarding targeting) - and suddenly thousands of people you do business with every day know exactly what is going on. Sending information - the real heart of email - is probably one of the biggest (and simplest) reasons why you should be doing email marketing.

Sales & Discounts - Are you holding a special sale or offering long-time clients a special discount? Let your customers know and you could be bringing in many more times the business you are now. They say it's most effective to sell to an existing client. Email marketing is a prime way to efficiently (but personally) communicate sales, deals or discounts to your audience of potential and existing customers.

News - Communicate your good news! In business people like to know they are working with growing, prosperous companies. It rubs off! I met Colin Quinn a few years ago and contribute that awkward meeting in the Newark airport to my success today.

Just kidding, but if you have been mentioned in the paper or have had a ribbon cutting, let people know. Broadcast your good news, attain celebrity - even local celebrity, and continue to prosper.

Surveys - Your customers, vendors, employees - everyone you work with - deserve a voice. A quick email newsletter along with a survey can help you gain insight into all aspects of your business and associates.

Staying in Front - I saved the best for last. In my experience in setting up and creating email marketing, the biggest thing I would like to communicate is Staying in Front!

People only have a limited memory. If you performed a service - a great service - someone will probably tell a friend or two - or refer a business associate. But, as time goes by, as they get farther away from the date of the service, they may forget about you.

The detailing job you performed on your client's car was fantastic, but as time goes by - as situations in your client's life arise that warrant a referral (a friend of your clients buys a used car for example) - the transaction is so far away that they forget that you are available with a service that will benefit them.

Email marketing destroys this time barrier. Clients you performed services on years ago when properly informed on your latest information, sales, news, surveys, etc. are getting an inbox full of you and can't forget about you. Even if they don't read every email the constant small reminders are a great tool to help your business stay in front. Email marketing allows you to stay in front of all of those clients and vendors you worked so hard to get, but may not be working with or helping at this exact moment.

Additionally, an email newsletter helps you stay in front of your competition. I've talked with many companies recently unsatisfied with their vendors or other services they've hired out, but they can't even remember the company's name! People are busy, they will forget. But, if your client does get targeted by a competitor an email newsletter - one that has helped keep your company in your client's mind - is a great tool to retain your client.

Acquiring Email Addresses

There are a number of ways to acquire the email addresses of individuals to which you will send your email newsletter. Any amount of size will do. You can start small. We started with only about 60 or so addresses (friends, family, colleagues, clients, etc.). Your list will grow over time. But, the ONLY way in which you should acquire emails are via free methods:

Existing Associates - Tap your existing clients for emails. If you already have some kind of excel spreadsheet with all of your clients and vendors or if you are using more advanced CRM software start there. Compile your list from people you work with every day.

Networking Events - If you go to networking event ask everyone you meet if they would mine receiving your email newsletters. More often than not your list will grow incredibly fast once you start concentrating on it. Most of these suggestions involve events and people you attend and see every day.

Trade Show - Offer a free gift, guide, or consulting session to everyone who is willing to be added to your list. You're at the trade show to network and market your products or services, acquiring a real qualified email address allows you to do that for a lifetime.

Targeting - Different emails will have different audiences. A message you have for your vendors might not apply to your customers - in fact it might be imperative that you don't send that message as it will send mixed signals or tarnish relationships. That is why as you begin to acquire your list make sure to break it up. This process will vary depending on who you work with, generally you will have clients/customers, vendors, leads, friends & family, etc. As your list grows and you continue to hone in on your email marketing skills the more targeted your list is the better.

DO NOT USE PAID LISTS - Paid lists or compiling randomly found email addresses from websites throughout the net - although allowed - will lead to nothing but trouble in all but the most lucky or extreme of cases. Simply put, do not solicit to anyone that you haven't physically met or asked to a part of the newsletter - email marketing, when done right will take more time, but in the long run it will be more effective, have a higher return, and will keep you out of trouble.

Marketing to people who have not asked or given you permission can get your account banned from different services (if you are using a paid email newsletter service) destroying any hard work you put into the design or creation of your targeted lists.

Marketing to people who have not given you permission can also lead to the server where you send out the messages becoming black listed - hurting anyone else on that same server and leading to overall mail problems for your business and the other businesses on the server.

Creating Your Email Newsletter

You're ready to go, you've decided you want to do an email newsletter. You've spent sometime gathering some addresses what do you do next?

Service: - Create your email. There are a number of ways to do this. If you are on a very small budget or just starting out you can simply use your own email, outlook, hotmail, or yahoo will all work fine. Paste your contact emails, draft a short message and hit send.

Outlook users can also do what's called a mail merge - and if you've setup your email list through an excel document you can merge appropriate fields for a more personalized message.

If you're looking for something more advanced, maybe something that is designed to look like a newsletter with your logo, you can play around with the tools the above services offer or move to a complete email newsletter service.

Personally, I am a proponent of Constant Contact. We've been working with the service for years. It is very easy to use and customize and you pay per contacts - not per number of emails sent. That might not work for all companies, but if you have a 5000+ list of contacts and you send a message out twice a week, the number of emails sent quickly adds up.

If you are looking to create a more advanced look, with accurate tracking I highly recommend investing in one of these services.

Etiquette - Your email should be polite, but laid back. Speak to your audience in the 2nd person, it takes a while, but the affect is tremendous. In the end you know you're audience best - write your email for them. What works for a crazy online tee shirt company might not work for a financial advisor.

Subject Line - Make sure your subject line pertains to the body of your email but, be creative and inventive. Experiment with different ways to say what it is you've created. You need people to see your name, see your subject line, and want to click.

Design - Whether you use one of the above email newseltter services or just your plain email keep design in mind. You might not need a logo, fancy colors, or cool effects, but direct your audiences eye with bold text, bullet points, colors, etc. And make it as simple as possible. Email inboxes are getting more and more cluttered and people have little or no time to actually read. Quickly direct them to the most important points.

Content - Much like design, make your content short. Typically a paragraph works, but a few sentences is better. Time and time again in doing usability and optimization tests with clients emails that are short and simple perform the best. Additionally your email needs to include a call to action. Whether its drop dead simple - a big button asking your audience to donate - or included in the body of the text give your readers a next step. Do you want them to click, to call, etc. and whatever that goal is, make sure they can reach it quickly and simply.

Sending Email

When sending your emails there are two primary things to remember, send at the right time, and send to the right audience.

We discussed divvying your list up into different groups or lists. As you acquire the emails, break them out as best you can. That way, when sending emails you can send specific, targeted messages, to those particular groups. We've even gone so far as to create groups for certain events we've attended. That way we can send a message just to those people we've met - or perhaps a special promotion.

Timing is everything and email newsletters are no different. A message sent at 5:30 pm on a Friday will not usually be as effective as a one sent on a Wednesday at 2pm. Much like the crafting of your content, keep your audience's habits in mind. Do they check their email at 5am in the morning? Do they have busy work days involving lots of email? Overall we've found that email send in the middle of the week has last chance of getting bundled in with the end of the work week mess or the overflow that seems to pour in on Mondays. Time of day is also important. All audiences are different but if you are seeking professionals we've found mid afternoon is great. Most people have already sifted through their inbox mess and when your email pops up in the lower right hand corner of their screen it is a wonderful distraction.

Tracking Your Emails

Depending on what service you use to send your email tracking may be difficult or simple. This is another reason why we love the email newsletter services as they allow for easy, almost creepy, tracking. You can view email-over-email who clicked on what and when. As you continue to send out emails you may start to notice that a certain time works better or certain words in your subject line leads to better open rates.

As you do track your emails begin to experiment and refine. Overtime with slow tweaks you can have a highly opened email that almost everyone reads.

Legalities

Inspired by my recent trip to the Entrepreneurs Law School at FGCU I decided to throw in a little bit about the legalities surrounding email. Basically you can send email to anyone, at any address, no matter where or how you got that address as long as these basic requirements are met:

Use a non-elusive subjectline
Allow people to unsubscribe
Feature your company information (name, address, phone, etc.)

Whew... that was a lot. But, once you get started I am positive you'll be excited at the results. If you have any questions regarding email newsletters or would like to learn more please feel free to contact me [http://www.atilus.com/contact.html]!

Zachary Katkin is the founder of Naples Web Design Firm, Atilus Web Development & Internet Marketing. Zach can be contacted via the company's web site at http://www.atilus.com

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12 Email Marketing Tips For a Small Business

Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of advertising for small businesses. In order to be successful on the internet and maximise the benefits of the internet, a small business needs to implement a result driven marketing strategy on the internet. The real benefits of the internet can be realised only if a business is able to use the internet to market its products and services.

Email marketing is one of the most effective and fastest growing marketing channels. One of the first steps in a successful email marketing campaign is to build an email distribution list of potential customers. A business can build an email list from a variety of sources including its website.

Managing a substantially large email marketing campaign will require a well planned strategy and may involve the services of a professional marketing company. If you do not have a large email list then it can be purchased easily from a direct marketing company that specialises in email list management. A business can also collect email addresses from potential customers via a newsletter registration form on the website.

Following are some 12 email marketing tips for a small business:

1. Start building an email marketing list of customers

If you do not have an email marketing list you can start building one now. Whether you have a small or a large client base, you can start by first including your existing customers on your email marketing list which you can build upon with time. A small business can start an email marketing campaign from a relatively small list which can expand with time. As new enquiries are received, the list can be expanded. It is a common practice to purchase targeted email list from a professional marketing company.

2. Email registration on your website

Offering customer with a way to register via your website is probably one of the easiest ways to build your own email list. A registration form can be added to your website with ease. The placement of the email registration feature on your website is important and has an impact t on conversion rates. It should be placed on a prominent place on the website. If your website uses a content management system then most likely the newsletter registration feature will be built in.

3. Start a Marketing Newsletter

Sending newsletters to your customers is one of the most effective email marketing techniques. You can start a newsletter on a topic related to our industry. The newsletter can be weekly, monthly or even quarterly. A newsletter provides an excellent opportunity to communicate with your customers on regular basis. You can use the newsletter to subsequently market your own products or services.

4. Improve awareness of your email marketing list

You can take some simple steps to increase the popularity of your email marketing newsletters and growing your email list. Creating a quality marketing email or newsletter requires time and effort so it is best sent out to as many people as possible.

Following are some simple methods to improve awareness about your marketing newsletter or email list and encourage people to register:

o Include a link to register for emails in all email correspondence.

o Include information about your email newsletter in invoices, purchase orders and other company documents.

o Include email registration link in a prominent place on your website and blog.

o Let your team know to inform customers about your marketing newsletter at every opportunity they get.

o Create an incentive to subscribe to your email or company newsletter e.g. discount coupons or prize draws.

5. Follow data protection act

It is vital that you respect customer's privacy and take all steps necessary to protect customer data collected by your email marketing campaigns. You should not share information without prior consent from the customer. Your email marketing list should be opt in. When customers register their email address they are agreeing to receive marketing emails from you. If you purchase opt-in email marketing lists, you should do so from reliable sources only.

6. Send quality marketing emails

Nothing can be worse fro your branding than sending out a poorly designed marketing email to customers. You should research the content of your marketing email and plan your marketing campaign in advance. The content of the marketing email should be well researched and offer value to customers. It is OK to promote your products and business in your emails but you should try and offer a variety of information. A well balanced email is more likely to succeed than a purely promotional email. If the email you send is full of self promotion and does not offer real value then customers are likely to un-subscribe or opt-out form receiving emails in future. Focus on quality over quantity.

7. Select an appropriate subject for the marketing email

A good subject for the marketing email plays a vital role in deciding how many emails are opened and read by customers. It is important to choose the subject of the email with careful thought and consideration.

8. Design and Layout:

You should plan the structure of the email with care. The layout should be clutter free and easy to read. The design should be clean and minimalist. Use images carefully. Any images used should be optimised for fast loading time. The design should reflect your brand. You should also Include your logo and contact information.

9. Clean-up your email marketing list from time to time:

If you are maintaining your own email list then you should perform basic list maintenance tasks periodically. Any un-subscribed user should be removed from the list immediately. Similarly all old or not working email addresses should be removed. It is better to categorise your list in to different categories so you can pan your emails and send specific information to specific groups. At the same time any new contacts should be added so they are not left out in the next email you send out.

10. Test your marketing campaigns

Whether you send out regular emails or send then less frequently, it is vital that you test your email marketing campaign properly before you send them out. A spell check should be performed. Any links in the email should be checked to see if they are not broken. A good technique is to send a copy to yourself first.

11. Measure the performance of your Email Marketing campaigns

It is important to measure the success or failure of your email marketing campaigns. There are many ways to monitor the performance. The ultimate measure of success is the number of enquiries you receive as a direct result of your marketing emails. Statistics related to your campaign can provide a useful insight. Most email marketing software will allow you to monitor deliver rate, response rate, click rate and so on. You can find out how many emails were delivered, how many were opened and even how many links in the email were clicked. You can use this information to judge the effectiveness of each email that is sent and to plan and improvise on future campaigns.

12. Call to action

An effective marketing email should encourage users to take an action. Including a call to action statement in your marketing emails can improve the chances of conversion. A call to action can be anything from a request for more information to a link to buy a product.

The Internet marketing blog discusses email marketing techniques and other ways and to market your website.

K.Singh is a Technology Consultant for Web Design Company, Kronik Media. Kronik Media specialise in bespoke web design, Ecommerce, Joomla and Search engine optimisation.

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Email Marketing Best Practices

Now that we’ve explored the importance of sending permission-based email, let’s take a closer look at some of the techniques and practices that the most experienced email marketers use. These best practices can make the difference between rapidly growing your list through word of mouth, increasing your sales, and building strong relationships and losing subscribers to list attrition, aggravating customers, and getting your messages blocked before they even reach your recipients.

From Names & Subject Lines

For most people, a majority of emails received are junk email. As a result, each of us has developed a little ritual we follow when checking our email. Initially, most people looked first at the subject lines to determine whether to read a message. Today, however, studies have shown that recipients glance at the “From” field to see if they recognize the sender’s name or email address. Then, only if they recognize the From Name do they look at the “Subject” field to see if it’s of interest to them. This is why we recommend using a From Name that is either your organization’s name or a well-known person within your organization—and to keep that name consistent with every mailing.

Regarding subject lines, we have found a good strategy to be having one part of the subject line be consistent, and the other be variable. This way recipients can recognize your newsletter when it comes in as well as get a small taste as to what type of information might be featured for that issue.

Some examples of bad subject lines are:

The Permission-Based Email Marketing Monthly for September, 1 2005 from IntelliContact Pro

This subject line is simply too long. We recommend keeping subject lines between 20 and 50 characters whenever possible. This 80 character subject line is likely to get cut off in most email clients and could cause the message to have a higher chance of being blocked by a content-based spam filter.

[FNAME]’S ENTREPRENEURS CHRONICLE FOR SEPTEMBER

This subject line is in all caps, which will increase the change the message will get blocked by content-based spam filters.

Garden Tips

This subject line doesn’t provide any information as to what the message is about. We would recommend adding at least what month the message is for.

Oxy-Powder Special – Save $10 Today Only Buy Now!!!!

This subject line includes both a dollar sign and multiple exclamation points. Both of these things would cause the message to have a higher chance of being blocked by a content-based spam filter.

Here’s is a revised version of each of these subject lines:

1. Permission-Based Email Marketing Monthly for September

2. [fname]’s Entrepreneuers’ Chronicle for March

3. Garden Tips Monthly – Are Year Round Orchids Possible?

4. Oxy-Powder Special: 15% Off

By following these tips on From Names and Subject Lines you can maximize the chance of your message being opened by your end recipients.

HTML or Plain Text, or Both?

In the early days of the Internet, say 1998 and before, when most surfers were using Internet Service Providers such as Prodigy, AOL, and CompuServe, all email messages that were sent were plain text emails.

Then, with AOL 5.0 came the ability to send Rich Text messages that allowed you to bold or italicize text, insert pictures, and add links. Still, however, most email clients (the software tools that allow you to view your email, such as Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, Hotmail, etc.) did not have the ability to display full HTML messages.

Today, almost all email clients have the ability to display HTML messages. While some organizations still send their emails as plain text, there are a number of advantages of sending your message as an HTML message, especially with the easy to use WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) HTML editors that are available. The difficulty is, even today around 5% of email recipients either are unable to view HTML messages or have turned this feature off within their clients. To solve this problem, almost all marketers today send in a format called Multi-Part MIME. Multi-part MIME is a method by which one can send both an HTML message and a text message within the same document. When using Multi-Part MIME, you simply create your regular newsletter, announcement, or promotion as an HTML message and then create a separate text version. Then, when your message is sent, all the persons who can see HTML, will see your regular HTML message, and the 5% or so that cannot will receive the text version of the newsletter. Today’s email clients can automatically detect a Multi-Part MIME message and display the proper message.

It is for this reason that one should always create a text version of every newsletter that is sent out. Without a text version, the message will either show up blank or show up as garbled HTML code for the percentage of recipients who cannot view HTML messages. On a final note, you can go about creating your text message one of two ways. The first option is to recreate the message in the text-only section by copying and pasting the text from the HTML message. If you choose this method, be sure to type out the URLs of each link). The second option is to upload your HTML message to your web site and then send a message like the one below:

Dear [fname];

Your September edition of the Gardening Tips Monthly Newsletter is now available. You can read it online at http://www.gardentips.com/newsletters/septnews.html.

Regards,

Betty Sampson, Editor

Gardening Tips Monthly

http://www.gardentips.com

When to Email

In marketing timing is everything, but with email marketing it can make the difference between emails being read and being trashed. Naturally every person has his or her own preferential time to deal with email, but there are a few general rules of thumb for when it is best to send email messages.

If you’re mailing to business recipients it’s best to sent email Tuesday through Thursday, between 9:30 am and 3 pm. Studies found that Monday’s are generally reserved for meetings, organizing, and catching up on all the tasks left over from the week prior and emails sent Friday afternoons are often ignored or show up at the bottom of the list when downloaded on Monday morning.

If you are emailing consumers directly, emailing between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. is generally more successful than other times of the day. Friday through Sunday emails are the most effective, generally because consumers are more likely to be online over the weekend and have more leisure time to ponder your offer.

These mentioned times may change based on which time zone you are in and which time zone most of your customers are in. For example, if you are based in San Francisco but most of your clients are on the East Coast of the United States, you may wish to adjust the sending windows by three hours. In some cases, we have seen some international clients segment their list by geographic location to be able to more easily send messages during the most optimal time window.

Email Sending Frequency

As with all marketing, balancing the frequency of your messages is extremely important. If you don’t send enough messages, it is difficult remain in the forefront of your customer’s mind and be considered when they are ready to buy. If you send too many, you may annoy your recipient and cause them to unsubscribe.

We have generally found that either a bi-weekly or monthly sending schedule produces the best results. This may vary, however, based on your type of newsletter and subscriber that you have. One strategy could be to create a signup form that allows your subscribers to specify what mailing frequency they prefer. Then you could tailor how much material you send to each specific subscriber preference. Make sure, however, that each message you send has something of value to the end recipient. We’ve found that it is better to send a high quality monthly newsletter than a medium-quality weekly newsletter.

Personalization

Email marketing tools like IntelliContact Pro generally have a powerful method of improving open rates and response rates. This method is personalization. Message personalization can be done by inserting what is known as mail-merge fields into your message. For example, if you wanted to insert the first name of a subscriber into a message subject or body in IntelliContact Pro you would just type in [fname]. Take a look at the two below messages and see the difference inserting mail-merge personalization fields can have.

Message 1 – No Mail-Merge Personalization Fields

Dear Subscriber,

Thank you for purchasing one of our products in the past. Today we have launched a new online catalog that may help you in your future purchases. You can find this catalog at [http://www.autobodycorp.com/catalog/].

We appreciate your business. Please know I am always here if you have any questions about your past purchases.

My warmest regards,

Frank Desean, President

Autobody Products Corp.

[http://www.autobodycorp.com]

Message 2 – Using Mail-Merge Personalization Fields

Dear [fname],

Thank you for purchasing [productname] on [purchasedate]. Today we have launched a new online catalog that may help you in your future purchases of [productcategory] products. You can find this catalog at [http://www.autobodycorp.com/catalog/].

We appreciate having the business of [businessname]. Please know I am always here if you have any questions about your purchase of [productname] or any [productcategory] purchases that you may make in the future.

My warmest regards,

Frank Desean, President

Autobody Products Corp.

[http://www.autobodycorp.com]

As you can imagine, message #2, using mail-merge personalization fields, is a much more personal communications and would likely lead to a greater message response rate.

List Segmentation

There is no doubt that specifically targeted emails with valuable and relevant content work the best. By dividing your database either by interest or demographic, you will be able to appeal to the needs and wants of your consumer and improve your sales results. An effective segmentation strategy, however, begins with the sign up form. Make sure you are collecting the information during the initial signup that you will want to segment by later. IntelliContact Pro includes a list segmentation feature that makes it easy to segment your lists by any field in your subscriber database.

Ryan Allis is a nationally recognized expert on email marketing. Ryan is the CEO of Broadwick Corp, providers of the email marketing software IntelliContact Pro. For additional information on email marketing software, visit http://www.email-marketing-software-resource.com.

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Email Marketing for Success

We all know that when it comes to internet marketing for your business, one area of focus is driving traffic to your website. Additionally, most marketers and website owners want to keep track of how many unique visitors and hopefully new customers they are receiving. However, one thing most people don't think about is following up with the customers and site visitors they already have. Many people don't realize how beneficial follow-up/email marketing can be long-term. In fact, follow-up marketing can be fundamental to your business's success. Studies show that email marketing can increase revenue and prevent the loss of 64% of your sales. You see, it is generally easier to sell to existing customers than it is to find new customers. That being said, email marketing becomes a hugely powerful marketing tool for business owners.

Over the years, email marketing has often been abused by spammers. However, despite such abuse, email is still very much valuable and valued by subscribers. Email marketing serves as a medium to notify former customers of timely deals, offers, and opportunities. Once subscribers to your website make a purchase, they are more apt to purchase again through a follow-up email. Follow-up or email marketing is based on having credibility with your customers and building trust with them. Now with email marketing, many people opt to use an auto-responder and have an auto-responder account. Auto-responders allow for quick, consistent, and personalized email follow-ups. Most newbie marketers don't realize it takes around 7 times of contacting potential customers to generate a sale. Guru and pro marketers are aware of this and understand that follow-up/email marketing is fundamental to any website's success. The beauty of auto-responders is that they allow you to put your email marketing campaign on auto-pilot, saving you both time and money. The whole process becomes automatic and you can market with structure and ease. When you want to send out information to your previous customers and subscribers, an auto-responder allows you to create your email content, send out the message, and schedule your delivery dates or times. Additionally, once you have your email marketing campaign set in motion, you can add new messages at any time or promote limited time offers. Auto-responders allow you to touch base with your subscribers, reminding them of your existence and your services.

Building your email marketing list for your auto-responder is not difficult if you have a decent amount of website traffic. Additionally, if your site is informative and your offer various free bonuses or offers you can easily get individuals to subscribe to your list. Remember, if

done right email marketing can be a very successful tool for business owners. But the key is doing it right. You want to offer valuable content and not be too sales pitchy with your marketing emails. Your list will remain loyal to your site as long as you don't abuse their trust. So when using email marketing, be honest, and only offer products or services you believe in or have tried yourself. As long as your subscribers remain on your email marketing list, you can use follow-up marketing to contact them. Your general profit stems from the multiple sales you make from your re-occurring customers. After your first sale to an individual, you should stay in contact and offer them new products or services of value to them. So you simply, set up your email marketing campaign and reach out to your list consistently, on auto-pilot.

With all email marketing, the content of your emails is very important. There are a few key things to remember when writing your emails. When it comes to the content of your emails, you want to make sure your emails are distinguished from spam and junk-mail. One of the best ways to do that is to make your emails personalized. Some auto-responders offer a personalizing feature for email marketing campaigns. People are more open to an email that calls them by their name. No one wants to feel like you just see them as one in a herd or like a nameless number. People want to feel special and thus, I always suggest addressing email recipients by their name with email marketing. Also, make the email content as personal to their needs as possible. Secondly, you may want to consider avoiding email marketing campaigns during the holidays. People receive so many emails during the holidays that some just delete them without a glance. Therefore, I suggest you avoid later November and most of December. You can start up your email marketing campaign again around mid to late January. Overall, avoid all major national holidays when you do email marketing. Thirdly, the subject line of your emails is very important. This is where you hook the email recipient and get them to open the email. Make sure your subject line is a brief sentence summarizing your email's content. People love the phrases "free" and "free trial" so if either can be used for the email marketing offer you are sending them try to use these terms in the subject line. These are typical words that sale and generate consumer interest. You may also want to try teasers like "A personal message for..." or "Members-only discount". With email marketing, you want to grab their attention, make them sit up and notice.

Now, when it comes to your email's content layout, remember to maintain consistency with email marketing. Your emails should reflect the design of your business or corporation. You want to be sure the email recipients connect the emails they receive with your particular business.

This can be done with the use of visual slogans or company logos. You want the image of your company or business to remain a constant both through your website and email marketing efforts. Additionally, in the body of the email always include your website address, reason for contact, and a call to action. I have learned it is best to be short and to the point with email marketing. No one has time to read long boring emails these days. People's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. With this in mind, you may have to tweak your emails from time to time to find out what is effective for your email marketing project. The point is to pull people to your website again and again. Don't reiterate what can easily be read on your website just stick to the valuable new offer or information you can provide them.

The most powerful secret to increasing sales is email marketing. The key is being repetitive, consistent, fast, and personalized. Email marketing can double your web sales. Through follow-up marketing you can tap into your pre-existing customers and generate more sales. An auto-responder simplifies the whole process and puts your email marketing campaign on super auto-pilot. Email marketing is one of the most powerful techniques guru marketers use to optimize their business' profit potential. Every marketer should try it; it is a proven tool for success.

Courtney Spaulding is the successful owner of her own work from home internet business. She assists others in marketing their online businesses and helping them to generate sales. To find the right tools and services that allow you to do email marketing correctly and with minimum effort visit [http://beyourownbossinc.com/]

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Why Use Permission-Based Email Marketing?

The goal of all marketing is to attract interest in, build desire for, and generate sales of your products or services. Email marketing is a perfect medium to pick up where other marketing leaves off. Email marketing is still one of the most cost effective ways to contact prospects and customers. It's far cheaper than traditional bulk postage mail and in many cases can have a much larger impact on immediate sales and long-term relationship strength than traditional advertising.

When done correctly, email marketing can be an extremely powerful and effective marketing technique. It's a medium that allows a buyer and seller to freely communicate with one another and build a relationship based on value and trust. When done incorrectly, however, email marketing can be destructive, erode brand equity, and turn your happy clients into litigious flamers. It is for this reason that one must make sure they send only permission-based email communications to their subscribers.

Before we proceed any further, let's define exactly what permission-based email marketing is. It is important to note that there are two types of email marketing. One can either send unsolicited email promotions or send out emails only to persons who have requested to receive them. Unsolicited email is, of course, called spam. Sending spam will ruin any legitimate organization's reputation and brand value faster than mold grows on bread that is left outside in the middle of summer. Rule number one of becoming an intelligent email marketer is to not send unsolicited email.

Permission-based email marketing, on the other hand, is used effectively everyday by hundreds of thousands of organizations to build the value of their brands, increase sales, and strengthen the relationships they have with their clients and subscribers. The key difference, of course, is that these senders are only sending messages to persons who have requested to receive them.

Let's take a second to understand the key difference between spam and permission-based emails.

The Axiom of Value

For the last 100 years, companies have relied on traditional advertising in the form of catchy jingles, TV commercials, billboards, print ads in newspapers and magazines, direct mail, hot air balloons, and waving mascots. The technique is to interrupt a radio listener, TV viewer, or magazine reader with an attention grabbing ad that compels the consumer to buy the company's product or at least have the product closer to the forefront of his or her mind next time the individual is making a buying decision.

In most instances, advertising is acceptable to the consumer. Most people don't mind seeing ads while watching television, listening to the radio, or reading magazines--or at least they understand that these ads are necessary in order to receive the content they are seeing, reading, or hearing. While technologies like TiVo, DVR, and satellite radio are challenging advertisers to come up with new methods of advertising, other technologies such as Internet television require users to watch a 30-second advertisement prior to the start of a show. The point is, as long as value is provided, consumers will be willing to be exposed to a few advertisements.

This same axiom holds true online. As long as your web site provides content that people value, visitors will continue returning to the site even if there are a few banner ads or Google AdWords boxes within the page layout. While some web sites, such as WSJ.com, have successfully switched to a subscription-based model, many more web sites rely on banner, box, skyscraper, and contextual advertisements to earn the bulk of their income.

The same axiom, that as long as value is provided, consumers will be willing to be exposed to a few advertisements, also holds true with email. As long as one provides value--whether by providing content on a topic a recipient is interested in or a discount off a product related to one purchased previously--people will allow you to continue to contact them. Each and every email you send of course contains your logo, information on your products and services, and links to your web sites. These items are the advertising and should be surrounded on all sides by the items which make the communication actually add value to the lives of your readers.

Spam however, by its very nature, breaks the axiom. Unsolicited bulk email very rarely has any value. Spam is usually irrelevant, always impersonal, and rarely helpful. Everyone with an email inbox knows how aggravating it is to sort through forty new emails to only find two that are from persons you know. While spam may make money for persons in Eastern Europe promoting fake drugs, I feel strongly that sending spam will always have a net negative impact on any legitimate organization.

For this reason, we strongly recommend only sending permission-based email, also known as opt-in email. Permission-based email marketing can be an extremely effective way to increase visitor-to-sale conversion rates, build strong relationships with your customers, and turn your one-time buyers into lifetime product evangelizers who recommend your organization to everyone they know. Permission-based email marketing allows companies to develop and sustain relationships with their prospects and consumers by creating value. Permission marketing is about "turning strangers into friends and friends into customers" as Seth Godin likes to say.

The nature of permission marketing--building a relationship with a prospect or expanding the relationship with an existing customer over time--allows you to concentrate on the prospects and customers who are really interested in what you have to sell and are more than willing to become repeat customers.

The Five-Step Process of Permission Email Marketing

There is a simple five-step process in putting a successful permission-based email marketing campaign in place. This process is reviewed below.

1. Start using a permission-based email software such as IntelliContact Pro that allows you to easily create newsletters, automatically manage subscribes, unsubscribes, bounces, and view reporting statistics like opens and clickthroughs.

2. Decide on the type and frequency of email communication you will be sending. We recommend sending at least a monthly newsletter. You can certainly send multiple newsletters if you sell different types of products. You can also send promotional messages offering a discount or coupon for a product or service.

3. Add a sign-up form to your web site so you can start collecting subscribers and import any existing lists of subscribers that have already requested your communications. It is generally also safe to import the names of anyone who has done business with you in the past year, provided you will be sending content relevant to what they purchased.

4. Create a good email template by using a template provided within the email software, having your in-house team create one, or using the custom design services of the email software company. IntelliContact Pro provides over 140 design templates within the software that can be used free of charge and can also develop a custom template for a nominal charge.

5. Develop quality relevant content for your newsletter or message and send it out to your list. Continue sending your newsletters, announcements, or promotions with consistent frequency. As your list grows, you will notice increased traffic (and if applicable, increased sales) on the day of and the days following an email send.

By providing quality relevant content you will succeed in keeping your brand mindshare at the front of the mind of your customers and cement strong relationships with your subscribers.

Ryan Allis is an internationally recognized expert on email marketing. Ryan is the CEO of Broadwick Corp, providers of the email marketing software IntelliContact Pro. For additional information on email marketing software, visit http://www.email-marketing-software-resource.com

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