Outlook 2007 and HTML email design: a summary
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Wednesday, January 31, 2007 |
As the dust settles on the big bust up over Outlook 2007 and how it displays emails, I thought I'd sum up the arguments, issues and implications. Here goes...
The story so far
Microsoft's new version of Outlook, the email client included within their forthcoming Office 2007 software, features an important change in how it displays emails.
Previously, Outlook relied on the technology behind its sibling web browser (Internet Explorer) to interpret the underlying code and instructions that HTML emails use to tell Outlook where and how to display all those images, colors etc.
The new Outlook 2007 now uses Word to do that job instead.
The big deal is that Word is not nearly as good as Internet Explorer at understanding HTML elements and style properties (CSS). Microsoft themselves published an article describing the various things that Outlook 2007 will not be able to cope with. These include:
Forms
Background images
Animated GIFs
Flash
Float or position commands
Alt tags in images
In a nutshell, this places a lot of restrictions on email design. Needless to say, email designers are not happy.
The fires of protest first sparked into flame via an article in Sitepoint's newsletter. This led to a now-famous blog post by David Greiner, with the memorable title "Microsoft takes email design back 5 years."
David's post in turn led to a slew of similar posts from outraged designers, who like him were upset at the limitations imposed on their work by Outlook. The story even made it to the front page of ClickZ and Digg.
Is this bad for email marketing?
The general consensus is that the implications for email marketing are not huge. This is because Outlook is predominately used by the business community.
Other email clients typically used by business folk aren't particular good with HTML and CSS either. So most B2B email marketers are already sending out Outlook 2007-friendly HTML emails.
For example, the folk at MailChimp point out that much of the "lost" functionality was never standard in HTML email design anyway. In other words, we're losing a lot of functionality that wasn't particularly valuable in the first place.
That opinion is echoed by Bill Nussey of Silverpop, who notes, "Bottom line, Outlook 2007's rendering engine is not a game-changing event for email marketers."
The counterargument is that these other email clients never had enough market share to make it compulsory to send out "watered down" HTML emails.
So some people will inevitably have to go back to their email template and redesign them again, on the assumption that Outlook 2007 will likely become the most popular email software among business people.
Even then, say experts, there's no reason why simpler HTML has to mean poorer response rates.
Some suggest that the negative reaction is more to do with the creative restrictions it imposes on designers rather than any likely marketing problems.
In other words, yes, design needs to take account of Outlook 2007's relatively poor rendering capabilities, but you can still send decent looking, effective email to people using it.
That argument is exemplified by Greg Cangialosi, who writes on the Blue Sky Factory blog, "This is a small blow to email marketers, but certainly not the biggest deal. What this really does is make all of that great creative talent we have out there revert back to nascent HTML email design"
So why the fuss?
To some extent the uproar comes from a reopening of two traditional divisions in email marketing.
The first is between the creative folk and the marketing folk.
Some marketers have made relatively offhand comments along the lines, of "tough, get over it," which is a touch disrespectful to the trade and art of email design.
If you took away the color green from an artist's palette, she could still paint great works of art. But you wouldn't expect her to be happy about it.
The second division is between the email marketing community and a section of the anti-spam community...those who believe marketing email in general and HTML marketing email in particular is an abomination. See, for example, this article by Jack Schofield.
The anti-HTML-in-email brigade have welcomed the move, though it's a pyrrhic victory: it won't change the number of HTML emails around, it will just make them less creative.
So are there any practical implications?
Yes. If you are tackling a business audience with your list and never bothered to consider problems with how your emails display, then this is a necessary wake-up call. Various versions of Outlook have a market share among business users of over 50%. So expect Outlook 2007 to be widely used.
The change should be seen as a further reminder that how your emails display is a critical part of email marketing.
The more complex the email and the more fancy the coding within it, the less likely it is to be seen as you intended. It doesn't mean the end of email design creativity, but it certainly means you need to take a more circumspect approach to the whole topic.
People view your emails using different software. Some use a desktop email client, others use webmail. There are different webmail services. Some people read emails on their mobile device. This diversity needs accommodating in your email design.
Equally, the less creative flexibility you have in terms of layout, images and colors, the more thought needs to go into other aspects of the email, such as the words you use and the offer you present.
So while Outlook 2007 may not prove to be the disaster some have called it, it's certainly another good reason to take a longer deeper look at the email we send. |
posted by Jemma Turrell @ 2:12 PM   |
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Do It Yourself Email Marketing Techniques
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Email marketing is one of the most effective Internet marketing strategies these days. Here are some helpful tips about do-it-yourself email marketing...
#1. Do-It-Yourself Message Templates
Whether you publish your own newsletter or want to follow up with your past customers, you need a professional design for your messages - especially if you're going to send your messages in HTML format.
The easiest way to find a design is downloading newsletter templates from the Internet. You can find many templates that you can use for free.
Even if you want your messages to have a unique design, you can get inspired from these free templates to come up with a better design idea.
Here's a link for you to download many free newsletter templates in HTML, plain text, and PDF.
#2. Do-It-Yourself Promotional Emails
The most important part of your email marketing campaign, is the promotional messages you send to your list. If they are compelling, you will make the sale. Otherwise, you won't.
To discover how to write killer email copy, you should learn from successful, money-making emails. You can simply read them to discover their secrets, and use the formula for writing your own messages. After all, if they're making other people rich, they will make you money too.
#3. Do-It-Yourself Follow Up System
Customer follow up is the most effective email marketing strategy, because selling to your past customers is much easier and more cost-effective than gaining new customers.
You can create a follow up system and then put it on autopilot. The only thing you need is an autoresponder service to automatically send your messages day after day and month after month.
Here's a free article on how to create a powerful customer follow up system.
To your success! |
| posted by editor @ 8:31 AM |
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e-Marketing Strategy
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Tuesday, January 30, 2007 |
The frenzy around these new marketing techniques created by e-tailers and supported by the internet rapidly gave birth to a new dimension of what we knew as Marketing: the e-Marketing (electronic Marketing).
There are many definitions to what e-Marketing is, the simplest and shortest one being formulated by Mark Sceats: e-Marketing is Marketing that uses the internet as manifestation media. A working definition is that coming from a group of CISCO specialists: e-Marketing is the sum of all activities a business conducts through the internet with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.
e-Marketing Strategy
The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing – the well-known 4 P's (Product – Price – Promotion – Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P's (People – Processes – Proof) and you got the whole extended Marketing mix.
Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline: the extended Marketing mix (4 + 3 P's) is built around the concept of "transactional" and its elements perform transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the 2P + 2C+ 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.
These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P's) and upon each other.
1. Personalization
The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual level and gather all possible information about them, with the purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.
For example, a cookie strategically placed on the website visitor's computer can let us know vital information concerning the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up) we will offer a low-volume variation of our website, with reduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash applications. This will ease our customer's experience on our website and he will be prevented from leaving the website on the reason that it takes too long to load its pages.
Personalization can be applied to any component of the Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.
2. Privacy
Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the previous one – personalization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected information.
This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to consider all aspects of privacy, as long as data are collected and stored, data about individual persons.
Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.
3. Customer Service
Customer service is one of the necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.
We will connect the apparition of the customer service processes to the inclusion of the "time" parameter in transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, over time.
For these reasons, we should consider the Customer Service function (in its fullest and largest definition) as an essential one within the e-Marketing mix.
As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you wish) can be performed upon any element from the classic 4 P's, hence its moderating character.
4. Community
We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities that interact for a common purpose is what we call a "community" and we will soon see why it is of absolute importance to participate, to be part of a community.
The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states that the value of a network is given by the number of its components, more exactly the value of a network equals the square of the number of components. We can apply this simple law to communities, since they are a network: we will then conclude that the value of a community rises with the number of its members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have to be a part of it.
The customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a community where they interact (either independent or influenced by the marketer) – therefore developing a community is a task to be performed by any business, even though it is not always seen as essential.
Interactions among members of such a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.
5. Site
We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media – the internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper location, to be available at any moment and from any place – a digital location for digital interactions.
Such a location is what we call a "site", which is the most widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the "website" is merely a form of a "site" and should not be mistaken or seen as synonyms. The "site" can take other forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.
This special location, accessible through all sort of digital technologies is moderating all other functions of the e-Marketing – it is then a moderating function.
6. Security
The "security" function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.
What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:
- security during transactions performed on our website, where we have to take all possible precautions that third parties will not be able to access any part of a developing transaction;
- security of data collected and stored, about our customers and visitors.
A honest marketer will have to consider these possible causes of further trouble and has to co-operate with the company's IT department in order to be able to formulate convincing (and true, honest!) messages towards the customers that their personal details are protected from unauthorized eyes.
7. Sales Promotion
At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.
This function counts on the marketer's ability to think creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an efficient promotion plan.
On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuously keep up with the latest internet technologies and applications so that he can fully exploit them.
To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and they are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be efficient and deliver results.
What is e-Marketing?
e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no doubt – that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their products via the internet in the early 90's. |
| posted by editor @ 8:37 AM |
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Automatic Responder Email Marketing
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Monday, January 29, 2007 |
Once you have successfully established your online business, it's important to begin an email marketing campaign. You will want to have a subscriber form located in a highly visible area of your site. There are many types of email newsletter software on the market, however, an automatic responder will make your email campaign much easier to manage. The job of the automatic responder software is to email your subscribers on a regular basis (usually weekly or monthly.) You prepare newsletters in advance and pre-load them into the automatic responder. Choose your automatic responder wisely. There are free versions on the internet but free usually comes with a price such as ads on all of your emails.
Building Your Subscriber List
Building a large list is the goal for any successful internet marketer. You can build your list by joining ezine directories or offering free products for signing up. Free products are usually in the form of ebooks. You can also utilized what is called a "squeeze page." Squeeze pages work by displaying a newsletter sign-up form to the user before they have access to you web site. Pop-up windows used to be effective but with most people using pop-up blockers, it's a little harder to build a list. There are new types of pop-up windows which can work around pop-up blockers. The windows appears to float across your browser screen containing text along with the sign-up form.
Why Automatic Responders Work
Automatic responders work well for maintaining a relationship with your readers. You'll want to keep your newsletters useful and informative so that you build credibility. Having a good relationship with your subscribers builds trust and this is important when you recommend particular products. Many internet marketers earn a huge portion of their living from their subscriber lists.
As you can see, building a subscriber list is very important for any internet marketer. Automatic responders work great to quickly develop a trusting relationship with your readers. |
| posted by editor @ 10:56 AM |
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RSS Versus Email
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Thursday, January 25, 2007 |
All right, I admit it. I'm writing this in an emotionally charged situation. And no this is not about which is best, who is right and not doing one thing that will kill your business overnight. Actually this came about quite by accident when a friend asked about an article claiming that Email is doomed, RSS is the replacement and if a fellow marketer and I would agree.
You should know that I am not selling any type of RSS related products. The reason you should know this is so you know my thoughts on RSS and the technology is not based on something that I can gain from, it is my real opinion based on my business experience. I also simply love email marketing, it's been very good to me. Email marketing has helped me build my income, no doubt, and I wouldn't be without if for anything. So what's this article all about?
Most people miss the point on RSS. RSS is not only capable of delivering newsletters or updates. An important point to always keep in mind is that email is not the same as RSS and RSS is not email, thinking they are will do a great injustice to how they can potentially be used. RSS offers many capabilities that just aren't leveraged. FedEx got it right when they started to offer parcel tracking via RSS.
Now you want to know what to do with RSS without dealing with a newsletter, right?
1. Syndicate. An article can be published in many different newspapers in many places all at the same time, ever wonder how this is possible? A radio show can be distributed nationally or globally, ever wonder how as well? It's because of syndication. When an article, radio show or your content is syndicated it automatically and instantly shows up in the format that has been determined, without you having to do anything else.
So in short, how would you like it if every time you published a new article, the article appears on a bunch of other people's websites immediately? No more article submissions, no more hoping an article will be picked up.
2. Affiliate support. Quit making your affiliates copy and paste codes. If you had a way to instantly update your affiliates websites when you had new specials, an event or something new to add to your product would you like that? Well, RSS can do that.
3. Research! Let's face it; we are all too busy to do research yes to stay on top of our industry or niches, we need to be up to date. On the latest news and happenings, what other people are discussing, what people are saying they want. You can create RSS feeds on anything that will alert you anytime something you want to know about in your niche comes up. Let the technology to the leg work for you and spend less time on your computer.
I hope from this article you've thought about doing more than just comparing email to RSS and starting thinking about the potential of this great technology. If you need more ideas and thoughts about how to use RSS visit my site and pick up the newsletter I offer on marketing technology. You'll get straight talk and easy to understand tips and ideas to help you make the most of it. Don't ever stop publishing your newsletter either. |
| posted by editor @ 8:40 AM |
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Testing Email Campaigns
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Wednesday, January 24, 2007 |
Testing of your email campaign is all important...not only do you risk your campaign being a flop, but you also risk your reputation being at risk if you send a badly formatted copy. You can test the factors contributing towards the deliverability of the campaign as well as the factors contributing towards the overall success of the campaign, which includes open rates and response rates.
The key point to remember when testing is to use a control message as a basis for comparison. Don't be tempted by the ease of testing your campaign and test multiple parts of an email at once. Just test one facet of the campaign and compare it to the control message. Have a checklist which needs to be signed off. Also have a written testing procedure in place and record your results.
Factors to be tested:
Personalisation: Test whether you should personalize the subject line, whether you should work the business name into the copy...what other personalisations are relevant to your message? Do they make a difference to the result? Personalisation should not only be tested for response but also for deliverability differences. Segmentation: Test to see whether your response rates improve if the campaign is segmented even further. Generally the more targeted the offer, the better the response rate.
Tone: Change your tone of writing to suit the recipient...for example if your audience are lawyers, you can be more formal in your tone. Don't use the same tone when writing to both lawyers and graphic designers!
Time and Day: Test this thoroughly for receptiveness. It can be different for each sector within each country...Research your audience and don't be scared to try out different times and days.
The length of the message: Test short messages, long messages...different lengths will suit different audiences and offers.
The lead: Recipients will stop reading if the first paragraph doesn't grab them. Use the "above fold" (preview window) wisely and put some attention grabbing statements or offer in there. Don't let the preview window be filled only with the company logo or header.
The offer: Test the offer/s thoroughly...Make sure the offer correlates with the subject line. Hard versus soft sells, Full-price versus discount offers, Different discount levels, Buy-one/get-one offers, Money-back guarantees, Free gift offer.
Follow up mailings: Test these thoroughly - both the copy/offer and the mechanism. If they're automated, does the mechanism work? Is it simple to use? If using forms - check these aren't too long. The simpler the response mechanism, the better.
Subject line: This is one of the easiest tests and one of the most effective test you can perform. Should the subject line be personalized? If you put an offer in the subject line, make sure it is relevant and supported in the copy.
The "From" field: Who is the email from? Should you use the companies name or an actual person? Who will the recipient be more receptive to?
Format: When testing the format, always be sure to actually send a test message - don't just preview it. It is the sending of the email which brings out symbols and weird formatting.
Call(s) to action: Are they easy to find? Who does all the hard work...you or the recipient? Make sure you have procedures in place and make it as easy on the recipient to respond as possible. Test the positioning of these calls to actions and how many calls to action work best?
Spam rating: Most reputable email service providers supply a spam scoring test. Use it in conjunction with your general testing. You may have a fantastic subject line, but if it gets blocked by ISP's because they deem it to be too 'spam like', then it's no good using it.
Deliverability to major ISP's: Does your email service provider supply a feature which tests the deliverability to major ISP's? If so, then utilise this feature...
So, in summary:
1. Test only one element at a time
2. Use a control message
3. It can be as simple as sending different batches with different subject lines
4. Test the spam score and the deliverability of the message to major ISP's.
5. Use these results for your direct mail campaign…instead of having to wait months and having to do an expensive re-run of the direct mail campaign, utilise your easily gotten email campaign results to use on your direct mail campaign.
6. Keep notes of all tests, as this is very valuable information for your future campaigns. |
| posted by editor @ 10:06 AM |
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Optimizing Your Email Marketing
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007 |
Email Campaigns
Email marketing can be a tremendously valuable tool for web businesses. Because it is so fast, cheap and easy, and because it is everywhere, email lends itself ideally to direct marketing. In this day and age, to say that the whole world is on the Web is not a stretch. Hundreds of millions of people plug into the Web on a regular basis.
Most regular internet users have an email address. Now that access to the Internet is available on PDAs and mobile phones, people can literally be reached anytime and anywhere. The capacity to send and receive email, and thus communicate with a large audience about your product, is huge and ever-broadening. Even though you only want to focus your email campaigns on those who have expressed an interest in your product, the way of attracting and finding large numbers of those targeted prospects is easier via the Internet.
There is no faster way to get your marketing message into the homes of consumers than through email. Additionally, no other method is less expensive. Other than internet access costs, which are likely already incurred for general use, emailing costs nothing. Unlike with direct mail, there are no printing or postage costs. Email allows you to reach potentially large numbers of people instantaneously for free.
Optimize Your Email Campaign
There are ways to optimize any email campaign. Valiss can help you direct your campaign to a targeted group of consumers and avoid crossing that line between responsible consumer communications and annoying spam. Our experts know how to use email marketing to enhance your web presence and convert prospects into loyal customers. |
| posted by editor @ 8:36 AM |
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Opt In E-Mail Marketing
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Monday, January 22, 2007 |
Opt in e-mail marketing can be an incredibly lucrative area of online income for those who truly apply themselves to learning it. Opt in e-mail marketing is not something that you can just jump into blind, you literally have to learn how to do it. You need to learn to write e-mail title, and email content, and how to get the maximum number of e-mail readers to open your e-mails and click through from your e-mails.
In this article, I simply give you a few of the optimal techniques about opt in e-mail marketing that work for me, and I am confident that if you apply these to your own e-mail campaigns, you should be able to super charge your own e-mail campaigns.
Tips to super charge your opt in e-mail marketing:
1) To super charge your opt in e-mail marketing, invest in a copy writing course for writing sales letters. Now, your e-mails should not read like sales copy, but many of the tips and skills that you learn for writing compelling sales copy will apply to writing compelling e-mail copy.
2) To super charge your opt in e-mail marketing, begin testing everything you do in your e-mail marketing campaign. This is highly important. You see, a great subject line that works well for my list might not work for a very similar list of yours, due to the difference in the recruiting technique of your opt in e-mail marketing campaign. You must test to see what works better with your e-mail list, and then you can reuse those subject lines in the future, and discard ones that are less effective.
3) To super charge your opt in e-mail marketing, give away free gifts. And the free gifts, by the way, should be things you could have sold, but chose to give away. Do not give away garage-sale trash, give away the good stuff.
4) To super charge your opt in e-mail marketing, ask your subscribers what they want to receive from you. They will tell you what they want to learn about, and they will spend more with you if they receive offers from you that they are eagerly looking for. |
| posted by editor @ 8:28 AM |
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Structure Your Email Campaign
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Friday, January 19, 2007 |
Because every email campaign is different, and will be structured differently according to the goals you have for it, I am going to share with you some ideas for some elements of the structure of your email campaign, and also share with you my email campaign structure.
First, some background.
One of the theories that I read a lot about when I first got started online proposes the need to build rapport with your email subscribers before you sell them anything. This theory proposes that you send out lots of great content emails at the beginning of your email campaign and then add in sales emails as time goes by.
I subscribed to this idea at first, but then I noticed that after about 5 or 6 emails – about the same time as I was about to start sending out sales letters, that my readership went down. After the introductory, rapport building emails, my readership was going down – right at the point where I wanted to start making money with them.
After some research and study, I discovered that people go through a period of buyer intensity. This is a period of time when they are most likely to buy something.
Here is an example. Assume that you are going to visit your long-time cousin in Florida. You and your cousin used to fish together. You have since moved to the Midwest, and no longer fish, and you also have no fishing equipment, and you are not familiar with the latest fishing equipment and terminology.
Now, let’s assume that you start looking for fishing information online. You go to my fishing niche web site. You also go to someone else’s fishing niche web site. For the sake of this example, let’s assume that my email campaign is a rapport builder, while the other person’s is a salesy campaign.
Now, you need this information now! You trip begins in two weeks. What happens? You buy from the other website; by the time I begin to promote anything to you, you have already bought from the other web site.
Now, you may think that this is just a remote example, but I do not believe that to be the case. I think that most people search for information online when they need it, when they are most interested in buying something.
So in response to this information, I changed my email campaigns so that they contained a mixture of content, free gifts, and sales letters – and my sales went up dramatically!
Now, keep in mind that the bulk of my subscribers are generated from articles. This means that my typical subscriber has a stronger level of rapport with me than they would if they would if they were recruited from a pay per click ad.
Perhaps if I were generating the bulk of my customers from other, more impersonal means, this would not work. But for me, it has been extremely effective.
Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide |
| posted by editor @ 8:17 AM |
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Using Word in Email Marketing
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Thursday, January 18, 2007 |
In many b2b (business to business) marketing emails I receive, the opening salutation is 'Hello Friend'.
In most cases, I don't know the people who have sent me these notes and given that I can count my true friends on the fingers of one hand, and with fingers to spare, it's highly unlikely these people will ever be listed among them.
I'm instantly suspicious of these emails; my finger automatically heads towards the delete button as notes that start out like this are usually either:
Nigerian/419 scams
Shady MLM schemes
People touting cheesey information products
Get rich quick scams
Black hat search optimization techniques
..and other various bottom feeding activities of the online world. I’m not stating that anyone who does use this salutation is unethical, but it’s just a huge red flag for me.
I can’t remember the last time that any of my friends commenced an email conversation by calling me 'Friend'. Oddly enough, they use my name or a nickname - go figure.
I also often see the use of the word 'friend' in business communications where some sort of negotiation has only very recently been established.
When someone I’m discussing a business partnership with writes back to me and states; 'we’ll do this for you my friend'; what I read is: 'we are more than likely going to shaft you'. This reaction isn't baseless paranoia, it's been honed through years of online business and partnership experiences.
I think this opening salutation ranks highly as another poison phrase in b2b marketing - it should not be used unless there's a very well established relationship and even then, with great caution.
At best, it's pointless. At worst, it's unprofessional and runs the risk of a negative reaction, especially if that person is a seasoned online business owner - and all within the first two words of your spiel. You only get one chance to make a good first impression.
'Hello', or 'Greetings' on their own is fine in my books if you don’t know the name (or gender) of person you are approaching.
In the online world, the word 'friend' used so loosely is fine for MySpace, not for business. |
| posted by editor @ 9:12 AM |
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Email Marketing Campaign Mistakes
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Wednesday, January 17, 2007 |
Here are four major mistakes that you must avoid when you plan, organize and implement your next email marketing campaign.
Not Knowing Your Target Audience
One of the most frequent mistakes that email marketers make is failing to identify their target market. Quite often marketers believe that their product or service is needed or wanted by everyone. That is rarely the case.
Identifying your target market will ensure that your campaign is focused and will result in an effective and profitable mailing. Blindly sending your marketing materials to everyone you can think of or to a general list will generate few leads and fewer sales. So take the time to identify your target market.
Creating Spam emails
First of all, make sure that the people that you are sending your promotional materials to asked to be on your list and want the material that you are sending. Make sure that your emails contain useful information and are not just a series of sales letters. Otherwise, most people will delete your emails without even opening them.
Remember, the main idea behind an email marketing campaign is to get your email delivered and opened.
Failure To Follow Up
People rarely make a purchase or sign up for a service the first time that they receive your material so it's important that you have a way to follow up with additional information. This can include a periodic newsletter, postal mail or phone calls.
You should set up an autoresponder series to send additional information every few days or once a week. Also, get the address and telephone number of each prospect. Send a postcard or pick up the phone.
Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! They may not be interested today but the next time you send out your newsletter or mail a postcard they may be ready to buy.
Not Having Sufficient Inventory
When you plan your email marketing campaign, it's important to anticipate an increase in product sales or requests for your services. After all the purpose of all of this is to generate increased interest in your products or services.
So it's important that you have more than enough product on hand to handle the influx of new customers. If yours is a service then you need to make sure that you have enough trained employees to handle the increased volume. If you aren't prepared, then your potential customers will go to your competitor.
The next time you are planing an email marketing campaign, remember these four mistakes. Make sure that you make avoiding them a major part of your strategy. |
| posted by editor @ 8:17 AM |
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The Technical Realities of E-mail Use and Privacy
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Tuesday, January 16, 2007 |
Most e-mail is insecure. It should be regarded as insecure unless it has been encoded or encrypted. E-mail is often compared to a postcard in that anyone who receives it can read it. E-mail may also be read if it is stored on servers during transmission.
E-mails are hard to destroy. Many people think that if they delete their e-mail it is gone forever. This is not so as most electronic documents are backed up and recoverable.
Logging. Most software used to operate networks, including web servers, mail servers and gateways, logs transactions and communications. These logs will normally include the e-mail addresses of senders and recipients of e-mail and the time of transmission. The content of e-mails themselves would not normally be logged but may be stored on mail servers. Similarly, web server logs record information on the sites that people visit. The keeping of these logs is usually necessary for the routine maintenance and management of networks and systems. System administrators are also capable of reading the contents of e-mails sent and received by the corporate network. |
| posted by Jemma Turrell @ 12:31 PM |
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Risk of Email Marketing
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What is High risk Email marketing?
Simply defined as sending unsolicited email to spam list(s). People buy these spam lists on the internet. Have you seen a million email addresses for ten dollars? Those are spam lists... They get these emails extracted from internet websites by Emailbots. These emailbots do good job by extracting emails from 'mailto:' links on websites.
But what webmasters don't know is response rate from these lists. Its very poor and most of these email caught by spam filters.
Source for these spam lists:
1. Buying on the internet
2. Buying Emailbots and extract email by the webmaster itself
3. Rented lists
One question frequently asked by webmasters: I am an affiliate of these product and I made few sales. Can I send emails to them? ANSWER : Simply no. First, the customer is not your customer. He is your affiliate product owner's customer. Second, he didn't opt to receive your email. SOLUTION : If you want to send email to him, put a form on your website and ask him to sign up for your list.
What is Low risk Email marketing?
Simply defined as sending solicited email to your opt-in list. Webmasters has to keep a form on their website(s). Prospects if they want to receive email from that webmaster, they will enter their name and email address to subscribe. This in-house built list is safest to do email marketing with.
How to get them sign up?
1. Buy a mailing list manager software.
2. Create a mailing list there.
3. Copy and paste the html code on your website.
4. Use double opt-in. Means subscribers has to click on the link provided to them in their initial email.
5. Put the subscriber ip, subscriber email, date of subscription, web site from which he subscribed details in every email.
Advantages of Low risk Email marketing:
1. Low chance of spam accusations.
2. Good response from your list in the form of click throughs.
3. Your host won't ban your site becuase of spamming.
4. Your website ip won't be listed in spam lists.
5. Your piece of mind!! |
| posted by editor @ 9:48 AM |
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Communication And Email
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Monday, January 15, 2007 |
Since flying in airplanes has become less expensive and more commonplace, television has brought culture from across the world into our living rooms, and cell phone usage has made overseas calls more affordable, people from all over the world have been able to visit, tour, and communicate more easily. But no other development has made commerce, education, falling in love, and swindling others more personal than the Internet. This paper will debate the premise of whether or not the world is becoming a “global village”.
The word “global” indicates a huge place, while the term “village” usually carries the connotation of a close-knit group or clan that is brought together by values or a common culture. This would bring to mind a place in which people develop lifelong relationships. Has the Internet been effective in joining people who work toward common goals? This really would depend on what the goal is.
E-mail is one of the easiest and least expensive methods of communication that is available in the present day. Because of the ease and low cost, it is also accessible to almost anyone with a computer. Computer swindles are now prevalent, with few safeguards present for those that are easy prey. One such scheme involves the request for a sizable sum of money by someone who claims to be in trouble. The trouble can only be resolved by an investment from the e-mail recipient. The sender of the e-mail promises to repay the kindness of the recipient by giving back a much larger sum of money.
These e-mails appear to have originated in Western Africa, usually Ghana or Nigeria. These scams have created a negative perception of how Africa and Africans are viewed as Internet users. |
| posted by editor @ 8:37 AM |
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Direct Drip Email Marketing Tactic
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Friday, January 12, 2007 |
If you have the products or services that you want to sell on the Internet, you’ll want to create a web site where you’ll advertise what you are offering and you’ll also want to spread a word about your products or services to the world. You can easily and quickly do it via email. Email marketing is certainly one of the most powerful strategies in internet marketing. It’s quick, cost effective - you do not have to pay a set price for every email that is sent out - and allows contact people in all parts of the world. So, you can get more purchasers and respectively more revenue for less investment of time and money.
How does one accomplish bulk email marketing campaign?
You can use online bulk emailing services, or you can pay a marketing firm to do your bulk email promotions, or you can use direct email marketing software to distribute your email campaigns sitting at your computer.
Using software can be the most cost-effective method if you have the time to manage your prospects list and accomplish your email campaigns with a constant frequency.
There is wide choice of direct email marketing software packages available on the Internet market. Some are even freeware programs that don't require any investment. Although they don't generally have the value-added features that come with software packages that you purchase; however, if you aren't running a large email marketing campaign, they may suit your needs for accomplishing specific tasks just fine.
What is Drip Email Marketing?
The concept behind drip email marketing consists in sending periodic emails to prospects and clients hoping to bring them to your website and make them purchase products or services. It is an effective method to generate new purchasers from your prospects and keeping relationship with your existing clients.
Drip Email Marketing tactic results from the idea that nobody purchases online products or services instantly. A visitor can come to your web site a few times before he becomes a purchaser. Keeping this in mind, how are you going to stimulate your prospects’ interest to your site and keep them informed about your products and services? This is where a drip email marketing campaign is quite to the point.
Imagine that a prospect has just visited your site and left you the email address. It’s important to note that you should add a sign-in form to your web site to collect the prospects’ email addresses. It’s rather useful if your sign-in form asks the subscriber to provide some about additional and not only the email address. I’m not talking about private information. I’m talking about the subscriber’s area of interest, hobbies, specific needs, or at least the emails he prefers to receive, text or HTML. All this information will help you segment your prospects and send more relevant email messages to each group.
So, based on the subscribers’ preferences, you set up a drip email marketing campaign catered to their specific needs. Each message you send them give more information about their inquiries slightly hinting them at you and your products or services. It is an importunate way to stamp your name in their mind. Remember, you don’t sell anything yet. You just give an advice and information about their particular needs and wishes.
For your existing clients, a drip email marketing campaign is similar. You only need to tailor the emails so they are oriented to the client after purchase. Your email drips must contain relevant information that can help the customer with the products or services he purchased. The customer must be sure that you are always there to assist him. When your client believes that you are a faithful and reliable partner, he is ready to purchase again from you.
It may probably sound like you will need more than one tool to accomplish your drip email marketing campaign. But you can find many programs on the Internet that can handle your growing lists of prospective and present clients. Our email management software must be flexible enough to treat each client or prospect according to the routine of your drip email campaign.
The most important thing to remember about drip email marketing is that you must not send meaningless emails. Each message must have an informative content, a real reason to contact your prospects and clients, not just a note saying "Hi!" or "How are you?".
If your drip marketing email cannot keep the client's interest, it will be deleted immediately next time when they read the sender's email address. We all are busy people and won’t spend our time for dull messages. If you are trying to build the relationship based on trust and faith, you cannot tolerate that they never open your emails. You can start directly from the subject line. The subject itself must grab people’s attention and make them want to read your message. This is the essential concept behind a drip email marketing campaign - to develop a trust and faithful relationship with your customer by sending valuable information. When the rapport of informative and useful emails is established, your clients and prospects will be looking forward for every email from you and they will even recommend your company and your products to others. Isn’t it exactly what you want for you business? I’m sure it is. |
| posted by editor @ 8:24 AM |
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Email Marketing: What is Your List Really there For?
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Thursday, January 11, 2007 |
Have you ever been on a person's mailing list who repeatedly sends you the same offer over and over again? This is the fastest way to lose subscribers. You should make your messages useful and provide your readers with something educational to read. Sure every now and then you are going to want to remind them about the product you are selling, and that is normal.
I just un-subscribed from a list that started out great with lots of good information, but soon the well ran dry and I was getting two sales letters a day. This brings up a debate. Most marketers will say that the list is there for the purpose of presenting offers and trying to make money from sales. Some marketers will assault their list while others subtly coax them into buying.
I prefer the second method because I personally would rather buy from someone who is honest and not a money hungry annoyance. Sure you may make some money with all of those sales letters, but the rest of your list is going to head for the hills. The most successful approach would be to regularly send a product reminder along with some helpful information. Make your subscribers know that your product is worth the money because your free information is of high quality. Be sure not to skimp on the quality of your free material because this is what your readers will be judging you with.
Use common sense when mailing your list offers. Think about what you would or would not want to see in your mailbox if you were a subscriber. Remember your list will come back and buy time and time again as long as it is still there.
Want to learn how I draw large amounts of traffic to my websites? |
| posted by editor @ 8:22 AM |
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email etiquette
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Wednesday, January 10, 2007 |
Why do you need email etiquette?
A company needs to implement etiquette rules for the following three reasons:
Professionalism: by using proper email language your company will convey a professional image.
Efficiency: emails that get to the point are much more effective than poorly worded emails.
Protection from liability: employee awareness of email risks will protect your company from costly law suits.
What are the etiquette rules?
There are many etiquette guides and many different etiquette rules. Some rules will differ according to the nature of your business and the corporate culture. Below we list what we consider as the 10 most important email etiquette rules that apply to nearly all companies.
1. Be concise and to the point
2. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions
3. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation
4. Make it personal
5. Use templates for frequently used responses
6. Answer swiftly
7. Do not attach unnecessary files
8. Use proper structure & layout
9. Do not overuse the high priority option
10. Do not write in CAPITALS |
| posted by Jemma Turrell @ 3:18 PM |
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Email Marketing Success
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Isn’t that your goal?
The latest survey on email marketing revealed that email-marketing efforts are being dulled by record levels of Spam and email box over saturation. Those surveyed that use email primarily for home use stated that unwanted messages comprise of over one third of the email they receive daily. Those that use email at work indicated that over twenty five percent of their inbox is flooded with unwanted email.
The study also revealed that those who have long-term relationships with an opt-in mailer have had their buying decision affected by the mailings they received. They do no feel opt-in email as part of the saturation process.
While they are eager or at least curious enough to read permission based email, most said they delete op-in messages without reading them.
This high saturation level of unwanted messages is turning consumers off email as a communication method.
66% of those surveyed feel they get too much email. Less than 30% of these indicated that they are likely to “occasionally” respond to email-marketing mailings.
How do you deal with the problem of too much email?
As an Internet entrepreneur email marketing is the tool of choice to get your message out. How do you get your message read? What are the best practices to implement to achieve this goal?
The number of those who are competing for email user’s attention is growing.
How do you boost your readership and response rate?
How do you guarantee your messages get to legitimate consumers and business email users?
How do you make sure your potential customer does not mistake your email message for Spam?
WHAT IS YOUR PLAN???
The Spam epidemic is one of the online businesspersons greatest problems.
While many of those online that receive email regularly appreciate opt-in marketing messages and as stated above will respond to your message, research has shown that proliferation of Spam threaten the legitimate email marketing.
Consumers are experiencing inbox burnout. Over time they will become less responsive to your email campaigns.
How?
By deleting your email message without reading it first. Even your permission based email.
Additionally, your prospective customers and their Internet service providers are using email filtering and bulk sorter software to block your messages. Are your messages among those being redirected, filtered, bulk sorted and deleted by software like “Clean My Mailbox”?
What can you do to combat this?
Email marketing has proven to be a highly specialized medium.
It is being used to generate revenue, deepen customer relationships and influence potential customer behavior. Brick and mortar businesses are using it to increase catalog sales, improve call center response and as an interactive customer service assistant.
Dramatic positive effects on the customer’s behavior are occurring as the direct email marketing industry matures. It’s relative inexpensiveness, compared to direct mail marketing and its increased acceptance by the mass market is attracting a great deal of attention.
As a direct email marketer, you must position your messages so the various obstacles in place to combat your efforts to contact your prospective and your opt-in customers are unsuccessful. In this e-course we will outline successful strategies, which will help you, get your messages read.
Here are 7 strategies you can begin using right now.
(1.) Referrals
Your potential customers open e-mail messages based on the “from” field. The sender has an important impact on your potential customers’ willingness to open your email message. The use of a “refer a friend” button on your web pages stimulates referrals from satisfied visitors to your site.
Your follow-up with content rich, helpful information to these referrals and your request for them to take further action by opting into your e-zine or e-course mail list, as well as recommending a beneficial free offer will help you grow a list of loyal customers.
(2.) Privacy
Your potential customers want to know how you are going to maintain their privacy. Do you rent or exchange email list with others? This is a taboo to most of your potential customers.
Do you have a privacy policy? Is it listed where it can be easily reviewed? A hyper link on every message you send out, as well as on your web site should be in place. Let your current and potential customers know what your company’s privacy policy, rules and guidelines are. This adds a since of comfort when doing business with your company.
(3.) Personalization
The sweetest sound to anyone is the sound of his or her name. The use of your customers name in your message adds a since of ownership to the message. Most importantly, it is an attention getter and increases readership. Isn’t that your purpose, to get your message read by the receiver? Why not capture your potential customers’ name as well as their email address?
(4.) Show Your Expertise
Are you publishing a weekly content rich e-zine? Do you write and post on topic content rich articles in newsgroups? Do you submit content rich articles to other e-zines?
What do you do to show your expertise? How do you communicate to your current and potential customers that you know what you’re doing? That you know what you are talking about, that your advice is a result of experience, from walking the walk and talking the talk? This is an excellent method to grow your list and customer loyalty. Email how to articles and helpful tips to your list.
(5.) Deepen Customer Relationships
Your customers will remain loyal only after you have established a positive and useful relationship with them. You establish this type of relationship through continuous meaningful contact with them.
The follow-up messages you send in response to your customers inquires, the helpful articles you write and submit, your content rich web site, your e-zine and its content rich information, your company’s order fulfillment policies, and your customer service practices are your proof to your customer that you care about them.
When your customer feels you care about them, a “know, like and trust” connection develops between you and them. This makes them more responsive to your messages and offerings. Isn’t that your goal?
(6.) Opt-In List Care
Your list of customers who have opt-in to receive your mailings is one of the two must-have ingredients for the successful email marketer. The other must-have ingredient is your product or service. It is far easier to sell more to the customer you have than to sell to a new customer.
Regular management and maintenance of your list is important. Cleaning your list frequently so that it consists of deliverable address is essential. Purge all duplicate names and email addresses. Remove the names of those subscribers who have opt-out immediately. Use a double opt-in procedure to confirm that your new subscribers are authentic. Encourage your subscribers to provide more information about themselves, their likes and dislikes, and feedback about your product or service by using surveys. This will allow you to customize and/or target your product or service to fit your customers wants.
(7.) Long-term Associations
The number one cause for the loss of customers and subscribers is indifference. The online marketer’s failure to make periodic contact with their customers and subscribers is the major reason. The online entrepreneurs who maintain long-term relationships with their opt-in customers have the most responsive list.
Strategies to establish a long-term association have been discussed above. Good, strong, solid online relationships take time, effort and imagination to build. Once in place, they become a source of profitable dealings through a loyal customer base.
Successful email marketing is built on loyalty. Your loyal customers and subscriber base will not mistake your message for Spam. Your loyal customers and subscriber base will look forward to your mailings and offerings. Your loyal customer and subscriber base will continue to purchase your product and service for years to come.
Isn't that your goal? |
| posted by editor @ 9:26 AM |
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Effective Email
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Tuesday, January 09, 2007 |
How to Communicate Powerfully by Email
When you're trying to locate some information in an e-mail someone sent you a few weeks back, what helps you find it quickly? If the sender included the information you want in a long message covering lots of points, the chances are that it will take you time to find it. Worse, if the sender is someone you communicate with regularly, and he or she just pressed Reply to a previous message about a different point, the heading of the mail you need won't actually be related to the information you want.
There are a few simple rules to ensure that your emails are read in the first place and stay useful to the recipient.
Subject Lines are Headlines
The headline in a newspaper does two things: It grabs your attention and informs you what the article is about so you can decide whether you want to read further. Email subject lines need to do the same thing. Use the subject line to inform the receiver of EXACTLY what the email is about in a few well-chosen words.
Because everyone gets emails they do not want (SPAM, etc.), appropriate use of the subject line increases the chances your email will be read and not deleted without so much as a glance.
Of course, just as it would be ridiculous to publish a newspaper without headlines, never leave the subject line blank.
Make One Point per Email
The beauty of email, compared with letters, is that it doesn't cost any more to send several mails than it does to send one. So, if you need to communicate with someone about several matters, write a separate email on each subject. That way your correspondent can reply to each one in the appropriate time-frame. One topic might only require a short reply that he or she can make straight away. Another topic might require more research. By writing separate emails, you get clearer answers.
However, as with traditional business letters, the email should be clear and concise, with the purpose of the email detailed in the very first paragraph. Sentences should be kept short and to the point.
The body of the email should contain all pertinent information and should be direct and informative.
Specify the Response You Want
Make sure to include any call to action you desire, such as a phone call or follow-up appointment. Then, make sure you include your contact information, including your name, title, and phone numbers. Do this even with internal messages: The easier you make it for someone else to respond (i.e. if they don't have to look up your phone number elsewhere), the more likely they are to do so. |
| posted by Jemma Turrell @ 9:06 AM |
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Email Marketing Done Right
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Email marketing is one of those buzz phrases, striking a mixture of glee and trepidation all at once in the heart of most business owners and marketing departments. Email marketing and e-zines have become all the latest excitement, providing an opportunity to reach a large number of clients with little more than the rattle of a keyboard and the click of a mouse. The power of this marketing tool and a successful email campaign need hardly be argued, but there are many issues of etiquette and responsibility to be considered, or your presentation risks simply being labelled as spa and quickly blocked, filtered away or deleted.
As you design your email marketing campaign, it is a good idea to keep the following points in mind to make your campaign successful while still operating within the law and the expectations of your customers or potential customers.
• Sign up subscribers
• Allow for an opt-out
• Legitimate contact information
• Carry interesting and useful information, and non-aggressive advertising
• Don’t cut corners to bulk up your list
Let’s take a look at each of these points in detail, stressing the right ways to handle concerns and build your business.
SIGN UP SUBSCRIBERS
No matter what type of email marketing campaign you’re planning, be it an e-zine or simply a one-page blurb about a new shop’s grand opening, a mailing list with no-one signed up to it is a pretty poor list. You may be tempted to purchase email lists in bulk, but this is a temptation that should be avoided - it may give you a lot of names, but of those only a fraction are sure to be sufficiently interested in your product to actually open the email and read it. It is much better to sign up people you have met personally, or who have visited your off-line store, if you have one, or your website. At both a these locations you should create a means for customers to sign up for your e-zine or email updates. You’ll be surprised at how many people will do so and you can send your information to them with confidence that they will open and read it. Studies on mailing lists find that about 20% of the people on your mailing list provide 80% of the business you can expect to generate from that list. This percentage drops with an unfocused mailing list, and rises with greater focus.
ALLOW FOR AN OPT-OUT
At the bottom of your e-zine or advertising email, always provide a link for those who wish to be removed from the mailing list. Most people won’t take advantage of this, but they will be comforted to have the option to opt out. This reduces the pressure that some people call feel when they feel they are being targeted advertising campaigns, and makes them more likely to actually keep reading what you have sent.
LEGITEMATE CONTACT INFORMATION
When sending out an advertising email or e-zine, be sure to provide valid contact information to the customer. This serves several purposes, it legitimises your business and also gives customers a direct way to contact you if they are interested in what you are advertising.
CARRY USEFUL INFORMATION AND NON-AGGRESSIVE ADVERTISING
Generally, customers receiving an email expect the information to be more than just a sales pitch or jingle. They are looking for useful information that they can refer back to at a future time, or information in answer to questions they have asked. If your ad or e-zine is nothing more than sales babble, it is very likely to be discarded before more than the first line or two is ever read. The more legitimate and interesting the information you provide, the more likely your customers will read to the end, whether you sent them a short email, an e-zine or even a full email marketing campaign. In conjunction with making your information useful, it is best to present email advertising in a fashion that is inviting with out being overly aggressive.
Customers are accustomed to being blasted with ads on television and radio and to dealing with pushy salespeople face-to-face, even though these are all media that are harder to shut out than email or an e-zine. If advertising strikes customers as abrasive or overly pushy, they will simply erase. Make sure your design emphasises encouraging advertising, bringing your product to your customers and making your business a success: the goal is to invite a customer into the sale, not push customers away.
DON’T LIST BULK
Many services gather email addresses for sale, using web bots, spiders and other such technologies. While it is tempting to purchase these products in order to increase your exposure, it is generally best to resist this temptation and keep your email marketing focused on those who have a genuine interest in your product, or who have opted in of their own free will. This prevents you annoying those who don’t want to receive your communications; this is very important, because complaints to your ISP can result in your email server being shut down for spamming. Patience will pay off in the longer run if you take the time and make the effort to ensure your list is genuine. With these points in mind you’re on your way to creating a strong email marketing campaign. |
| posted by editor @ 8:42 AM |
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Email Marketing
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Monday, January 08, 2007 |
One of the first techniques many people associate with internet advertising is email marketing. Here we discuss issues of spam and compare the cost and effectiveness of email marketing campaigns and PPC campaigns.
Is email marketing different from spam?
Spam or spamming, is the practice of sending large amount of unsolicited commercial email to consumers who have not consented to receiving this information
Illicit e-mail marketing antedates legitimate e-mail marketing, as the early Internet prohibited the use the medium for commercial purposes. Marketers trying to establish themselves as genuine businesses in e-mail marketing have therefore had a difficult time, made no easier by criminal spam operators who pose as legitimate internet advertisers.
Companies considering an e-mail marketing program must make sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as the United States' CAN-SPAM Act, the European Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 or their Internet provider's acceptable use policy
Legitimate email marketing
Recent legal and media attention devoted to the illicit use of email marketing has given email advertising a bad name in recent years. There is no reason that thoughtful, legal use of this platform cannot be employed as a legitimate form of online advertising, but it's often not as cheap and effective as other forms of internet marketing.
The term 'email marketing' (when used to describe legitimate activity) generally refers to 2 strategic practices:
Sending e-mails to improve client relationships. Either to maintain current customers, or re-invite old customers back for repeat business
Placing advertisements in e-mails which other organisations send to their customers who have signed up for a newsletter
Email marketing is a bit like a digital version of the traditional paper mail-outs businesses have sent their clients for years. Without printing costs, emailed newsletters usually end up being cheaper than traditional pamphlets, but only become really cost effective for huge e-newsletters with 500 000 or more recipients. |
| posted by Jemma Turrell @ 11:48 AM |
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Challenges of Email Marketing
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According to Forrester Research, internet users spend more than 35 percent of their time with emails. Thus, emails have enormous potential as far as building and managing customer relationship is concerned. Perhaps, that’s the reason why email marketing has become the new catchphrase among entrepreneurs. However, despite of its benefits, email marketing is inflicted with countless challenges. Some of the major challenges of email marketing are as follows:
Quality of Email Addresses
The greatest challenge associated with email marketing is compilation of the list of email addresses. Lack of proper email-address list is one of the main reasons for the failure of email marketing campaign. Hence, when you prepare the list of email addresses, one of the first things that you should do is to test the quality of email addresses. You should gain customer’s permission to use his/her email address.
One commonly used method to do so is to send an automatic message informing the customer that you intend to add his/her email address to your list and ask them to confirm the acceptance of your offer. Another technique is to request the customer to enter his/her email address twice. These easy techniques will help you to compile an authentic list of email addresses for your email marketing campaign.
Informing and Gaining Customer Permission
Merely preparing a list of email addresses is not enough. It’s your duty to inform the customer how you intend to use his/her email address and then seek his/her permission to use the address in that manner. This process is important because it will protect you from undergoing unnecessary trepidations like lawsuits and financial losses. Moreover, your reputation will also not be adversely affected by the label of spammer.
Maintenance of Email-Address List
Your email marketing campaign can never be successful unless you maintain regular contact with your customers. Regular maintenance of email-address list is the only way out. Keep in mind that email address list is a perishable commodity. NFO Research Group found that approximately 32 percent of customers change their email addresses after a year. Hence, it is essential to check the validity of email addresses regularly.
You should provide your customers easy methods to update their email addresses. Furthermore, you should also provide ways to reaffirm what kind of information your customer has agreed to accept. This step will not only help you to protect your |
| posted by editor @ 7:58 AM |
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Disclosure Policy
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Monday, January 01, 2007 |
This policy is valid from 1st January 2007
This blog is a collaborative blog written by a group of individuals.
This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.
The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.
The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.
This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
Disclosure Policys are a great idea, as they let the blogs readership know exactly what is behind the content and resaoning for the blog entries. I feel that this is a way of letting my readers know exactly what they will find on my blog site, the moral code I operate this blogsite by, and why I endorse and select the PayPerPost articles that I choose. I can now say what influences me on choosing these posts, and that the comments applied to these posts are those that are 100% my own. I am not being payed to endorse a product, I will only comment on it based on my personal opinion.
This Policy was created using Disclosure Policy Generator |
| posted by editor @ 10:09 AM |
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