Email messages Complying with Spam Laws (09/30/2008)
... Determining which e-mails have to comply The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 applies to commercial electronic mail messages, which the law distinguishes from transactional or relationship messages. In general, the CAN-SPAM Act defines the two separate kinds of e-mail messages, as follows: - A commercial e-mail is basically an e-mail containing an advertisement, promotion, or content from a business’ Web site. - A transactional or relationship e-mail is basically anything other than a commercial e-mail. Although understanding that some e-mail messages fall outside the definition of commercial e-mail is important, it’s equally important to understand that all e-mails sent in the name of your business can be construed by the recipient as commercial in nature. Best practice is to make sure that all your business-related e-mails are legally compliant....

Use full disclosure during email address collection (09/30/2008)
... It’s also a good idea to keep a record of your permission exchanges in case you’re faced with a legal complaint in the future. - If you use e-mail list check boxes on Web site forms, keep each check box cleared (unchecked) as the default. For example, if you use your Web site’s shipping form to collect e-mail addresses, require your shoppers to select a check box to add themselves to any non-transactional e-mail lists. Make sure that the check box also includes a description of the types of e-mails your shopper is signing up for. - Send a professional welcome letter e-mail to all new e-mail list subscribers....

Content that your Email list subscribers expect you to send (09/30/2008)
... Deciding When and How Often to Send Consumers tend to perceive e-mail that arrives too often as spam, so you need to figure out the frequency rate and timing of your e-mails. Frequency refers to the number of e-mails you send and the period of time in between each e-mail you send. Typical frequencies include - Once - Daily - Weekly - Bi-monthly, or every other week - Monthly Balancing the frequency of every e-mail message with the needs and expectations of your audience is more of an art than a science. According to a 2006 Epsilon Interactive consumer e-mail study, 73 percent of consumers will unsubscribe if they feel that a company sends e-mail too frequently. Consumers are willing to receive e-mails with almost any frequency as long as the content of the message remains relevant and valuable to them....

Consumers who want to receive lengthy E mail messages (09/30/2008)
... Images can replace long passages of text. For more information about proper image use. Using too many images or using large image files might make your e-mail download more slowly, and attaching images to your e-mails directly degrades your deliverability. - Use white space and design elements. You make your e-mails easier to scan and consumers can quickly find the information they value....

Small businesses can sale using Email marketing (09/30/2008)
... If your objective is to increase repeat business, you can state your objective in the following ways and craft your e-mail content with one of the following stated objectives in mind: - Stay at the front of your customers’ minds. - Attract prospects to convenient purchase links and options. - Reward repeat customers with incentives based on repeat sales Shorten a sales cycle Your sales cycle is how long someone takes to become interested and actually make the purchase. For example, if you own an automobile dealership the sales cycle is how long someone takes to recognize their need for a new car, research models, visit showrooms, test drive models, negotiate price, and finally purchase the vehicle. Your sales cycle also applies to prospects....

Efficient small business with mail marketing (09/30/2008)
... - Automate list management and reporting with an E-Mail Service Provider (ESP). Interact efficiently with customers Staying connected with customers and making them feel that you care about them can be time-intensive if all your customer interaction happens in person. On the other hand, automating customer interaction can make your customers feel like they aren’t being treated personally. Efficient customer interaction works when you establish a healthy balance between personal interaction and electronic communication. If your objective is to interact efficiently with customers, you can state your objective in one of the following ways and use e-mail to improve your interaction efficiency: - Ask customers to use surveys and feedback forms....

Organizing Your EMail Content into Themes (09/30/2008)
... A theme is the main idea of your entire e-mail campaign. Themes are not the same as formats. Format refers to the classification and configuration of an e-mail. Most objectives can be grouped into one of four familiar themes: - Promotional - Information - Procedural - Relational e-mails can sometimes include content with multiple themes, but in such cases, it’s usually best to have one main theme and several related themes grouped together visually under the main theme. Promotional themes When the main objective of your e-mail is to persuade your audience to take a specific action or to ask for a specific purchase decision, make sure your e-mail includes only content that supports and relates to a promotional theme....

Collect Contact Information to send targeted Emails (09/30/2008)
... - Query your list to extract useful information and reports. You don’t need a highly sophisticated database for effective e-mail marketing although additional database features can improve your ability to target your contacts with specific messages. Keep in mind that databases with a lot of complex features are more expensive than simpler applications. Make sure any fancy functionality in your database is capable of returning more than a dollar for every dollar you spend to gain that function. If you’re not sure which database is going to give you the best results, start with a basic database application or with your E-Mail Service Provider (ESP) database utility....

Collecting behavioral interests of your subscribers (09/30/2008)
... For example, a hair salon might note a trend that customers think about their next haircut every 30 days. For a scenario like this, your coupon should arrive around the end of that 30-day period. Here’s an example with a little longer time frame: If your business offers oil changes, try sending a promotion every three months. However, if your customers adhere to a longer buying cycle (such as customers who buy a new car every three to four years), don’t wait that long to send them an e-mail because you don’t want them to forget you. - Very Important Customers (VICs): A VIC list can include big spenders, frequent shoppers, referral sources, or people who give you valuable feedback about your business....

Offering incentives for joining your Email list (09/30/2008)
... Giving subscribers immediate incentives Some incentives, such as ongoing discounts, can be an inherent part of being on the list and are, therefore, immediate upon the subscription. Immediate incentives abound and could include - Discounts or reward points on every purchase - VIP access to special events, front row seats, and so on - Access to members-only information - Free trials, gifts, or additional services Giving subscribers future incentives Some incentives are not immediate but are instead forthcoming for members of the list. For example, imagine a clothing store that has a 48-hour sale twice per year, and only e-mail list subscribers are invited to save 50 percent if they order within the 48-hour period. If e-mail list subscribers are the only customers invited to the event, the invitation is the incentive, but it isn’t immediate because the subscriber has to wait for an invitation to take advantage of the incentive. Because the sale happens only twice per year, the store could send other e-mails between the sales with other offers and information....

Collecting subscriber information without asking for permission (09/30/2008)
... The transaction implies that the purpose of giving you the e-mail address is to receive e-mails from you in reply. This level of permission is not recommended as a best practice even though it’s sometimes suitable in the recipient’s view. (I describe why this is not a best practice in a bit.) An example of implied permission is a prospective customer who fills out an online form to obtain a quote for your services. The form includes an e-mail address field....

Building an Email List with List Brokers (09/30/2008)
... Furthermore, most ESPs discourage or disallow rented lists and almost never allow purchased lists. As of this writing, I recommend that you obtain e-mail addresses by using the collect-where-you-connect methods that I discuss earlier in this article. If you still feel it’s best to proceed with the services of a list broker, however, read on and proceed with caution. Sticking to quality Confirmed-permission lists are the only viable option for sending e-mails through list brokers. Confirmed-permission lists can be quite expensive because they are more difficult to obtain and because they contain e-mail addresses belonging to people who (at least for the moment) are interested in receiving specific types of information....

How to design and layout my Email content (09/30/2008)
... If you aren’t an HTML programmer, check out any e-mail templates that your E-Mail Service Provider (ESP) provides. E-mail templates allow you to start with a familiar e-mail format, such as a newsletter or promotion, and then customize the format with your own layout and design elements before inserting your content. Determining the Proper Format for Your E-Mail Campaigns Consumers expect the format of your e-mail campaign to deliver certain types of information, so matching your e-mail content to the proper format helps to build your audience’s trust in the content of your e-mails. When I talk about format, I mean the classification (category or type) and configuration (layout or arrangement) of your e-mail. Familiar formats include - Newsletters with one, two, or three columns - Promotions with one or more offers in one or more columns - Event invitations and calendars in a variety of layouts - Announcements and greetings in a single column Choosing the proper format is also important because each format visually communicates the main idea of your e-mail content before your audience even begins to read it....

Newsletters are Emails containing information (09/30/2008)
... Examples of e-mail promotional content include - Sales and discounts that call for an immediate purchase or an immediate commitment to a decision - Descriptions and images of products and services with links to more information - Limited time offers requiring immediate action - Step-by-step directions for taking action on the e-mail content - Testimonials and facts to help readers justify a purchase decision - A single main idea or message asking for a purchase decision or a personal commitment - A single call or multiple calls to action tied by a similar theme - Design elements that reinforce the items or actions that your message is promoting - More promotional information than informative - Delivery on a routine or event-driven basis in order to drive sales Selecting an event invitation format E-mail invitations focus on a single event or a group of related events and should contain a single call to action in the form of confirming or declining attendance. E-mail is one of the best ways to deliver event invitations because people tend to respond to e-mail invitations more quickly than they respond to invitations delivered via postal mail. Examples of e-mail invitation content include invitations to - Attend customer appreciation events - Attend seminars and workshops - Public appearances - Meetings and networking events An e-mail invitation format is the way to go when your content includes - A single invitation message or multiple, related invitation messages - A single call to action focused on confirming attendance to an event - Design elements to reinforce the event information - One primary objective to increase event attendance - Delivery on an event-driven basis in order to motivate people to attend your events ......

Email tracking reports and the bounce rate (09/30/2008)
... ESPs calculate bounce rate by taking the total number of bounced e-mails and dividing by the number of e-mails sent. You can calculate your own bounce rate as follows: 1. Divide the total number of e-mails that bounced by the total number of e-mails sent to get the total number of bounces per e-mail. For example, if you send 100 e-mails and 20 of them bounce, you bounced 0.2 e-mails for every e-mail sent....

Bounced and Blocked EMail explained (09/30/2008)
... This following sections explain how to take the appropriate action on each type of bounced and blocked e-mail in order to refine your e-mail list and get your e-mails delivered to more of your list subscribers. Dealing with hard bounces A hard bounce is an e-mail that is returned because a permanent condition makes delivering the e-mail impossible. When your ESP’s bounce report shows e-mails delivered to non-existent addresses, your e-mail can’t be delivered to that address no matter what action you take. Non-existent e-mail addresses are either - Misspelled (for example, name@hotmai.lcom) - Invalid (such as when your subscriber changes her e-mail address) You can check your hard-bounce report for obviously misspelled e-mail addresses....

How to create a Successful Email marketing (09/29/2008)
... In a year’s time, your goal is to add 1,000 new customers. If your average order is $45 per customer, that’s a grand projected total of $45,000 in new sales revenue over the course of the next year. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’ve also determined through a lifetime value analysis (LTV) of your current customer base (see Part Four on retention for more information on how to calculate LTV) that those 1,000 new customers will likely purchase, in aggregate, approximately five times that amount ($225,000) over the next three years and eight times that amount ($360,000) over the next five years because of your customer development program, which includes cross-selling and up-selling efforts. Therefore, those 1,000 people are actually more “valuable” than they appear, at first glance....

Communicate with existing customers via Email (09/29/2008)
... and more profitable. Therefore, it is critical that you know who those customers are, so you can develop the best strategies to both find them and communicate with them even when they’re still at the prospect stage. For example, I know that I look forward to receiving my e-mail promotions from Levenger when they send them. As a satisfied customer both online and offline, I don’t mind being a part of Levenger’s house file and the e-mails are always welcome. They’re promotional, yet are colorful and well-designed and are whipped together with compelling prose....

Email marketing process will bring in new leads (09/29/2008)
... First, make sure the gift is truly something you can afford, budgetwise, to give away. In this same vein, if the gift is too appealing, it may reduce the need for your new leads to make a future purchase. Free gift offers can appeal to both business-to-consumer (B2C) and businessto- business (B2B) offers alike. On that note, if new leads are gathered through the use of a B2B offer utilizing a free gift strategy, you should strive to follow up with them immediately with a phone call or an e-mail response. Within an hour is the ideal response; within three days is the maximum the quicker, the better....

Offer Sales Offers and Trial Offers to your customers (09/29/2008)
... If he does not cancel within that time, his credit card automatically will be charged when that time period is over. • An auto-billed trial offer, in which the responder can pay in regular monthly installments. You, the promoting company, need to make sure these install ments get made by submitting to the appropriate credit card company each month. Discounts. Many online retailers offer discounts on products when they prospect with e-mail....

Opt in lists contain email addresses of people who have signed up (09/29/2008)
... YesMail, on the other hand another opt-in provider sends a follow-up e-mail, but doesn’t require the recipient to respond. It only wants replies from people who have changed their minds about being on YesMail’s list, or have received a subscription in error. Two different opt-in policies, two different schools of thought. Those who believe in “double opt-in” also know it as “confirmed opt-in.” They believe it is the safest way to prevent forged subscriptions from inundating a nonsubscriber’s inbox....

Email opt in lists from those who sell their internal opt in lists (09/29/2008)
... We’ll delve into some nitty-gritty details of opt-in e-mail lists and how to find the ones best targeted for your promotion; but before we do, let’s define a few direct marketing terms that have transferred to e-mail and are specific to lists and list research. Universe. When you first begin the search, your job is to find as many sources as possible for your target audience. If you have a broad audience, you may be able to reach a potential audience of 500,000 or more people across various e-mail lists. Conversely, if you have a small audience, you may only be able to reach 50,000....

Copywriting for email and why good copy sells (09/29/2008)
... They’d fill it with fake televisions and computers, plastic plates with plastic eggs and bacon sitting on the breakfast table, glasses of plastic wine on the mini-bar, etc. The goal, of course, was to have people mentally “move in” to the home. Our jobs, as the salespeople, were to showcase the benefits of each home, get the prospects to pick out their favorite, and then we’d move in for (an attempt at) the final close. It was actually a lot more complicated than it sounds, but you get the idea. What I learned is that the buying decision is an emotional one nine times out of ten....

Email marketing is not all about acquiring new customers (09/29/2008)
... You must demonstrate that your products and services have true value for them: so much value, in fact, that your customers will buy from you again and again over time. CREATING AN OPT-IN HOUSE LIST In order to be able to communicate with your house list and market to it using retention efforts that we’ll see here, you need to make sure that all members have opted in. As we saw in Part One, the main way to do this is to be crystal clear in all your offers and e-mail address collection areas. Suppose you run a prospecting promotion, for instance, and you drive people to sign up for a free somethingor- other, or you offer a sweepstakes entry of some kind. If you plan on promoting to those new registrants/subscribers/trial members, etc....

The online marketing world has started to embrace offline strategies (09/29/2008)
...com, markets in a number of different ways, including e-mail. As a result of offline and online direct marketing strategies over the years, it has managed to build a house e-mail database of more than 10,000 buyers who have paid up. You, as the site’s primary e-mail marketer, have determined that the average first time buyer’s purchase at your site is about $45. If each buyer only bought the first time and then went away, never to be seen again, your total existing sales to date would be only $450,000. However, based on your marketing efforts, in which you attempt to get those customers to “trade up” to more deluxe equipment, or you try to get them to purchase other complementary products, your total sales derived solely from your house list promotions actually far exceed that figure....

When subscribers opted in to receive a newsletter (09/29/2008)
... As far as timing goes, it’s important to distinguish how often you need to send out an e-mail communication. The decision depends on whether you are promoting to paid customers, registered users, or registered leads. Following is a definition of each. Paid customers. These are, of course, the people who are the true customers of your site, if you are offering products and services for sale....

Messages can be successful with a viral marketing effort (09/29/2008)
... Click Send. Before e-mail, what on earth did we do? This type of easy “pass along” presents a fantastic opportunity for advertisers who have a message or an offer that is truly extraordinary. Therein lies the challenge: Make it unique. Make it fun, even. If the offer is right and if your original recipients are the right audience for it, then you stand a good chance of achieving marketing bliss....

How to avoid spam and become a trusted Email sender (09/29/2008)
... Minimizing Spam Complaints Spam is also known as unsolicited commercial e-mail. Although numerous stories, analogies, and myths exist about the origin and meaning of the term spam, one thing is for sure consumers don’t like receiving it. Even if your e-mail doesn’t meet the legal definition of spam, consumers can easily report your e-mail as spam and thus impede your ability to send e-mail in the future. For example, Yahoo! customers can deem your e-mail as spam with a click of a button. Most ISPs (including AOL, Yahoo!, and Hotmail) give their customers Spam buttons to use to block suspected spammers....