Why Email Marketing?

The Internet as a whole was a moving force in the world when it came in
challenging geographical boundaries, and making arduously long tasks into
simple and almost automated acts. One of such applications is that of
electronic mail or email, which enables people, usually over a free service
provider, to use the facility for correspondence.

Email marketing, is defined more or less as the use of the email in sending
newsletters, offers on future products and services, as well as other content
relating to the maximization of the current service or product being enjoyed by
the customer, usually to an existing customer of a company. As such, it is
simply utilizing a new forefront of correspondence (the email) vis-à-vis the
more traditional means of marketing and enhancing customer value -- either
through telephone or direct mailing.

Many people consider email marketing as something that can very well come
across as spamming. This translates to greater efforts on the parts of
businesses to assure the clarity of their email even at the moment of receipt,
and more so in their content. Greater stress is also put in the use of valid
email addresses, as well as evaluation of the existence of a pre-existing
business relationship with the recipients of the email. After all, those with
whom the business has had pre-existing business with are either still in a
productive relationship with the business, or may be well within the scope of
the company's target audience.

Given there is so much trouble faced simply in trying to avoid the negative
perception of email marketing, what benefits are to be had that would justify
giving it enough merit to be considered as a viable tool for marketing?

The first and most attractive feature of email marketing is it is low-cost.
Email marketing allows for businesses to go on a marketing campaign without the
traditional costs of printing and distribution, as well as the marginal expense
of following up further. Moreover, when talking about large volumes of mail,
there is very little added cost upon a company utilizing an email service
provider in its marketing strategy to increase the number of customers targeted
by the marketing campaign, in comparison to printing an altogether new letter or
newsletter to send to more customers.

The second and perhaps most noticed by companies who want to use the potency of
email marketing is consumer behavior. While many contend that people do not
spend as much time as they do emailing, statistics have shown that people
across age brackets spend a huge majority of their time online either reading
or sending emails, or managing the emails that have already been received.

Given that emailing is one of the largest activities that comprise a regular
person's Internet time, email marketing directly responds to the inherent
potential in an untapped market. After all, if people were in constant use of
emails and were considerably spending more time emailing, what you necessarily
have is a probable market for a product or service.

Alongside the low-cost implementation that happens in email marketing, it also
exists in a less arduous development of the content of a marketing pitch sent
through email. Email marketing allows for a company to have a test-run on its
target market to measure responsiveness at almost non-existent cost, and make
small modifications without incurring huge expenses.

Moreover, when you want to talk about turning interested parties into real
viable customers, it's also a matter of having limitless access to these people
who may have greater predilection to purchase the product than others. This is
what email marketing affords companies. Email marketing allows for companies to
launch a marketing campaign free of geographical constraints, and reduced costs
and difficulty in order to get to those people they believe would be most
interested.

At the end of the day, the most important benefit that can be enjoyed by a
company from an effective email marketing implementation is the fact that
within its very core, the heart of email marketing is trying to foster better
relationships particularly with already existing customers. Current business
trends put great emphasis on increased value added to customer's money, and
email marketing allows for companies to provide continued product and customer
support. By increasing the value to be had by citizens, the customers are given
reason to patronize a product, which is exactly what companies want to achieve
in the long run.

Email Marketing 101

The Internet has provided us with ways on how to market cost effectively. It
has given virtual tools which can deliver hard results which can be comparable
to the results that one can achieve using the more popular forms of marketing.

The electronic mail or "email" is one of the most effective and widely used
tools in Internet marketing. Other people employ affiliate programs, links,
free items and other gimmicks to market through the Internet, but most of these
marketers have utilized email marketing in one instance or another.

Email provides a marketer with a whole new spectrum in using the Internet as a
marketing medium. Millions of people now rely on email to receive information
quickly. However, although email is a good way to market a certain product or a
service, one should be cautious in using it to market. Ethics also apply to the
use of Internet media to be able to convey a marketing message to a targeted
audience.

This article tries to explain the different ins-and-outs in the world of email
marketing. It also tries to give some tips and advises on how to properly use
email as a marketing tool.

Let's say that one has a great product that he wants to sell through the
Internet. He had laid down the foundations such as the development of a website
to be the portal on which he would receive orders and display much needed
information about the product. The website contained attractive and sleek
graphics and useful information. The only problem was, no one was visiting the
website. Aside from employing other techniques for Internet viral marketing, he
also tries email marketing in the hopes of getting hits and transforming these
hits into sales.

Here are some tips on how one can effectively use email marketing to promote
his product or service:

-Join e-groups

There are a lot of groups out there which cater to a specific market. Millions
of mailing lists and e-groups have been established and these can be used by
the marketer to be able to instantly put his target market into the bag.

One must be patient enough not to plunge into email marketing errors which can
destroy his reputation and eventually his product's image in the eyes of his
target audience.

He can join these so-called e-groups but must try his best to get a general
feeling about the dealings that happen in these groups. This is a kind of
market infiltration. He can make himself known first by posting some short
comments about the topics which are discussed in the group and try to build a
rapport with the other members. He can eventually tell, through time, when it
is appropriate to post his advertisement through the mailing list. -Write
attractively

Using email marketing methods allow one to be able to convey sufficient amount
of information about his product so as to entice the receivers to avail of the
product. In writing advertisements through email, one must be diligent in
making the final output readable and interesting.

The first part of the email should catch the attention of the reader. This can
be compared to the heading of a press release or any kind of article for that
matter. The first lines should contain the basics of what one is trying to say
to the reader.

Sufficient information about the product should be present in the email. The
body of the letter should contain information which would answer the "four-W's"
about the product. The reader should then be enticed to act upon the request of
the letter. The letter should bring about enthusiasm about the product and lead
people to actually visit the seller's website and click the "add to cart" icon.

-SPAM

This is the basic rule of the ethics of email marketing- never send spam! Spam
is a term that is used to depict unsolicited email. Spam mails are not only
irritating, they eat up much needed email space and restrict more important
emails from landing into the inbox. If one would compare real junk mail from
spam email, one would conclude that spam emails are more irritating and
agitating than the normal ones. The physical commercial-type junk mail can
easily be disposed and does not require too much of an effort from the
receiver. Spam email eats up space which is being paid for by the email
subscriber and is intended for legitimate emails.

These are just some of the basics of email marketing. No matter what one does
in email marketing, he should never ever send spam. They do not only dent the
reputation of the sender as a marketer, they also dent the reputation of the
product which the marketer is promoting. Overall, email marketing can be a
potential way of effectively marketing a product, but it is not without rules
and ethics.

Effective Email Marketing

Email marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of Internet
advertising. This is because there are many distinct advantages to the concept
of email marketing. However, email marketing does have some disadvantages as
well. In this article we will examine the advantages and disadvantages of email
marketing and will also provide some insight into how to plan and execute an
effective email marketing campaign.

Email marketing certainly has a set of unique advantages over other types of
marketing both online and offline. Perhaps one of the most significant
advantages to email marketing is the ability to reach a worldwide audience with
minimal effort. It is certainly possible to reach a worldwide audience with
other types of advertising but traditional types of advertising such as
television, radio and the print media are not nearly as effective for reaching
potential customers around the world all at once.

Another major advantage to email marketing is it is extremely affordable. This
is significant because there are many other types of marketing, including
Internet marketing, which are significantly more expensive than email
marketing. The costs associated with email marketing are minimal. Ideally you
will already have a list of email recipients who are interested in your
products and services so there is no cost associated with obtaining a list of
email addresses. Additionally the cost to send out emails is minimal and can be
considered part of your regular operating costs. All of these factors already
make email marketing extremely cost effective.

However, there is some cost involved in email marketing. Primarily this is the
costs associated with writing the advertisements and creating any graphics
which will accompany the email advertisements. This will require hiring a
writer to write the copy for the advertisement and a designer to create and
implements the graphics. The cost of these services will vary pretty widely but
in general you will pay more for writers and designers with more experience.
This is because these writers and designers are expected to be able to produce
a higher quality of work than those with less experience could produce.

The most obvious disadvantage to email marketing is the possibility of having
your email marketing viewed as spam. This is a very important problem because
it could prove to be quite costly in terms of the profit margin for your
business. Each day Internet users are bombarded with unsolicited emails serving
as advertisements. This problem has reached epic proportions and the abundance
of spam infiltrating the email boxes of innocent Internet users has to be
cautious and suspicious about any email they receive which is unsolicited and
appears to be promoting a particular product or service.

Emails which contain subject lines or content which appear to be similar to
spam may be automatically transferred to a spam email folder by the email
system. Emails which are not automatically deleted may be deleted without being
opened simply because the recipient does not recognize the sender of the email.
Both of these problems can result in essentially wasted time for the business
owner because the recipients are not even viewing the emails advertising the
products and services offered by the business. Additionally, they may result in
complaints being lodged against the company for being a purveyor of spam.

Now that you understand the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing,
you might wonder how you can maximize the advantages to use email marketing to
your advantage. The most important factor to consider is your email
distribution list. This should consist of former customers who have expressed a
desire to receive emails with information and advertisements as well as
potential customers who have also expressed interest in more information.

The content of the emails should also be carefully considered. They should
certainly highlight the products and services you offer but should do so
without appearing to be a hard sales pitch. A writer with experience in writing
this type of copy should be able to assist you in providing insightful and
accurate copy which also entices the reader to find out more about your
products and services. Finally your emails should provide the readers with a
call to action. This should be a statement urging the reader to take a specific
action such as making a purchase or researching a product.

Learning Email Marketing

Sending letters by post was more popularly known as snail mail because of the
unbelievable length of time needed to accomplish the task. However, gone are
the days of snail mailing, thanks to the internet revolution. For those who
want to have a faster and more efficient communication system, then there's the
electronic mail.

The use of email has been taken advantage of by both individuals and
businesses. For business establishments, informing a target group of a certain
product used to take a lot of time and effort using the snail mail. Today,
businesses are banking on email marketing to do their communications in a fast
and efficient manner.

Email marketing or emarketing is the process of enhancing communications
through the use emails. Thus, the use of a computer as well as internet
connection is vital in email marketing. No more stamps and envelopes, and
endless waiting time---just a computer and internet connection.

While emarketing is not just limited to email, more people are shifting their
focus to emails. Through email marketing, one can send out product information,
newsletters, sales letter advertising and public relations campaigns. After
sales service can also be conducted through the use of emails.

Email marketing means having an unlimited set of information at the tip of
one's hand. Email marketing makes Information accessible and useful, from
acquiring customers through product information and keeping them through after
sales service. The technology allows the possibility of connecting to various
customers and knowing important information about these customers.

Most business cease to communicating with their customers once they get them to
buy or patronize their products. These businesses could not however be blamed
because of the workload required to get back to those customers with their
records and other pertinent information in one's hand. Email marketing can take
care of these requirements, just at the click of a mouse. Regular communication
is the key to acquiring and keeping clients.

Through the technology offered by email marketing, one can keep track of client
information like the letters sent to them, their preferences, their last
purchase and their present and future interests.

Email marketing allows businesses to customize their emails and to program
their delivery at specific schedules. It allows you to communicate with your
clients with their important record at hand, ready and available at any time.

The popularity of using email as a marketing technique has risen because email
is cost effective. It allows one to reach as many clients as possible with the
least time and expenses. Email marketing makes communication fats, and allows
immediate response from clients the moment they receive the email.

However, those who avail of email marketing should make sure that they are
sending worthwhile information to their clients and are not pestering them
instead. Most clients get turned off from too much email garbage reaching their
email addresses that they tend to disregard these emails. To avoid this, make
sure that your target recipient will have a use for the materials you are
sending him.

Before you use emarketing or if you are already using this strategy, make sure
that you do not resort to hard selling as this might turn off some clients.
Also be on the lookout for the right schedule to send your emails. And do not
forget to make use of sign up boxes where the browser can just check his
preference.

Email addresses of prospective clients may be collected by simply asking site
visitors if they want to subscribe to a certain newsletter and having them sign
up for it. Specify the exact information they want and ask them to check their
boxes.

This way, you will know their hobbies, interests and other data that may be
useful. You will also be able to increase traffic to your website.

Information that is helpful to your target markets will be welcome and will not
be brushed off easily. You can even devise a way in which they can send the
newsletter to a friend's email, thus increasing your email list.

While emarketing appears to be the crowd favorite at this point, there is no
denying that it has just taken off and is still in that stage or boom or bust.
The United States has made its mark in emarketing while Europe is fast catching
up.

Is Your Email Marketing Working?

This is a question which is on the mind of all business owners who participate
in an email marketing campaign for the purposes of promoting their business. In
fact questions regarding the effectiveness of any type of marketing endeavor
should be asked regularly to ensure the marketing efforts are producing the
desired results. Asking these questions on a regular basis and continually
evaluating the effectiveness of the email marketing campaign will help to
ensure the email marketing campaign is working well and remains effective
whenever changes are made to the marketing strategy. This article will
highlight why it is so important to evaluate your email marketing strategy
often and will also provide a few tips for evaluating your email marketing
strategy.

Evaluating your email marketing strategy on a regular basis is very important
because failure to do so may result in your efforts being essentially a waste
of time. Email marketing may be a cost effective way to advertise your business
but there is some time, money and energy involved in planning and executing an
email marketing campaign. If the campaign is ineffective and nothing is done to
attempt to make the email marketing campaign more effective your business is
wasting resources by continuing to invest in this type of marketing strategy
when it is not generating profit for your business or even interest in your
products or services.

It is important to regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your email marketing
strategy but it is even more important to set goals before you begin the process
of evaluating your marketing efforts. This is important because without these
goals it can be difficult to determine whether or not the email marketing
efforts are effective. For example your goal may be to increase the number of
sales you make per month. Evaluating whether or not you are generating more
sales each month is a fairly simple process. However, if your goal is to
generate more interest in your products you would use website traffic as
opposed to sales to evaluate the effectiveness of the email marketing campaign.

Once you have determined how you intend to evaluate you progress you should be
able to easily determine the effectiveness of your current email marketing
strategy as long as this is the only marketing you are currently doing. This is
because if you have more than one marketing strategy in use at once you cannot
be sure which strategy is driving customers to make purchases or visit your
website. When you decide to evaluate your email marketing strategy according to
specific goals you should take care to ensure you are not currently running
other types of marketing in conjunction with your email marketing effort. This
will help to prevent confusion about which type of marketing is producing the
desired effect. It will also help to prevent business owners from mistakenly
believing email marketing is producing a desired effect when it is actually
another marketing strategy which is helping to product the desired effect.

Customer surveys are very important for evaluating the effectiveness of an
email marketing campaign. Asking customers how they heard about your products
or services is an excellent way to determine whether or not many of your
customers are being enticed to make a purchase based on your email marketing
efforts. Additionally, these surveys can be used to obtain more detailed
information about the email recipient's reaction to the email marketing
campaign. Customers can provide valuable feedback about topics such as the
layout and appearance of the email to the ease of readability of the content
included in the email. All of this information can help a business owner
determine how to design future emails to achieve a desired effect. Armed with
this information the business owner can design subsequent emails which
incorporate many of the qualities previous customers found to be useful and
avoid qualities which were viewed as useless in the past.

Is Your Email Marketing Spam?

Email marketing can be very effective as long as it is not viewed as spam. This
is critical because when your email marketing is viewed as spam, it will not
likely be read by the recipient and may not even reach the recipient if it is
trapped by the Internet service providers spam filter. For this reason it is
critical for business owners to work hard to ensure the email marketing they
use is not viewed as spam by either the recipient or the recipient's Internet
service provider. This article will take a look at email marketing and
specifically how business owners can ensure their emails are not viewed as spam.

The distribution list for an email marketing campaign is one of the critical
elements which can help to ensure the emails sent by the business owner are not
viewed as spam. Before this can be accomplished it is important to understand
exactly what spam is. Spam is essentially email which is unsolicited and sent
for the sole purpose of advertising or promoting a product or service. Internet
users receive mass quantities of spam on a daily basis. For some Internet users
this quantity of spam is a huge source of frustration. Other Internet users
have become so used to the amount of spam they receive that they barely even
notice these emails. Neither of these scenarios bode well for business owners
who are using email marketing campaigns to promote their products or services.
Internet users who are angered by these spam emails may react harshly and
report your emails to their Internet service providers. Internet users who do
not even notice spam are likely to either automatically delete your emails and
may block your email address to prevent future emails from getting through to
them.

Paying special attention to your email distribution list and
only including recipients who had specifically asked for additional information
will help to keep your emails from being viewed as spam. One way to acquire
email addresses for the purposes of orchestrating an email campaign is to ask
interested customers to register with your website and specify whether or not
they wish to receive future emails with additional information, advertisements
or other useful tips. This ensures the recipients of your emails are genuinely
interested in your products and services and are not likely to view your emails
as spam.

Another way to ensure your emails are not viewed as spam is to offer recipients
the option of being removed from the distribution list with each email. This is
important even when the recipients specifically asked to receive these emails
because they are entitled to change their opinion at any time. Offering the
email recipients the opportunity to remove themselves from the email
distribution list whenever they want is worthwhile because it allows recipients
to have some control in the situation. This is a stark contrast to spam in which
the recipients feel as though they have no control over the situation and no way
to stop the spam from bombarding their inboxes on a daily basis.

Finally, business owners can help to ensure their email marketing campaign is
not viewed as spam by including quality content in the emails they send to the
recipients on the email distribution list. This may include providing feature
articles, product reviews or a series of short useful tips which will likely be
of interest to all who receive these emails. These emails may also include a
soft sales pitch but this sales pitch should not be the focus of the emails.
Putting too much attention on the advertising is likely to lead the recipients
to assume the email is nothing more than spam. Conversely, providing quality
information which is useful to the recipient and subtly urging them to perform
an action such as making a purchase or investigating the details of a product
can make the email seem much more worthwhile and less like spam.

Is Email Obsolete?

That is a pretty startling question. And in that you no doubt have checked your
email dozens of times today, sent numerous emails out and gotten that many or
more in, to say that as a mode of communication that email is obsolete would be
a mistake. Email is no more obsolete than letter writing or talking on the
telephone is. But it is safe to say that its possible that email is no longer
cutting edge and its era as a primary tool for internet marketing may be coming
to an end.

When email first became a popular mode of communication, it virtually changed
the way communication worked in a way that can only be compared to the
invention of the telephone. Email combined the quickness of a telephone
conversation with the ability to document what was said of a letter writing
exchange. At the time to be able to send an email that reached the recipient's
email box in moments time even if they were on the other side of the world was
mind blowing.

The internet marketing potential was tremendous. As internet marketing became a
genuine mode of doing businesses, it grew up as the use of email grew up.
However there was trouble in paradise and we probably don't have to tell you
what the problems were. It can be summed up in one word -- spam. Spam is
nothing more than unwanted email communications usually from an internet
marketer. The corresponding experience outside of the internet is the solicitor
phone call in the middle of dinner or junk mail and both are just as irritating
and unwelcome as spam marketing emails.

So in the last decade internet marketing using email as the primary mode of
communication with your customers has grown in two parallel lines. The
legitimate side of email marketing and customer support has grown and become
more sophisticated and useful. Many businesses were able to build impressive
online business empires supported by email marketing and ongoing email
communications with a growing customer base. For thousands of online marketers,
the idea of conducting business without email communications with customers
seems impossible.

But it was the other parallel line that grew like a cancer to the point that it
snarled email communications and has interfered with email deliverability for
the many legitimate email based internet merchants working in cyberspace. The
spam merchants working with sophisticated mass mailing services and software
have flooded email boxes of every citizen of cyberspace to such an extent that
without spam control software both at the server level and at the desk top
level, it is virtually impossible to use email for routine purposes any more.

Spam control software has grown exponentially as well and become powerful and
sophisticated. It has also spawned a cottage industry which has imposed a whole
new cost of operations on every email user in the world who wants to avoid the
spam avalanche they will face if they go unprotected. This has created
resentment and distrust in the email system of communications in general and
certainly toward online merchants who wish to use the internet for customer
service and marketing. To say that a few bad apples spoiled it for everyone
puts it mildly.

Because of this ongoing war between spam operators and spam control software
services, email deliverability has become a tedious chore to maintain and
without constant oversight, an internet merchant can lose contact with its
customers in short order. For that email has become obsolete as a valid and
easy to use tool for marketing and customer communications.

Meanwhile new forms of communications such as instant messaging, VOIP and WEB
2.0 interoperability have started the next wave of evolution in internet
communications. The chances are that we will see internet merchants move away
from email marketing to exploit these much more dynamic methods for customer
communications. And while email will never die as a cornerstone of online
communications, from an internet marketing point of view, it is very much out
of step with the times.

Is Email Marketing Right For Your Business?

Deciding whether or not email marketing is a good idea for your business can be
a difficult process. The concept of email marketing is very simple to understand
the process of determining whether or not it is right for your business can be
significantly more complicated. This is because you have to consider a number
of different factors before making your decision. You should consider your
target audience and their propensity to use the Internet, whether or not your
message can be effectively states in an email and whether or not your message
is likely to be misinterpreted as spam. All of these factors are important and
can help you determine whether or not email marketing is right for your
business.

One of the most important factors to consider when deciding whether or not to
invest your money, energy and time into email marketing is your target audience
and how likely they are to use the Internet regularly. This is important because
an email marketing campaign is not worthwhile if members of your target audience
are not likely to use the Internet to purchase or research the products or
services you offer. Even if the use the Internet for other purposes it is not
worthwhile because they will not be likely to become online customers for your
products or services. However, if you have a target audience who is very likely
to use the Internet to purchase the products or services you offer and to
research these items, an email marketing campaign is a good idea. In this case
it is absolutely worthwhile because you will be providing information which the
members of your target audience will find useful and which they may already be
looking for elsewhere.

Next you should consider the products and services you offer in an attempt to
determine whether or not your message can be effectively stated in an email.
This is important because if you offer a product or service which is difficult
to explain the emails you use for marketing are not likely
to be understood or well received by the recipients of your email distribution
list. This is important because you want to be able to convince potential
customers of the need for the products and services your offer, not make them
feel more confused.

Finally, an important concept to consider is the possibility that your email
messages will be viewed as spam. This is a very important concept because
emails which are viewed as spam are not likely to be well received by the
recipients and may not ever even make it to the recipients if their spam
filters tag these emails as spam. Even if the emails do reach the intended
recipients many Internet users have grown accustomed to weeding out spam rather
quickly and will be quick to delete, without reading first, emails which are
suspected to be spam. In determining whether or not your emails are likely to
be viewed as spam, it is important to consider the subject of your business and
therefore the emails you send out. This is important because certain subjects
such as weight loss pills are likely to be viewed as spam more quickly than
other items. If you are in the business of marketing products or services which
would likely cause your emails to be deemed spam, orchestrating an email
marketing campaign may not be worthwhile.

How Your Business Can Benefit from Email Marketing

Even if you are already running a successful business, you may be surprised to
learn your business can benefit greatly from orchestrating an effective email
marketing campaign. An email marketing campaign and a number of different
advantages including the ability to reach a worldwide audience, a variety of
different marketing options at your fingertips and the ability to do a great
deal of marketing with very little investment dollars. This article will take a
look at all of these different topics to provide insight into how email
marketing can benefit your business.

For many business owners one of the most prominent advantages to email
marketing is the ability to reach a worldwide audience with minimal effort.
While traditional marketing methods such as television advertisements, radio
advertisements and advertisements in print media are typically targeted at a
rather small geographic area, email marketing can reach a worldwide audience.
It is possible to reach an audience of this magnitude with other marketing
methods but it would be much more complicated to do and would likely involve
launching advertising campaigns in several different markets. This is possible
but would require an intense coordination effort and will likely require at
least a few staff members to assist you in this effort.

Conversely, the ability to transmit instantly via email can make it much easier
to reach target audience members with literally just the click of a mouse. The
act of creating the marketing materials for your email marketing campaign is
significantly more involved but once this is done reaching members of your
target audience is quite simple.

Another advantage to email marketing is there are a multitude of advertising
options available to those who wish to utilize this marketing strategy. The
most commonly used method of email marketing it so send out group emails with
product information and other promotional materials. However, another way to
approach the concept of email marketing is to publish and distribute
e-newsletters to interested email recipients. An e-newsletter is typically much
more in depth than the type of information which would normally accompany a
promotional email. These e-newsletters typically feature at least one in depth
article as well as a few shorter articles which either offer useful tips or
review products. Additionally there may be some graphics, advertising and links
include in the layout of the e-newsletter. Email marketing campaigns can also
take the place of email correspondence courses which typically focus on one
niche subject and feature a few installments which provide detailed information
on a specific facet of the niche subject.

Finally email marketing can benefit your business because it is an extremely
cost effective method of advertising. When you opt to orchestrate an email
marketing campaign you will likely invest money in hiring professionals such as
writers and graphic designers to assist you in creating content and an appealing
layout for your promotional emails. However, this is typically not more than you
would invest in hiring the same type of personnel for an offline marketing
campaign. However, unlike offline marketing methods there is not a great deal
of cost associated with executing your email marketing campaign. Consider the
creation of a television commercial where you will have to pay fees and
purchase advertising space to allow your advertising to reach the public.
However, when you transmit your advertising via email, there is virtually no
cost associated with this transmission. There are of course costs associated
with maintaining an Internet connection and retaining employees to send these
emails but these costs are minimal and can be considered to be part of normal
operating costs.

Word Of Mouth Marketing Stemming From Email Marketing

Sometimes the benefits of email marketing are quite different than anticipated.
Most Internet marketers understand the basic concept of email marketing which is
to email promotional materials to a large group of Internet users to promote an
interest in your products or services. This concept is easy for many to
understand but sometimes there are added benefits to email marketing. This
article will discuss the basics of email marketing and will also explain how
sometimes email marketing can be much further reaching than planned. This
additional reach can be either a positive or a negative depending on the
quality of the original emails and the reactions of the original recipients.

Email marketing is a very simple concept which is also extremely cost
effective. The general idea behind email marketing is that an email is sent to
an email distribution list and these emails are intended to create an interest
in the products or services offered by the originator of the email. In theory
this concept could not be simpler but email marketing can get significantly
more complicated. One of the biggest complicating factors is the potential for
the emails used in the marketing campaign to be viewed as spam by either the
recipient of the email or the spam filter provided by the Internet service
provider. This potential alone creates a major complication because Internet
marketers have to make a significant effort to assure their messages are not
trapped by a spam filter or immediately deleted by the recipients for appearing
to be spam.

Once the email messages get through to the recipient, they have a small window
of opportunity to make a positive impression on the recipients and influence
him to make a purchase or at least visit the business owner's website.
Providing quality content, keeping advertising subtle and at a minimum and
providing a clear call to action are all factors which can help to get the
message across and entice the potential customer to make a purchase or at least
visit the website to research the products and services a little bit more.

As previously stated the goal of an email marketing campaign is to convince the
email recipient to either make a purchase or visit the website to obtain more
information. When an email recipient performs either one of these actions, it
is considered a huge success. However, thanks to the power of the forward
button email marketing can actually be much more successful than even the
business owner intended.

The great aspect of email marketing is that when the email recipients receive
an email which they think is worthwhile they are likely to make a purchase and
may also forward the information onto a friend or family member they think
might be interested in this information as well. The ability to forward email
messages has become comparable satisfied customers using word of mouth to tout
the quality of the products or services they received. However, the ability to
forward a worthwhile email message is exponentially more effective than using
word of mouth to spread the word. With just a few clicks of the mouse, the
original email recipient can forward the message to several of his friends at
once. This can result in significantly better results than the business owner
had originally intended with no additional effort on behalf of the business
owners.

Why Not Email Marketing?

If you are currently participating in other types of Internet marketing but not
email marketing you should seriously consider why you are avoiding this type of
advertising. This is important because email marketing can be a very important
part of an Internet marketing campaign. Many business owners avoid email
marketing for fear of being accused of spamming. Internet markets may not have
a clear understanding of what is spam and what is not so they avoid
participation in email marketing campaigns to avoid the potential for being
labeled a spammer.

Why are Internet marketers so afraid of being accused of being purveyors of
spam? This is a common fear for a number of reasons. First of all there may be
harsh penalties associated with sending spam emails. Recipients of spam have
the option of reporting the spam to their Internet service provider who will
investigate the validity of the claim. If the originator of the email is
determined to be a spammer there can be harsh consequences.

Internet marketers are also afraid of email marketing because they believe it
will not be well received by potential customers. This is an important concept
because Internet users are bombarded with spam each day. Receiving this
quantity of spam each day can be frustrating and can anger some Internet users.
These Internet users are not likely to be receptive to email marketing. The fear
that these potential customers will view email marketing and stray to
competitors keeps many Internet marketers from taking advantage of this type of
marketing strategy.

However, it is important to note that despite the prevalent problem with spam,
many Internet users are quite receptive to email marketing. This is especially
true in situations where they specifically requested to receive more
information from the business owner regarding his products and services.
Potential clients are particularly receptive to email marketing which provides
something of value to the recipient of the email. Emails which contain in depth
articles, useful tips or product reviews may be appreciated by consumers.

Additionally, items such as e-newsletters and correspondence courses offered
via email can be of particular interest to potential customers. E-newsletters
are typically longer documents than traditional email marketing pieces and can
provide a great deal of additional information to the email recipient. Email
correspondence courses may be offered in short segments and typically amount to
a significant amount of information which is likely to be greatly appreciated by
the email recipients.

One final way to prevent email recipients from viewing your email marketing
efforts as spam is to only send the emails to recipients who register with your
website and specifically request for you to send them additional information and
promotional materials. This opt in formula is ideal because it ensures you are
not wasting your email marketing efforts on recipients who are not interested
in your products or services. It also ensures the recipients of the email
marketing campaign do not view the informative and promotional materials they
are receiving as spam. This technique for compiling an email distribution list
is quite effective but it is important to remember you should always include
information on how recipients can opt out of receiving future emails,
www.Automatic-Responder.com is a great service to help with this. This is
important because the email recipients may have once been interested in
receiving marketing emails but over time this may change. If they are no longer
interested in these emails, they may begin to view the emails as spam if they
are not given the option of being removed from the distribution list.

When to End Your Email Marketing Campaign

Deciding when to end an email marketing campaign is one subject which many
business owners may struggle with on a regular basis. This decision can be
difficult both in situations in which the email marketing campaign is enjoying
a great deal of success and in situations in which the email marketing campaign
is failing. In general business owners will have to evaluate a number of
different criteria to make this decision and there is no one specific formula
which will work for all business owners. In this article we will examine three
different scenarios including a successful email marketing campaign which is
approaching a logical conclusion, an email marketing campaign which is failing
and a successful email marketing campaign which may be able to run indefinitely.

First we will examine the case of a successful email marketing campaign which
is approaching a logical conclusion. In some cases it may be logical for a
business owner to conclude his email marketing efforts. The most obvious
example is an email marketing campaign which is focused on achieving a specific
goal and not selling products or services. For example an email marketing
campaign which is political in nature may start off slowly, peak during a time
when voters are most interested in obtaining information about the issues and
then begin to wane as the voting process begins and the majority of voters have
already made their decision. Similarly an email marketing campaign which is
focused on collecting donations for a specific charity will logically end as
the goal is reached. These email marketing campaigns may be highly successful
but there is simply no reason to continue them beyond when the goals is reached.

Next we will consider the case of an email marketing campaign which is not
achieving its goal. Deciding when to end an email marketing campaign of this
nature can be difficult because it will involve a number of different factors.
For example if the business owner is investing a great deal of time and money
into email marketing and not generating results despite an honest effort it may
be time to end this marketing campaign. However, if the business owner has not
invested a great deal in the email marketing campaign and has a few remaining
ideas for turning the campaign into a success, it might be worthwhile to
continue the email campaign for a little longer to see if the desired goals can
be met.

Finally, it is important to note that email marketing campaigns do not always
have to come to an end. Consider a niche topic such as search engine
optimization (SEO). A business owner who has been producing and distributing
monthly e-newsletters on this subject and receiving a positive response to
these email marketing tools, there is not reason for him to discontinue the
email marketing as long as he is still capable of producing the e-newsletters.
Similarly to the way many magazines have been in publication for years and
years it is possible for an e-newsletter to remain active for as long s there
is a need and an interest in the information being provided. In our example of
a business owner publishing an SEO newsletter, the need for this product
remains because SEO is continually evolving and recipients of the e-newsletter
may anticipate receiving the e-newsletter each month to get more information on
current trends in the industry.

When Email Marketing Is Not Enough

If you have already entered the world of email marketing you likely already
realize the potential this type of marketing has to offer. However, you also
likely realize it is not reasonable to expect your business to thrive if email
marketing is the only marketing strategy you choose to utilize. This is not
unusual as most businesses do not typically have a great deal of success unless
they make the decision to incorporate more than one type of marketing into their
overall marketing strategy. This article will examine a few other types of
Internet marketing which may be used in conjunction with email marketing.

Email marketing in itself can be multi faceted. It may include sending out mass
emails, distributing e-newsletters and even offering correspondence courses via
email. Implementing only one of these email marketing strategies may resulting
a small increase in either website traffic or sales but implementing more than
one strategy at a time can create a more pronounced effect.

Similarly it is definitely worthwhile to incorporate other types of Internet
marketing into promoting your business online if you are not already doing so.
This can help you to enjoy a greater degree of success if you apply the
strategies correctly. Some of the other types of marketing strategies you may
wish to employ include placing banner ads, participating in industry related
message boards and starting an affiliate program.

Of the other types of Internet marketing available, placing banner ads may be
the most expensive option. In many cases your business will have to pay another
website for the privilege of placing your banner ad on their website. Choosing a
website which sells products which complement, without competing, for your
business is worthwhile. However, there are some free options for banner ads
including exchanges. However, you may be required to place more than one banner
ad on your website for each time your banner ad appears on another lineup.
Additionally, with this type of agreement you may not be able to control the
type of website which displays your banner ad. For this reason it is worthwhile
to pay for ad space so you can have more control over where your banner ads are
displayed.

Participating in industry related forums can be another way to promote your
business online. Message boards are online meeting places where individuals who
share an interest can get together to discuss their interests as well as
pertinent issues. They can also ask and answer questions. Most message boards
allow users to place a link to their website in their signature line. If you
regularly participate on an industry related message board and include a
signature line with a link to your website you can reach a high concentration
of members of your target audience. When using message boards to promote your
business it is important to follow all message board guidelines and to avoid
techniques which may be deemed as spam such as posting your link when it is not
appropriate.

Affiliate marketing programs are another type of online marketing which can be
used in conjunction with email marketing. Affiliate marketing involves allowing
website owners to place advertisements for your business on their website. These
website owners are known as affiliates. Each time one of their advertisements
causes an Internet user to click through the advertisement or purchase an item
the affiliate is compensated. This compensation schedule makes affiliate
marketing incredibly cost effective. Essentially you do not pay your affiliates
unless the advertising generates a specific reaction form Internet users such as
making a purchase or generating website traffic. The amount of compensation
should be determined beforehand and may be based on a flat fee or a percentage
of the sale. Business owners have to embed code into the affiliate ads to
determine which ads are generating profit or traffic so they know which
affiliates to compensate but this information is also useful for determining
which advertisements are most effective. This information can be used to fine
tune the marketing effort.

When Email Marketing Does Not Work

Whether you are already involved in an email marketing campaign or are simply
considering the possibility of launching an email marketing campaign it is
important to note that email marketing does not always work. This means that
sometimes despite your best efforts, or sometimes in spite of your best
efforts, you email marketing campaign will either not generate the degree of
success you anticipated or may not generate any success at all. This failure to
generate success may be do to a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons may be
a lack of interest on behalf of your target audience, failure to properly
execute your email marketing strategy or poor planning in your strategy. This
article will take a look at some situations in which email marketing is not
effective and will offer some advice for dealing with these situations.

First we will consider why a lack of interest from target audience members can
result in a failed email marketing campaign. Before investing time, energy and
money into an email marketing campaign, it is worthwhile to hire a consultant
to conduct market research. This research should provide valuable feedback such
as demographics for the target audience and information on the probability these
target audience members will be responsive to email marketing. This last piece
of information in particular should help the business owner to determine
whether or not to pursue email marketing as an advertising option. If market
research indicates the members of your target audience are not likely to
purchase the products or services you offer online or even use the Internet to
research these products or services; investing in an email marketing campaign
is not worthwhile. You may enjoy a small degree of success from this marketing
effort but it is not likely to significant enough to warrant the time and
effort required to achieve this small degree of success.

Another aspect of email marketing which can cause your marketing campaign to
result in failure is the inability to properly execute your marketing plan.
This is important because even the most well formulated marketing strategy can
flounder if you are not able to properly execute these steps. For example, you
may plan to use e-newsletters as a critical component of your email marketing
campaign but if these e-newsletters do not appear to be professionally designed
and written, frequently arrive late and do not offer valuable information,
readers are not likely to invest in your products or services based on these
e-newsletters. In each aspect of your email marketing campaign, you should
strive to ensure the information you provide to your email recipients is
informative, accurate and interesting. This type of copy is more likely to
pique the interest of the readers.

Finally, poor planning can cause an email marketing campaign to falter. For
example, if you were to issue a component of your email marketing campaign
hoping to generate a huge interest in your products and receive a great deal of
interest, you should be prepared to be able to sell your products. Not having
enough stock on hand after you undergo a marketing effort can be a critical
mistake because potential customers may lose interest if they have to wait for
the products. This is just one example of poor planning causing problems but
poor planning can cause a host of different problems including potential
customers losing interesting, the creation of confusion regarding your products
and services and even potential customers being angered by your email marketing.

What is Email Marketing?

When talking about email marketing, what comes to mind to so many individuals
are the various hindrances that may be encountered in the future. However, like
all strategies, there are setbacks and consequences to be had in the way of
notable progress in a marketing campaign.

Email marketing is the use of the electronic mail or email facility in order to
reach a wide range of potential customers or readers when offering products and
services. Simply put, it is marketing via email. Email marketing also has the
potential of becoming very much relevant inasmuch as it has been known to
respond to reader queries and provide them the information they need.

Email marketing, of course, does not go off without any negative perception
from society. Many individuals see themselves as greatly inconvenienced by
email marketing, which is at times classified as spam. However, it has come a
long way since the early days of a complete and absolute negative stigma of
email marketing; now people have the right to choose what they find useful and
suitable content arriving into their inboxes.

An alternate definition of email marketing, however, is when a company
continues to foster communication with existing clients in order to enhance the
service being offered and the relationship in existence. These are all done with
the intent of gaining customer loyalty and patronage.

Email marketing, in either definitional paradigms, aims for the end of loyalty
and patronage. If email marketing were to be used on potential clients, the
role that the strategy has to play is that of trying to transform readers into
real clients. The same idea holds true for existing clients. If existing
clients were to receive continuous check-ups and evaluation of the service
offered, the perception of forwarding the satisfaction of the customers would
be made even clearer.

However, with email marketing, it is important to know what rights and
limitations are in existence. In the United States of America, different states
revolt. Others would legislate against email marketing (which is considered
spam); others would not.

The legality of receiving an article of email marketing is unquestioned when
the customer being serviced is that with which the company has had previous
transactions with. A pre-existing business relationship may vary, but it may
very well be someone from whom the company has previously requested information
from, or someone who has bought or acquired the services of the company. This
implies a level of consent that must be present in all the emails that will be
used in email marketing campaigns.

Because of these various reasons, there are imperative steps that must be taken
by a party wishing to take part in any email marketing pitch.

Integrity of Content -- Legislation against email marketing, and marketing
general, are in fact in place because prior period saw how abuses abounded.
Therefore, it is imperative that of some of the things considered in an email
marketing campaign is that of integrity of content. This would mean the
inclusion of the senders' complete and accurate information.

Clarity of Consent -- It is imperative that companies make sure that the
persons they are sending emails to are those they've had previous transactions
with, and are in good standing with each of them. There is a necessity to keep
close track to each and every email address being added to the list of clients
because similarly, it would be easy to duly evaluate consent in each and every
scenario.

Aggressiveness of Content -- While companies may want to carry on with their
aggressive marketing strategies, their interests must be balanced with the
rights of individuals against marketing strategies that are far too aggressive
and neglect their rights and wishes. At the end of the day, companies should
use subject lines that reflect content, use a valid address, and make
arrangements for the recipients to opt out of the service or from receiving
future notices and marketing pitches.

At the end of the day, email marketing works because of its low-cost and its
far-reaching capacities. However, because there are no singular restrictions as
to how it may be used without going to the extent of the legal borderline
behavior, companies that wish to use it in its full potency must in return
expect a degree of compromise to be made -- compromises that will not endanger
the company, but may, in the long run, help build a healthy corporate image.

What is an Email Marketing Software?

Email marketing software is a tool that is utilized for managing and tracking
top-of-the-line email marketing campaigns. These kinds of campaigns use
databases where email messages are targeted and customized according to the
personal preferences of individual recipients. The tools handle promotions of
the small-scale to high-scaled marketing campaigns.

What are the features of email marketing software?

They handle a wide variety of tasks that allows marketers to measure the
results of the campaigns. Email marketing software enables them to target and
communicate with audiences in an easy way. They can make target recipient lists
that are sophisticated and accurate, using a wide range of demographic date as a
basis. Text and HTML messages can be created, and they can be previewed before
being delivered. The software also has the ability to monitor each
click-through and opened mail messages that are sent to users. Graphical
reports regarding the progress of the campaign is generated.

Advanced software has these following features:

-Flags invalid email addresses and duplicates. It also flags unsubscribed
accounts forever so that marketers will not add them up again accidentally on
their lists.

-Contacts are arranged into separate groups. This will allow marketers to
segment the mailing lists. The contact lists can be added with a fair amount of
information such as name, address and contact numbers.

-Provides a wide variety of email templates for HTML to make the messages look
more attractive and professional.

-Enables the personalization of emails by adding the first and last name of the
recipient in the subject line or the main body of the message.

-Ability to deliver thousands of messages in seconds.

What are the techniques in using email marketing software?

Email marketing has a great potential to be the most effective marketing
technique around if it is used correctly. The three main techniques are:

1. Special offers They are classic techniques in direct marketing that turns
out well when converted to email. To make sure that they are effective,
recipients must be offered something that is of real value. These offers must
be something that is substantial to the user. Marketers are advised not to
offer discounts that are lower than the profits, and time limits should be
established.

2. Invitations Sending invitations to events such as conferences and seminars
can be an effective strategy. In dispensing invitations, the number of times
that emails are sent is a very vital factor, if done correctly, it can
dramatically increase the number of attendees. The quantity of recipients that
will register can double up if users can click through from an email to the web
page where online registration or an RSVP is permitted. To lessen the number of
people who have no plans to show up in the event, emailed reminders can be sent
to those who have already registered.

3. Keeping in touch The purpose of sending newsletters to users is not to get
an immediate response, but more on simply keeping or maintaining contact.
Newsletter content range from tips to photographs of a certain event. The point
of sending newsletters is to establish a significant connection with the users
by providing them with information that is not present somewhere else.
Originality is very essential to the success of this particular technique, for
it reflects the individuality of the company to the user, and differentiates it
from the competition.

In line with utilizing the software, there are two important rules that must be
followed in order to achieve marketing goals.

1. Send only meaningful content to persons that requested them Do not attempt
to send users extra content that is totally unrelated to their preferred
information in hopes of them availing the other service. This method will only
lessen the value of the relationship between marketer and subscriber. It is
perfectly alright to send a subscriber a monthly newsletter that promotes other
services, but always stay within the requested information.

2. Maintain consistency on the frequency of sending the messages The frequency
of sending messages will depend on the type of the business and the interest
level of subscribers. The important thing to remember is that once businesses
have found the right frequency delivery, they should stick to it.

Following the above recommendations will enable marketers in the usage of their
email marketing software. Just remember to select carefully the wide variety of
tools that are available in the market, then watch profits skyrocket.

WEB 2.0 to the Rescue

You may have heard about WEB 2.0 but perhaps you thought it was some trendy new
toy that would go by the wayside like lots of them do. Instead it represents a
revolution in how the internet works. And to an internet retailer or merchant
such as you and I, it represents a solution to one of the biggest problems we
face in staying in touch with our customers and that is email deliverability
problems.

The reason WEB 2.0 is going to come to the rescue in saving us from our email
deliverability problems lies in how it basically changes the way people use and
view the internet and internet communications in particular. Before WEB 2.0, if
you wanted to communicate with your customers, you had to
take the communication to them. Hence you put together an email that you sent
out via a mass mailing or using a service and you hoped that you would hear
back from some percentage of your customers about this most recent promotion.

To a large extent under that system, you never knew if the customer got your
email or if they took advantage of what you have to offer because of the email
you spent money to send out. But a bigger problem that has grown bigger and
bigger with each passing year is that spam and spam filter software that is
designed to protect individuals from the potentially dangerous effects of spam
also have created a huge problem of email delivery verification for online
merchants to contend with.

As long as the formula is that the merchant must take marketing to the
customer, email delivery problems will be the bane of the internet merchant's
existence. That is why WEB 2.0 is going to come to the rescue by changing the
basic assumption of how we communicate to customers. With WEB 2.0, you no
longer have to take marketing to the customer because the way the internet now
works is customers come to you where you can interact and market to them
dynamically on your web site where they might "hang out" for extended periods
of time.

WEB 2.0 and how it works can be seen in some of the most explosive new internet
services of the last five years including YouTube, MySpace and Wikipedia. These
web sites are the first fruits of a redesign of the internet that makes
cyberspace a place where the internet population create the content and how
customers interact on your web site is as important or more important than what
you put on the web site yourself.

WEB 2.0 has the potential to take email out of the marketing loop entirely. If
you retrofit your web site to accommodate the interactive concepts you see used
on Wikis, on YouTube and on MySpace, you can create an environment so driven by
customers that it is an ideal environment for marketing, for customer
communications and for sales. You can use this kind of online community setting
to place your sales force in a cyber sales room to casually interact with
customers and guide them to purchase decisions in a low key, no pressure way
that is just what customers like in an online community.

One of the great innovations of the WEB 2.0 approach to web site design is that
you can actually link videos or web site pages from other web sites and make
them part of your own. Get familiar with the way modern web sites work and
interact with your web development gurus so they can guide you in how to use
WEB 2.0 methodologies to bring customers to your sales setting rather than
having to go to them with email marketing campaigns. And when you have
successfully made that transition, you may never have to worry about email
deliverability issues again.

Viral Marketing Trumps Email Deliverability

The internet has turned another corner in the last few years. This should come
as no surprise. The one constant about the internet is change. But the changes
that have become a reality in the last few years have made fundamental changes
to how we view the internet, how we use it and what we expect when we go on a
web site and interact with the web site owners any more.

From wiki control over web sites to YouTube to social networks, the emphasis of
the internet has shifted from the operators of web sites to the users. And with
this change the way those of us involved in using the internet for marketing
have begun to change the way we do business as well.

The model for internet marketing that predates the shift to the WEB 2.0
methodology was heavily dependent on email as the primary line of communication
with the customer. Next to online sales, email was the way customers sent in
inquiries and the way customer support was handled. And other than online
advertising, email was the most sophisticated method for internet marketing we
had at our disposal.

Over time, however, the use of email for marketing began to see abuses in the
form of spam. More and more the need to protect customers from spam
communications has so dominated the world of email marketing that has become a
cost burden for online merchants and customers alike and it has slowed or
stopped email deliverability to the point that it is uncertain on any given
business day whether you can depend on email to keep your business running or
not.

As a result, a discipline and a methodology for circumventing email delivery
interference points such as spam filters has imposed yet another new area of
online knowledge that takes time away from running your business so you can
focus on working with ISPs and learning the methods of spam control so you can
carefully construct your emails so at least they will get to your customers.
But the methods you have to use to jump through hoops to get your marketing
emails to customers have come to dominate email marketing so heavily that the
message and the communication has almost taken a back seat to just getting the
email delivered.

It is interesting that the big changes in how the internet operates in some
ways are going to retire this cumbersome email system before we come up with a
solution to the email delivery problem. There are some very sophisticated
internet marketing techniques that are showing themselves to be highly
effective that never depend on email at all. And as modern internet merchants
turn to these methods, the problem of email delivery may never be solved as
much as it is ignored and allowed to die out on its own.

Viral marketing is one way modern internet marketers are recruiting new
customers and getting the word out about products and services by tapping the
power of video and the instinct internet denizens have for downloading free
stuff. Viral marketing is a method where the merchant creates a download that
is desirable. A funny video, a musical performance or an ebook make great viral
marketing tools. But along with the free "toy", the download carries the
marketing message of the merchant and is downloaded into the internet network
of users quickly and with no cost to the merchant or the user.

The viral part occurs naturally as users upload the video or link to it on
other web sites or share it with each other on blogs or through email. The
marketing message spreads from customer to customer, like a virus spreads the
flu and as it spreads, it directs new customers back to the merchant web site
to become active customers.

This is a powerful marketing technique that depends on nothing more than human
nature for success. And unlike the cumbersome email system, viral marketing has
its own way of avoiding "spam", it is fast and it is cost free. But above all
the one trait that makes viral marketing trump email marketing as the means to
success for the future of internet marking is a simple principle that always
attracts business people. It works.

Using Advertising in Email Marketing

The subject of whether or not it is acceptable to use advertising in email
market is hotly debated with some Internet marketers being strongly in favor of
placing advertisements in email marketing while others are strongly against the
use of advertisements in email marketing. Still others take a more neutral
stance and are not either firmly for or against the use of advertising in email
marketing. This article will take a look at both sides of the argument and allow
the reader to formulate his own opinions on whether or not this subject is
worthwhile.

There are some Internet marketers who are strongly in favor of the use of
advertisements in emails distributed for marketing purposes. Those who favor
the use of advertisements view the sale of advertising space on email marketing
materials such as emails or e-newsletters as a way to generate profit from the
email marketing itself. They also believe this tactic puts less pressure on the
Internet marketer to meet the expectations of the members of the email
distribution list because the emails are already generating a profit even if
they do not entice the email recipients to make a purchase.

Those who are firmly against the use of advertising in email marketing feel as
though this makes the advertisements seem more like spam and less like
marketing materials or useful information. Those on this side of the fence feel
as though any advertisement in an email marketing campaign should be subtle
advertising for the products and services offered by the distributor of the
email and not advertisements for businesses who have paid for an advertising
spot on the email. They believe the original emails are acceptable but
additions to them are spam.

Still others are someone in between on the debate regarding whether or not
advertising in email marketing is acceptable. In most cases these individuals
believe it is acceptable for there to be advertising as long as it does not
overshadow the original intent of the email. This middle of the road concept
implies the Internet marketers are not firmly for or against the concept of
placing advertisements on emails distributed fro marketing purposes.

The information in this article is rather vague by intention because it leaves
more of an opportunity for the reader to form his own opinion. This is
important because the subject is largely a matter of personal preference. Each
reader must decide for himself whether or not he agrees with one side or the
other or chooses to take a middle of the road stance. The opinions of readers
of this article may be influenced by whether or not they are considered to be
marketers or consumers. This is significant because it can impact the
preferences. For example consumers may be less likely to appreciate
advertisements in emails intended for marketing purposes because they feel it
distracts from the original products. However, marketers may be more apt to be
accepting of advertising because they can understand the financial gain which
is possible. When evaluating opinions about the use of advertising, it is
important to note whether or not the individual offering the opinion is
involved in advertising. It might be more worthwhile to seek out opinions from
consumers only as they are more likely to share the beliefs of your potential
customers.

Can You Really Use Articles To Build Your List?

Getting customers in your site should always be ranked as high as the
importance of the quality and the excellence of the product and the services
you provide. They should go hand in hand in providing your customers the
satisfaction they get in exchange for the money they have paid for them.
Customer service should as well be as fantastic so that the customers are
provided with the same satisfaction.

One of the ways you can combine marketing and customer service is through
opt-in marketing. With an opt-in list you get the opportunity to introduce your
site and products on a good time basis. Opt-in marketing strategy is a marketing
strategy that is virtually low cost and not time consuming. Here, you get the
consent of your website visitors to subscribe to your newsletters and other
promotional materials such as catalogs and free promotions.

Opt-in marketing uses your list of subscribers to send e-mail to. These e-mails
will contain the materials you will send to your subscribers. It is essential
that you present your promotional items in a manner that will catch the
interest and the eye of your subscribers to keep them wanting for more. The
best way to do this is to provide fun, entertaining and informational articles.

Well written articles full of content and useful information will help in
building your list as more subscribers will be enticed your list. When they
have read the samples of your contents in your sites, they will be intrigued as
to what will come next. Subscribing to your newsletter will offer them a glimpse
of what you have to offer next.

Many sites and companies have captured the importance of articles and this also
aids in search engine optimization. As more people are heading towards the
internet for their information needs, serving the right information to them via
articles in your site will increase the flow of your website traffic. With more
traffic, the percentage of your sales will grow. More sales turn into more
profit.

There have been the rise for the importance of well written, information
enriched and keyword packed articles for the content of their site as well as
for newsletters. These articles provide the information many are seeking in the
internet. If your site has them, more people will be going to your site for
information and research.

Well written articles would also boost your sites reputation. If they are
filled with many information you will be regarded as well informed and an
expert on the subjects that you tackle. Your articles must be well researched
so that the people will trust you. When you have gained their trust, they will
always come for you for their needs on that subject.

In connection, you must write articles or commission them to tackle subjects
that are closely connected with your type of business. If you have a site for a
medicine tackling a certain disease, your articles must be about the diseases.
Or if you sell materials for home improvements provide articles with those
themes. Most articles searched for are tips, guidelines, methods, manuals and
such. If you provide these articles to your customers and you have their trust,
they will always go to your site for help and advice as well as for your
products.

With the loyalty of these customers, they may subscribe to your opt-in list to
receive all the information you have. If you provide them with the answers for
that need, they will be happy to be receiving your newsletters as well as other
promotional materials to keep them well informed. Others may even forward your
newsletters to other people when they find a certain article interesting.

You should provide links in your newsletter so that when other people are
reading it and wants to read more, they may click on the link and go to your
site. With the articles you have in your site that are good, they may decide to
sign up as well for your opt-in list. This will build your list and make it
bigger.

Make sure to keep your subscribers happy and interested in your newsletters and
promotional materials. Keep on posting and writing good articles for your site
and newsletter. If you are not interested in writing them or if you just don't
have the time, there are many available well experienced and knowledgeable
writers available to help you out. This is an investment that will pay for
itself in time.

Understanding List Fatigue and List Churn

Email list dies a slow but steady death if action isn't taken from time to
time. For most of the companies, fifty percent of their subscribers leave them
every year. Everyone uses their click, conversion and open rates in order to
measure their email program's success. But they fail to measure the size of
their and quality of their email list. Email list hurdle rate is the new metric
to be considered, along with the other old ones, in order to keep the list
growing.

The email list hurdle rate determines the loss rate from the email list which
needs to be overcome for the list to grow. It gives the exact number of new
subscribers to be attracted in order to replace the old ones which have either
left the list. The other stumbling blocks to be tackled are list churn and list
fatigue.

List churn is the percentage of subscribers who have left the list during a
certain time period. This is measured either monthly or annually. Out of this
only three percent constitute of people who have unsubscribed from the list.
Other thirty percent constitute of email addresses which have been lost to hard
bounces every year. The subscribers can either enter their email address
incorrectly when signing up or the emails addresses might no longer be valid,
causing the emails to bounce. The rest of the percentage constitute of people
who have reported spam complaints. Even the biggest legitimate permission
marketers get spam complaints.

The list churn rate can be calculated monthly by looking at the email
performance reports. The yearly lost subscribers can be calculated by adding up
number of unsubscribed, hard bounces, and spam complaints. The total should then
be divided by the current size of the list to find out the list hurdle rate.
Calculation of the list hurdle rate is very important for the annual planning
process and for forecasting the revenues. If this metric isn't considered a lot
of explanation is due to your boss if you fail to achieve the required list
growth goal. The list churn rate can be improved by reducing the number of spam
complaints and bounces.

List fatigue deals with the subscribers on the email list which have hibernated
and have become inactive for quite a while. These people haven't unsubscribed,
but have stopped reading the emails and interaction. Therefore the
un-subscription rate cannot give a clear picture about how the readers feel
about the company's emails. The most common cause of list fatigue is irrelevant
offers, over mailing and newsletter content which dose not deal with the
interest of the reader.

The percentage of the inactive subscribers should be calculated to figure out
the list fatigue. People who haven't clicked or opened not even a single email
over a certain period of time should be counted. Usually thirty to fifty
percent of an email list becomes inactive annually. There can be a variety of
reasons cause of which these people are receiving your emails but aren't
unsubscribing. Major reason is because your mail can be going directly to their
bulk folder or because your un-subscription link isn't working. So there can be
a possibility that out of the fifty percent, forty percent are inactive and the
rest ten percent are busy, on vacation, or just not motivated enough by the
subject line or email content. Small surveys can be conducted to understand the
changing needs of the subscribers.

These sleeper subscribers need to be activated from time to time by giving them
spicy stuff like special offer, different newsletter outlook, interactive tools,
etc. On one had the old subscribers must be re-energized and new subscribers
must be added from time to time. Otherwise the list gets shorter and shorter.
Resources must be obtained and plans must be established in order to get the
targeted list growth rates. The ratio of inactive subscribers must also be
reduced and slowed down.

Understanding Email Marketing

Do you understand email marketing? If you do not, you do not have to worry just
yet. This is because the concept of email marketing is relatively new and many
business owners have not started to take advantage of this wonderful marketing
tool yet. However, there are some savvy business owners who are already
employing email marketing techniques to create additional business for
themselves and to gain an advantage over the competition. While not having a
great deal of knowledge about email marketing is not an immediate threat to
your business, you should start learning about this concept to ensure it does
not become a problem for you later as more and more business owners in your
niche begin to take advantage of the concept of email marketing. This article
will provide information on email marketing which should be useful to business
owners who do not have experience with the subject matter.

Business owners should first understand the options available to them in terms
of email marketing. The most common options include sending out mass emails
with promotional materials, publishing and distributing e-newsletters and
offering correspondence courses via email. The advantage to all of these
marketing strategies is the ability to reach a worldwide audience. Unlike
traditional methods of marketing such as television and radio ads or print
media ads which only reach an audience in a limited area anyone with access to
the Internet can benefit from your email marketing techniques.

Mass emails are the most popular form of email marketing. This includes emails
which are sent to hundreds, thousands or even millions of recipients at once.
The problem with this type of marketing is the potential for having your emails
viewed as spam. This is likely to occur if you send your emails to recipients
who have no interest in your products or services and have not expressed
interest in receiving emails from you.

E-newsletters are also becoming increasingly popular as a form of email
marketing. E-newsletters can be a simple or as complex as you prefer and may
include text, graphics, advertisements, links or any combination of these
elements. One of the first decisions you will have to make is whether you wish
to make your e-newsletter strictly text or include graphics in the
e-newsletter. If you are on a tight budget, it may be worthwhile to only
include text to avoid the need to hire a graphic artist. You may be able to
incorporate graphics yourself but they won't look nearly as professional as the
graphics provided by a professional. Likewise you can certainly write your own
copy for your e-newsletter but you will likely create a much better impression
if you hire a qualified professional writer to create the content for you
instead.

Hiring a professional graphic artist and a professional writer may seem like an
extraneous expense but it is actually quite important. Your e-newsletter may be
the first impression many potential customers get of you and your work so it is
important to make sure everything is of the highest quality.

Correspondence courses offered via email is the final email marketing strategy
we will discuss. These courses may be either offered for a fee and turn into a
source of income themselves or they may be made available for free. The theory
behind offering these courses for free is they often contain subtle advertising
urging visitors to invest in the products and services offered by your business.
Whether you charge for your email correspondences courses or offer them for
free, care should be taken to ensure the information contained in these courses
is completely accurate. This is critical because potential customers who receive
these email courses will be judging your business based on the quality and
accuracy of these email courses. If they are filled with errors the potential
customer may doubt the quality of your work and seek out the products and
services offered by others including your direct competitors.

Tips on Reducing Number of Email Bounces

Reducing and managing the number of email bounces has never been so critical
for an email marketer. Frequent managing of email bounces reduces the email
delivery costs and boosts the conversions and transactions. This is a sign of a
good email program.

The list needs to be cleansed on a timely basis. The cleansing process can be
done manually or through list hygiene service by which incorrectly formatted
addresses, and invalid typos and domains can be checked for. Most of the
companies experience an email address churn of two to three percent per month.
Here the Email Change of Address service or ECOA service can be employed to
deal with this problem. According to reports, many of the ECOA companies
receive at least one million email address changes every month.

Email addresses need to be confirmed regularly. This can be done by sending
auto-reply confirmation to customers when they register, subscribe or make a
purchase. If the message bounces, attempt can be made to correct the email
address. The problem can be tackled by including a second email address line in
the opt-in form which can confirm whether the email address entered was correct
or not.

One of the basic steps to be taken is to make the update process easier by
including the website account and subscription management link in the emails.
The customers must be prompted to update information. They can be asked to
verify or to update information at the time of completion of transaction in the
shopping cart. If any transaction has not been made in a while, phone or direct
mail can be used for information update. People who have bad email addresses
and whose phone numbers or postal addresses are stored with the company can be
contacted for email address correction.

Major domains such as Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, etc. can be used to track bounces
and open rates. If one is different from the others or if there is a sudden
change, this can be attributed to blacklisting or filtering. Therefore, it is
also a good idea to check major blacklists and spam databases for your
company's or email provider's name. If the name has been blacklisted, no bounce
message will be received even if the message wasn't delivered. Monitoring and
understanding of spam filters helps in dealing with spam complaints more
efficiently. The terms and conditions of the spam filters must be reviewed
carefully. Quite often the spam flag addresses are added maliciously. These
flags must be removed. Email providers also process bounces. Only understanding
them can solve the problem. The basis on which soft and hard bounces are to be
pronounced should be studied and later on, managed accordingly.

Because of financial troubles, mergers, and other announcements a big list of
service users of one particular ISP decide to shift over to a different ISP or
account for their email. Such members on the subscribers list must be emailed
with a question raised on the domain name. They should be asked whether they
want to update their email and other information. It is a good practice to
pretest the emails before distributing the email to the entire list of
subscribers. The test can be performed on oneself, company employees and a
trusted group of current readers. Try including all the major email services
being used by majority of the subscriber list members.

When every other attempt fails, it is best to delete or suppress recurring
bouncers. For this purpose a suiting bounce deletion and suppression strategy
should be designed according to the email program. Hard bounces should land
directly in the trashed list as they are permanently undeliverable.

Those Tricky Customers

Internet marketing can be a cat and mouse game with you being the cat and the
customer being a very wily mouse. Internet denizens are a clever sort and if
they see something on your web site, they will not hesitate to sign up for a
membership and even agree to receive your promotional emails. But those tricky
customers have ways to dodging your email advertising so even though you think
you are advertising to them, your messages are actually vanishing off the face
of the earth. So we have to be just as clever as well.

Knowing how customers think is a big part of being successful in your marketing
plans. Internet customers are just like customers in the old marketing model.
They are curious about promotions and they want to enjoy your give aways and
dodge ongoing advertising. The cat and mouse game is to get them to want your
advertisements by attaching them to things they want and get them to give you
their email addresses and even to add your email identification to their
preferred contacts list so your marketing emails fly right through their spam
filters.

Much of what goes into web site design is making a web "place" that will draw
customers to register for a "membership" or otherwise provide you with their
real email address. When you develop a system that is working with actual
visitors on your web site, you can then build a mailing list that is of much
greater value than any list of email addresses you might buy from a mass
mailing email service. Your email list is pure gold because it consists of real
customers who actually had an interest in your web site and your product or
service and who are likely to come back if your marketing is well done. Not
only is that email contact list gold to you as a business, it is of great
interest to other businesses in similar lines of business as you who will pay
well to get their hands on that marketing email contacts list for the same
reasons you value it.

However, those tricky customers of yours even have ways of stepping around your
validation schemes and it all lies in the fact that anyone can set up as many
email addresses online that they want. You know from your personal use of email
that you have one or two primary email accounts, probably with your ISP that go
directly to your desktop email software such as Microsoft Outlook. But most of
us also set up two or three or many more other email accounts with services
like HotMail, Yahoo and others. Its easy to set up an account on these services
to use for games or to register for contests.

Those alternate services are where tricky online customers can trap your emails
and actually give you the impression that you are advertising to them when you
are not. A typical ploy by internet denizens is to send any incoming emails
that are not personal or of immediate value to a yahoo, hotmail or other free
email service. The result is that even if you harvested their email address
when they signed on for a service or became a member of your web site, your
advertising emails are being "dumped" into these alternative email inboxes
which the customer has no intention of keeping up with.

The customer might check those email boxes every few weeks and just hit "delete
all" on the inbox knowing that they don't want to see any of those emails. And
when they do that, there goes your advertising and you may never know what
happened.

One way to try to bypass this problem is to make verification of email a part
of the registration process. In that way, the customer has to log onto that
email box to see a verification email and hit a link in that email to validate
that it is a valid email address. But the final answer is to make your
marketing emails so interesting and valuable to your customers that they don't
want to "dump them" into a holding tank email because they want to see what you
are going to send them. And when you get to that level of relationship with a
customer, you really do have a gold email list that will result in much higher
sales for your online business.

The Right Content for Your Email Marketing

Email marketing may include sending email advertisements to a large
distribution list, publishing and distributing an e-newsletter and sending
informative emails with a soft sell approach to encourage recipients to make a
purchase or visit your website. Whether you opt to utilize one or all of these
email marketing techniques, you will be faced with one specific dilemma and
that is writing the content which will appear in these emails. This is critical
because these emails may be the first impression potential customers are
receiving for your products and services. Superior content will give the
potential customers a good first impression which may make them more likely to
purchase your products or services. This article will discuss some proven
techniques for ensuring the content you use in your email marketing campaign
will reap the maximum benefits.

The importance of hiring a professional writer to assist you in your email
marketing campaign cannot be stressed enough. It is one of the most critical
elements to the success of your campaign. You may be a decent writer or you may
have a staff member who you think can do a good job creating the content for
your email marketing but unless you or your staff member is a professional
writer by trade, the quality of the work will likely not be of the same quality
as a professional can produce. This can be very damaging especially if your
competitors are hiring writers to create their content. Your emails will likely
not be viewed as favorably as the emails written by professionals.

The content you decide to include in your email marketing efforts is largely a
matter of personal preference but there are some methods which have
traditionally been more successful than others. The type of content which may
be effective often includes informative articles, short useful tips, links to
relevant websites, advertising for complementary products and even some subtle
forms of advertising which are meant to persuade the recipients of the email to
either make a purchase or visit your website.

Full length insightful articles which are likely to be of interest to the
members of your email distribution list are an excellent idea for your email
marketing campaign. These articles are a good idea because they will likely
contain information which the recipients of your email will appreciate.
Additionally, these articles give you the opportunity to include information
about your products or services in the copy of the email. This can be a subtle
form of advertising when it encourages the recipients to purchase a product or
service or visit the website without actually asking the recipient to do so.

Short product reviews can also be very useful and helpful when you include them
in your email marketing campaign. These reviews can help to attract a great deal
of attention especially when the reviews focus on the products you offer and
provide favorable reviews for these products. This type of information can
either be subjective in nature or can remain objective by simply specifying the
features of the products and offering other concrete pieces of information as
opposed to opinions of the products.

Advertising is often a quite important part of an email marketing campaign.
This advertising may either be direct or indirect in nature. Direct advertising
may include banner ads or other graphical advertisements which encourage website
visitors to click through the link to reach either your website or a sponsor's
website. Indirect advertising may apply to content in the copy of featured
articles which subtly encourage visitors to make a purchase or visit your
website. The indirect marketing in an email marketing campaign is usually
supporting the products or services you offer while direct marketing will
likely promote products and services offered by sponsors who paid to receive
advertising space on the email. Email recipients are usually well aware these
graphics are part of an advertisement and will choose to click on these links
when they have an interest in the products or services being offered.

The Reasons You Need Email Deliverability

The problems associated with email deliverability are a significant hindrance
to the conduct of internet commerce via email. That may be as succinct a
statement of the obstacles we face when trying to build an online marketing
presence as we use as a primary or even a component of your internet marketing
plan any form of email marketing. Even the best designed and written marketing
plan that depends on reaching your customers via standard email communications
faces the problem of spam filters and other hindrances to email communications
resulting in disruptions to your email deliverability.

So before you design an elaborate methodology to battle the email
deliverability issue, maybe its best to drop back and look at exactly what you
are looking for email marketing to do for you and evaluate whether the
investment is worth the outcome. The basic reasons we utilize email marketing
are these: .

.  To generate enthusiasm for online promotions. .  To make product
announcements and build customer awareness of new products and services. .  To
generate interest in special promotions designed to stimulate sales. .  To
evangelize new customers and build our online marketing program. .  To maintain
open communications with our customers. .  To solicit feedback from the customer
base. .  To encourage referrals. .  To repair relationships after service calls
or returns and to rebuild customer confidence. .  For mass mailings to create a
new wave of sales and to grow your online market niche.

These are probably just a few of the ways you might use an internet marketing
program via email if it ran smoothly. But if you are facing email
deliverability problems, every one of these objectives can be frustrated and
you could actually lose customers and see a decline in business simply because
the email system is so bogged down with spam and spam filters put in place to
battle the problem.

These are all valid reasons for any kind of customer communications. And under
the previous model of how the internet operates only a few years ago, internet
citizens looked to email as one of the primary touch points for communications
from friends, business associates and online merchants.

Having established that under the assumption that email is the most efficient
method for sustaining contact with existing customers and building new customer
relationships, then making an effort to get email deliverability under control
makes a lot of sense. There are two levels of email relationships here to take
into account and the effectiveness of a war on the email deliverability problem
differs for the two types of customer relationships.

When using emails for relationships with existing customers with whom you enjoy
an ongoing relationship of trust, the investment you might make to clear away
any email deliverability problems makes a lot of sense. But you also have
resources in an existing trust relationship with a customer that take a lot of
the tedium of fighting email deliverability out of the formula.

An existing customer can add you to their preferred contacts list so the email
spam filters will automatically allow your emails to flow through to the
customer. You can ask for feedback on a regular basis to assure deliverability
is working and to test that your communications are getting through. In a
relationship of trust with your existing niche, keeping email deliverability
active is not as much of a problem.

However when using email to gather new customer contacts particularly through
mass mailings, you face an uphill battle to open the doors of email
deliverability with dozens if ISPs and to learn up to date email deliverability
"tricks of the trade" so your email doesn't get discarded with hundred of other
mass mailings which qualify as spam. And in that mass mailing solicitation
already had a low percentage of return on investment before the email
deliverability problem came up, the investment in solving the deliverability
problem for mass mailing emails may just not be worth the effort.

The Reaction to Your Email Marketing

Email marketing can actually be much more effective than most people think.
Many business owners do not invest a great deal of time, energy or money into
orchestrating an email marketing campaign because they mistakenly believe all
email marketing is viewed as spam. However, this is simply not true. Business
owners who have discovered how to market via email successfully, enjoy a great
deal of success with this type of marketing. This article will discuss how
email marketing can be successful and will provide insight into how to
determine how your email marketing is being received.

Before we can discuss how to determine the reaction to your email marketing
campaign, it is important for business owners to understand how to plan and
execute an email marketing campaign which is successful. Perhaps one of the
most important elements of type of campaign is to ensure your marketing efforts
are not viewed by the recipients as being spam. One way to do this is to
carefully develop your email distribution list. Although you can reach a
tremendous audience by sending out your email marketing materials to a large
email list, this is not effective when you do not know much about whether or
not the members of this email list will even be interested in your products or
services. It is important to note that reaching a huge audience is not more
important than reaching a highly targeted audience.

Focusing your email marketing efforts on millions of recipients who do not have
a specific interest in your products or services is not nearly as effective
focusing your email marketing efforts on only hundreds of email recipients who
are likely to be very interested in your products or services. This is because
you are much more likely to generate sales from a small, target group than you
are from a large group without a specific focus.

Now that you know a little bit about email marketing and how it can be
effective, you might wonder how you can determine just how effective your email
marketing efforts are in the long run. This is important because it is not
worthwhile to invest a great deal of time, energy and money into an email
marketing campaign if your efforts are not generating results. Likewise, if
your email marketing campaign is widely successful, you might want to consider
organizing additional marketing efforts to further your success. We reccomend
www.Automatic-Responder.com if you do not already have an autoresponder service.

Customer surveys are one of the easiest ways to evaluate the reaction to your
email marketing campaign. Asking customer to fill out simple surveys when they
make a purchase can provide a great deal of insight depending on the questions
you ask. Questions such as where the customer learned about your products and
services may seem rather innocuous but this information can actually be rather
useful to the business owner. Learning where a customer learned about the
products and services you offer, provides excellent feedback for which of your
marketing efforts are generating the most interest. If you receive a great deal
of responses stating customers learned about your products or services through
emails, this is a good indication that your email marketing campaign is
effective.

Another very popular way to evaluate the reaction to your email marketing
efforts is to closely monitor your rate of sales as well as your website
traffic immediately after you issue a new email to members of your distribution
list. This can be helpful because an increase in sales or website traffic after
an email was issued is a strong indication that the email was well received and
encouraged recipients to visit the website and make purchases. However, there is
one caveat to this method of evaluation. It can be quite difficult to determine
whether or not the emails caused the increase in website traffic and sales if
more than one marketing effort was made at the same time. For example if you
issue an email at the same time as you launch a banner ad, you cannot determine
which one is more effective and is driving the increase in sales and traffic.

The Path to Customers

Email deliverability is a big issue when your ability to market to online
customers relies on a strong email link to them. You have a valuable product or
service to offer your customers. The problem is that your good emails are being
mixed in with a lot of junk emails or "spam" and the protections customers have
built are very good at blocking spam. When your email goes down with the ship,
so does your profitability.

Finding out if and how spam filters or other email blocks are killing your
marketing program is a big part of managing the email deliverability problem.
You know from conventional marketing studies that when it comes to advertising,
the amount of customers who will respond to advertising they see is small and
the percentage of those customers who actually buy is even smaller. So if your
advertisement reaches 10,000 customers, 1% of that group might respond. Of that
100 people, you might realize 1-5 sales. But in a marketing model, that is a
successful advertising campaign.

Internet marketing complicates the formula. That is because if you send out a
mass mailing email to 10,000 customers, the odds are that a tiny percentage of
those emails will actually reach the customer. So if 1000 of those emails
reaches the customer and the 1% rule is still valid (and it is), the chances of
you getting even one new paying customer go way down. That is just not
acceptable.

It might be that the answer lies in thinking outside the box. Instead of
depending entirely on tricking spam filters and other ploys to actually reach
the customer, a better way to approach the battle might be to think again about
the path to the customers that you are using. If you think of how you go about
trying to reach your customers as a road, the mass mailing method is clearly a
road that has a lot of road blocks on it. The answer might not be to get over
or around or remove the road blocks. The answer might be to find a new road to
the customers.

That road lies in customer behavior. Think about it. If you are throwing your
marketing at trying to attract the general internet population to your products
and services, thousands or millions of those people will never become your
customers. So your promotion to them is a waste of time. The key to any
successful marketing plan is to narrow your focus to only the customers who
want to buy from you.

So how do you know which of those millions of internet web surfers out there
have an interest in your products and services? You know because they are
already coming to your web site. This is the old "look in your own back yard"
theory. The customers who are finding you online and visiting your web site,
even if only for a short time have or at one time had an interest in your
business. So instead of going out into the general population and trying to get
everyone to be a customer, focus your energies on that smaller population who
already are your customers or at least showed an internet in being your
customer.

This approach to building a new path to the customer vastly improves the
percentage of responses to your emails. Now in stead of sending out 10,000 mail
to random email addresses to harvest maybe one sale, you may narrow your focus
and send 2000 emails to people who are interested in what you do and get 50
sales from the effort.

That is just smart marketing. Instead of trying to assault 10,00 spam filters
and 10,000 disinterested customers, you enter into a relationship with a
smaller niche of the market. And because that smaller group of customers
already knows you, your emails are welcome and will get read. Your message gets
across and the customers who are ready to buy will come to you. And all because
you used strategy instead of brute force to reach customers on a different
road, a road that lead directly to the real customers, not one lined with
obstacles and hazards.

The Only Real Email Deliverability Sure Thing

If you ever looked at the hundred of spam messages that get caught in your
email filter, a common reaction you might have to the ploys these marketers are
trying is "They must think I am stupid." What is particularly amazing is how
hard email mass merchandisers (spam artists) go to great lengths to overcome
spam filter methods to get their email into your email box but how little
effort they invest in to not get deleted once they get there.

I was watching spam one day and I noticed a couple tricks that the marketers
were trying to use. One was to include long strings of unrelated words on the
theory that some of those phrases will draw the customers attention so you will
open the email. But in the process the email was gibberish and it was
immediately deleted so all that hard work was for nothing. Another ploy was to
use a image of the message so that it could not be scanned for flag words that
would be caught by a spam filter. It didn't make the promotion any more
appealing even if it did get to my email box and it got deleted.

The reason none of those emails ever work is that those marketers have no
reputation with me. And that one word "reputation" is at the heart of how to
overcome the deliverability problem and assure that a greater percentage of
your emails gets all the way to your customers. To make sure that happens, you
have to build trust with the customer. You have to build relationship so when
they see your email come in, they want to read it. That takes work and it takes
ongoing effort not only to build relationship with those customers but to
maintain it. But it is the only real email delivery sure thing that will work
every time. A good email reputation means more delivered emails and more sales.
And when that reputation is hurt, so are your sales.

Have you noticed how often when you sign up to use an online service, they
boldly display a guarantee that your email will not be used for promotional
purposes or sold. There is one reason they are doing that. That company wants
to build trust with you so if they contact you, you will trust their email and
so you will continue to give them your private information for an ongoing
online commerce relationship. That "friendship" between customer and merchant
is pure gold to any online business and that is the kind of relationships you
must build with your customers to make email deliverability issues become a
thing of the past.

Any study of the real experts who are trying to solve the email deliverability
problem will focus on this one issue -- email reputation, trust and
authentication. Internet customers take it seriously because to have access to
their real email box, you have to deserve it. And to deserve the right to sell
to a customer, you have to establish trust. They have to trust you that you are
"for real" and not an internet scam. They have to trust you that you will offer
them value both in the product or service that is your business but even in the
email you send to them regularly. And they have to trust you that you wont
betray their trust by spamming them or giving them over to spam operators who
will trod on that trusted relationship to try to get a cheap sale.

You probably remember as a youngster your father telling you that trust is not
something you can ask for. It is something that is earned. But you don't just
earn it once, you continue to earn it over and over again every day. That is
what you must make your corporate ethic when dealing with the customers you
sell to online. Treat them with respect and earn their trust. And if you do
that, they will reward your respect with internet traffic on your web site and
with sales. And that is how to prosper in an online world.

The Good of Giving it Away

The phenomenon of downloads has gotten a lot of press that has indicated that
people who seek to download things for free from the internet are stealing and
are bad people. But the truth is that the internet was virtually built on the
concept of free stuff and it is as much a part of the internet culture as email
and domain names. But the internet didn't invent the phenomenon that people like
to get things for free. That is a part of human nature. The big question is
whether you are going to moan about that and work against human nature to stop
people from wanting free stuff or are you going to tap into that desire for
free goodies for your marketing purposes.

Some of the most popular web sites there are have gotten that way because they
give stuff away for free. A good example is YouTube. While visitors to YouTube
generally do not download the videos, they can see them for free as often as
they wish and at no cost to them at all. And the outcome is a web site that has
enjoyed explosive traffic and made the YouTube creators very wealthy as a result.

Free downloads bridges the gap between marketing to customers where they are,
which is what you do with email marketing or marketing to them where you are
which is what you do on your web site. When a customer comes to your web site
to see something interesting or to download the latest free give away you have
to offer, they take that download to their own world. That download becomes
viral and it can be used to take new customers back to the web site or to
encourage them to make contact with you via email so you can expand your email
mailing list as a result of one simple download.

Probably the reason tapping the natural instinct in customers to seek out
something free from you is so successful is that it shifts the movement of
marketing to the customer who wants to come to you rather than you forcing
yourself on the customer. In that way downloads can become a clever and natural
way to get around email delivery problems as a result of over zealous spam
filters. By organizing downloads to tie in with email communications, you
encourage customers to add your corporate email address to their favored
contacts list. They will want to get your emails in the future so they can hear
about the next download.

When you become dependable to give away desirable downloads to your regulars,
the word of that activity will spread like wildfire through the user community.
You can encourage that recruitment momentum by offering existing members of your
online community additional free stuff if they pass an invitation email along to
a friend. By adding fuel to the fire of the download fever, you are using that
natural energy of online customers to get things for free to expand your
marketing base and resolve your email delivery problems all in one simple
marketing step.

The funny thing about using downloads in this way is that the thing you are
giving away really doesn't have to have a huge value to you in the first place.
It might be a digital ebook you own that long ago lost its marketing value as a
sales item. But by giving it away, it suddenly becomes hidden treasure to your
customers. You can also give away a something from your catalog of products on
your shopping cart pages. For the cost of one item, you will harvest a wealth
of new customers and generate web traffic and new sales that will more than pay
for the promotion.

The Future of Email Marketing

Email has become one of the most popular channels of marketing in the world.
Advertisers are attracted to email marketing because it provides them to
communicate directly with users and it is way cheaper and faster compared to
direct mail advertising. In order to save money, more and more businesses are
resorting to email marketing because it has the ability to acquire customers
and maintain relationships with them.

According to GartnerG2, a research service from Gartner Inc., consumers will be
more yielding in accepting mail containing advertisements as they get
increasingly adept in using email, building trust and familiarity with
advertisers. The company's projection for advertising revenue for 2005 totals
to about $1.5 billion.

One of the numerous advantages of email marketing is that within days of its
establishment, results can already be seen and necessary actions can already be
decided upon. The entire cycle of an email campaign is indeed very much shorter
than direct mail marketing campaigns.

Advertisers can utilize email strategies that are personalized and combine or
align them with their traditional mail marketing plans in order for them to
realize campaign goals. Permission email marketing, or opt-in email marketing
is a way of advertising where the recipient of an email containing an
advertisement has given permission to receive it. It is an effective method,
since in theory, the person who is about to receive the email is anticipating
the advertisement, and therefore, he or she will not simply delete it and will
take the time to read the ad.

There are several challenges faced by email marketing in the present. More and
more people are getting victimized by spamming. To offset this problem, the use
of filtering and blocking software has proliferated immensely. If this goes on,
the use of protective programs can be a standard in the future.

With the rate that the situation is going, the strategies that will be used in
email marketing in the near future will be concentrated on making it entirely
safe and legal.

GartnerG2 recommends the following measures for advertisers to maximize their
campaigns:

1. Advanced personalization should be utilized to communicate with customers 2.
Permit present and prospective customers to give feedback. Make sure to
acknowledge and utilize them 3. Send no more than two emails per customer,
three for business audiences 4. Use email addresses that are collected only
through opt-in means when sending emails

Other strategies should be implemented by advertisers to gear up for the future:

1. Details should be provided for the lists When subscription links are
accessed, they lead into a page where users can see details on the kind of
communication they will receive from advertisers. Instructions on what to do
with the information should also be included.

2. Use double-opt in subscriptions Double opt-ins protect people who did not
sign-up to a particular kind of subscriptions by alerting them if someone tries
to send them unsolicited email

3. Install security for mailing lists At least, lists should be
password-protected. If possible, store lists somewhere that is not connected to
the network. This will reduce the risk of getting hackers and viruses
in the lists.

4. Avoid co-registrations A lot of marketers are making use of co-registration
to boost up their lists, but what they do not know is that it is a very
dangerous endeavor. Co-registrations offer users with forms from different web
sites that offer to provide communications through email coming from various
merchants that are related to different fields of interest. What users don not
know is that co-registering increases the chances of getting spam mail with the
ones that they are actually supposed to receive.

5. Avoid using red flag words words like discount, free, special, bonus, are
often used by marketers for their mails. Mail containing too many of these
words can put an advertiser's message to spam folders. Advertisers can test if
their mail can get past the spam filters by creating an account in Yahoo, for
instance, then try sending mail to an intended address, and check which folder
they will end up.

It requires a little more effort for these strategies to implement, but it will
surely be worth it in the end. Advertisers need only to select the strategy that
is most appropriate for their businesses, and it will definitely bring immense
improvement to their database of mailing lists.

The Biggest Email Brand Killers

One of the biggest mistakes to do is to use email like the electronic version
of direct marketing media such as postal mailers, catalogs, radio, television,
newspaper inserts and even brochures. A world class brand builder can become a
sure fire brand killer in no time if it is treated with ignorance,
carelessness, and laziness. The brand killing capability is very much dependant
on the email's relationship with the recipients. The relationship is more
personal because of the intimate relationship between the people and their
computer. And because of this intimacy, positive and negative feelings are
encourages by the company's name. No mail is as irritating as junk mail and the
penalties for such emails are getting much stiffer. A flood of spam complaints
can affect the email program to the extent of shutting it down.

The email is becoming a personal medium, slowly. The recipient should be made
in charge, he should be able to decide from whom he should receive email from,
what kind of email he wants to receive and when he can stop receiving those
emails. An email program which dose not includes all these conveniences will do
severe damage to the company's or brand's name.

The first thing to concentrate upon is to remove poor permission practices. If
this thing isn't taken care of, nothing done after that will make up for the
loss. In simple words, it is completely wrong to email a commercial message to
anyone who hasn't given the permission to do so. Sometimes, a person is simply
signed up for receiving email while registering on the website because of
checking boxes in a hurry. Thus, it is important for the registration page to
display the privacy policy which says that the registration also includes
agreement for receiving emails. And in spite of this, there is a high chance to
get large complaints because of the unclear opt-in process. Some companies send
emails to a person who has downloaded whitepaper or brochure form the website.
It is better for the check box be not checked before hand. The job of checking
the box should be left to the visitor.

In spite of taking these precautions sometimes it happen that the recipient
will head straight to the report spam button when they do not want to receive
email anymore. This happens when the recipient dose not trust the unsubscribe
process. The first reason for the loss of trust is because of not sending the
message in the desired format: text or HTML. The readers subscribe intrusting
the company and when their email program fails to honor their trust, the
company has to pay for this. It is very important to give the reader the option
to choose from text or HTML format. Usually technical people prefer only text
messages where as the teenagers prefer messages in the HTML format.

The content of the email should exactly meet the requested information. If a
subscriber has asked for sales announcements then do not send them company
news. Similarly, the frequency of email should also be kept in mind. If request
has been made to receive a weekly newsletter, do not send bi-weekly newsletters.
An occasional exception such as sales bulletins or news can be used sparingly.
Customers complain a lot about the pouring of emails during the holiday season.
It is better to focus on the quality rather than quantity.

It is not a compulsion that the content of the email look like spam and
considered as a spam. If the recipients able to recognize the sender or dose
not consider him to authentic, the mail directly goes to the spam folder. Three
things should be considered to keep away from this problem. The sender or the
subject shouldn't appear vague. The content should be relevant to the brand
name and its products. The unsubscribe procedure should be checked regularly.
Failed unsubscribe and repeated requests for unsubscribing not only blocks the
email program but also kills the brand name. Along with checking this link, it
is highly recommended to check other links as well. Clicking on the link should
take directly to the landing page and not on home page or a 'Page Not Found'
page. Also, effort must be made in reducing the number of clicks done to
achieve a certain action.

Testing Emails Effectively

The big picture, which is missed by many marketers, about email is that apart
from being cheap and quick, it gives the ability to find what works and what
does not. It is inexpensive and offers more information to the subscriber than
direct mail and the turnaround time is decreased from weeks to hours. Yet, very
few marketers invest time and efforts to test drive their eNewsletters and
emails. Many of them will question whether the effort made is really worth it.
If the order button is shifted from the bottom of the page to the top of the
page, where it is more visible, the click through rate goes up by fifty
percent. With such results, the effort is worth it. With hundreds and millions
of dollars involved in email marketing, money cannot be thrown away like that.

The only way to know about offers and topics which work for the audience is by
testing. Testing can be carried out on preferences, emotional triggers,
reaction towards subject lines, do they like short or long formats, or do they
like text or HTML format. Valuable information about the audience can be
learned by variable testing.

Basics of the emails can be started with like the simplest portions of the
emails can be formatted. Most of the emails aren't read because of faulty HTML
code. Emails should be tested in different types of email applications like
Yahoo or Outlook. By doing this a drastic change can be observed in the overall
response rate. Testing should be kept in control. Sometimes marketers get so
overwhelmed that they test the whole email at once. If two completely different
versions of the same email are send out to different groups, there will be no
clue to what actually worked and what didn't. Therefore it is necessary to pick
a single element to be tested at a time and then observe the response of the
audience to that particular variable before testing another variable.

Timing is also important when sending out emails for testing. When sending
multiple test emails, the time of sending them out should be considered. It is
to be seen whether the emails can be sent at the same time, same season, etc.
This also includes the testing on more than one variable at a time. According
to researches, Wednesday is the best day for getting responses. Other
statistics say that at least thirty to fifty responses are required to make a
good decision. Some percent of these responses can be confusing, but nearly
ninety percent of them will be accurate. The list of elements can be further
divided into smaller list and the individual list can be concentrated upon.

Testing doesn't mean just taking the grade. It means that we should get the
grades or results and learn from it. If something is wrong in the email, the
correction should be sought out. When the email marketing efforts are put to
test, the goal of this testing procedure is to test one or more elements or
variables, the results must be analyzed and the lesson learned should be put to
application. Otherwise, it is a waste of time and money to test. And when the
results are ready, the marketer should know how to apply the new found
knowledge.

Take Control of the Email Deliverability Problem

There is something fundamentally wrong about email deliverability being able to
get in between your customers and you. Under the old model of internet marketing
where online businesses basically did mass mailings to anyone who had an email
account, the deliverability problem had a huge impact on the payback you got
from using a mass mailing service to send your marketing email out to 10,000 or
100,000 random potential customers.

But that old model was never that good in the first place. For one thing, even
though the mass mailing services told you they had access to thousands of
"valid email addresses", who knows if they really did? But even if they had a
low "bounce rate", this scattershot method has never been the most effective
form of marketing on or off the internet. Even before internet marketing became
a big part of how you do business, a better business model was to build a
relationship with a niche market, market to that niche by capitalizing on the
relationship and then see a greater return on your marketing investment because
the you are working with a client base that has an identifiable need that your
product or service addresses.

This new model works just as well online. You build your relationships with
your client base on your web site using interactive techniques. You establish
relationship and trust through the sales and support process. Then with that
mailing list of established and "real" customers, you launch your email
marketing plan on much firmer footing.

But email deliverability continues to be a fly in the ointment because working
through public ISPs, you have to jump through the hoops that are there to trap
old model spammers just to talk to customers you already know. And if you
don't, you will see spam traps and other controls stop you from having access
to your established customer community. This kind of restraint of trade, even
if unintentional, is unacceptable. So there is good reason to take control of
the email deliverability problem.

You have the resources to take that control through your mailing list and your
online registration of web site members. In that you have a domain, you also
have the ability to give your customers an email account on your domain. This
is a bold step but by using some technical wizardry, you an automatically give
your customers a private email account on your domain with your business domain
name that becomes part of their identity. Your customers will love it because it
is an email account they can use for anything and you and sweeten the pot by
running contests and give aways exclusively through your own private email
network.

The next step is just to let your customers collect their private emails
through their local copy of Microsoft Outlook or whatever email client they
use. Your internet technical gurus can come up with a script that can
automatically set up the Outlook parameters so the customer can have that up
and running in a matter of moments.

Presto Chango, your private email network now goes directly to the customers
desktop email server. There is no spam because its private. You have 24/7
access to that email account for marketing and because you control that domain
completely, email deliverability problems are a thing of the past. So stop
jumping through ISP hoops and fighting the mass mailing spam filter wars. Take
control by building your niche market and then equipping your niche market to
communicate directly with you. Its smart use of technology and you can kiss
email delivery problems goodbye.

Subtle Email Marketing

Everyday Internet users receive tons of emails telling them to buy certain
products or visit particular websites. While these emails arrive in the inboxes
of unsuspecting Internet users each day, most of them pay very little attention
to these emails. That is because emails which are blatant advertisements are
often viewed as spam. Most Internet users have very little tolerance for spam.
Reactions to spam tend to range from simply ignoring the emails and having the
email addresses blocked from sending future emails to reporting the emails to
their Internet service provider for further investigation. We realize many
Internet marketers have difficulty keeping their email marketing subtle.
Therefore this article will provide some useful information on how email
marketing can be kept subtle so it is not viewed as spam.

One of the most important criteria for ensuring your email marketing is subtle
and will not be viewed as spam is to provide something of quality to the
recipients. This may include insightful articles, interesting quizzes or other
useful facts which members of the target audience are likely to find useful.
When email recipients realize an email they received is offering them something
worthwhile such as knowledge or information about a particular niche subject
they are much more likely to spend some time reviewing the email because they
will not consider the email to be spam. In addition to using the creation of
this copy to convince recipients that the email is not spam, the business
owners can also take advantage of this copy by providing subtle advertising.
This may include product references in the articles or links to your website
throughout the email.

Avoiding language which makes outrageous claims can also help to keep
advertising quite subtle. Using superlatives and describing the greatness of
specific products is likely to be viewed as blatant advertising. When this
happens, it is not likely that website owners will believe there is validity in
anything contained within the email because they will believe the entire email
is simply one big advertisement for your products or services.

Another way to keep advertising subtle when running an email marketing campaign
is to only send your email to those who are likely to be extremely interested in
your products and services. This is important because when email recipients
receive an email which does not reflect their interests at all, they are not
likely to take the email serious and may view the email as a blatant
advertisement. However, when the email is only sent to those who share a common
interest the email seems more personalized. In this case the email recipients
are not likely to view every product reference as a blatant advertisement
because they understand there is sometimes a need to mention products or
services.

Finally email marketing remains subtle when the content of the email is written
as though it is not coming directly from the business owner. The copy may speak
about the products and services as though they are being offered by a third
party. This make the advertising seem more subtle because it does not appear to
come directly from the business owner.

Finally, business owners can help to ensure their email marketing efforts are
not viewed as blatant advertisements by keeping reference to your own website
to an absolute minimum. Most Internet users often view links from one website
to another strictly as an advertisement. For this reason it might be worthwhile
for business owners who are marketing an email campaign to keep links to a
minimum and to carefully weave these links into even the most quite benign
copy. The links should be provided as though they were only included to provide
you with an opportunity to learn more about the products and not as a way to
encourage you to purchase these products. It might be worthwhile to consider
hiring a writer with this type of experience to ensure the copy conveys the
desired message and has the desired effect on the email recipients.

Strategies for Email Marketing

Any marketing to be successful requires a particular strategy to be followed.
Hence, email marketing also involves using some strategies. The biggest
advantage of using email as a marketing strategy is personalization and
segmentation. These advantages are also the most underutilized feature of email
marketing, by most the companies. It is very important to make the company's
emails as clear and relevant as possible for every recipient because that
particular email is competing with the rest of the emails in the recipient's
inbox. Email can be made relevant by personalizing subject lines, articles,
offers, product showcased, and flowing emails depending upon recipient's action.

Before carrying out an email marketing strategy it is best to send out
pre-campaign test to uncover problems before actually implementing the
strategy. The test results can be monitored by checking ISP filtering,
blacklisting and filtering. The test messages should be sent to different email
clients and platforms. The authenticity can be established by the sender of
email by adding SPF code in the DNS record. Every email client and platform has
a different preview pane and they have different policies for blocking images.
To deal with this, the emails need to be redesigned so as to be read easily and
rendered properly. The top portion of the email should deliver the maximum
possible information. Also creativity should be increased by playing with HTML
colors and fonts. Images should be less relied upon as there is greater chance
of them getting blocked the email clients or ISPs.

Everything becomes passe over a period of time. A thing which worked few months
ago might not work today. Variables such as design, format, copy style, subject
line, offers, content types, personalization, product categories, etc., need to
be tested constantly.

Email relationship should be paid special attention from the start, because
majority of the decline requests comes in the first two months after
subscriber's opt-in. A well organized program must be designed which should
engage the subscriber immediately. A welcome message should be sent out
instantaneously, followed by current email including the latest offers and
promotions. An email can also be sent which offers the best of the past
newsletters along with exclusive offers for newcomers. The trust can be build
by making things clear such as frequency, proposition, content type, and
privacy policies, from the start. Apart from concentrating on new comers it is
also important to take care of the long term subscribers. Over a period of time
nearly fifty percent of the email list becomes inactive. This happens when the
subscribers do not open the company's emails from a long time. Such subscribers
need to be awaken by trying new subject lines, new email formats, and by sending
best of newsletters or spicy deals.

Short surveys can be carried out to know about the customer's requirements and
to uncover potential trends.

Instead of focusing on metrics such as click through and open rates, marketers
need to focus on end goals such as revenue per mail, conversion rates, whether
desired action was taken on time or not, etc. Format style and the type of
articles liked by the subscribers must be concentrated upon. Searching option
also helps in acquiring customers to a great extent.

The biggest job is to make a working email marketing plan which actually has
specific goals, action steps and success metric. The plan should include enough
resources and budget. The program needs to be improved often by continuous
testing and analysis, by increasing segmentation and personalization, and by
including the latest technology.

Start Them Communicating and Keep Them Communicating

As an internet customer and web surfer, you no doubt have signed up for mailing
lists, web site "memberships" or to buy something online and experienced an
email verification process. The process is pretty straight foreword and most of
us follow the instructions of the web site without giving it much thought:

*  You sign up to have an ID on the web site. This is a common practice so you
   can make posts on a web site's message boards or get notifications of changes
   to the site or news about the web site topics.

*  You provide the safe information including what nickname you want to use, a 
   password, perhaps your zip code and your email address. Because the web site 
   doesn't require phone number or address, you don't mind giving them this 
   information, especially if they post a notice that they will not sell your 
   email on a mailing list. 

*  Once your registration is processed, the web page instructs you that a
   verification email was sent to assure that the email adders you gave is 
   valid. You are then instructed to go to your email address and find the 
   verification email, open it and click on the link to complete the activation 
   of your membership. 

*  You are obedient and complete those steps and you are done. You might get a 
   "congratulations" email letting you know that you are ready to use your new 
   membership on the web site.

Have you ever thought about why the web site owners created this system? It
might be to limit the people who can post on their message boards or change
their wiki pages. But that probably is not the reason. The real reason is to
establish email communications up front to head off any problems with email
deliverability issues and to encourage you to add the email address they will
be using to contact you to your preferred users list in your spam blocking
software so their emails will get through.

This technique for overcoming the email deliverability problem is probably one
of the best of the current thinking on the problem. That is because the
solution is not based on assaulting the machinery in place to handle spam
emails. The solution is based in building a relationship with the customer from
the ground up. And by starting that relationship out with an enticement, you
start them communicating with them via email early on so that channel of
communication opens up.

However, I have often thought that the web site owners miss a golden
opportunity when they guide us through this process. If you are like me, you
are happy to go through this verification process because it makes sense. And
in a way it makes you feel good that the web site owners want to know you are
for real and they give you a chance to opt out during the email verification
process. You are in a cooperative and partnering mood with the web site owner
which is a business providing you with a product or service, whether you know
they are that or not.

But the online business that just did such a good job of starting you
communicating missed the chance to keep you communicating. Yes, the
congratulations email is a nice follow up. But this is s a golden opportunity
to start a dialog of communication with each customer that not only keeps that
email channel of communications open, it builds that customer relationship so
you can exploit it for more sales, greater participation in the web site and
for referrals.

At that moment when the congratulations email, what if you put a coupon for 15%
off a newsletter subscription or from something in the catalog of products?
Immediately are drawing the customer to a buying relationship with your
internet business. And by drawing them to your sales page, you can market all
your goods and services to them as they claim their prize.

There are dozens of ways to tease further communications with the close of each
successful transaction. You already have the customer's attention when you step
them through the email address validation process and you know you have a "hot"
email marketing contact point with an active customer. Don't miss out on using
this hot channel to build and expand that relationship and make it bigger and
better with each exchange of emails with that customer.

Spicing up the Snippet Text

Snippet is the top line of the email which is displayed apart from the subject
line. Usually the inbox snippet displays the first line of the text message or
HTML message. It is tiny but a very significant part of the email message which
helps to tilt the balance in the marketer's favor, when the readers zip through
their messages, searching for the most important ones and deleting the rest.
Therefore, it is more important to juice up the snippet in order to optimize
the email and make your message stand out from the rest of the crowd.

Different service providers have different types of display pane. Yahoo
displays the snippet in a pop-up text box when the cursor is brought over the
subject line. Gmail shows the snippet in a shaded part after the display of a
truncated subject line. In Outlook, a short part of the text is shown in auto
preview.

Some marketers give the invitation to join their list of subscribers in the
snippet itself. Although the service is valid it still shouldn't be mentioned
in the first line. Instead it must be used to generate interest, value and
excitement in your email. A correctly framed snippet helps the reader,
especially the one on the run, in deciding whether they should read the email
immediately or delete it. Apart from the subject line alone, more words are
available in the snippet or the top line of your email to build brand
recognition. This top line facilitates the snap decision of the reader when he
is in the middle of inbox triage. Some preview panes block images by default,
which again increases the importance of the top line.

According to a survey, some of the common top lines are 'View the email with
images', and 'If you are having trouble seeing this email, Click Here'. At face
value, there is nothing wrong with the message. But according to another
statistics, the required number of people does not click on the link to go to
the web version of the email. And none of the above sentences convey an offer
or the purpose of email, leaving the reader to rely on the subject line alone
for hint. Not other common failing is that it dose not even include the
company's name or brand. Another great opportunity to stand out is lost here.

The basic thing to keep the snippet spicy is to make a new one every time, even
if few extra minutes are required for this job but its worth can be seen in
better open rate. So the magic word here is to rejuvenate the top line, even if
the same offer is being repeated. Retail email should have the offer in the top
line like free shipping, festive discount or try our new product. The news
publications should have the headline as the snippet like the quirky tidbit,
top story or company announcement, followed by the web version link. If the
email is a transaction confirmation then the action must be referred to and
thanks should be offered, if required. If an order confirmation or thank you
page is to be included in the transaction confirmation email, a link should be
included to that page but otherwise, links can be skipped and templates can be
used instead.

Before sending out email with the revamped top line it is important to revise
the snippet. It can appear in a different method in different web email and
desktop clients such as Yahoo, Gmail, etc. and on different platforms such as
PC, mobile, Macintosh, etc. Testing should always be done. Divide your group of
testers which can include employees and trusted old readers, into two groups.
Send the first group your standard email and the other group the revised email.
Notice the opinions of the two and choose the one with the best feedback. Always
check the click rate of the snippet, to see the attention it is attracting.

The bottom line is that not even a single line of the email message should be
wasted. The aim should be all business and no nonsense text.

Smart Money is On Web Site Traffic

There may be nothing more frustrating when you are trying to build a strong
internet marketing plan than to see your email promotions fall apart because of
poor email deliverability. The formula of marketing is one that you should be
able to believe in.

*  You know you have a good product or service that customers will benefit from
   and that will bring you repeat business once customer relationships are found.

*  You know there is a market niche out there that are highly likely to
   patronize your business.

*  You know that there is a market need for your product or service so once the 
   customers are aware of what you have to offer, sales potential is significant.

*  Marketing techniques should work to bring customers on board to get the sales 
   moving and take your business to the next level.

Small wonder that you get frustrated because with all the elements in place,
the problem is your marketing emails are not getting to the customers. So you
have to spend additional money on email delivery monitoring and management
services and additional time establishing relationships with ISPs just to get
permission to push your emails through to the customers.

There really is no equivalent blockage in the non internet marketing world. It
is as though you put a billboard up on the busiest intersection in town where
customers you know can use your services drive every day only to find they
closed the freeway and none of the customers will see the billboard. But you
have to pay for it anyway.

Maybe it is time to rethink the equation. For one thing, email is one of the
oldest forms of internet communications there is. Maybe it is too old. It is
old enough that a culture of fear has been built around the whole spam problem
and sophisticated tools are in use by customers, ISPs and spammers all at war
about whether scam artists should be able to abuse internet customers through
email.

But something has changed right under the feet of email scammers that has also
altered the formula for internet marketing entirely. And that change may have
made email as a less important internet marketing tool. The thing that has
changed is WEB 2.0 which has changed the formula for how people use the
internet and how people market on it as well. Because WEB 2.0 has changed the
approach to the internet to make web site more than just online brochures but
living "places" where people interact and the web visitor becomes a vital part
of the web site itself, that changes how we might approach marketing to web
savvy customers.

As odd as it may seem, email may be too slow as a mode of communication with
your customers in this day of instant messaging, message boards and voice over
internet communications. It isn't that people don't use email any more because
they do.

But with the imposition of so many restrictions causing email deliverability to
become a nightmare, a shift in focus to direct marketing to a very active
internet community on your web site is in order.

This means that instead of throwing good money after bad trying to fix the
email deliverability problem, maybe email marketing is no longer where the
smart money should go. Instead the smart money might be better used to update
your web site, to make your online "presence" a real place and to build and
then capitalize on live and active web traffic as a far more dynamic way to
conduct your marketing campaign.

Selling and Teaching via Email

Probably the most reliable way to get around the problem of email delivery
problems is to shift the desire for communications from the merchant, which is
you, to the customer. By turning the tables so the customer wants your emails,
the customer will take the steps to white list your email sending address to
make sure he or she gets every single email you send. And the best way to
create that desire is to give them something of value in their email each week.

People come to the internet for many things including entertainment,
discussion, free stuff and diversion. But one of the most common things that
people want is knowledge. Yo have a specialized knowledge you can offer to your
customers that will not only benefit them but it can be used as a marketing tool
to open communications to your customers email inboxes in a far more effective
way than any blind email or mass mailing could ever do.

There are several ways to offer training courses online including ebooks or
videos. But what is most effective for the sake of opening a long lasting
communication channel to your customers is an email course in which you step by
step lay out your specialized knowledge about your field of expertise over a
period of twelve to fifteen installments.

Sometimes this kind of offering is called an autoresponder series because the
function of an autoresponder software package can be helpful with distribution
of the e-course. An autoresponder is a specialized service or type of software
that either automatically responds to events or emails by sending out a
response email or it can be used to generate email traffic on a schedule. So
you can use an autoresponder to send the next installment of your email course
to those who "subscribe" to it and know that it will go out without fail on the
appointed day.

Now probably the biggest challenge of offering an autoresponder email course is
how to create the course. Few of us are writers and while you may have the
knowledge, you may have trouble composing that knowledge in the form of a
course. There are a couple of ways to solve this problem:

*  You could hire a ghostwriter to compose the course for you.

*  You could speak the course contents into a tape recorder and then have it 
   transcribed into a written course that could be sent to customers in short 
   email installments.

*  You could even have a friend "interview" you to draw that specialized 
   knowledge out of you. The interviews could be fairly free form and then you 
   could take the transcriptions of the interviews and organize them by topic 
   into an e-course to offer your customers.

Once you have the contents laid out, don't publish the course until you look it
over to see where in the outlines you can integrate marketing messages. Many of
the products or services you offer as part of your business are directly
related to your specialized knowledge. So by including links to your shopping
cart pages or to web pages that can lead customers to purchase decisions, the
course is both instructional and useful for promoting your web site and sales
as well.

The next step is to get the course into the hands of your users. The first
candidates to become "students" are the active cyber citizens who spend a lot
of time on your web site. So look at the regular posters on your message boards
and blogs or citizens of a chat room on your site or contributors to your wiki
and open conversations with them about offering a course.

You can also create multiple ways to allow your customers to subscribe to the
course series. An online sign up is always a good choice because you can
harvest their email address there and then open communications to their email
and see to it that your business email is added to their favored contacts spam
filter list so they do not see the courses disappear into their spam bucket
each week.

As the customer enjoys learning from your series, the added benefit of getting
them used to an active interaction with you and your web site is put in place.
And the course can be viral to be passed along to friends and family members so
it recruits new customers as well.

Reaching Your Target Audience When Email Marketing

In theory email marketing is not any different than other types of marketing.
This means the basic principles of marketing apply to your email marketing
efforts as well. One of these most important principles is the importance of
reaching your target audience. The ability to reach your target audience and
convince them to make a purchase cannot be underestimated. This article will
provide some insight into how Internet marketers can effectively reach their
target audience.

The simplest way to reach your target audience is to allow existing customers
as well as potential customers to register on your website and decide whether
or not they want to receive emails with additional information and
advertisements. When the users register they should be required to enter an
email address. This registration process will allow you to compile a list of
email addresses from each potential customer who expressed an interest in
receiving additional information. Sending your email marketing materials to the
members of this distribution list is much more effective than sending out a mass
email to recipients whose email addresses you purchased. This is because the
group of email addresses you compiled all have an interest in the products or
services you offer while there is no information on the other set of email
addresses to indicate whether or not the members will even have an interest in
the products or services you offer.

Another tip for reaching your target audience is to do adequate research to
determine how to communicate with the members of your target audience. This may
include changing the language of your emails to suit the preferences of your
target audience members, designing the layout and colors of the email to be
appealing to the target audience and tailoring the emails to include content
which is of interest to the members of the target audience. This type of
research can really pay off because it will make your emails significantly more
effective.

Still another tip for reaching your target audience when email marketing is to
keep your message simple. Being subtle is important so your email does not seem
like a blatant sales pitch but it is also important to present your message in a
clear and concise manner which will be easily understood by the members of your
target audience. If you have any doubts your target audience will be able to
understand your message, you can certainly leave information for the email
recipients to contact you with your questions. This interaction can prove to be
extremely useful. Through these communications you can learn about the needs of
your target audience and how you can tailor your email marketing strategy to
meet these needs.

Finally, it is important to solicit feedback from the members of your target
audience to ensure you are meeting their needs with your email marketing
campaign. This should be done on a continual basis as the needs of your target
audience may change over time. When you solicit feedback from your target
audience you should be sure to ask specific questions which require answers
which can be interpreted easily. This is important because ability to interpret
these answers will greatly impact your ability to further refine your email
marketing efforts to conform to the expectations of your target audience
members.

Advantages Of Email Marketing

Marketing through email is a very effective method to communicate with your
customers. Generally it is very economical, and if properly done, can help
create brand identification and dependability.

At an average of just a few centavos cost per message, it is definitely a great
bargain in contrast to traditional "direct mail". Furthermore, email marketing
has a strong response rate which ranges from 5-35 percent depending on industry
type and format.

One advantage of marketing email is the amount of information that clients
supply when registering for your subscription email. By learning who your
clients really are, including their gender, age, income and specially their
special interests, you can target your services and products to accommodate
their needs.

Advantages of email marketing:

1. Brings in interested audiences. Your offer can reach prospect clients that
already have conveyed interest to your topic.

2. Cost effective. Compared to all other methods of direct marketing,
significantly, email marketing is much less expensive.

3. Fast and effective. Conventional direct marketing methods, like direct mail,
take up a lot time to make and execute. Then, you still have to wait for another
few months to evaluate the results so to verify success. In permission or
"opt-in" email marketing, promotions can be implemented in just days with
outcome traceable in actual time, providing you with instant and direct
feedback as your campaign or promotion is in its development stage.

4. Responses are high. Generally, permission or "opt-in" email campaigns brings
about higher response rates compared traditional direct ad promotion or even
other kinds of online promotion or advertising.

Not like a website, wherein an internet user has to memorize the web address as
well as remember and visit, an email ezine or newsletter regularly appears at
certain intervals with no effort from your client. Over a certain period, it
strengthens your perceived capability, educates your recipients regarding their
demand for your products and services, then makes you their choice of provider
when your recipients finally decides that it is time to employ someone.

Downloadable pieces such as ebooks are accessible instantly. For instance, when
you are offering prospect clients an ebook with helpful information, by just
visiting your website, click on your "landing page" and fill up details and in
just minutes, your ebook is downloaded.

5. Email can perform tasks automatically. Autoresponders are practical and
inexpensive and can be set on "auto pilot" to send specific information and
reports to your recipients through email.

Autoresponders send emails automatically back to whomever that sent you email
regarding information on the products or services that you offer.

Now your prospects obtain the information that they are asking regarding your
business, your services and products for twenty-four hours everyday and yes,
seven days in a week, without any individual to "follow-up" on each lead.

Disadvantages of email marketing:

1. Today, with the arrival of spam, email can be a poor environment to deal
with. This means that prospects are mainly searching their email for particular
messages from friends, family and colleagues then, all else is banned. However
thanks to anti-spam programs and email servers that filters spam messages into
the bulk folder. Take into consideration though, that some of emails can
possibly be filtered to the spam folder when not permitted by the recipient.

2. Email messages need to be short. Prospects want quick and to the point
information. Therefore a lengthy copy is definitely out. Complicated offers
certainly are out. So are supporting arguments and facts.

3. Emails restrain your creativity. All text is quite boring and with email
massages, text is the most essential part. You can not even create creative
messages as your recipients demand straight to the point advertisements or
reports.

Several small online businesses presume that the web has very little worth to
them since they believe that their services or products cannot be sold easily
online. However they are yet to discover the power of cost-effective
information processing as well as electronic media or "email" can benefit most
small online businesses supply faster and better communication and customer
service.

Anybody can promote their website, advertise their products and get their ideas
out simply using by the "Email" as the channel of delivering and making their
message known to the world.

Permission is Not Optional in Email Marketing

Permission is not an optional extra, but is the basic apparatus in email
marketing. Permission is the key component in gaining recipient trust,
optimizing deliverability and getting investment returns. It is practiced by
all legitimate email marketers. But many new email marketers, especially those
from print, television, radio and direct mail background resist the idea of
taking permission. They fail to realize that email is different from the rest
as it is a personal medium, similar to telephone. And the result of decline in
telemarketing is a clear proof of this malpractice.

Email marketing isn't about smacking the recipient with one email after another
nor is it about list size. Initially some do get okay results when they do not
take permission. These kinds of marketers send out floods of email to email
list gathered in trade shows, from white paper downloaders and visitors. But
for most of the marketers, mediocre result is not the goal. When subscribers
give permission for emailing, results such as increased response rates, better
deliverability, and increased brand affinity and trust can be seen. It does
take time to build a list based on permission and to send out relevant messages
to targeted readers. This list will become shorter by the day if this list is an
unsolicited email list. In simple words, permission helps in achieving better
results and it is the only method to build strong relationships with customers
via emails.

Few marketers think that their non-permission programs are bringing results
which are just fine. But when they review their open rate, click rate and
conversion rates, they can conclude that they could have improved the results
by at least five times if they had used the permission based approach.
Permission not only means the subscriber's consent of receiving emails from the
company. It can be further broken down into expressed consent and implied
consent. Expressed permission is what the subscriber gives when he fills the
opt-in form or clicks on the email permission checkbox when he is filling the
registration form. Implied permission is not given actively, but is a following
result of another actions like not un-checking the pre-checked email permission
box. This practice is not healthy and can affect the relationship with the
customer. Therefore, expressed permission is the acceptable one. Implied
permission can also be expressed as opt-out.

The U.S. issued law for commercial email in 2003 which is also called as
CAN-SPAM. This law allows opt-out marketing if certain conditions are met. The
opt-out emails should include a working unsubscribe link. The commercial email
should be labeled as a promotional email if affirmative consent is not given by
the recipient. This law only has legal criteria and does not promote opt-in or
best practices. Opt-out email marketing gets the company blacklisted instantly.
This means most of the money and time spend in emailing is wasted. In opt-out
email marketing, there is a high chance of sending emails to addresses which do
not exist or which block the messages.

Opt-in email marketing is of two types: Single opt-in and double opt-in. In
Single opt-in, the subscriber is automatically added after the completion of
web form or after emailing a request. In Double opt-in, also known as confirmed
opt-in, the subscriber is sent an automated email message immediately after the
request to which the subscriber must reply to confirm the subscription and to
be added to the email list.

Statistics and surveys have proven the benefits of using opt-in email
marketing. Instead of wasting resources on people who aren't interested in the
company's services or product, a small part of the same resources can be
utilized effectively by reaching out to the targeted customers.

The Benefits of Permission Email Marketing

Email marketing is continuously getting more attention as years go by.
Marketing is making a shift towards the Internet and email marketing is one of
the major fields that promoters are getting into.

However, even if email marketing is getting more popular, it is somewhat
getting a notorious image because of spammers. Spam is a term used for
unsolicited emails which marketers use to be able to convey their marketing
message. There has been a lot of action that has taken place in different
states against spamming. One can actually be sued because of spamming.

Surveys have shown that around 70% of people who receive spam emails are
somewhat annoyed or agitated. Majority of people don't even open emails from
suspicious senders or from people and companies whom they don't recognize. They
open emails from persons and companies whom they recognize and have affiliations
with. This is the drama in the email marketing field.

However, email marketing is not coming to its end yet. There are ways on how to
legally and ethically send marketing messages through electronic mail. One of
the ways is "permission-based" email marketing.

Permission email marketing, as the name implies, takes into consideration the
consent of the receiver in accepting emails containing marketing materials.
Permission can be expressed or implied. Expressed permission is solicited when
people check a box which states that they would want to receive email updates
and marketing materials regarding a certain product or service. When they click
on the "terms of agreement" of a certain website, it can be considered that
there is an implication of consent to receive certain email messages.

There are a lot of advantages that permission email marketing gives a promoter
as compared to spamming. Here are some of them:

1) Legality

As mentioned above, spamming is considered as an illegal activity and some
states have developed laws and measures to be able to stop spammers.
Permission-based email marketing is perfectly legal and this erases the risks
and possible costs that are associated with being sued.

2) Ethical

Permission email marketing is seen as an ethical alternative to spamming. Even
if one is not sued for spamming, it doesn't imply that people are not irritated
by the unsolicited emails. Sending marketing materials that are permitted by the
receiver are given a "go-signal" and is considered totally ethical.

3) Promotes a good image

Companies which employ spamming activities to be able to market their products
are instantly hated by the people who receive their emails. Permission-based
email marketing gives a company and its product a good corporate image and
therefore more appreciated by the targeted audience.

4) Target audience

Permission email marketing channels precious resources to the right audience.
Spamming throws marketing efforts as if the promoter is blind. People who give
their consent to receive emails regarding topics which are appealing to them
are people who are willing to spend money for products in that field.
Therefore, the right target market is reached rather than carelessly spreading
the marketing message.

5) Avoids costs

Permission based email marketing avoids added costs. Aside from channeling
resources to reach the right audience, permission marketing avoids costs that
are associated by being sued by people who have been much irritated by spam
emails. Other sanctions that are involved with spamming includes the loss of
the company's ISP.

6) Appreciation

Email marketing that is permitted is accepted by people with open arms.
Spamming is not really accepted by the public and it is best that one does not
engage in this activity.

A survey was done by a company called IMT Strategies in 2001 regarding the
effects of permission email marketing versus the response that people make from
receiving unsolicited email. 48% of people who receive marketing materials with
their permission are curious to read the emails while only 16% are interested
to read unsolicited email. The number of people who deleted email marketing
messages with permission are half of those who deleted unsolicited email.

Permission email marketing gives certain advantages against spamming. It is a
legal and ethical way of marketing through electronic mail and receives
acceptance from the target audience.

Organizing Your Email Marketing Campaign

If you have recently decided to try implementing an email marketing campaign,
you can congratulate yourself on becoming involved in one of the most effective
types of online marketing for your business. While many business owners tend to
shy away from email marketing campaigns because they believe these campaigns
are always viewed as spam, others realize the importance of this type of
advertising and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort into
organizing their email marketing campaign. These business owners will likely
find they are able to enjoy an advantage over their competitors who do not take
the time to implement an email marketing campaign. This article will describe
the steps necessary to organize an effective email marketing campaign.

One of the first elements you should consider when you make the decision to
start an email marketing campaign is the type of information you wish to
include in your emails to potential clients. This is very important because the
information you provide will help your email recipients to determine whether or
not they think your products or services are worthwhile. You can include a
variety of information in marketing emails. This may include, but is not
limited to, full length informative articles, short articles enticing readers
to visit your website for more information, links to other websites which may
be of interest to your readers, links to your own website and even
advertisements for your products or services as well as other products or
services your customers may appreciate.

Once you determine the type of content you wish to incorporate into your email
marketing, it is time to consider how you want to structure your email
marketing efforts. Two of the most common structures include an informative
email with subtle advertising or an in depth e-newsletter with a wealth of
information as well as some subtle advertising and even some graphics. Deciding
on the format of the emails you will be sending out are important because they
will dictate the staff you will need to assist you in your email marketing
effort. You will require the assistance of a professional writer to assist you
with the content in either emails or e-newsletters but if you opt for an
e-newsletter you should also consider hiring a graphic artist to assist you in
designing an attractive layout and creating graphics as needed to create an
appealing layout for your e-newsletter.

Next you should consider how you plan to create an email distribution list.
This is important because simply purchasing an email list is not likely to be
effective. You may reach hundreds, thousands or even millions of Internet users
by sending emails to all of the members of this email list but there is no
guarantee any of them will have an interest in your products or services.
However, if you build your own email list of previous customers who have
specifically requested additional information as well as potential customer who
have also requested additional information you will have a well formulated list
which includes mostly members of your target audience. This is ideal because
you are much more likely to sell products or services to members of your target
audience than you are to sell products or services to members of an email group
which is not filled with those who might be interested in the products or
services you offer.

Once all of these preliminary decisions have been made, you can begin to create
the actual emails themselves and can begin to distribute these emails. Once you
have sent out your first batch of emails, you can take some time to evaluate
the effectiveness of the first email before you send out the second batch. This
will be useful because if you determine the first batch was not very successful
you can solicit feedback and make changes to the second email before sending it
out. If the second email is more successful than the first, you can conclude the
changes you made were beneficial.

Optimizing Holiday Email Marketing

The holiday email marketing season takes the overdrive with the onset of
Halloween. Certainly, this isn't the time to design the marketing program from
the scratch. But a small fixes can do the trick to raise the deliverability by
a few percent without the need to shift to another completely new program.
These fixes won't take major investment in money or time.

As they say the first impression is the best impression, a very important
aspect is to include the brand or company name as the sender and not individual
name or email. The "from" line acts as the basis for the readers based on which
they recognize and trust the sender. So it is best to use the brand name which
is widely used by the readers for recognition. Following it is the subject
line. It also plays a major role in the opening of the email. The subject line
should not only be irresistible but trustworthy. Many subject line tools are
available on the internet which can be of great use. The trick followed by most
is to phrase the first twenty eight characters with the most important
information. Usually the first twenty eight characters are of high importance
to get the message across to the client. Putting the brand name in the from
line helps to free up space for the critical information, which is the heart of
the message, in the subject line. If the email is send to a mobile, the brand
name should be first thing the reader should see. If there is space, special
offers will be worth mentioning.

The email should have a link to the complete information which is posted on the
website. The link should redirect the reader to the complete article just by one
click. Subscribe and unsubscribe links should be working always and the
directions should be displayed promptly. If this isn't done, it is going
against the US email marketers law. The email should also include information
about the company's name, address and other contact information such as
telephone, link to web contact page, and email. It is good to have links to
other offers and services provided by the company. Effects of the previous
offers and customer testimonials can also be included to draw attention.

The email shouldn't resemble to a print ad which has bright colors within which
the information is contained. Although, most of the HTML designers love to
design this type of emails, but another fact is that most of the readers would
have their block images option activated which will stop the image from
downloading and the recipient will not be able to see any part of the message.
The email should be broken down into manageable chunks. One large image should
be replaced with many smaller images and important information should be placed
in a text boxes which will be displayed in spite of the images being displayed
or not. Alt tags can also be used to describe the images or the offers
contained within it. This information will be displayed if the images do not
show up.

Coding and spelling mistakes are a big no-no. If there is, this is a sure sign
of a spammer. Miss spelt brand or company name can never be forgiven. It is a
good habit to get the entire email proof-read by a professional before sending
it to the readers. The links should be check individually to see whether they
are working or not. Although it is a tedious task, it will save the readers
from getting irritated and from losing sales. Past performances shouldn't be
trusted upon and regular checks must be made constantly.

The most important thing is to keep an eye on the competing company and the
offers being offered by them. Try to design a better offer and test it on
sample readers before committing to the offer. Like every one will be offering
free shipping during the holiday season, so try to think of something which
will differentiate you from the rest.

The last point to be considered is that because of the overwhelming flow of
emails during the festive season, the subscribers can get irritated and
complaints may arise. This can be tackled by throttling the frequency of
emails. Delivery logs should be read constantly to handle the problem at the
proper time.

Monitoring Email Deliverability

The world of business communications has changed dramatically in the last two
decades and with it the way you go about marketing your products has changed
too. In this new century if you are not assured you can be successful with
internet marketing and to do so using email, you are behind the curve in
getting to the customer base you need before your competitors too.

For many companies the only way to reach the volume of customers you need to
reach to reach your financial goals is through mass email advertising
campaigns. But the services you can subscribe to are costly. If you pay a price
to deliver 100,000 emails to potential customers and only 5000 actually get to
those email inboxes because spam filters are catching your advertisements
first, then you have wasted a lot of money.

The only way you can really know what percentage of emails are getting through
to the customers is to find a way to monitor them. That is why employing an
independent agency that can help you track your emails makes sense. If that
company can deliver to you a report that shows in detail and by ISP what
percentage of your emails are being trapped by filters and conversely how many
are getting to customers, you have what you need to make some decisions about
how to spend your internet marketing budget in the next quarter. But that data
has to be reliable and usable to you and it must be graphic so you can use it
in presentations to current management to illustrate the problem and what you
plan to do with it.

It makes sense to look into the top email delivery monitoring services to
determine if they can provide you with those statistics. An example of such a
service is DeliveryMonitor.com. This service makes it possible to see in detail
how many of your emails are getting to their intended email inboxes, how many
are being diverted to spam filters and how many vanish entirely from the
internet (presumably automatically deleted by spam filters). This information
is reported by major ISP so you can quickly spot if your message is being
caught more often by one ISP than another.

Armed with this kind of information, you can dig deeper to find out what spam
detection rules the ISPs in question are using and then tailor your next mass
communications email so your message is approved by the ISP filters and goes on
to the customers. The outcome is that if the service is accurate, within a
matter of months, you will have what you need to fine tune your email marketing
plan and see a significant improvement in successful delivery of your
advertising to customers.

When you see that percentage start to go up, you will immediately see a
corresponding increase in inquiries about your product or services followed by
an increase in sales. That kind of refinement of your marketing program is
exactly what needs to be done every week and every month by your marketing
department to assure long term success in this modern world of digital commerce.

A good email delivery monitor provides two important services for your
business. The first is the one we just described. By giving you the data you
need to evaluate why your emails are not getting to the customers email boxes,
you can make changes to fix the problem and see a dramatically higher rate of
success for your marketing dollar.

But the second service is just as valuable because the reports, statistics and
graphs that are given to you are crucial both for your management of internet
advertising and for communication with corporate management. You are going to
be held accountable for the success of your internet marketing programs. This
data will help you be able to show both where you are successful and where work
needs to be done and to show management the path to success you have planned.

This is not a commercial for any one service but DeliveryMonitor is a good
example of how they work and a good starting place for your evaluation. But be
a thorough business person and evaluate the field of services so when you do
budget to bring a email delivery reporting service on board as a vendor, you
know what you are paying for and you know what they can do for your business.

Monitor Feedback to Boost Deliverability

It is a fact that monitoring or managing customer feedbacks does not fall in
the top 10 priorities of email marketers in order to improve the deliverability
of their emails. It is really a sorry state of affairs as feedback management
enables email marketers to improve email's most important quality i.e.
providing direct interface between customers and email marketers.

When a factor so important such as this it turns off the readers and makes your
program vulnerable to threats like spam reports and leaves you with a list
containing lots of invalid or dead addresses. Many email marketers forget that
relevancy is pivotal to driving deliverability of emails which results in loss
of opportunity to make email campaigns more sought after and pertinent to
target subscribers.

Even if some email marketers are in a impression that they are doing a
tremendous job just being able to receive and reply to people's comments and
issues they have through mediums such as letter, phone or through the website.
What email marketers overlook sometimes are few customers who put not to reply
to their emails in the subject line as nobody would see it or the email is
highly monitored.

While the very thought of shutting down the communication with the customers
creates a pain in many email marketer's heart there are some good email
marketers who take both negative and positive feedback in a right way and try
to improve. It has been observed that a good email program always requests a
feedback in the end with a link to feedback form or customer service or
provides phone numbers of customer service. And again good managers have a
habit of attending to the feedbacks whatever channel they come from.

Despite clearly telling in the email not to reply it is a fact that some
customers will always reply to the email. Thus limiting the customers to only
certain channels kills the relation that you are trying to establish in the
long run. This also affects deliverability. Take it this way, when you try to
close a communication channel you lose one channel to get information from the
customer that could have helped you improve efforts.

Effective feedback management does not stop here I.e. just by taking care of
customer's comments or complaints or questions that you receive as a response
to your email or purchases or any other interaction you had with the customer.
But effective feedback management involves taking extra steps and going that
extra mile to reach to the customers requesting your customers for their
comments and surveys through offers, newsletters, web links and email
transactions.

When customer's feedback or comments are sought you get rich information that
can not only help you market goals but at the same time also take care of the
emails that create dissatisfaction among customers and affect their
deliverability. But care should be taken that you do not give overdose of
surveys also to the customers. Rather email marketers should give attention to
4 main points of interaction where the possibility of getting valuable feedback
is highest. The first is when customers sign up for your email program. The
second point of interaction is after two or three months when you should
contact your customer to bring back their attention to the email program who
might have strayed away from the email program. The third and very important
point of interaction is when customers contact you with complaints irrespective
of the medium of interaction. The fourth point of interaction is when customers
contacting you due to sudden surge in spam emails; you can take this as an
opportunity to survey the customers.

Last but not the least an effective key to better feedback management is
cooperation of different departments in your company in sharing the data and in
helping overall improvement of email program.

Modern Opt-in List Building Through Email

Your opt-in email list is your medium in order to contact potential clients and
create a trusting relationship and connection with them. In your opt-in email,
you may guarantee valuable and useful information or freebies and as some kind
of payment, visitors need to provide you with their "email address". When you
effectively deliver what you promised then clients will trust you.

When you deliver more than what clients have expected, or greater than what you
have promised, not only will they trust you, but will really like you. This
establishes the platform for the other significant transformation from a
prospect client to a regular customer.

This method takes patience and a lot of time. Here are a few building
guidelines so you can increase your list as well as your business.

1. Offer an exceptional gift or bonuses for clients' subscriptions. When
audiences are attracted to the topic of your article or newsletter, they will
readily sign up or register for the course or subscription that you are
offering. However, more often than not, you have to prove to your prospects
that indeed, you are truly sincere in establishing a good relationship will all
of them.

Meaning that you should provide solid, authentic and factual content from the
very start; take note, good content and not advertisements. This can mean
offering free courses or newsletters.

2. Provide several "opt-in" boxes on your home page or sales letter.
Preferably, place the box at the bottom, the middle and the top of your webpage
so that as your visitor reads on your "sales page", and might be engrossed in
the article you provided and will not notice your "opt-in box"; placing it in
several positions there will be more possibility that he can see it and can
type in their email address.

3. Your list must be viral-related. Create a free good quality, useful and
information-packed article making certain that you display your website in the
article and post it on forums and make it known that your article is free to
anyone who wants it.

Marketers, as they are at all times searching for good quality articles to
distribute with their listing, will then take your offer. Then the link to your
website will be inspected by prospects who read and found your article useful to
them.

Collecting addresses by yourself can prove to be very slow. One fast way of
obtaining e-mail addresses is renting a "mailing list" from businesses.
However, according to many online marketers, this task can be a lot harder than
you have imagined.

If a mailing program allows you to mail only those you take into such a
program, then it is possible that prospects will continue to read and react to
the constant offers that you provide for just a certain period of time. So then
you should search for a building program having rotating collection of
recipients.

Seek for a "list building program" which focuses on growth. Make sure that the
vendor give incentives when you introduce clients to their program as well as
you have to be comfortable to the program so you can recommend it.

Here are some important questions to ask a "list building program" before
deciding to rent their list:

1. Where and how are their e-mails gathered? Are their emails opt-in, whereby
users voluntarily had given their email address and requested to receive emails?

2. How frequent do the email subscribers from their list get offers or freebies
from other online marketers? You can obtain a "frequency cap", that limits the
amount of online marketers to utilize a particular list can guarantee that
certain lists are not excessively mailed.

If the list manager can not provide you with the details regarding frequency of
mailing, then it is best to look somewhere else for another firm that can
provide such lists.

3. Are there new names which are regularly added to their list? How quickly are
those requesting to be removed from the list erased from the email list?
Frequent "new names" uploads and prompt removal of "unsubscribers" is essential
for the modern online marketer.

4. Who and what are the lists' target audience? Were the email recipients
selected in accordance to particular subject of interest? Note that running an
effective marketing campaign connotes that you are able to choose suitable and
fitting demographics.

Everybody on the web is searching for information so to solve their problem.
Provide that answer or solution in the form of a free article, ezine or
newsletter and your "to be" clients will willingly supply you with their "email
address" as an exchange.

Always remember that these mailing programs arranges you to be in connection
with online users interested in the product the you offer, however the list is
not yours; when you treat those prospects as your very own take good care of
them, success is just around the corner.

Modern Opt-in List Building Technique Through Email Marketing

An opt-in list can be defined as a list or database that contains email
addresses of people who consented to receive the advertiser's email messages.
The messages come in various forms, such as product and web site updates, or
ezines. Opt-in lists are regarded as the most powerful marketing tool available
on the world wide web, because opt-in lists can provide marketers with direct
means of communication with potential customers, and gives a chance to promote
products and services, plus building a continuing relationship with them.

Marketing through email has become the primary means of many advertisers to
reach out to its customers. They are immensely attracted by the fact that email
marketing allows them to communicate with their customers directly, with very
minimal cost, compared to direct mail marketing.

Of course, it goes without saying that the key to a successful opt-in marketing
is to acquire a large subscriber base. In setting up the list, one must first
acquire a functional form processing script, which will be used to allow
subscribers to disclose their personal information through a form and which
will be sent to a specified address. In choosing the form, one must be certain
that it allows the use of email templates. The templates will be necessary
since it can allow email messages to contain any information that marketers
would like to share when sent to potential customers. Then a pop email account
should be created in the server for the lists. Afterwards, a database where
subscriber information will be stored should be established. After installing
plug-ins and group mail, the mailing list can now be created.

There are a lot of techniques available for making opt-in lists, and marketers
should carefully select what works best for them. The thing is, a marketer
should provide a reason why people should subsribe to them. There are lots of
subscriptions available in the Internet, and people should be convinced that
this particular subscription is worth the bother.

1. Offer incentives Not surprisingly, one of the most effective techniques for
getting the attention of users. Incentives must be something that can be
valuable to them, and should be suitable for the target market. It could be an
ebook or software download, or a discount on a product that is showcased.

2.Use popup windows Popup windows can produce desirable results if used
correctly. They should, by no means, irritate prospective customers. The key to
utilizing them effectively is to join them with incentives. The popup should
contain information about the product or service, and the provided incentive.

3. Submit articles Marketers can create their own articles and have them
published. Topics features should be those that the marketer is well acquainted
with, and should be related to the product or service. These articles can be
then published in ezines that are also in line with the offerings of the
marketer, and make certain that the publication contains information on how to
join the opt-in list.

4. Use alert boxes This a more effective method than popup boxes. Alert boxes
are shown through script, and will gather the name and email address of
visitors. If they opted to subscribe, they click the box, and they will be
added to the database. To maximize the chances, subcription boxes can be placed
at every page of a web site.

5. Offer easy options for getting out of the subscription It is necessary that
options are available for subscribers if they want to discontinue the
subscription. The best process to go about it is to automate the procedure
right from the very start of the subscription. Members of the list can
unsubscribe themselves easily with no hassle for the marketer.

6. Determine the appropriate frequency of mailing the messages This will be
largely dependent on the kind of newsletter that is being distributed. There
are certain kinds of messages that recipients would like to get on a daily
basis, such as jokes. Messages should be short and concise to make it easier
for the subscribers to read. They don't like to receive content that is bland
and tedious, and will likely delete them without fully reading them.

7. Use text email instead of html There are a lot of people who cannot read
email done in html. Worse, some people cannot reply to html messages. Marketers
must make sure that their emails are in proper format, something that is
readable to recipients.

8. Guestbooks The process is simple: personal invitations to join the lists
will be given to people who register in guestbooks provided by sites. Add
incentives to the invitation to entice them further.

The worth of a well-developed opt-in list will be never be emphasised enough.
Marketers must never refuse an oportunity to encourage business contacts to
sign up for the mailing lists. Web site visitors can be increased dramatically
by employing the steps described above, and will surely bring results that will
satisfy any discriminating marketer.

Mistakes Made In Email Opt-In Usability

The reader needs motivation in order to subscribe for emails from a company.
This is the very first step towards increasing the email opt-in rate. The
website should have display the benefits of subscribing. Simple, nondescript
boxes inhabit the homepage which say 'Subscribe to the company's newsletter'
and nothing more than that. There is lack of reason why the user should sign up
unless they already find the content of the website interesting. It is agreed
upon by many that the content should be kept basic. But how basic is the
question. Lonely sign up boxes are a big no-no. There should at least be a
brief promotional line which gives a specific and concrete benefit that would
get the reader motivated to fill the box with his email address and click on
the sign up button. The promotional matter should answer questions such as 'Why
should the reader sign up for the newsletter?', 'What are the solutions being
offered by the newsletter?', and 'Is the newsletter focused and specific,
concentrating on the needs of the reader?'

The same technique is to be used with the type of words and language being used
in the promotional copy or more better, on the complete website. The links
should be clear and shouldn't have any empty, vague or generic matter. The
content should be able to solve the problem which the reader is looking forward
to be solved. The readers must be offered with back issues and sample to give
them a good idea about what they can expect from future newsletters they will
be receiving.

After the reader signs up, many of them receive a big nothing. They get big
blackness and dead silence. The subscriber wants something to happen in his
inbox immediately. Therefore, it is a good idea to send a welcome email right
away which can include the latest newsletter or sample of the best newsletters.
Try to include some email-special offer. At the end of the message tell them
they will be expecting such great offers and newsletter in a short while. The
new subscriber should feel that he has joined the club and has already received
some benefit. He should feel the signing up process worth the effort. The
welcome email also does the job of confirming email, which checks for the
validity of the email address.

On one hand there are people who have barely any motivating information on
their website and on the other there are people who have too much information
on their website. The information is not organized and the users are
overwhelmed with innumerable choices. If the company has too many things to
offer, it should narrow them down by grouping them into categories. On the
basis of these categories, the newsletters too must be sent out. The
newsletters should have specific content and any new material posted on the
website should be posted in just a link and not more than that.

The last thing which puts off the subscriber is asking too many questions. In
the sign-up page they are asked for their email address only. Next they are
linked to the preference page, followed by twenty more pages. This is a really
blown opportunity. Initially, it is good to keep it sweet and short by asking
information like first name, last name, and email address. Then send them a
confirmation email where they can click the link for making choices. Marketers
should know where to draw the line. A box asking just for the email address is
a great way of not getting any subscriptions.

Marketing Effectively With Email

Like any type of marketing, email marketing involves a great deal of time and
effort to ensure the marketing campaign is effective. This is important because
an ineffective marketing campaign of any type is a waste of money and resources.
Spending a great deal of time, energy and money into an email marketing campaign
which is not reaching the members of the target audience and is not convincing
recipients of the email to make a purchase or visit your website is not
worthwhile. This article will discuss how to implement an effective email
marketing strategy to ensure your business, financial and personal goals are
being met.

One of the most important aspects of marketing effectively with email is to
ensure your marketing efforts are reaching the members of your target audience.
One way to do this is to ask former customers as well as potential customers to
join your email distribution list. This will help to ensure the majority of
members on your email distribution list have an actual interest in your
products or services. This is important because you are much more likely to
generate sales when you are marketing to this type of an audience than you
would if you were marketing to a much larger audience without an interest in
your products.

Another aspect of marketing effectively is to hire an experienced professional
writer to draft the content for your emails, e-newsletters, email courses or
any other methods you are using to email your message to potential customers.
Having your content written can give you a significant edge over the
competition if they are drafting their content themselves. The quality of your
content is a reflection on your business and poorly written content with no
substance will reflect poorly on your business.

Effective email marketing should also be written in a manner which will appeal
to the target audience. If necessary you should conduct market research to
determine demographical information for your target audience. This research may
also determine preferences the target audience may have for receiving marketing
information. This may include the type of language used, the format of the
emails, the layout of the emails and even aesthetic appearance of the emails.
Paying attention to these details can make the email marketing campaign
significantly more effective.

Finally, effective email marketing should not be viewed as spam. This is a
difficult situation. In many cases an email marketing campaign will involve
distributing mass emails but care should be taken in these endeavors to avoid
having these emails construed as spam. This is important because many Internet
service providers include spam filters which apply algorithms to each email
account to determine which messages are spam and which ones are legitimate.
Emails which are deemed to be spam may never reach the intended recipients.
Emails which may it through the spam filters may also be automatically deleted
if the Internet user believes it looks like spam. For this reason care should
be taken to ensure all marketing emails provide quality content, advertise only
subtly and ideally are only sent to email recipients who have specifically
requested information about your products or services. This will give you the
best opportunity possible to reach your target audience and have a positive
impression on them and hopefully entice them to make a purchase or visit your
website.

Making Your Customers Feel Special

The idea of marketing to a specialized niche of very active customers and then
using that base to recruit in a viral way is new to the internet but one that
goes way back in the non internet world of marketing. It is well known that if
you create an elite group of dedicated customers, they will become a
recruitment army for your business and become your marketing team that works
for free without even knowing they are doing so.

This approach to marketing is not as focused on email communications as many of
our internet marketing efforts were ten years ago. But that is a good thing for
two reasons. The first reason is that dynamic marketing, meaning selling
through a relationship model is far more effective and yields a higher per sale
basket total as well as a much higher incidence of repeat sales than cold call
selling and it is far less frustrating.

The second reason is that using email as the backbone of your sales program has
become more and more problematic because of the influence of spam and spam
filters which have made the free flow of marketing emails much more difficult
to manage. Because spam filtering has become so aggressive and so successful,
email delivery of marketing material is harder to do and takes a greater
investment of time and ongoing knowledge that pulls you away from your
customers and from your businesses. So the migration to dynamic selling and
away from cold call and mass marketing email techniques is a natural evolution
of the internet marketing model in the new century.

So the online experience of your customer takes on a greater importance in your
marketing plan. But you will find that devoting more time and money to building
a web "place" that your customers participate in actively will be far more
rewarding than any scattershot approach to email marketing could ever be even
before the eruption of spam which made email delivery such a nightmare.

One way to give your customers the feel of being part of your organization is
to build a specialized membership area of your web site that customers must
make an extra effort to become part of. In fact, many online retailers actually
charge a small fee to be part of this membership site. That is effective because
the fee gives your members the sensation of being part of a closed community and
the revenue is good for your cash flow.

Your customers who chose to become part of the membership area of your web site
should get some special privileges and rewards for their elevated status. So you
might create a discount card that creates a desire to spend more in your online
store only for those customers who are part of the elite membership area. Your
customers will think they are getting something very special when in fact, all
you are doing is exchanging a small part of your mark up for greater volume of
sales which is always a good trade off for you as a retailer.

One of the big values of creating a membership area is that those who populate
that membership can become part of the team to make contributions about future
product or service offerings. This is tremendously valuable to your development
teams because the more you "pick the brains" of your customers, the more you
will offer products or services that are going to be a success when they hit
the market.

You will see a greater sense of brand loyalty grow out of the people who enjoy
exclusive membership in your reserved area of your web site. Make it a point to
make that part of the site look elegant and luxurious. Its all just graphics but
in cyberspace, graphics have a reality all their own. And don't take your eye
off of the goal of using the membership area for recruitment of new customers
through referrals or to take marginal customers and make them devotees as well.
A few gift memberships can go a long way toward accomplishing those goals.

How to surmount the constraints of email marketing

Email marketing is the revolutionary way of selling ideas or products to
clients through the use of emails. It took then place of snail mailing or
sending product information through the post office.

Email marketing is now widely used by internet marketers, not only for product
information but to acquire as well as maintain their clients. Others use email
marketing to keep important information about their clients and use these to
profile them as to their wants and interests.

To say the least, email marketing has become a very useful tool as it is not
only efficient but also cost effective. Imagine the time it would take and the
cost involved in sending thousands of letters just to announce your product to
prospective clients. With email marketing, you can send any information, at any
time and with the least cost.

However, despite the advantages offered by email marketing, majority of those
who are using the strategy to market their products are faced with some
difficulties identified with email marketing.

If you come across a website asking you to sign up for a free newsletter or
free recipes, would you sign up and reveal your email? A recent survey revealed
that 83 people out of 100 would not reveal their email, for fear of safety
issues. This is one among the many constraints faced by email marketers. How
can they encourage prospective clients to sign up and reveal their email
addresses when the clients are hesitant to reveal their emails for fear that it
will be used for the wrong reasons?

Other prospective clients do not wish to reveal their emails for fear of
receiving spam or unsolicited emails. This is a valid fear because most often
spam messages crowd out emails more than the important messages. Most email
accounts are cancelled by the site administrators because they have reached
their maximum amount of messages, no thanks to spam. Make sure you avoid these
pitfalls in email marketing by committing to keeping your prospective clients'
email addresses safe.

So how will you encourage prospective clients to sign up for your newsletters
despite their fear of being bombarded with useless and irritating emails? For
one, dangle something that would make them drool. If your target clients are
female members of the spending public, then look for topics that are close to
their hearts and which would make them sign up and reveal their addresses
despite their fear.

One strategy is by offering them topics that will be very useful to them like
free recipes, household tips, lifestyle articles, beauty and fashion-there are
lots of topics that would interest this lot. For the male clients, why not
dangle topics on racing, motoring, all about cars, or how about beautiful women?

By featuring interesting an d useful topics on your newsletters, your clients
will look forward in receiving emails from you rather than dread the though of
being bombarded with useful emails. Ask your prospective clients what their
interests are so you would know what topics will be useful for them. Remember,
knowing your market is already an edge in the competitive world of email
marketing.

But offering prospective clients with informative and interesting topics is not
enough. You should emphasize that your site commits to the protection of their
privacy. How can you conduct effective email marketing when your prospective
clients would not even sign up and reveal their email accounts for far of being
hounded by spam?

Be affront with your future subscribers. You have to understand their fear of
not getting the privacy they deserve and assuage this fear by confirming that
your company adheres to email best practices and that you do not sell email
addresses and that their accounts would only be used for the very purpose they
intended in signing up.

Despite the efforts of legitimate organizations to protect their clients from
spam, unwanted email messages continue to flood email accounts and this is
becoming the number one problem of email marketing. How can your clients read
through your emails when they have to wade through numerous spam emails? Others
just delete all the messages at one time, including the informative newsletters
you send them.

The other constraints faced by email marketers are mostly related to their
individual methods and styles of sending newsletters. These involve informative
versus uninformative articles, problems with auto responders, best time to send
emails, and other constraints that are best addressed by the email marketer.
Whatever, these constraints are, they can definitely be solved with a proper
review of one's email marketing strategies.

How to Optimize Email Opt-In Pages

To optimize email opt-in pages is amongst the most important jobs to do and is
also amongst the most forgotten job. The way the opt-in forms and pages are
presented determines the quality of list, rate of growth, and meets the
subscriber's expectations which in turn help in email performance. The very
first step towards optimization is to get the people to fill in the opt-in
page. Immediately following it is designing the layout of the opt-in page and
form.

Making one come to the website is another issue. But once they get to the
website, they should be allured into signing-up by making them go to the opt-in
page. Firstly, the path to the sign up page must be made easier and clear. Links
to sign up page or form must be included on the home page and even on other
pages too. Promotional boxes should appear in the areas of side bars. The
visitor shouldn't search whether the website offers email newsletters or not.
The links to the navigation area should send out clear message. Terms and names
which aren't obvious shouldn't be used. Words such as Email Newsletter,
Newsletter or eNewsletter are very appropriate.

If there is sufficient space, promote the latest newsletter on your home page
by pasting its link. The website should have a 'Knowledge and Resource Center'
area where extract of articles and archived issues can be placed. This area can
then be used to promote sign-ups to the company's newsletter. It is good to
include the subscribe link in the back issues.

Since the purpose of the opt-in page is to make as many readers into
subscribers, the design, copy and layout of the opt-in page should be similar
to the landing page. The page should be designed with form, copy and images
which should reflect confidence, value and trust. Links to samples must be
included which can give an idea about the quality of the email to be received
upon sign-up. Email's small screenshot display is optional, but beneficial too.
Testimonials from readers to the email publications can be included in pull
quote format. The content of the testimonials can be either text or images.

In today's world, everything comes for a price. So when a subscriber is giving
his valuable email address, he is certainly looking for something in exchange.
This is why images and copy should be included on the opt-in page which conveys
the basic value of emails to be sent. Subscribers can be given 'email only
special deals'. Any kind of regular incentive goes a long way. Whether it is
'$2 off the next purchase' or 'free white paper', even discounts can increase
conversion.

Extra precaution must be taken by writing short email policy near the submit
button. A link to the company's detailed privacy policy must be included at the
end. The frequency, format and content of emails should be clarified and the
sign-up process must be confirmed via a welcome email.

Certain details about the opt-in page should also be considered. A right
balance needs to be maintained of the information that is collected through the
opt-in form or page. Neither too much information must be asked; nor must too
little information be asked. The future must be planned from the start.
Obviously asking only the email address is very quick; information required for
email delivery will be missed. Information which is not required for email
delivery and segmentation or personalization should be avoided. If there are
too many fields, the not so important ones must be marked as optional. To check
syntax errors, a script should be included for that purpose. Two boxes should be
present for entering email address twice. This reduces the risk of typing
invalid email address. The minimum form fields to be included in the form are
first name, last name, email address, and format preference. Optional form
field can be based on secondary email address, frequency, preferences and
demographics.

How to Make the Subscription Process Easier

There is a lot of competition in catching the attention of the subscriber in
the email world. In order to distinguish from the rest of the clutter,
communication must be made easier for the receiver. People always get attracted
to things which are easy and go away from things which are difficult to do.
Because of this hallmark of services and products like Google AdWords, Turbo
Tax, etc., they have gained popularity all over the world.

Like they say it is easy to say but difficult to do, so is the case with making
each and every thing easy for the customers and subscribers. Sometimes it might
happen that the things which are easy for a group of customers might not be
easy for the rest. This case is true especially with new customers.

The very first step in making things easier is to have a simple email address,
link or opt-in form field in a promotional email or newsletter. Also this
information must be included on every page of the website. There should be
provision of a web version of the emails which are in HTML. It helps to include
a send-to-friend link or functionality in every message. The subscribers must be
able to take actions in spite of the images being blocked. Every submit button
should be labeled with the action to be taken like 'buy now', 'Subscribe here',
etc.

If any of these functionalities are missing, then Email Management and
Accessing Content should be considered for simplification.

Email Management

Subscription must be made easier by working on email ids, links and sign-up
form and post this information on every page. Every email should have the
subscribe link in order to tempt the readers, especially those who have
received the message from a friend. In order to subscribe, the steps to be
taken should be minimum. According to a survey, marketers who had cut down the
subscription steps from 9 to 3 saw an increase of 300% in the subscription
rate. More personal information need to be collected from the subscriber in
order to send more relevant emails. It also helps in maintaining the email list
effectively. But email marketers should know where to draw the line as too much
information can turn off the subscriber, especially those who haven't
subscribed yet but intend to do so. A separate page can hold the opt-in form to
collect relevant information. The critical fields on the form should be marked
with a star and the other extraneous field should be left on the subscriber's
choice to fill. The setting and updating of the customer's preferences about
the content must be made easier. Password can be allowed along with the inclusion 
of link for the retrieval of password, in case it has been forgotten. These links
should stand out on the web page and in the email. The email should have
software which provides 'Mail-to-friend' option and it should be easier than
the forward function.

The email should stand out amongst the rest of the emails. The sender should be
easily recognizable and the subject line should be catchy. Emails should have
provisions to take action in an easy way. They should be text based as well as
HTML based. Include a link of the web version of the email, so that more vivid
information can be seen. Obviously, the emails should be printer friendly; if
not a printer friendly version of the email should be provided.

It is very important to check the working of each and every link, including the
unsubscribing link. Clicking on the link, it should take the reader directly to
the web page, image or file. Subscribers find it very tedious to hunt for the
desired content. Another important point which most of the marketers forget is
to make the unsubscribe option easy. This strengthens the trust of the
subscribers. More can be gained out of the unsubscribing process by including
various options such as address change or changing the frequency of emails.

When all these points will be pondered upon, you will be certainly surprised
with the subscription turn out.

How to Expand Your Email Program

It is very important for the business to diversify and expand for survival.
Certainly, increase in the number of emails is a tricky proposition, especially
if you are showing your subscriber with emails on different topics than they had
chosen in the start. The subscriber does give you permission to mail him when he
subscribes and registers on your website. You may think just another email about
a new product or sales flyer wont hurt and instead will increase the marketing
and the email program and in turn the business. You would want to get the most
out of the subscriber's database by getting maximum return on the member
acquisition costs. But it is not as simple as it sounds as you may irritate the
present subscribers so much that they wont sign up for new information. In fact
you may receive flood of unsubscribe requests or spam clicks or just
indifference.

Interest cannot be interchanged with permission. Assumption must not be made
that you have the permission to message them anything that they had not
requested. There is a minute point where the email program goals meet the
preferences and expectation of the subscriber. Instead of increasing the email
frequency, emphasis must be made on increasing the quality of the email in
order to make each email valuable to the customers. Switching from a bi-weekly
email to a weekly one means that the content should be twice as effective. The
content should be relevant along with being effective. Relevant content is the
key point of targeted marketing. The current emails should include more
specialized publications in order to make the most out the customer database.

Do not try to impose the company's will on the customers; instead take them to
the new information by making it as attractive as possible. The marketing
program can be expanded by not violating the expectations or the original
permission grant, in order to respect the reader's interest. Certainly
permission must be taken from them. Increasing the frequency of newsletters
also means increase in expenditure. While emailing we might think that the
email belongs to a different category but if the subscribers are not able to
differentiate a regular newsletter from the special offer, the effort is
worthless.

The emails should always start by a topic in the message category chosen by the
subscriber. Always include a link for signing up, which is easily locatable.
Many marketers do not realize the value of transactional messages. If the
buyers are not able to signup for the email program when buying, the
transactional email can be send to them to confirm the product purchase and
also to promote the company's newsletter.

Since the new subscribers are eager, this enthusiasm must be highlighted in the
welcome letter which should also include other offerings which weren't chosen at
the time of sign-up. The information should be brief and the benefits must be
focused upon. A link should be included which would direct to the subscriber's
preference page where the sign-up choices can be edited. It is a good idea to
create a facility by which they can email the article to their friend. If the
information is really interesting, there will be chain of subscribers.

Sample issues can be do wonders to get new customers if they are used properly,
otherwise they will result in the spam folder. The sample can be tested
initially on recent buyers or current subscribers who didn't respond to emails
during a time period. Clearly state on the top that this email is a sample only
and the receiver will continue to receive it if they sign-up for it.

Certainly diversifying and branching out the email holdings helps in the growth
of the email program and business. Success can be attained when the subscribers
are given freedom to manage their inboxes. Use the channel for emailing which
the subscribers has given permission to.

How to do targeted email marketing

The 20th century has ushered in new developments in technology and one of the
most useful and widely-used technologies we have now is the use of the
internet. The internet revolution gave rise to a much modern means of
communications and paved the way for email marketing.

Targeted email marketing is one of the most effective tools being used by
internet marketers to get people to know more about their products, and
ultimately to patronize their products. As what its name denotes, targeted
email marketing are emails sent to one's target market.

An email marketer does this buy devising a way to build as many email addresses
of his target market. One of the most common strategies being used by email
marketers is the sign-up box placed in their website. Most often, the sign up
box pops up in the website and asks the internet user if he wants to avail of
certain products for free. These products can come in the form of newsletters,
white papers, recipes, or just about anything to encourage the user to sign up
and reveal his email address.

Once the user has signed up, he will be asked to check several boxes as to what
products he would prefer to receive and on what topics. Through the sign up
process, the webmaster gets not only the user's address but his preferences,
hobbies, interests and other matters that would b e useful for internet
marketers.

The target markets or users that have signed up for newsletters or any free
items would then receive the newsletters weekly, depending on the program being
used by the webmaster. Such newsletters will include topics that are of interest
to the user. If the internet marketer is selling health-related products then
perhaps the newsletter will feature interesting topics on health, proper diet,
even healthy recipes. With the newsletters are especial offers about the
products being sold. Unknowingly, the user is being bombarded with information
which would make him give in and realize that he has a need for the products
being sold.

A good email marketer will use soft selling and not hard selling in advertising
g his products through the newsletters. Having the right information about the
target market will create the difference in successful email marketing. The
more you know about the interests and buying habits of your target market, the
more chances of you giving him the necessary materials to encourage him to buy
your products.

To be effective, targeted email marketing must make use of a strong headline.
The marketer must make a proposition to his target market, and make it easy for
the target market to respond to such proposition by making a possible set of
actions available to him in just one click.

No reader would give even a glance at a piece of material which does not have
an interesting headline. The first thing the reader will look at is the
headline so it must be captivating and complete in itself. Man is by nature
egoistic so take advantage of this knowledge and condition and make your target
market believe that the article was specifically written for him. From the
headline itself, make your readers feel that they are reading something that
would make a difference in their lives. Something t hat would enhance their
beauty, body and mind. The clincher here though, is that most readers would
take a second d look at an article with the word sale in it.

You must believe in your product to make your sales pitch, which is in the
guise of an article, more believable and more persuasive. If you do not believe
in your product then it will show with your words. Words are magical and so
powerful they can make or break your marketing campaign. So if you are not an
effective writer then you better hire one if only to make your article more
punchy and persuasive.

Make the readers fell that they have a need for the product and you are giving
them a favor by making such products available to them. The magic word here is
benefit; anything that would benefit your reader would persuade them to read
and to make use of your product. Everyone wants to improve his beauty, his
physique and his mind. Everyone wants to become a better person. Everyone wants
to make money. Take your cue from these and you will not go wrong with the
articles you supply your target market. However, do not give the readers
everything in the email. If your goal is to increase website traffic, then give
them something to salivate on which will encourage them to click the lick to
your website.

Give your reader a choice as to what you want him to do after reading your
email. Most emails have great articles that are persuasive. However, they
failed to include choices of what they want their readers to do after reading
the articles. And even if you presented choices of action to your readers, why
should they do that? What would be their benefits if they follow your
proposition and call to action?

And while you have much information to reveal in your email, do not tire your
readers. Make the email short and concise. Your readers are busy people and
they do not have all day top read your email. And even if they do have the rest
of the day, they would not spend it reading your email especially if you do not
offer them something in return.

How Subject Lines Resembling Spam Hinder Deliverability

A lot depends on what you are putting in the subject line when sending a
marketing email. It can make or break your email marketing campaign. The
receivers are fed up of getting emails like "download this software for free"
or "upgrade for free" or "RE: some software". Now, it is difficult even for an
email marketer to identify which emails are from a legitimate software marketer
based on subject line the how someone could expect recipients to guess. And when
receivers can't identify them they think that it is spam. They will simply send
the message to trash and would even report the message as spam or unsubscribe
from the email program.

Irrespective of whatever action they might take you'll have delivery problems.
One should never take it for granted when you are earning the goodwill of the
subscribers. There have been innumerable instances where marketers in spite of
not being spammers were mistaken to be spammers and dealt with heavy fallout.
This is a word of caution for anyone who is actively involved in email
marketing but in particular to those who deal in healthcare, financial
services, technology, and luxury goods.

The best guard against mistaken identity is the subject line which means that
one must hard and get really creative to outsmart spammers. The subject line
must not only be catching to the eye but also brief, informative and provide
assurance to the recipients that the email came from a trusted source.

The best thing to do is to be awake and vigilant of the spammers around you.
One should take a note that spammers usually use the key events to launch their
spam emails like around product launches, national disasters, holidays and news
events to entice recipients and make them open their emails.

The launch of Microsoft's new operating system Vista could be taken as an ideal
example here wherein every spammer try to take advantage of its release and spam
everybody's emails with promotions of vista. Now, due to this a real marketer
could become a culprit. If a real marketer tries to endorse the same product
through legitimate means the recipients thinking that this email also came from
the spammers would simply spam it. Next morning an email marketer wakes up to
see nothing but countless number of spam complaints resulting in blocking
emails from this particular email marketer. What is the cause of this? It
didn't happen due to incorrect filtering of content but due to recipients not
being able to differentiate between legitimate email and spam. The email
marketer in this case lost both excellent reputation and good subscribers.
Thus, one should realize the importance of good subject line and save oneself
from paying huge price of losing reputation and clients.

To avoid falling into these traps keep an eye on alerts as well as reports
triggered from anti-virus and anti-spam companies which keeps track and reports
virus and spam outbreaks related to some specific events. Good thing about those
reports is that they also contain spam emails with subject lines, which would
help in noting down the keywords and phrases that spammers have used and thus
avoiding them in your emails. Also, be careful and watchful if the email
marketing program coincides with any key events or product launches and better
stay away during that period. It is also not a bad idea to check your inbox and
spam folder to see what subject lines the spammers are using and then stay away
from those in your emails. Also, make sure that the name of the product,
company and newsletter clearly shows in the subject bar to assure the
recipients that it has come from a reliable source.

How Deliverability is damaged?

How many times professionals have said that senders should adopt better
practices to enhance their programs but, marketers ignores it every time and
commit same old blunder. They end up getting nothing but terrible outcomes and
they blame them on ISPs for their tough spam filtering policies.

One of the reasons why emails are undeliverable is due to failed authentication
checks. This is a key reason why marketers should keep good records of the
authentications to make it easy for the ISPs to identify authentic senders and
make use of the reputation data to make decisions related to delivery. More
damaging is an incorrect or broken record which can be even more devastating
than not having any record at all. For instance consider the case where the IP
address and sender is identified by authentication and when this authentication
check fails it sends out a message that the "email was not sent by me" and thus
do not deliver the message.

One of the other things that damages chances of deliverability of marketing
emails is using an unrecognizable sender address. It's a general practice among
the recipients to decide what should be done about the email after reading the
sender address otherwise the email is most likely going to be reported as spam
or deleted right away. So, the more you try to hide your identity the more
damaging would be the results.

One of the ways to self destroy a good email marketing effort is to use subject
lines which look like spam or spam themselves. The subject line is the next most
important thing after sender line for an email marketing campaign to be
successful.

Another important point that most marketers ignore when they send marketing
emails is check the list for bad or invalid email addresses. A list full of
incorrect or invalid address creates a bad reputation on ISP thus increasing
the chances of messages being blocked. Taking invalid addresses off of your
list regularly improves the situation. Processing requests to unsubscribe and
taking care of spam complaints instantly also helps a great deal.

What could be the next damaging factor to a good email marketing campaign? It
is generating excessive complaints. If you accumulate lot of complaints from
the receivers this affects your reputation again on ISP and they use this as a
foremost factor to stop your emails. To help reduce this, immediately remove
the addresses that are associated with any spam complaints you get. Not only
that, take one extra step in finding out how those addresses got into your list
and what commonalities they share in order to better your programs and cut
complaints down.

Sending unsolicited emails is not just anyone's liberty. Nobody would like to
see any unsolicited email in his/her inbox without any reason. The ISPs judge a
sender's reputation by knowing how sender acquired the email address of the
receiver like whether they solicited their permission or simply got it by
spamming.

It is a tendency by the marketers to overload their emails with irrelevant text
and images which the receivers may not want to see. Always ask for subscriber's
choice in selecting the kind of content they want to receive and go one extra
mile in asking any other thing that they can do to satisfy their requirements.

Few points discussed above are some of the many measures that email marketers
can take to prevent the deliverability of their emails from getting damaged.

How To Grab Your Readers Attention With Your Subject

The race for supremacy in the internet based businesses has been really heating
up and many sites have been put up to help others to get ahead for a small fee.
But there are also ways in which you don't have to pay so much to make yourself
a good list of loyal followers. Having a satisfied web traffic and visitors
allows you to put up a foundation wherein you can build an opt-in list and make
it grow from there.

An opt-in list allows you to provide newsletters to your subscribers with their
consent. When people sign up, they know that they will be receiving updates and
news from your site and the industry your represent via an e-mail. But that
doesn't mean that all of those who subscribe read them at all. Many lists have
been built due to an attachment with free software or for a promotional
discount and such. Some are not really interested in receiving e-mails from
companies and just treat them as waste of cyberspace and delete or trash them
without so mush as opening the e-mail and scanning them.

You can change all that. While forwarding an email message is relatively after
producing your newsletter. Getting people to open them is not as easy. You
don't want to waste all the time and effort used in making the newsletters, you
want people to read them and have their interests piqued. Interested enough to
go to your website and look around and most especially purchased and acquire
your products or services.

One of the numerous ways you can tempt or persuade your subscriber is by
providing a well thought out and well written subject. The subject of an email
is what is often referred to when a person or a recipient of an email decides
whether he or she wants to open or read an e-mail. The subject could easily be
regarded as one of the most important aspect of your promotional e-mail.

Your subject must be short and concise. They should provide a summary for the
content of the e-mail so that the recipient will have basic knowledge of the
content. This is really vital in grabbing the attention of your readers and
subscribers. You want your subject to instantly grab the attention of your
subscriber and get them to be intrigued to open up your mail. Remember, it is
not necessarily true that a subscriber opens up subscribed mails.

A good subject must always be tickling the curiosity of your recipient. It must
literally force the recipient to open the mail. A certain emotion must be
ignited and get them to open the mail. It is essential to use specific words to
get the reaction you need. Keep in mind that the recipient or subscribers spends
only a few seconds looking over each subject of the e-mails he receives. You
must grab your reader's attention right away.

There are many forms you can use for your subject. You can provide a subject
that says your e-mail contains content that teaches them tips and methods on
certain topics. An example of this is using keywords and keyword phrases such
as, "How to" , "tips", "Guides to", Methods in and others like that.

You can also put your subject in a question form. These may include questions
like, "Are you sick and tired of your job?" Or "Is your boss always on your
case?" Try to stay on the topic that pertains to your site so that you'll know
that your subscribers have signed up because they are interested in that topic.
This form of subject is very effective because they reach out to your recipients
emotions. When they have read the question on your subject, their mind starts
answering the question already.

You can also use a subject that commands your reader. Statements such as "Act
now and get this once in a lifetime opportunity", or "Double, triple and even
quadruple what you are earning in one year". This type of subject deals with
the benefits your company provides with your product and services.

You may also use breaking news as your subject to intrigue your subscriber. For
example, if you deal with car engine parts you can write in your subject,
"Announcing the new engine that uses no gasoline, It runs on water". This
creates curiosity with the reader and will lead them to open the mail and read
on.

How To Get Your Subscribers Begging For More

Just as an experiment, a friend of mine subscribe to ten different opt-in
e-mail marketing lists to see which ones are effective. Many websites and
online businesses have resorted to sending promotional materials to people who
have subscribed to them in an effort to boost their sales or traffic. Opt-in
email marketing sends newsletters, catalogs updates and many more promotional
materials to website visitors who have agreed to be updated whether monthly,
weekly or semiannually.

Through e-mail, an internet user that is on the list will receive their updates
through email. If a promotional material piques their interest they will go to
the site to learn more or to purchase outright. For the website operators or
owners, this is a chance to remind their list of their existence and parlor
their wares. With the numerous sites in the internet that offers the same
products or services in one way or the other, the competition can get pretty
tight and it is easy to be forgotten.

Back to my experimenting friend, he tried to find out which opt-in marketing
strategies grabbed a person into begging for more. Some would send in very
simple fashion, some would very outlandish while there are some that would just
lie in between. The differences could easily be noticed and some have gotten the
idea of an effective opt-in marketing strategy. He dubbed them effective because
he felt like he just couldn't wait to go their site and learn more, the more
persuasive ones even got him halfway to reaching for his wallet and to his
credit card before he realized this was only for an experiment.

Many companies and site present their promotional materials in a wide variety
of concepts. Each has their own distinctive style and designs, but more than
the outline and the presentation, the content and the articles are what keeps
the attention of your potential customer locked on to your opt-in marketing
medium. Creativity is the key here.

From talking to many satisfied opt-in list subscribers and forums, I have
learned of what is essential in opt-in marketing and what makes the subscribers
begging for more instead of lining up to unsubscribe.

Keep your promotional materials light, creative and original. Many people are
stressed out as it is. Getting a stuffy business proposal rather than a light
hearted e-mail may just agitate them more. A warm friendly smile or banter is
always more welcome than a serious business meeting or proposal. While you do
want your customers to take you and your products and services seriously, you
also want to show them that you know how to have fun.

Splash some color in your emails as well as provide some photos and articles
that can be related to you but show good news or good light hearted images as
well. Provide a newsletter or promotional materials that will keep them in a
light mood. Make your materials eye catching and grabbing that they wont be
able to take their eyes of them. Pique their interests.

Have good content and article, even if it means investing in an experienced and
professional copy writer to write them for you. An effective copy writer should
be able to build trust between you and your customers. They should be able to
establish your credibility in what they write. It must be informative but not
too stuffy. Let go of the professional jargons and "talk"to your recipients.

A good article and content should be able to outline the benefits of your
product and services and why they need what you are offering. But do not look
to be overeager and too persuasive. It should be able to entertain as well as
lead them to buying from you.

Your promotional materials should be clear. Don't leave people guessing. You
should lead them to you and not vice versa. Explain to them what they need to
do in a manner that won't be confusing. Try to anticipate also what your target
client needs. Do your research and information gathering, many sites will be
able to help you with that.

Provide clear and crisp images of what you are offering. If the people know
what you have for them, they are more likely to beg for more. For example, if
you are selling a car, provide them photos but only enough to encourage them to
go to your site for more.

How To Build A List Of Eager Subscribers

Every online business provides great service to generate satisfaction among
their customers. As each and every customer receives satisfaction over their
products or the services they get, there is a great chance that they will
become a return customer and buy again. Better yet, they will recommend you to
other people that could generate more business for you and your site.

As more traffic is driven to your site, you can entice many of them to
subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list. This is a list where in website
visitors agree to be sent promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs
and such that could keep them updated about your site or the niche of your
site. These promotional materials are sent via e-mail to the members of the
list in different time intervals.

When using e-mail as the media of your marketing and advertisements, you
eliminate the need for high costs. Email is free and if you can manage to make
your own promotional advertisements you can also save a bundle there. With an
opt-in subscribers list, you are pretty sure that what you are sending out is
received, viewed and read by the subscribers and not simply being deleted. They
have signed up for service and have consented in receiving it.

This means that there are constant reminders to your subscribers about all your
products, new products and services as well as any promotions and special deals
you are having. There is also the chance that they can be forwarded to other
potential customers as they tell their friends and families about you and your
site.

Of course you should be also aware that a subscriber may unsubscribe when they
feel that they are not getting what they want or expected. Make sure that they
are satisfied with your opt-in marketing strategies and keep them excited in
receiving your newsletters and catalogs. Here are some tips that can help you
build a list of eager subscribers.

Make your promotional materials interesting and fun. Try to use a little
creativity but not too over artsy. Build around what your product or service is
about. For example; if you are selling car parts, put some pictures of what is
new in the auto parts world, a new wing door possibly that can fit any car and
make it look like a Lamborghini.

Try to research what people are looking for, these way, you stay one step ahead
of them all the time and you will be their bearer of new tidings. They will be
eager to receive what you are sending them because they new you always have
fresh and new things to share with them.

Write good articles that can be very informational but light at the same time.
If your subscribers enjoy your articles, they will go to your site by clicking
the links that you will be putting on your newsletter to read some more. You
can provide articles that can connect to many people. Be diverse in your
articles. Put something humorous, then put something informational, then put
something that has both.

Are you wary about this because you don't like writing? No problem, there are
many professional and experienced article writers that can do the job for you
for minimal fees. They know what they are doing and can provide the need that
you have for your newsletters, the money that you pay for your articles are
going to be met by the many sign-ups and the potential profit from the sales
that you will get.

Create and send an E-book to your customers about anything that is related to
your business or site. Use your knowledge and expertise in the field you have
chosen to help other people who are similarly interested. Offer this e-book for
free. You can write about anything informational and helpful to your
subscribers. For example; you can do manuals and guides in so many things. This
e-book could be used as a reference for many people.

Share this e-book with everyone, even other sites; just make sure that they
don't change the links in the e-book that will lead people to your site. If you
want, you can always get some people to write it for you just like your
articles. Your investment once again will be covered by the great marketing
this will generate.

Add e-coupons in your newsletters that will help them avail to special
discounts. Put a control number in your e-coupon so that they can only be used
once. When people get discounts that can be found in your newsletters, they
will be eager to receive your newsletter in anticipation of what you are
promoting next.

If your subscribers can get benefits from your newsletters, they will be very
eager to receive them. Just don't flood your mailing list with mails so that
you don't annoy your subscribers.

Hey Get My Email Out of That Spam Filter

Electronic communications have revolutionalized the business world. The problem
is that along with the faster communications that email makes possible has come
the inevitable abuses of spam. Spam is by definition unwanted emails. And the
typical email user both personal and business level can get dozens if not
hundreds of spam emails each day. And no matter how much protection and
filtering goes on, the marketers who create spam just keep on pumping it out.

The technology to stop spam has gotten pretty sophisticated. Some of these
programs are called "spam filters" because they intercept spam emails and
delete them or quarantine them to a special folder to be reviewed by the email
owner. Its an automated process and the spam software must be smart enough to
know the difference between good email and spam. So as you might expect, it
gets it wrong from time to time. You know that because frequently spam slips
through to your email box even with spam filters in place. So it is natural to
assume that spam filters are also from time to time catching good emails and
deleting or quarantining them thinking they are spam. And if that happens, it
can be a big interruption to the normal flow of business.

As a business person, you need for your emails to get to your clients, partners
and customers. There may be a crucial business decision to be made and if that
email dies in a spam filter, it can cost you and your contacts business dearly.
So the more we know about how to keep your emails from looking like spam, the
better.

The best defense against seeing your emails get trapped is to work with your
customer or partner on the other end so both of you add each other to the
favored users list. This list is part of the spam filtering process. To use it, 
simply have your contact copy your email address into a special part of the spam 
filter that checks the favored users list and lets any email from that user go 
through to the email box.

But its not always possible to know you are a favored email partner
particularly if you are just beginning your business relationship with the
client. Most spam filters work from two parameters to determine if your email
is spam. They work from a word list of suspicious words that are flagged as
potentially dangerous and likely to indicate spam. Pornographic words or sales
pitches that are most used in spam advertising campaigns will be caught and
that email routed away from the recipient.

The second way spam is spotted is by formatting. If an email is unusually
loaded with graphics or contains an attachment, it can be flagged as spam and
end up in the spam filter forever. That is because most spam advertisers use
very glitzy marketing methods to draw the eye of the customer. That means more
graphics with lots of color. So spam filters look out for these common
behaviors and take action accordingly.

To keep your email from getting caught in the spam filter, avoid using methods
in creating your email that are suspicious to a spam filter. Avoid high
graphics and html emails as they send up a flare to the spam filter to look
closer. Review your email title and body as well to make sure you don't
accidentally use a word that might be construed as spam advertising. By staying
on top of why spam filters isolate certain emails and not others, you are
thinking ahead and outsmarting the spam software so your customers and you can
use the powerful tool of email to do business.

Guidelines for Growing the Opt-In List

It requires dreadfully hard work to build a robust, responsive and high-quality
mailing list. Just flooding thousands of emails to the list of recipients in the
database won't do the trick. The truth is that acquiring email addresses is just
a small part of the large process of email marketing. It is very important to
realize that the company should build an individual relationship with every
person behind the email address. If the starting is wrong, every chance for
building a rewarding relationship with the subscribers is instantly killed. And
on the other side, if the company proves itself worthy to its list of
subscribers, then many happy years lie ahead for both the parties.

For list building some key components need to be kept into account like the
method of acquiring the email addresses, how new subscribers should be
welcomed, and how the relationship is maintained after the opt-in process.
Acquiring the list of addresses is the easiest part of list building. But the
basic rule here is to take explicit permission from the owner to send emails.
Violation of this rule is going against the U.S. CAN-SPAM law regarding
commercial email. This also leads to breaking of the relationship with the
customer.

Addresses can be collected by online and offline means. Links for email opt-in
should be posted on every page of the website, including the registration page
and every transactional page. Paid search can be used to reach elevate the
position in search engines results. The land up page should include a vivid
link to the sign up page. Alliances can be searched who have a similar or a
complementary business so to promote one's company in return of promoting the
other company. Incentives such as email only discount and free shipping can be
offered to increase the subscription list. If the list is being rented from
another organization make sure the list contains subscribers which have given
permission. Offline means include collecting email addresses from visitors to
the company, trade show or on-site. Email addresses can be asked for in
appropriate situations by the customer support employees and telephone sales
workers. Links for subscription can be posted in all printed material such as
newspapers, flyers, magazines, bags, store signs, customer survey and feedback
forms, catalogs, etc.

The next important step is to welcome the new subscriber. Because of the flood
of emails filling one's inbox, it is a tough to make one read the email and
trust in it. A welcome message, with appropriate content, helps in building the
relationship of trust with the subscriber. In fact, a complete welcome program
must be build for this purpose. Welcoming a subscriber actually starts from the
website's registration page. This page should clearly explain the content,
benefits and frequency to the subscribers. The opt-in page should be easy to
navigate and shouldn't be bothersome with numerous questions to be answered.
For start four fields are sufficient: first name, last name, email address and
format preferences. The other information can be collected via optional forms.

After sign-up a thank you page must pop up immediately. This doses the
confirmation job and leads the subscriber to the optional form. Next, a welcome
email should be send to the customer. This email will not only build up the
initial trust but will also check the validity of the email address. This email
should include links to optional forms and the detailed preference page. It can
also contain the subscription benefits and sample of the past best newsletters.

The next step of relationship management is the most important and delicate
phase because of the personal relationship with every subscriber. If it is not
taken care of properly, all the effort taken to collect email addresses for
subscription list will be wasted. The subscriber's preferences must be honored
in order to expand the email program. The trends in bounces, inactivity and
unsubscribing can be noted by the list statistics. Occasional special offers
and surveys can be created for sustaining the interest of the readers. People
who haven't opened the emails for a long time should be concentrated upon,
especially. Send follow-up emails and query messages.

Opt-in list building takes lots of time, energy and dedication. Certainly all
the effort is worth it in the end, which can be seen by the healthy growth of
the mailing list.

Give the People What They Want

If you went to your email inbox right now and counted up, you would probably
find that you subscribe to at least one if not several email newsletters
published by a web site that you enjoy going to from time to time. We like
getting email newsletters in the same way we like to subscribe to magazines at
home. They are fun, informative, sometimes humorous and they give us
perspective on a specialized field of knowledge.

So it might not surprise you to learn that the newsletter is one of the most
successful forms of internet marketing there is. In fact, it may even have
surprised you that a newsletter is a form of internet marketing. But it is a
potent way for an online retailer to market his web site and online products or
services to a focused customer audience.

A newsletter is also an outstanding way to sidestep the problem of failures of
email delivery because customers will partner with you to make sure that
newsletter gets into their email box. This is a big difference from cold call
emails you may have used to use where you send purely marketing emails to
customers only to see them get trapped in spam filters and sink to the bottom
of spam quarantine folders never to be seen again. A newsletter is a marketing
email that your customer wants to see. In fact, most times the customer made an
effort to log onto your web site and find the newsletter subscription page to
make sure they got on your mailing list. This is a refreshing change to see
customers working hard to let you market to them rather than buying software to
dump your marketing emails into a spam folder.

The reason newsletters are so effective at avoiding email delivery problems is
that customers almost always will take the time and effort to be sure to add
the sending email address of the newsletter you create for them to their "white
list" of preferred email contacts. And because a newsletter can contain from ten
to forty percent marketing material, it is like the customer is treating your
marketing message like royalty and making sure it gets to them every week. In
fact, customers become so used to getting that newsletter that if it did fail
to arrive, they would take the initiative to find out why.

You don't have to be a high speed publisher to create a nice newsletter format
to use each week. You can buy templates for the newsletter format or use some
of the default templates for newsletters that Microsoft Word comes with. But
you may want to enlist the aid of your most computer savvy employee to create
the newsletter each week because it calls for some patient and artistic layout
talents to make it look good.

You might think of your newsletter as a web page that you deliver to your
customers. It should have interesting and compelling content, just like your
web pages do. But there are also plenty of spaces for advertising and
promotional pieces that can be used to drive the customer to the web site to
make sales. And because it is an e-document, links in the newsletter can
immediately transport the customer to the point of purchase on your web site
shopping card pages.

You can also use the articles you prepare for the newsletter to talk about your
products and services in an informative way. By generating interest through text
discussion of what you sell, that creates desire to make a purchase as well. You
can even use the advertising space in your newsletter to sell to affiliates and
partners who want to market to your customers. In that way, the newsletter can
be a direct revenue generator even before it serves to guide subscribers to the
purchase experience.

You may need to take advantage of the writers on your staff to create the
content of your newsletter each week. But don't overlook content that is
already at your disposal. Articles, blog entries, discussions on message boards
and letters you get asking questions about your products and services are
natural article fill to use in your newsletter.

Getting More Out of Unsubscribing Option

The unsubscribing link helps the marketers to understand their customers
better. This makes them to look for alternatives which would help to retain the
customers for a longer time, sometimes even forever. The whole procedure will
give an insight about the view of the subscribers, how they picture the company
and what are their expectations from the company. Unsubscribing customers force
the company to think of a counter-option to restrain the customer from
unsubscribing. So, if the whole process is designed well, it actually helps the
email program in reaching its goal.

Also, it is considered as a good practice to provide the customer with the
opportunity to unsubscribe.

The major reason being that if you do not provide the unsubscribe link, it is
more likely that the consumers will report you to their individual ISPs as
spammer. The unsubscribe link should be easy to locate and use. Marketers
include the unsubscribe instruction in every promotional emails, but they
should understand that building customer trust is also very important. The
customer should be given the chance to manage their inboxes by giving the
unsubscribe option at other critical contact points. The first step towards
this is to send the welcome message soon after the customer subscribing in
order to confirm the request. Sometimes it may happen that the customer will
subscribe unknowingly, especially because of pre-checked boxes on the
registration form. In this case it is very important to include the unsubscribe
method in the welcome email, otherwise the recipient will be forced to receive
unwanted emails which can bother him to the very extend. This increases the
risk of clicking the spam button.

Apart from being easily locatable, the unsubscribing method should also be very
easy. This discourages the recipient from clicking the spam button or from
ignoring the messages. Although one-click URL, which is a one step process, is
used by most but a better option is a two step process. Sometimes the
recipients do an address change; in this case one step process is the worst
option. His interest or needs might even change or he might want to receive
mails from you less or more frequently. Here the profile pages will be of help
in reduction of unsubscribe and in giving the customers a more fruitful
experience. In this method, some links takes the customer directly to the
profile page and some ask for passwords to get through. If password is asked
for, it is compulsory to add a 'forgot password' option. This adds another step
to the complete process and increases the chance of the recipient giving up and
clicking on the spam button out of frustration.

The best bet is to use a two step process. The first step takes the recipient
to his profile page with the help of a click. The second step helps in
confirming the removal request or changes in the individual's profile. Adding
other request removal opportunities works as bonus, such as contacting the
customer support if the profile page isn't working or including web form
contact information. Along with this other options for receiving information
should be provided to the recipients. It is helpful to give the subscriber a
chance to explain the reason for unsubscribing.

Another good practice is to acknowledge the unsubscribe process. This helps in
building trust in the email program as this tells the subscriber that his
request was processed, immediately. If the subscriber has intended upon leaving
the email program, a graceful goodbye and vote of thanks for their past
patronage helps in strengthening the relationship. The medium used to do this
can be same as the request removal.

The unsubscribing and subscribing process should be checked minimum once a
month. Nearly half the marketers do not test the unsubscribe method once it has
been set up and only one in four check the process only after receiving the
complain about it being not working.

Getting Help with Your Email Marketing Campaign

Savvy business owners realize the importance of email marketing even if they do
not know how to run an effective email marketing campaign. Simply stated this
means a business owner may realize it is imperative for him to run an email
marketing campaign to help him meet the needs and expectations of his target
audience but he may not know how to orchestrate an email marketing campaign
which is truly effective. Fortunately for these business owners they do not
have to know a great deal about email marketing because there are plenty of
Internet marketing consultants who can assist them in planning and running an
effective email marketing campaign. This article will provide some tips for
finding a consultant to assist you in orchestrating an email marketing campaign.

One of the most important criteria in seeking a consultant to assist you with
our email marketing campaign is experience. Specifically it is experience which
has resulted in past success. This is important because one of the best
indicators of how well a consultant will perform for you is how well they
performed in the past. This means if a consultant was able to help a variety of
past clients to attain their goals through email marketing, the consultant will
likely be able to assist you in the same way.

Another important criterion when hiring a consultant to assist you with your
email marketing campaign is the opinions of past clients. Before committing to
work with a particular consultant you should request references from past
clients. You should not only request these references but also contact each of
the past clients provided and question them about their experiences with the
consultant. It is important to keep in mind the consultant will likely only
provide reference he is confident will offer a positive opinion of his
services. However, you can still learn a great deal about the consultant's
style, personality and techniques through these references. This is important
because the consultant's personality as well as his skill and abilities is also
very important.

If you do not get along with the consultant and have difficulty talking to him, 
it can be difficult to work with him. Additionally, it might be hard for you to 
meet your business related goals because you are likely not providing the 
consultant with enough information or offering feedback which could help him to 
adjust his strategies to better meet your expectations. While it is true that 
skill, knowledge and ability are all important sometimes none of these matter
if personality conflicts prevent you and the consultant from communicating 
adequately. Therefore your personal opinion of the consultant should always be 
carefully considered before making hiring a consultant.

Although consulting references is a good idea, you should also consider
contacting the Better Business Bureau (BBB) as well and also seeking out
independent reviews of the consultant you are considering hiring to assist you
in your email marketing campaign. The BBB can provide you with a great deal of
information regarding the past performance of the consultant. If the consultant
has been in business for a number of years and does not have any unresolved
complaints with the BBB, this is a good indication the consultant performs
adequately and treats clients fairly. Conversely a consultant with a number of
unresolved complaints against him is not likely going to be a good choice.
Similarly a consultant who has a number of independent reviews raving about the
quality of his service is likely a good choice to assist you in your email
marketing campaign while a consultant who has a number of poor reviews on the
Internet is not really a good choice for assisting you with your email
marketing campaign. Likewise, you can assume if past clients were not happy
with the services he provided, you will likely also not be happy with these
services.

Getting Better Email Open Rates

The success of email campaigns can be gauged by the number of email open rates.
The more number of readers read the email, the greater chances of people taking
the desired action. But for this, the readers must be motivated into clicking
on the link.

The very first thing which any reader will notice is the subject line. It is
the most important factor which should resonates with the mind of the readers
and should compel them to open and read the email. The subject line should be
personalized depending upon the recipient's interest, and other factors. So
creativity needs to involve creating words of motivation. The brand should make
its mark so much so that the customers must set up expectations for the brand.
Recipients should be anticipating the emails. For this the services or products
provided by the company should meet their current needs and interest. The
recipients should know what to expect when they are opening the email and they
should be made to feel that they will miss something very important if they
didn't open your email.

Apart from the subject line, lot of attraction also lies in the content of the
newsletter. The content must be original along with being compelling. If the
content of the email can be found elsewhere, the customers may forgo the
thought of opening the email and instead going for the one of a kind content.
The content should also have valuable information which can be used by the
readers. It could concentrate on the free offer, or the big discount.

Another factor which forces the reader to open the email is his relationship
with the company. Email readers fall into different categories. They can be
irregular purchasers, potential clients, information hungry subscribers or
existing clients. The method by which they decided to subscribe and the reason
also tells a lot about the customer's interest. Did they find the website
through a search engine or did they sign up when buying products? The
subscribers who have sought for information and then signed up for the emails
are more likely to open the email, when compared to subscribers who signed up
while buying a product because of a pre-checked box meant for signing up which
they forget to uncheck.

A strong personality is must for the success of the email. If the actual CEO or
the marketing director is behind the newsletter, the readers get more interest
in the email and the email open rates will boom immediately. The email list
should be of high quality and should be well-maintained always. Also, efforts
must be made in expanding the email list with targeted audiences which are more
likely to open the email and take the desired action. Most of the times,
long-time list members become inactive. So the list must be segmented based on
list age and the inactive customers must be offered interesting incentive to
bring them out of the hibernation.

The mailing frequency is also a very critical issue. Too frequently send mails
will hamper the growth of email open rates as the recipients will get
irritated, so does scarcely send mails as the recipients will not remember who
you are. The time of sending also is important. Test different time and days
for finding out which time works best for every type of audience. The time of
the year should also be considered here. People tend to open emails less
frequently in summer which means lower email open rates. Holiday season means
good email open rates for commercial emails and lesser email open rates for
information oriented emails and newsletters. The number of legitimate opt-in
emails being caught in the spam filters is increasing by the day. Although the
message is being shown as 'delivered', the end recipient won't be seeing the
email at all. Care should be taken to avoid certain words and symbols which are
the cause of spam filtration.

The bottom line is to do every job exceedingly well in order to achieve higher
email open rates. For email newsletters, sixty percent email open rates can be
achieved and for commercial emails, about forty percent email open rates can be
achieved.

Get White Listed

Handling spam is not something that is a mystery to anyone who uses email
regularly. It is almost out of the question for anyone to operate a computer on
the internet and not have some form of spam protection software working to catch
bad emails and delete them or trap them to a quarantine folder. But if you have
worked with any of the popular spam protection software packages, you know
those services have to be "trained" to know what is spam and what is not.

Probably the most common method for determining spam is by email address. So
when you installed your spam protection software, the first thing it will do is
import your address book and build a list of email addresses that you will allow
into your inbox without question. This favored contacts list is one you will
manage and update regularly as you add new contacts both personal and
professional.

From a merchant perspective, one of the most prized lists that online retailer
can hope to get on is the customers favored user list. This is because once a
customer flags an online merchant that they are allowed to send the customer
emails without question, that customer becomes an A-list candidate for
specials, discounts, special sales and other marketing methods that the online
merchant may use to encourage sales.

From a retailer point of view then, one of the top methods for avoiding email
delivery problems is to "get white listed" by your customers so you can
exchange emails with them freely and often. The theory behind how to get white
listed is not complicated but the methods can get pretty creative. The theory
is very simple. You have to make the customer want to see your emails. How to
do that opens up all kinds of marketing ploys to appeal to the customer to
invite you into your email inbox as often as you wish to show up.

The first opportunity you have to entice the customer to add you to their
favored contacts list is when you do an email verification of membership when
they first sign on to be a regular part of your web site "community". But event
then, one rule applies universally for how to get customers to want to see your
emails. You have to convince them that there is something in it for them.

To create value that you will deliver to the customer's email box from time to
time, you just have to know what the customer wants. Discounts and coupons are
very popular items that customers will often seek out. When the customer opts
in to become a part of your web site community, you can take that opportunity
to solicit the customer about special offers, discounts and coupons. Few of us
can resist a good deal so when the customer signs on to get those offers, that
is the time to remind them that all they have to do is add you to their favored
contacts list in their spam software to make sure those "once in a lifestyle"
deals don't go into the spam graveyard on their computer.

Other "goodies" you can use to entice customers to add you to their favored
contacts list are newsletters, autoresponder courses, ezines and give aways. If
you notice a customer is a regular contributor to one of the blogs on your web
site, offer to email to him or her each new blog entry. To see the latest
ramblings on that blog, that customer will eagerly add the email address to
their favored contacts list and you have accomplished your goal.

Now every one of these marketing tools we have mentioned have additional sales
potential in them as well. Newsletters that deliver regular entertainment and
education to your customers also can carry advertising for your products or
advertising that other merchants pay to include in your newsletter. Many online
merchants have developed a large secondary income source when their newsletter
became suddenly very popular with a large circulation. So put some work into
these marketing tools because they could take your business in an entirely new
direction.

Opt-in Email Marketing Tips

Opt-in email refers to those promotional e-mails sent to individuals who have
requested to receive them. Not like spam, wherein promotional emails are sent
to a large number of recipients without considering whether such individuals
want the information, opt-in emails generally are sent only to individuals who
particularly requested for them.

Opt-in e-mails often are personalized, targeted and convey information
regarding specific promotions or topics that clients are interested and
concerned to learn about.

Usually opt-in e-mails include product information, newsletters, helpful
articles and advices or special advertising offers. When for instance a user
frequents a certain website selling music and books online, he can "opt in" to
accept publications or notices each time his favorite musician or author
releases a new material; promotional e-mails may also grant the user with a
discounted offer only available for individuals in the "opt-in" list.

Even though this direct targeted email marketing and promotion is more
expensive compared to bulk unsolicited email, surveys do reveal that this is
more effective.

Opt-in email has many forms. The "single opt-in" list is established by
inviting or requesting users to sign up through a "web form". The moment they
send the form, they are enrolled to be a member of that list.

You can take it a little further by adding another step, which is requiring all
recent members to confirm or verify their subscription through email; this list
then is commonly referred to as a "double opt-in".

Confirmed or verified opt-in authenticates and supports that the email list
truly is approved; this came to be the basis for qualifying the list as a
recognized, "non-spam" method of communication in the business.

There are several businesses on the internet that can rent you a list of email
addresses of individuals who opted to accept a commercial email. In most cases,
they in actuality are not renting the list as you will not have any chance of
seeing the concrete list. These companies charge a fee for every email address
that they mail your message to.

As long as all who receives the email are not paid in order that they read the
messages, as long as they are truly interested with the offers that they have
signed up, this method of marketing may be profitable.

The problem here in most cases is that they charge between 10-20 centavos per
email address as well as mailing it to a considerable amount of list so to
obtain wonderful results; this can be relatively expensive. However when you
can afford it, you will create excellent targeted traffic.

What about "opt-in series" email promotion?

Opt-in "series" email promotion or marketing works in such a way that you offer
a charming and appealing free sample, gift, article or giveaway at your website,
generally works successfully through a pop window and when visitors collects
their freebie, then they are obliged to type in their email address and name.
Now they are already subscribed to receive a series of your personalized and
scheduled email reports and messages pre-written by you. The best series type
is that which supplies free helpful and valuable information regarding a
certain subject that can solve your customers' problem.

A good quality "email series" will establish good relationships with prospect
clients, which is something is more valuable and a point that is often
overlooked by many online businesses. This approach can be personalized and
fully automated as soon as you have done the structuring and setup work.

Here are guidelines so to be safe:

1. Never purchase someone else's "opt-in lists". The clients who opted or
   choose to receive email messages in that certain list wants receive email
   information from somebody else and not you.

2. Never purchase and use those types of programs called "millions of email
   addresses plus a bulk emailer program".

3. Never sell your email list to someone else as well. Clients want to receive
   mail from you because in the first place, they want the information that 
   you are providing them.

4. Consider a "double-opt-in" email procedure when gathering your very own list
   of emails from your website.

5. Do not use false header on your messages. Meaning, do not attempt to conceal
   your identity.

6. Never advertise or promote your website on all mailing lists newsletter
   whereby it was not collected through "double-opt-in".

7. Without delay, fulfill and meet any request of removal from the list. Create
   a link that is simple to follow on all emails that you send.

When working on a plan, begin by asking yourself and determining the amount of
e-mail addresses that you desire to obtain each month. Then, figure out the
location or where your target clients frequent as well as the cost in order to
obtain visitors to your website so you can invite or request them to "opt-in"
to your list.

Good luck.

Future of Email Deliverability

The biggest boost to email deliverability is the growth of transparency since
the internet bubble burst in the millennium. It took away much uncertainity
associated with email marketing. Address spoofing was absent then and spam
undermined the recipient's confidence in email marketing. In transparency means
the person at the other side goes according to the claims he make. Now the
identity has to be proved through out the delivery chain. Authentication
systems used by ISPs have been developed to check the validity of the
authorized sender and then either pass along the email or block it.

Few authorization systems work invisibly while others display a visible notice
in a message form. Authentication, though, hasn't solved the phishing and spam
problem, but transparency fostered by it makes the legitimate senders more
vivid. Previously there were closed systems which have become open now to email
senders because of introduction of transparency by reputed vendors. The IP
address of the sender can be known instantly and there are websites which can
show how the email pattern of a particular sender is reflected to the world.

Things are easier for the email sender too, as they can check whether their
email has been delivered or not with the help of email broadcasting solutions
which have incorporated delivery monitors in their systems. Emailers who follow
the best practices policies being offered by vendors, ISPs, and email industry
trade groups have greatest rate of email message delivery. These policies
include delivery volume, email bounces, opt-in practices, address management,
IP address integrity and content trigger. According to these policies,
transparency is also meant for the emailer's personal program. The subscription
process of the sender explains why the sender is is signing up, type of emails
he will receive and how the unsubscription process is carried out. Depending
upon the trustworthy atmosphere created by these policies, the ISP separates
emails which have to be delivered, blocked and filtered.

If messages are being send to major ISPs, the sender must watch and study spam
complaints, reply to emails, and bounced emails more carefully. Permission
emailers who are willing to work within the requirements of the ISP, showed how
content filters which were simple and server settings which were restrictive
blocked requested emails which were both transactional messages and commercial
messages.

In 2003, email receiver and senders gathered to share their concerns and air
their grievances. From there aroused industry working groups who tackle fraud
issues and email spam. Now ISPs are also identifying and trusting emails which
are sent by clients of systems of third party authentication, email
certification agencies and reputed vendors which take the guarantee of the
email sender's legitimacy. The regular server lever filters now let's go the
guaranteed email which is being delivered to the desired inbox, as requested.
In both email delivery and sending, transparency has helped in dealing with the
uncertainty and mysteries which prevented the marketers from effectively
utilizing the email and the marketing associated with it.

Now it is very easy to come out the darkness and know whether your email has
been delivered or not, with the help of transparency. If it is not delivered,
the notification message can be checked for details and the mistake can be
taken care of so that the message gets delivered in the future.

Forget Mass Mailings and Get Customers to Bring You Customers

Customer recruitment has always been a big challenge for retailers even before
the internet came along. It is one thing to have a loyal community of customers
who bring you business regularly week after week. But no retailer can rest on
that community for two important reasons. The first reason is that you have to
grow as a business in order to reach your financial goals each year. You are
not in business just to get by. You are business to succeed and that means
growth and that means getting new customers all the time.

The second reason is you cannot count on your existing customer base staying
stable indefinitely. Customer communities are have a living quality so they are
always changing. Customers move away or take their services elsewhere. You face
new competition and other market forces help and hurt your customer base from
year to year. So to assure the ongoing health of your business both online and
outside of the internet, you have to always be thinking about getting new
customers.

For much of the early life of the internet, the standard way to go out and find
new customers was through mass email mailing campaigns. These kinds of marketing
efforts were organized by email management companies who promised to send out
your marketing email to thousands of valid email addresses. So you signed on
for 10,000 or 100,000 emails and the service flooded the internet with your
message. The hope was that from that huge mailing you would harvest a few
hundred or a few dozen new customers to add to your customer community to keep
our base of revenue fresh and growing.

But it was the mass mailing phenomenon that brought us another phenomenon that
has caused huge problems with using email as a marketing tool. And that
phenomenon is spam. Because spam has become such an ominous problem for users,
ISPs and individual internet citizens have invested heavily in spam control
software which intercepts mass mailings and stops them before they reach the
inbox of the customer. The outcome are email delivery problems for you, the
online merchant, that are very difficult to resolve.

The good news that the era of interactive internet communities and viral
marketing has opened a whole new and far more effective way for you to recruit
new customers. It is a method of bringing new customers to you that has been
well known to being far superior than any direct marketing strategy you could
every hope to design. It is the strategy of letting your existing customer base
bring new customers to you. And you seed that process to set the wheels in
motion through viral marketing methods such as give aways and downloads that
existing customers are encouraged to share freely with their friends.

There is a basic aspect of human psychology that viral marketing methods
exploit heavily and that is people love to tell other people exciting things.
So if you have loyal customers already, you don't have to "recruit" them
directly to spread the news about your web site and your online goods and
services. You just have to excite them about a give away or some upcoming
event. Suppose, for example, that you are going to have a famous speaker give
an online symposium on a given date. By notifying your existing customers, you
create a momentum of excitement that will spread in a viral fashion from those
customers to others of similar interests. By making sure they know how to
direct their friends and loved ones to the symposium, you can "pack out" the
event and use the opportunity to recruit new customers by the dozens or by the
hundreds.

This is a far more effective technique than the old mass mailing approach to
customer recruitment. Getting customers through viral marketing generates
excitement and capitalizes on the natural trust between friends as customers
bring you new customers. And above all, you are not generating spam and you are
not wresting with email delivery problems.

Evaluating Your Email Marketing

Email marketing can be a very effective way to reach a target audience around
the world. However, your marketing efforts may not reach their full potential
unless you invest some time, energy and money into evaluating your email
marketing strategy. During this evaluation you may determine whether or not the
email marketing is helping you to reach your goals. Likewise you can determine
if the email marketing is having an adverse affect on your business. This
article will discuss the importance of evaluating your email marketing and will
also offer some useful advice on how to do this.

To say that evaluating your email marketing strategy on a regular basis is
important is a tremendous understatement. Regularly evaluating your email
marketing is not only important it is critical to the success of your business.
Failure to evaluate your email marketing strategies can have adverse effects
ranging from not producing results to causing you to lose customers to your
competitors.

Consider an email marketing campaign which is not effective because it does not
reach the members of the target audience. Some business owners make the fatal
mistake of not taking care to ensure their email distribution list features
recipients who are extremely interested in the products or services you offer.
Business owners who take shortcuts by purchasing large email lists, often find
their shortcut did not pay off because the recipients of their marketing emails
are simply not interested in the products or services you offer. In this
scenario the email marketing is likely to generate very few sales or website
visits. However, reevaluating the email distribution list to include recipients
who are interested in your products or services will likely result in
significantly more sales and website visits.

Now consider a situation in which your email marketing is being construed as
spam by the recipients. If you have taken precautions to ensure your emails are
reaching members of your target audience but your emails seem like over the top
sales pitches, the members of your email distribution list may view your emails
as spam and not take your advertisements seriously. When this happens the member
of your email distribution list may be more likely to seek out a competitor when
they are in need of products or services rather than making a purchase from you.

Evaluating your email marketing efforts may be formal or informal in nature. If
you have specific business goals in mind you might want to consider using
whether or not you are on the way to meet this goal as an indication of whether
or not the email marketing is working. If you're interested in reading more
about email marketing check out www.jeremyburns.com/blog -- Alternatively, you
can evaluate your email marketing efforts by soliciting customer feedback.
Asking customers for their opinions about the email marketing campaign and
whether or not they were compelled to make a purchase because of the content,
the advertising or some other element. Based on this information you should
have a good indication of whether or not the email marketing is effective. If
it is not effective you should consider making changes to create more interest
in your products or services. The changes you make should reflect the feedback
you receive though to ensure you are not making changes which will cause even
less interest from the members of the target audience.

Engaging the Newsletter Readers

In this email saturated period, the subscribers will get bored if the emails
they receive contain messages such as 'SALE' or 'Buy me'. Every other
commercial email and spam has such kind of information which fills up the
inbox. Thus to avoid this, information in the newsletter must include expert
advice, latest trends, how to use the products, and tips. There should be
numerous ways for interaction and the products should be displayed as the most
anticipated products of the season. This will make the readers invest more time
and eventually more money in the company's products.

The links for interaction should be counted and not the ones for unsubscribing.
The newsletters must get the readers involved in it. The reader engagement
should be increased by adopting certain creative strategies. A good newsletter
should have a perfect blend of interactive content, purchase behavior and also,
entertainment value. Effort should be made to add at least some value to the
email, irrespective of the fact that the receiver is a regular customer or a
new recipient. Value can be added by giving information of latest company news,
off sales announcements. Transactional emails can also be sent which includes
updates and regular information such as registration, subscription and order
confirmations.

Customer feedbacks are very important for revamping marketing techniques. A
minimum of one web link, contact email address, telephone number and postal
address should be included for collecting feedbacks. Short surveys can also be
designed which have one question pop quizzes regarding company's products,
instead of statistically valid queries. The introduction to the quiz can be
used in the email as a link to the actual quiz located on the website. A
display of running vote's total can also be included in the quiz topics upon
improvement of the newsletter, website, or products; new ideas for product
improvement; how the product changed the life of the user and others are good
ideas for taking feedbacks. The best feedbacks can then be published in the
next issue. Noteworthy questions can also be collected under the 'Frequently
Asked Questions' section. A small prize can help to increase the interest of
the newsletter readers.

Choosing the best recommendations can be tricky, because you wouldn't want the
customers to give negative comments besides the glowing ones. The most useful
among the good comments must be selected to be featured in the product
spotlight. Storytelling can be added in the email as everyone is curious to
know what is happening behind the scenes. History of the company, fun facts,
employee perks, personnel changes and other company operations can be divulged.
If the company falls amongst the Fortune 500 Company or is one of the fastest
growing companies in the area, the booming business can also be discussed
about. Job openings can also be posted as every company does need employees at
one time or another.

Blogs are another wonderful thing. Get a blog and link it to the newsletter. A
blog dedicated to the subscribers and customers helps in receiving feedbacks
and comments, among which the premium quality and problem solving ones can be
chosen for display. If a post generates many good comments, publish those and
let the conversation carry on. Videos can also be used to promote the company
and newsletters which can eventually lead to vblogs.

Personality can also be added to the newsletter, which means that if the
newsletter was a live person, what it would be, male or female, fun guy or
serious authority, smart or shy. Like if the newsletters are relating to
pregnancy, the newsletter can be given a personality of an old and wise
grandmother, who is witty and also at the same time enjoyable. Once the
personality and the distinctive tone are pictured, it gives way to topic
selection and copywriting. A personal note from the editor in a commercial
email message can strengthen the relationship with the newsletter readers.

Email Marketing With E Newsletters

Email marketing is not just all about unsolicited emails with advertisements
making outrageous claims. Unfortunately the abundance of spam which inundates
Internet users each day has caused many to formulate a negative opinion about
email marketing but savvy Internet marketers who understand how to market
successful enjoy an advantage over the competition by turning to e-newsletters
to reach more potential customers. This article will discuss e-newsletters and
how they can be used effectively as part of an email marketing campaign.

An e-newsletter is very similar to newsletters which are printed and
distributed via mail or other avenues. The most significant distance is the
method of distribution. While traditional newsletters are typically mailed to
the recipients or distributed in person, e-newsletters are distributed
exclusively online. These e-newsletters may be either emailed in the body of an
email message or may be included as a link in an email which directs the
recipient to the website for the e-newsletter. In either case the recipient can
read the e-newsletter while online and print it out or save it to their hard
drive for future use.

The contents of an e-newsletter may vary somewhat drastically depending on the
business the e-newsletter is promoting, the purpose of the e-newsletter and
even the personal preferences of the business owner and the employees producing
the e-newsletter. However, the general format for an e-newsletter is to include
useful information in the form of full length feature articles or shorter
pieces offering useful tips. The e-newsletter should also contain at least some
subtle advertising for the products and services offered by the producer of the
e-newsletter. These pieces of advertising should not be blatant and should
allow readers of the e-newsletter to formulate their own opinions regarding the
products or services.

The content of an e-newsletter should make up the bulk of the document. This
may include full length feature articles which provide information for the
readers. It may also include shorter pieces which may offer tips, review
products or offer advice to the reader. The key to providing high quality
content in these e-newsletters is to have them written by a capable writer who
is knowledgeable about the subject matter. The writer may have an understanding
of the subject matter or may simply be able to research the subject and learn
enough to write accurate and informative articles on the topic. In either case
the distributor of the e-newsletter should carefully review the content for
both quality and accuracy before publishing the e-newsletter.

Distributors of e-newsletters should also consider including graphical elements
into their e-newsletters. This may include product pictures or any other
relevant graphics which provide meaning to the text of the e-newsletter. A
graphic designer can assist you with this endeavor by helping you to create
graphics, crop them appropriately and place them in a prime location on the
layout of the e-newsletter.

Finally, distributors of e-newsletters should carefully consider their audience
before using email for marketing purposes. The primary consideration should be
whether or not the target audience is likely to be receptive to marketing in
the form of emails or an e-newsletter. If they are likely to respond to this
type of marketing it is worthwhile to pursue an email marketing campaign.
However, care should be taken to ensure the emails sent to the target audience
are designed specifically to appeal to these potential customers. This type of
specialization should include the type of language used in the copy, the layout
of the email or e-newsletter and the graphics used in the email or e-newsletter.
Additionally, the copy should be filed with information which will be useful to
the recipients. Another factor to consider is to whom to send the emails.
Sending these emails to a large group of recipients who have not requested
information from you and have no interest in your products and services is a
waste of time. It is a better idea to ask customers and potential customers if
they are interested in receiving more information and having them join an email
distribution list if they wish to receive more information. Sending your emails
to this distribution list ensures the majority of recipients will have an
interest in your products or services and are not likely to automatically
delete your emails as spam.

Email marketing tools that increase web traffic

The 21st century has signaled new and more efficient means of promoting one's
company and products to various markets without having to spend much in
traditional advertising. New technological advancement made the use of internet
marketing not only a fad but a way of life. Internet marketing has been found a
reliable way of increasing one's sales. However, success in internet marketing
depends a great deal on how the internet marketer uses the various internet
marketing tools.

Internet marketing has been the preferred marketing method not only by small
and medium business but also by corporations. However, it is more popular with
home-based business due to its efficiency and the minimal costs involved. The
proper use of email marketing tools will determine how fast one can get a
potential customer to become a real customer. Potential customers are a plenty,
and they are just like everyone out there. However, a good internet marketer can
identify the target market from these potential customers who may be patronizing
g a competitor's products.

While your potential customer is presently a real customer of your competitor,
you still have a great chance of turning him into your real customer if you use
the right email marketing tools. One such tool that works perfectly well for
most internet marketer is the use of follow up. These potential customers may
have already bought from your competitor; the problem is that customer may have
felt ignored or disregarded for lack of a follow up mechanism. By wooing that
potential customer through follow up emails and offers, there is a chance that
sooner or later, he would become your real customer.

The secret is with determination and persistence in intensively sending follow
up emails to the potential customer. Other marketers refuse to spend time with
a prospect or a customer who do not respond after one or two emails. By looking
at this as a method of wooing or courting, the effective email marketer will
continue to pursue the potential customer without let-up.

Another effective email marketing tool is the use of viral e-books which may be
a new concept but is definitely as effective as the other marketing tools. By
the way, it is called viral for their ability to be passed on like a virus,
from one person to another.

Viral e-books can be your ticket to success in terms of increased website
traffic. People who are interested in a certain topic or issue have no choice
but to download your e-book particularly if they stand to benefit from the
e-book topic. Thus, the number one rule in creating your e-book is that it must
be on a topic that would be of interest to your target market and to their
contacts, making the e-book a good material for passing on.

Of course, you have to get a very good writer who will create your masterpiece
but that would be a minimal cost considering the multiplication effect it will
have on your business. You capitalized on one e-book which would be passed on
several, sometimes hundreds or more, people with buying potential. This is
probably one cost with a huge return on capital.

Do not scrimp on your e-book because it is the reason why people will visit
your website. An e-book which does not present a worthwhile topic will just as
easily be thrown to the next garbage can or in the case of computer users they
can just easily delete your e-book link.

When you get your e-book done, you must make sure it is in a format which would
be capable of being opened and read by majority of computer users. You can
choose from an e-book with an executable format or EXE format or the more
popular PDF format. Most marketers prefer the PDF format as it is easily
downloadable provided the user has am Adobe Acrobat reader which can also be
easily downloaded free of charge.

In choosing the format of your e-book, remember that people generally have an
aversion for everything difficult. Thus, you must choose a format which is
downloadable-friendly and which can easily be passed on from on e computer user
to another.

To make your e-book truly of viral quality, it must be on a very useful topic
that will appeal to your target market. People who get hold of your e-book must
also have a good beneficial motivation, financial or otherwise, to pass on the
e-book to their contacts. People who can add their links when passing the
e-book will have more reason to pass on your e-book to their contacts.

The more e-book you have on various topics but all leading to you website, the
larger the scope of your reach.

You may also want to try using a viral video which follows the same principle
of a viral e-book except that it is in a video format. People who like your
viral video will surely pass it on to others and you will get more traffic on
your website. However, make sure the viral video will be of interest to as man
y people as possible to make it really viral.

Email Marketing Strategies

Email marketing is becoming extremely popular but this does not mean all
business owners know how to run an effective email marketing campaign. However,
those who are well versed in the subject of email marketing and have
experiencing using popular strategies effectively are likely to gain a huge
advantage over their competitors who do not have these skills. This article
will provide useful information for business owners who are hoping to improve
their sales or website traffic through effective email marketing.

If you do not have a great deal of information about email marketing and do not
fully understand the principles involved one of the best ways to orchestrate a
truly effective email marketing campaign is to hire a consulting firm with a
proven track record in promoting business through email marketing to assist you
in your endeavor. Similarly to traditional marketing such as radio, television
and print media, the popular strategies governing email marketing are changing
constantly. As a business owner you likely already have enough to deal with
trying to stay up to date on business practices that you do not have the time,
energy or finances to also stay up to date on the latest changes in email
marketing.

For this reason it is certainly worthwhile to hire a professional in the email
marketing industry who can devote himself full time to keeping up to date with
the most effective email marketing strategies and designing an email marketing
campaign for our business to help you achieve your business related goals.
However, selecting a consultant from the many options available can be
downright overwhelming. In general you should look for a consultant who has a
great deal of experience, a proven track record, listens to your questions
carefully, explains concepts simply and makes your project a priority.

Another popular strategy for email marketing is to offer an email
correspondence course on a subject closely related to your website or the
products or services you offer. These correspondence courses should include a
number of short segments, provide useful information, be of interest to your
intended audience and should also help to promote your business in some way.
The simplest way to promote your business without having your correspondence
course deemed to be spam is to use a soft sell approach to subtly urge readers
to make a purchase or visit your website for more information.

Publishing and distributing period e-newsletters is another example of an email
marketing strategy which can be highly effective. An e-newsletter is very
similar to a newsletter which is printed and distributed by conventional
methods such as mail delivery. The bulk of an e-newsletter should be quality
content in the form of featured articles, short articles containing useful tips
or product reviews. The e-newsletter may also contain graphical elements. These
elements may simply be graphic designs or they may be graphics which also serve
as links. The links may direct traffic to your website or to other websites.

Finally, your e-newsletters should contain some type of soft sell sales
approach. It is important to not make the sales pitch blatant as this may
result in the e-newsletter being considered spam. Finally, the e-newsletter
should contain a call to action urging the readers to either make a purchase or
visit your website for more information.

Regardless of the method of email marketing you opt to utilize, one of the most
important strategies is to evaluate the effectiveness of your email marketing on
a regular basis. This is critical because elements of your email marketing
campaign which are not working should be weeded out. Likewise elements of your
marketing campaign which are enjoying a high degree of success should be
utilized more often. For example if you notice there is a spike in sales or
website traffic each time you issue an e-newsletter, it might be worthwhile to
begin issuing e-newsletters more often. This type of evaluation and feedback
can turn a moderate success into a huge success.

Email Marketing Mistakes

Many business owners who opt to try email marketing make the mistake of
believing any type of email marketing is beneficial. This is simply not true;
there are a number of mistakes business owners can make when they organize an
email marketing campaign. Examples of these types of mistakes may include
allowing promotional materials to be tagged as spam, not following up with
promotional emails, not being prepared for an influx of customers after an
email marketing effort and not marketing specifically to the target audience.

We will begin our discussion on email marketing mistakes with spam. Spam is a
problem which is reaching endemic proportions. Each day Internet users are
bombarded with spam from around the world. This may include a host of
unsolicited emails which are promoting products or services the recipients may
or may not be interested in purchasing. A critical mistake business owners can
make in email marketing is to issue emails which are likely to be construed to
be spam. This may result in the emails never reaching the recipient or the
emails being deleted, without being read, by the recipient. Avoiding the
potential of falling into the spam category is not very difficult. It basically
involves ensuring your promotional emails contain more useful copy than blatant
advertising. This will make it more likely for your emails to be taken
seriously.

Another email marketing mistake often made is failure to follow up on
promotional emails. Sending out emails to interested parties can be very
beneficial but it is even more beneficial to contact these email recipients by
other methods such as mail or telephone to answer any questions they may have
and offer any additional information they may require. This type of follow up
can be much more effective than simply sending an email and allowing it to fall
into the abyss of an overcrowded email inbox.

Business owners may also run into the mistake of not preparing themselves for
an influx of customers after an email marketing effort. The express purpose of
email marketing is to generate increased interest in your products or services.
Therefore it is critical for business owners to anticipate an increase in
business and be prepared to accommodate this increased demand for products and
services. This is important because potential customers who have to wait for
products or services may seek out your competitors who are better prepared to
provide them with products or services immediately.

Finally a critical mistake made by business owners is to not tailor an email
marketing campaign to their specific target audience. This can be a problem
because it may result in the email marketing being less effective. Business
owners typically make this mistake because they fall into the trap of believing
that it is more important to reach a large audience than it is to reach a target
audience. You may blindly send your email marketing materials to millions of
recipients and only generate a few leads. However, you could send the same
email marketing materials to a smaller group of only a thousand recipients who
all have an interest in your products and services and will likely generate
more leads from this smaller email distribution list. It is not only important
to send your message to members of your target audience but to also tailor your
message to suit this audience. Creating an email message which will appeal to a
variety of individuals is not as important as creating a message which will
appeal to members of your target audience.

You will need an autoresponder system to market with email We reccomend
www.Automatic-Responder.com for sending your email.

6 Practical Email Marketing Tactics for Successful Business Campaigns

In these times where information technology has become a necessity rather than
just a convenient tool in everyday life, the internet has proven to become
among the most effective ways to reach the public. As such, email is now seen
to be a very powerful tool in marketing since it is among the most often
utilized components in cyberspace. With the speed it delivers messages to
prospects, its directness in addressing target markets, and the undeniably low
cost it entails, it is no wonder why email marketing is considered to be more
powerful than other methods of advertising. However, despite the numerous
advantages email marketing can provide any business endeavor, some risks are at
hand if it is not properly planned or if it is not executed well. Like any
marketing move, email marketing could either result into amazing returns if
done strategically, or horrible losses if carried out haphazardly.

What does it take to become successful in email marketing? Here are six helpful
tips for a sound email marketing plan:

1. Address Prospective Clients Personally

Practically everyone gets spam in their inbox and virtually everybody has
developed allergies for email advertisements. To prevent recipients from
automatically trashing email ads, it is important to call their attention using
the most beautiful words to their ears (or eyes): their names. Addressing
prospects personally makes them feel important. The more recipients are made to
feel that they are treated as persons and not numbers, the more likely they will
be willing to go on reading.

2. Create a Mailing List

It is impossible to do the first tip if one does not have a list of addresses
to match the names. Building a mailing list of target prospects is among the
most vital steps in a strategic email campaign. As time goes on, the list grows
and becomes an important asset as a source of profits from the would-be loyal
followers.

3. Try to Avoid Appearing Suspicious

People are getting more aware of the truth in the phrase "too good to be true."
As mentioned earlier, people are growing sick of spam, and they treat anything
that resembles spam as dirt. It is important to make efforts to compose email
advertisements that do not look like spam. To prevent an email ad from being
trashed, it is wise to avoid making hyperbolic statements, overusing characters
such as dollar signs and exclamation points, and doing other things spammers
usually do.

4. Limit Email Advertisements During Holidays

People are usually too busy to check their computers during the merry months
and thus they are most likely unable to read messages in their inboxes. Only
the most important, business and personal emails are read, and the rest are
immediately thrown into the recycle bin. It is therefore wise to avoid doing
email marketing during Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and other bustling
occasions.

5. Make Email Ads Easy for Recipients to Understand

It is indeed important for email advertisements to catch the attention of the
recipient; however, it is also equally vital for the readers to realize the
response that is expected of them. Whether it is to click a certain link, or to
reply to a certain message, the recipient should be able to fully understand
what is supposed to be done after reading the email. Otherwise, the email
campaign may be as useless as a trashed spam, despite how effectively it was
able to captivate the targeted market.

6. Make the Brand Known Right from the Start

The point of email marketing is to make a certain product, service, or brand
known to its target market. While the immediate goal of an email marketer is to
get a positive response, such as making a sail or having a subscription signed,
from prospects after they receive an email ad, the long term goal is to make
the deal not only a one-time shot, but a lasting business relationship. The key
to this is recognition. The customer must be able to identify and remember the
brand for a long period. This could be done by placing the brand name in key
areas such as the "from" and "subject" line, or other notable parts of the
email. Granting that the client was satisfied with the first transaction,
loyalty is not too far if the client is very much familiar with the brand.

Being successful in email marketing indeed requires effort, but it is not at
all daunting to plan a strategic email campaign. To succeed in email marketing,
one has to know the target market, treat them well, deliver what is promised,
and make a lasting impression. With careful planning, the benefits that email
marketing can offer are countless.

Improve your E-mail Marketing strategy

E-mail marketing has been one of the most innovative strategies that the
internet provided over the last years. On a survey made by the Direct Marketing
Association, two-thirds of companies agreed that their revenue increased when
they started using e-mail marketing, and sixty-three percent said that this
method is the best way to maintain a good relationship to customers.

Almost everyone who knows how to use the internet has at least one e-mail
account, maximizing this fact is a great strategy to start or maintain your
business. There are a lot of ways for a business to prosper, and today e-mail
marketing is one of the best ways to do it.

But of course, working with e-mail marketing is not just a walk in the park,
knowing the basic strategies on how to make this effective should be the first
thing that one should learn. Here are simple tips on how to lead in the e-mail
marketing venture.

Be Direct and Simple Simplicity is still the key. There are a lot of e-mail
advertisements out there and most people usually delete them without thinking
twice. In being direct and simple, especially in your subject lines, most
people will notice the difference. The probability that your mail will be read
is higher compared to other mails that boasts of every detail in their subject
lines and mail body. Give simple details, offer the advantages and be direct in
the most possible way. Of course, do not forget to put a commanding line in your
message. It is one of the oldest and most useful ways to lure customers to your
business

Creativity is the key Being simple does not mean you should not be creative.
Creativity is one of the best ways to get customers. Even if you have a simple
but creative byline or subject line, your audience will pick it up. The body of
the e-mail itself must also be interesting. Using interesting designs is a plus.
Play around with your product and present it in the best way that you can.

Know your market Like any other markets, you should be able to determine the
demographics of your customers. Know who they are and what they like. Be sure
to evaluate your competitors. If you are starting in the business, it is best
that you consider the prices and the promotion styles of your rivals. Make a
better deal or package than your competitors. This will surely give you an edge
to the competition.

Maximize Technology Learn useful tools out there. One of the best tools that
you can use is the Autoresponder or a mailbot. Just search the internet to
learn about this tool. The best things an auto responder can do are to follow
up customers, create order confirmation, and even "personalized" messages.
In this way, you do not only save time, but you can make sure that all your
customers are being updated on time. Aside from an Autoresponder, learn to use
certain programming tools or graphic-editing programs to put that personal
touch on your e-mails.

Build your Name One of the best ways for a business to succeed is to build up
its name. Take time to research and learn the business. Getting published in an
internet magazine related to your business or being recognized by the market as
one of the better dealers is a great way to build your name. Do not meddle with
petty strategies that look like SPAM or other cheap ways to lure customers. This
would only taint the name of your business. Everyone knows that a bad name will
only make a bad business.

Be Professional Hereâ as the deal, even the name of your e-mail address
matters. Be professional in everything on the e-mail, including the subject of
the e-mail and the headers on your message body. Those simple details will make
an impact on customers. Having the proper details shows how professional the
business is, and this will make the advertisement more effective.

Evaluate Always evaluate the strategy; from the preparations to the e-mail
itself, to the contents and the tools that you used for the job. It is best to
study the steps that were made and identify the flaws and goods in them. On the
next project, be sure to apply the evaluation results. This is a surefire way to
improve your e-mail marketing strategies.

These are easy advices that will surely boost your e-mail marketing strategy.
Whether you are a newbie or a pro, these tips will make your marketing easier
if you keep them in mind. So, what are you waiting for? Apply them now!

Dump the Mass Mailings

What if you could drop a marketing email into 100,000 email boxes in one day
and have 100,000 potential new customers see your marketing message and
possibly become long term customers of your internet business?

That sounds pretty enticing doesn't it? That is the basic marketing strategy
that many internet marketers have tried to use to build their online business.
This is a methodology commonly called "Mass Mailings",. That is the polite word
for this technique. The less complimentary term that email recipients use for
mass marketing emails is simply "spam".

Mass mailing marketing has been big business on the internet. And it is unfair
to say that it has been used exclusively by scam artists or pyramid scheme
operators. Many legitimate business have tried mass mailings to build their
internet business on the promise that the companies who offer these services
have harvested tens of thousands of valid email addresses that they will send
your marketing message to for a small fee.

Compared to the amount of emails that will go out, the fee seems fair. The
marketing formula for success is also a reasonable one. Usually the fee for the
mailing can be offset by a small number of sales, perhaps less than ten. And
with 100,000 emails going out, the expectation that you might get a response of
100-1000 inquiries that could result in 10 sales is not unreasonable at all.

The problem is that for every 1000 customers who may have an interest in your
product or service, you will have antagonized 99,000 others who see your email
as nothing more than electronic junk mail otherwise known as spam. The spam
epidemic has reached a level of crisis precisely because mass mailing services
and software have made it possible for good business, scam artists and even
virus producers to spread their bad emails to a vast audience if the spam is
left untouched.

The result is that an entire cottage industry has sprung up to fight the spam
epidemic. These companies sell software to you to fight spam emails by keeping
up on the most up to date spamming methods and catching bad emails and sending
them to your deleted box or a spam folder for future deletion. This sets in
motion a vicious cycle of one one-upmanship in which the spam operators find
ways around the spam filters and the spam filter providers continue to update
their software to stop the newest tricks of the spam operators.

It has become a huge mess and the worst part about it is that you as a valid
internet marketer of a valid product or service only want a reliable method to
communicate with new and existing customers. Mass mailing seems like one way to
do that. But when you decide to try your hand at sending a mass mailing email,
you get in the middle of the spam war and you are then faced with dealing with
sophisticated email delivery hindrance systems that are there to fight the
problem of spam.

So what can we do about trying to build our online businesses with this huge
battle causing serious disruptions to email deliverability? For one thing,
abandon the use of mass mailings entirely. They don't work and they put you in
the distasteful company of spammers and internet criminals.

There are far better ways to communicate with customers such as web site
memberships, newsletters and contests that the customer can opt in on. Build
your relationships with the customer from the customer out and you will be able
to avoid the entire spam deliverability wars and side step the email
deliverability issues as well.

Draw Customers to You Through Web Events

Email delivery problems has put an urgency to the priority of changing how we
communicate with customers on the internet. At one time, you may have conducted
virtually all of your marketing and customer interactions via email. Not that
long ago, there was a time when email was so dominant as a form of
communication that we all depended on it almost exclusively because it was the
only thing that was truly interactive about the internet.

Two developments in how the internet works has changed that scenario
significantly. From a negative point of view, email delivery has continued to
grow as a bigger and bigger problem every year. That means that more and more
online merchants have struggled with how undependable email communications has
become. The problem, of course is that spam as relentlessly eroded how much
anyone can depend on email except for private communications. So to avoid
having to make email delivery a second career, many online merchants and
retailers are looking for new and up to date modes of communication to replace
email.

The second development is more positive and it is the WEB 2.0 evolution of the
internet which has changed how the internet works. Whereas business web sites
used to be nothing more than online brochures, all web sites are now migrating
to the WEB 2.0 model which means web sites themselves are seats of customer
communications which takes the emphasis off of email as a sole line of
communication with customers.

These developments bode well for providing an escape for online merchants with
the cumbersome overhead of trying to keep up with email delivery issues from
month to month. But it doesn't mean you will abandon email entirely. The one
aspect of email that has yet to be totally replaced is its ability to remind a
customer of your products and services. Just having a highly interactive web
site is good but internet denizens are notoriously short in the memory
department and they need a reason to come back to your web site from time to
time.

A web event is a great way to create excitement and to make your customers want
to come to your web site at a specified time to be part of the big event. A big
sale, a special speaker, a musical performance or an interview with a notable
celebrity from your field of expertise is just the thing to draw people to your
web site to experience something new and interesting.

The more you can get away from using email reminders and communications, the
more you get away from having to worry about deliverability issues. This is
especially true with a web event. If you go to the effort and expense of
scheduling a big event for your users, to have email deliverability problems
stall or lose your reminders resulting in a failed event would be a disaster.

So to build your clientele for the big event, promote it interactively on your
web site. You can use your blog, message boards or chat rooms for promotion and
to create excitement. Then from each of those web site pages, take interested
customers to a sign up page for the event and do an email verification of their
sign up. That verification can be used to encourage those customers to add a
specific email address to their preferred users list. Once that is in place,
you have much more leverage to email your users about this and other events and
drive your customers back to your web site for events, sales and for you to do
your marketing dynamically and interactively, the WEB 2.0 way.

Doubling Promotional Email Revenue and Ecommerce

One of the best aspects of email marketing is that it has the ability to turn
out considerable revenue from a promotional email campaign or ecommerce. But
the common perception of this type of marketing is that you design your email,
forward it to a list of subscribers and then wait and watch the revenue rolling
in. But it is not that easy.

For an ecommerce program to be successful it takes more than just emailing the
newsletter. And because of this, companies jeopardize lot of money by not
dividing their customers into segments and utilizing more advanced emailing
features. Segmentation can be done on the basis of demographics,
personalization, actions, customers responses detail tracking and trigger based
emails. By considering these variables, a lot of investment may not be made in
infrastructure or technology.

The revenue of an ecommerce program can be doubled or even tripled within few
months with a little extra effort, analysis, refinement and testing. The things
to be taken care of here are list building, content creativity, list management,
segmentation and testing.

List building is the most effective means for increasing revenue. The email
subscription form must be optimized for growth of the email list. Just a good
home page won't do the trick of capturing new subscribers. An eye catching link
to the subscription form must be placed on every page of the website, possibly
with an impossible to miss image. Many readers expect incentives when they
sign-up for something. Try to offer 'free shipping' or '$25 off on the first
order', or something like it. The email address of a customer should be
captured on the shopping cart form. Then a transaction confirmation email can
be sent which includes link to the subscription form. This opportunity can also
be used to get additional information from the customer in order to target them
better. Demographics such as gender, product interests, and preferences can be
asked about.

Try to use a search engine pay-per-click or PPC program, because search is the
most frequently used way for customers to buy products they desire. PPC program
increases the traffic towards your website. If such programs are used, the
signing up process must be made easier for visitors who have or haven't bought
products from your website. Making the website search engine optimized is the
most cost effective method of getting traffic and improving your list. This
optimization can be done either internally or by hiring an external SEO
consultant. Every page of the website must be optimized to get the top
rankings. The 'Send-to-a-friend' feature must be included in every eNewsletter
as this feature generates a considerable amount of new subscribers. Although
the number won't be big, but it will be enough to satisfy the number of
unsubscribes every month.

If the business or shop is located somewhere, in-store promotion offers can be
sent via emails. Sign-up forms can be given at cash registers and subscriptions
can be promoted at the point of purchase.

According to researches, a compelling subject line can increase the open rate
by fifty percent. Solid offers and great design are the perfect blend for
doubling the click through rate. Give customers options from which they can
choose the most appropriate one which suits their appetite. The products must
be divided into categories. Personalization helps in increasing the response
rate. Emails can be personalized by referring to the customers by their first
name or by their past purchase history. Since the email is just an extension of
the website, it is better to leverage the website's navigation. If the website
has search capability, it must be incorporated in the email.

The personality of the company should be reflected in their emails and its
designs. Emails main job is motivating the recipients to click on the links to
go to the website or subscription form. Some other very important links can be
included, but a clutter shouldn't be formed so that the most important one
cannot be located. Graphic buttons and images can be used to draw attention.
Great subject lines, top lines and offers just to wonders.

List should be managed by calculating email churns and fatigues. Incorrect
email entry can be solved by including a second email entry box. Send out
confirmation to check the validity. Update email address and manage account
link should be included in every email.

Testing is very critical in optimizing the email program. Majority of the email
variables must be checked before the emails have been send out.

The Basics of Direct Email Marketing

Marketing through email has become a very popular way of marketing today. With
the advent of the Internet, technology has broadened the scope and ways of
marketing.

Email

Email is short for electronic mail. This is one of the main reasons why people
use the Internet. About two decades back, no one actually realized that
electronic mail would become very useful and eventually be a focal point in
relationships, both personal and business.

The whole email system lets people communicate with each other all the time.
Early email marketers used the listings of email subscribers to be able to send
their proposals and advertisements. However, not many people become amused with
this fad. Sending unsolicited email or what we refer to as "spam" is a definite
a "don't" in email marketing. This article tries to give tips on how to
effectively use email for marketing and how to use it properly.

Email marketing can make or break your reputation as a marketer and the
reputation of the product which you are promoting. Here are some of the ways on
how to do email marketing:

-Integrate

Email marketing should be integrated into the whole marketing plan to promote a
certain product effectively. Email marketing can be one of the ways and is not
the only way to market a product. An array of marketing techniques should be
employed by a marketer to be able to get around the market.

-Build relationships first

Getting into the email marketing bandwagon has its downsides, if it not done
properly. People will get irritated if one floods a mailing list with
advertisements which are not needed. In sending advertisements in e-groups or
other such kinds of groups, one should be able to assess the general needs and
concerns of the members before he actually plunge into a barrage of email
marketing endeavors.

-Information

Email marketing, is most effective if it is part of a wider marketing scheme.
Email is at its best if it is used to spread useful information for the target
audience. The body of the email should contain pertinent and updated
information about the product or the service. Just like in any form of
marketing, email marketing should be planned and executed with care.

-Don't send unsolicited email

One of the most irritating and agitating things about email is spam. If one is
thinking about using spam mail to be able to market his product, he must give
it a second thought. A lot of people hate unsolicited mail and usually won't
even open the message containing such messages. Spam will not only be a waste
of time and effort from the part of the marketer, but will it will have an
effect on the image of the product and the reputation of the marketer as well.

People avail of email services to be able to receive information and
substantive mails from people whom they know or trust. The approach that an
email marketing should be built in this line.

-Service

There's an impression that direct email marketing is done by promoters to be
able to escape from certain realities that come along with other forms of
marketing. The fear of rejection is one of these harsh realities that are
avoided by using email as a marketing medium. To be able to get the attention
and more importantly, to be recognized seriously, an email marketer must be
able to follow up quickly on the requests of his prospects. Service is the only
thing that can improve the first impression towards direct email marketing.

-Permission

Spamming is not a good thing to do. It is also considered illegal in some
states. However, when one asks permission from the receiver to send a marketing
proposal through email, direct email marketing takes another step forward. A
survey shows that people who were initially asked for permission to receive
certain proposals were more interested to read the emails, as compared to the
response towards unsolicited email.

Email is just one of the tools to be able to promote through the Internet, and
by far, it is one of the most popular and most effective. There are a lot of
unwritten rules towards doing direct email marketing but everything leads back
to giving quality service to the prospects and clients.

Designing for Different Types of Email Audiences

Marketers usually send only one type of message to a strictly targeted list of
recipients. But in reality, the email is seen by ten different types of
audiences who read the message in ten different ways. Hence, it is important to
create a message design which satisfies the needs of majority type of audience
as possible, instead of creating a different message for each type of audience.

Things get even more complicated when audience keep shifting. It can happen
that the same recipient reads the message with a different perspective from
edition to edition, depending on the time or mood constraints. This problem can
be solved by understanding the major email audience. Then the design tactics can
be designed and the potential of the email being read by everyone can be
maximized. There are eight types of audiences: Identifiers, skimmers, readers,
HTML readers, text reader, mobile, desk, and searchers.

Identifiers have only one goal. They check from address and subject line to
make decision amongst the other emails which have overcrowded their inboxes.
They make recognition and delete the rest of the emails which they do not want
to read. For such audience great subject lines and clear branding make the
greatest impact. Snippet or the top line of the emails is also displayed in the
preview pane, so this text is of all importance as it can help to make the
difference between reading and deletion. Usually the business people fall into
this category who want to clear the inbox after they arrive to the office
before the first meeting or when they are waiting for their flight.

Skimmers go beyond from address and subject line by actually opening the email.
But they read the email as fast as possible, noticing only headlines,
subheadings and calls to action. Then they make the decision whether to delete
the email or read it in detail. When the email is being designed, these copy
points should be worked upon in order to deliver the central idea and guide the
skimmer towards the click through. Skimmers do not even enable images, if they
have been blocked. Thus, strong text content should be designed to deliver the
content without much focus on the images.

Readers are a little ahead of skimmers. They read from address, subject line
and open the email and read few sentences between the headline and call of
action so as to learn more about the email topic. This helps them with the
click through hurdle. These audience also turn on the images or click on the
web version link.

Every email should have both HTML and text version of the message. Since most
of the readers now-a-days are using their portable devises for checking emails,
here text version will be of more use than the HTML version with images. HTML
design dose takes more time, but few more minutes must be devoted to make the
text version attractive. Include URLs with text as short and as clear as
possible. Easily readable text messages increases the number of clicks by a
great percentage.

Email design is encountering new challenge because of the growth of mobile
readers. Some PDAs show HTML version correctly, while the others show lines and
lines of irritating HTML code. Again, matching the right format with the right
reader is important here, but hundred percent is impractical. If an interesting
message isn't being displayed properly, mobile readers will save the message to
later read it on their laptop or desktop.

Desk readers are the biggest audience for which majority of marketers design
emails. This audience is also the one most likely to act on the email. Design
strategy used to optimize emails for other audiences will also prove effective
for this particular group too. Desk readers can also be skimmers or readers.
Therefore, here too, it is important to concentrate on the top line of the
email, apart from the subject line.

Searcher audiences start as members of one of the other type of audience. When
they see something which they like but cannot deal with it at that time they
save it for later. When they have time they want to find the message in a
flash. So if the message does not stand out, it will be forgotten about. Again
here it is important to design the subject line, top line of email and sender
address properly.

Customers and Their ISPs

Overcoming the spam filter problem so you can get a higher assurance of email
deliverability to your customers is a tricky path to walk. It would be one
thing if the end user customer was simply using Microsoft Outlook spam
filtering. Under those circumstances, it is the end customer who is determining
how to filter emails. And to put it bluntly, the Microsoft Outlook and other
local email software spam filters are just not that good. Add to that the fact
that your ordinary internet citizen is not interested in becoming a full time
spam security artist and the local spam filtering issue comes apart pretty fast.

But there is another level of spam filtering that is really making email
deliverability a much harder road to travel if you are using cold emails and
mass mailings to large groups of customers. That is spam filtering at the ISP
level. ISP providers have much greater resources and a much greater motivation
to provide sophisticated spam filtering to their customers. The ability to
control spam is a major marketing point for any ISP and if the ISP is unable to
stop spam before it even reaches the customer, the customer can be easily lured
away by a competitor who can get the job done.

When you are dealing with some of the biggest ISPs in the world, if you cannot
enter into a relationship with that ISP to prove you are a valid internet
service and to show that they should not allow their spam blocking software to
block you too, you could see hundreds or thousands of your emails die before
they even have a chance to go to the customer. So to protect their customer
base who for many ISP represents a huge potential marketing audience for you,
ISPs will authenticate vendors to weed out the spam artists and phony operators
who just want to abuse the trust customers put in their email and internet
providers.

The first step to getting to a relationship of trust with the major ISPs who
control access to your customers is to prove to them that you are a valid
internet business. They want to know that you are selling a bona fide product
or service, that you have been in business a while and that you will be in
business to support your customers after the sale. These are not unreasonable
requirements to be allowed to use the email box of potentially thousands of
email customers.

The second level of authentication that each ISP will require has to do with
your integrity in the use of email as a marketing tool. It doesn't take a lot
of examples to demonstrate that email marketing is one of the most abused forms
of business communications since the carnival barker. ISPs want to know you are
not going to run scams through email to its customers and that you are going to
treat customers with respect in regards to how you use your marketing privileges
if they are granted.

The process of gaining approval is one you can learn about by entering into a
dialog with one of the major ISPs through whom you hope to send marketing
emails. In general, the process will be the same for most ISPs after that. So
once you have walked through the process with one ISP, not only will you know
the ropes but you will have the approval of that first internet business entity
to show to the rest and your reputation will begin to grow with subsequent
applications. So be patient and give this process proper care and attention
because the payoffs of gaining the trust of the major ISPs in the industry can
be huge.

Costly Email Mistakes

When an email program is designed and executed well it can bring more
subscribers and revenue than what was targeted. If, executed poorly it will get
terrible results and also anger among recipients and not to forget answering
your boss's innumerable questions.

Outlook is the most used email client, so it shouldn't be ignored, especially
the Outlook Junk Filter. But many companies do not spare time to learn about
keywords and symbols with the default filter searches for. Some of the common
words and symbols, which are also the most widely used, used for filtering the
email as spam are 'free' and exclamation mark at the end of the subject line.
But the word 'free' does not always arouse suspicion like many legitimate email
marketers think. It can be used correctly and in context with shipping or
sample, etc. Nobody can disagree that it is still the most effective email
offer. So the key here is to know the words and how to use them so that the
email does not get caught by spam or bulk mail filters.

Certainly quality costs money, which also applies to email marketing. Some
marketers say that even low cost email list delivers a respectable turn over,
but experts advise that more expensive list produces even bigger returns
because of high quality. Another point to be noted here is that when you are
mailing to an inferior quality list, you are actually harming your brand.

The subject lines of eNewsletters must not be meaningless. Examples are 'SE
Update #101', 'Career Journal Today' and 'eClub Newsletter'. These subject
lines say nothing at all, when it is the purpose of the subject line to entice
the recipient to open the email. Things such as issue number and words saying
that this email is a newsletter are of no value; instead they should include
information which will grab the attention of readers.

A target link which will work in one email client won't work in another. For
example, if it was mentioned 'AB Company' in the "from" line, it will be
displayed as 'marketing@ABCompany' in AOL email client. If it is written 'Order
by Sunday for Free Shipping and Arrival by Nov 28' in the subject line, AOL will
render it as 'Order by Sunday for Free Shipping and Arrival by Nov'. Either some
part of the message is missing or the content is manipulated. So such variables
must be tested in different email clients and if not, it will have a big impact
on the email results.

The ease in email marketing when compared to other marketing is the immediacy
of testing. If variables aren't tested regularly then the medium is not used
correctly. Successive and regular testing not only builds but refines results.
Many marketers like to test on rented list, but wouldn't mail in great number
to the best performing email lists.

It is understood that the email campaign is successful when it promotes a
compelling offer. Compelling does not mean that the offer should be 'free' or
'50% off', but it should be of value and relevant to the reader. The lists must
be segmented and the offers made must be more relevant to the recipient's needs,
behavior and interest. When lists are being rendered, the most appropriate ones
must be selected and the offer must be developed upon the needs of the targeted
audience.

Some of the top email clients have emerged as big challenges for the customer
oriented marketers. Every ISP has its own issue which needs immediate
addressing, such as HTML compatibility issues, spam, blacklisting, and volume
based filters, etc. The biggest mistake is not monitoring the results by ISP or
domain. Problem is not known until it is discovered.

Everyone is becoming search engine optimized. The key to reach the top ranking
on top search engines is search engine optimized content. Since eNewsletters
are the best content sources, they definitely must be search engine optimized
by including various keywords, so as to increase the rankings.

Combining Email Marketing with Other Types of Marketing

Whether you choose to do your marketing online or offline, one thing does not
change. This is the concept that no single marketing strategy will be as
effective as a combination of two or more marketing strategies. This does not
mean it is necessary for you to implement every known marketing strategy to
promote your business but rather it implies that it is worthwhile to market
from a few different perspectives to help you achieve your business related
goals. This article will examine the importance of combining email marketing
with other types of marketing to create a successful; multi tiered marketing
strategy and will also offer some advice on managing more than one marketing
strategy at once.

As the old saying goes, "Two heads are better than one," and this is certainly
true when it comes to marketing. You may enjoy a great deal of success with
email marketing but this does not mean you should not try other types of online
marketing such as website creation, participation in industry related message
boards, placing banner ads, orchestrating an affiliate marketing campaign and
generating inbound links to your website. While it is possible that not all of
these strategies will be effective for your business, you are likely to find at
least one other option which complements your email marketing and helps you to
achieve your business related goals.

Alternately you may even wish to combine your email marketing campaign with
more traditional marketing strategies such as radio ads, television ads and the
print media. Just because these types of advertising do not take place online,
does not mean they will not be able to help you generate more business. In fact
advertising both online and offline can allow you to reach a larger target
audience. This is because you will likely reach Internet users around the world
but can also reach potential customers who do not utilize the Internet for
purchasing or researching products or services similar to the ones you offer.

Popular marketing strategies to combine with email marketing include banner ads
and message board participation. These are all online activities and each one
individually is fairly simple. However, in combination these simple activities
can create a powerful statement. You may send out emails offering useful
information about your products or services, purchase banner ad space on
websites which may be of interest to your potential customers and participate
in industry related message boards where you can earn the respect and pique the
interest of potential customers. Even if your potential customers are not
currently in need of the products and services you offer, seeing your business
name so often can have a branding effect. Branding is essentially a process in
which consumers see a company name so often that they are more likely to select
a product from this company when they are in need of an item the company offers.

If you are planning to combine multiple forms of advertising, you should be
aware that this can make it difficult for you to evaluate the effectiveness of
each marketing strategy. This is especially true of the marketing strategies
are implemented concurrently. When you are only using one type of marketing
strategy, you can generally attribute increases in sales or website traffic to
changes in the marketing strategy. However, when more than one type of
marketing strategy is in effect, determining which strategy is producing the
desired effect can be quite difficult. This situation can be handled by not
making changes to more than one marketing strategy at a time. This will help to
pinpoint which changes produce an increase in sales or website traffic. It can
also help you to determine when changes to your marketing strategy have a
detrimental effect on your sales and website traffic. However, if you are
having difficulty determining which marketing strategy is most effective you
can consider asking customers to answer survey questions and provide
information such as how they learned about the products or services your
business offers.

Choosing the Right Email Marketing Solution

Email marketing has made a huge buzz in the online industry these past few
years. Studies by AMR Research have shown that targeted email marketing
campaign generated about 7 to 12 times the response rate of the traditional
snail-mail marketing.

Email marketing has been the easiest strategy to do since the emergence of the
internet. It became easy to communicate with people and reach your target
audience with the use of this technology. That is why more and more companies
have ventured into this marketing campaign for the hopes of better results for
their business

A report made by Forrester Research showed that companies spent $1.1 billion
just on email marketing during 2001 and has considerably increased in the
following years. That is why several vendors that provide email marketing
products and services came out to take advantage of this booming market.

There are indeed a lot of solutions and services available for any company's
needs but the thing is, it is difficult to choose which one would suit your
company best.

Before starting to evaluate the different solutions available, it is best to
understand email marketing campaign and its components better. Email campaign
involves strategy, creativity, copywriting skills, list management, process
execution, reporting and analysis. Some of the service vendors provide most, if
not all, of these categories. Depending on your company's specific needs, you
may avail some or all of these features.

Evaluating Different Solutions and Services

Email marketing service providers can be categorized in three main areas:
off-the-shelf, mid-range, and high-end solutions. Evaluate the main
characteristics of each solution in terms of the features, benefits and costs.

- Off-the-shelf solutions. This type of service is ideal for small businesses
willing to allot internal resources for email marketing. The features commonly
included in this type of service include sending personalized HTML emails, list
management, basic tracking and reporting, and customer service.

The maximum number of emails off-the-shelf products can handle is 500,000 per
month. This kind of service can range for as low as $30 to $350 per month.
However, for most of these service vendors, ownership and control of list,
reporting and data tracking are theirs.

- Mid-range solutions. An example of a mid-range solutions provider is Pixel
Bridge. It provides its clients with fully customized solutions, from strategy
formulation to tracking, analysis and maintenance, depending on the clients'
needs.

This type of service provider is ideal for small and mid-sized entities with
advanced marketing needs. These companies are usually those that are
comfortable in using outsourced marketing services and customized solutions.

The costs of availing the service of mid-range solutions providers range from
$500-$3,000 per month. They typically manage 1,000 -- 100,000 emails per month.
The application that these service providers offer can also be bought outright
for $10,000-$50,000.

- High-end solutions. These high-end marketing companies are focused and really
specialize on email marketing. Examples of these firms are Carat Interactive,
MarketFirst and Responsys. These providers offer sophisticated marketing
technologies capable of launching and monitoring online or offline marketing
strategies that involve millions of recipients.

These providers offer a more comprehensive data analysis approach such as
helping their clients identify historical patterns to improve their conversion
rate. The cost of availing the services of high-end providers range from
$6,000-$60,000 per campaign, which average from $20,000-$30,000 for most
promotions.

Each company has its own unique set of requirements, and email marketing has
evolved to offer different solutions to address those needs. When choosing the
right email marketing service, keep in mind your company's needs. List down all
possible vendors that you think will suit you best, and then map out each one to
identify which among them can address all of your company's requirements.

Price is always an important factor to consider. However, you do not have to
always sacrifice quality of service for a low price. The important thing to be
addressed is your internal needs and requirements. If you choose the right
service provider for your company, paying a bit steeper price may not matter
anymore since you will eventually earn it back with the huge returns that the
marketing campaign promises.

Several big organizations have realized that email marketing is such a unique
field and most traditional marketing practices just don't keep up with the
online world. So when it comes to choosing your email marketing provider, be
sure to make the right decision for more successful years ahead.

How To Choose The Right Email Marketing Software

There are hundreds of software available in the market that specializes in
email marketing. Choosing the right one may prove to be difficult, whether you
are new to this kind of marketing or already an expert.

But before you choose the right software for your business, you have to first
decide if you are willing to do the full cycle marketing yourself, or you want
to completely outsource the task to a third-party marketing agency. Having a
combination of both is also possible.

If you are a busy person and you want to focus on other important things about
your business, you can opt to outsource your email marketing campaign as it
will not require time and effort on your part. The results of outsourcing your
marketing campaign are usually better because these third-party companies
specialize in this kind of business. There are also instances that their
services will cost you much less.

However, doing full cycle marketing yourself also has its own set of
advantages. Since you are the one doing it, you have full control over the
whole process. You can do whatever you think is best and it provides you more
flexibility. When talking about long term benefits, doing the marketing
yourself can prove to be cheaper than paying an outsourcer regularly.

In case you decide on doing the full cycle marketing yourself, you would need
to choose a good email marketing software to help you in your task. As there
are hundreds of software around, it may be difficult to find the good one.

Tips on Picking the Right Ones

To guide you on choosing the right email marketing software that will work best
for your campaign, here are some tips that you can follow:

1. Buy software that has its own specialization. Yes, it may be cool to buy a
software that can do a lot of things in one package. However, it is not what
you want because it may not be able to do best what you really want in a
software. These all-in-one software are also complicated to operate most of the
time since it allegedly does a lot of functions.

Email marketing has several segments -- getting email addresses, managing them,
creating message, sending the email and analyzing the results. Thus, it is
really best to choose a software that specializes and focuses its functions on
email marketing itself.

2. Choose a software that can easily be incorporated with other mass mailing
software and email marketing services. It should also be not vendor specific.

3. Pick a software that is simple to use and will work for most computers. The
software that you choose should also not require any additional application or
hardware for it to run properly.

4. A good email marketing software should also be something that will allow you
to pause or terminate the application even in the middle of the process. It may
not sound significant at first, but in the long run when your marketing volume
increases, you will realize the importance of that feature.

5. Email marketing is a dynamic process. It is ever changing and rapidly
growing in the marketing arena. If the software that you are looking to
purchase is a product of a company that actually specializes in Movie Players,
then it may not be the best to choose. This software may not be able to keep up
with the rapid pace of the industry. Thus, it is best to buy from a company that
specializes in email marketing.

These things are just some guidelines to give you an idea of what should a good
email marketing software be. You can read reviews of these software from
different sites to know what their pros and cons are.

Make a list of a number of software that you think will work for you. Then try
to search for more reviews about them. Knowing what their users say about the
product will give you an idea how the product works.

Try to also check if the software has a free trial version. If so, take that
opportunity to try the product and get the feel of it. This will help you
decide better on choosing the best software that will do its job and one that
is user-friendly as well.

Bulk Email Marketing: How Will It Affect Your Business?

There are many different marketing strategies nowadays. People are getting more
and more creative in advertising with the addition of recent technologies.
Getting other people to know about a new product or service in the market has
now become much easier because of the advent of the internet.

The invention of the internet or the World Wide Web is the most innovative and
useful tool for any kind of business. It provides for easier communication with
different people from different parts of the globe. It also allows sharing of
ideas, concepts or anything you can think of with other people a lot faster and
better.

One way to communicate over the internet is thru email. You can send almost
anything thru email to another person. Organizations and establishments utilize
this tool a lot to promote their products to the most number of people possible.

That is how the concept of bulk email marketing emerged. Bulk email marketing
can be defined in two ways depending on who is being asked. Some people refer
to it as a way of marketing -- mass marketing, direct marketing, or opt-in list
-- of a product or service to more than one individual simultaneously thru their
email addresses. This is the point of view of the senders of these email
messages.

However, most people refer to this kind of marketing technique as SPAM. These
people are usually those who receive these marketing and advertising emails.
SPAM has become a universal term that refers to any unwanted, unproductive and
unethical activity done over the internet. For bulk email marketing, SPAM
refers to unsolicited junk email.

Commercial emails have benefits both for the consumers and the business.
However, this has been abused by many companies. Almost all commercial emails
now are being tagged as SPAM even if they contain legitimate information.

That is why bulk email marketing may be dangerous for your business. Once a
single email from your company is labeled as SPAM, it may cause your entire
company's email addresses to be blocked by the email service providers such as
AOL, YAHOO and MSN. Moreover, your site can be blocked, too, by the search
engines, and worst, it may be kicked off your hosting service provider.

Getting rid of SPAM emails and sites is what most ISPs, hosts and search
engines want. These people that they consider spammers cause annoyance to their
customers and a huge waste of their bandwidth. That is why they do take action
once they get a sufficient number of complaining customers.

Given these information, it is best to think twice before sending email
advertisements to several people. You may be able to buy email addresses from
those companies claiming that those people opted-in to receive your messages
and promise a huge conversion rate. But better think again. These companies may
just be fooling you to make money.

Thus, it might be best to think of other ways to send advertisements or promote
your products. It can still be possible with the concept of bulk email
marketing. The only difference is, instead of sending the email advertisements
to unknown people, send it to your existing customer base.

You can create an email that seems like a follow up, then you can add your
advertisement for your new product that they may also be interested in. Then
you can also ask for a few referrals from them who may also be interested in
your product. Doing this will make your way of advertising more legitimate. In
case that someone will accuse you of sending spam email, you can prove to them
otherwise by showing proof of relationship with the customer such as receipt of
purchase or an email from them.

In case you are just starting your business and have no existing client base
yet, you may want to advertise first using other methods than sending bulk
email. You may risk losing your business that has not even started yet.

There are several ways to promote a product or service over the internet. You
just have to be creative and imaginative. Marketing and advertising are
critical factors to your business' success. Make sure you do it in a nice and
professional manner; else, you will be in for some trouble once your commercial
email is tagged as spam.

Building Email List Based on Permission

The biggest challenge for email marketers is to build a cost effective list.
This is because at least thirty percent of the email addresses change on most
lists. Therefore, marketers have to go for a more aggressive approach in order
to expand the list and to get more significant investment returns.

Taking permission is the basic key to maintaining a almost constant email list,
along with other steps. Permission is certainly not the optional thing. If
permission is not taken it means direct landing up as a spam complaint or even
greater, breaking the U.S Law for spamming. The sign up form should be featured
on every web page. No opportunity should be missed for turning the visitor into
a subscriber. Subscription value can be enhanced by adding sample emails,
screenshot of an email, testimonials and good copy on the sign up and
registration page. To attract more number of subscribers, incentives can be
offered upon signing up. The incentives can be as small as white papers and as
big as special discounts. Incentives increase the conversion rates to great
extent.

Today everything is becoming search engine optimized. Therefore it is the need
of the hour to optimize the website in order for the website to land in first
hundred search result. The current and archived web pages and newsletters must
be optimized for increasing the traffic rate of the website and subscription
rate. Search services such as Google AdWords can be made use of, for including
subscription link on the landing page and for promotion of the website. Opt-in
check boxes must be added on the demo requests, registration forms and white
papers. This increases the conversion rates by at least fifty percent.

Very simple method to increase new subscription is by including the
'Send-to-a-friend' option. If the current subscribers find an email
interesting, there are greater chances that the email be liked by their friends
too. And if they like the emails, there is an even greater chance that they will
subscribe to receive future emails. Email subscription can also be encouraged by
print ads, catalogs, direct mails, radio and television. Employees can be
directed to include the 'Subscribe to the company's newsletter' link in their
signature lines. The sales employees and customer support can ask customers
whether they would like to receive promotional email, in appropriate
situations. Sign up forms can be distributed at seminars and public speaking
engagements and presentation on newsletters can be given at such locations.
Permission can be taken to include opt-in forms in trade show lead generation
forms so that booth visitors can subscribe.

If the postal information of the customers is in the database, post cards can
be sent to them which ask them to subscribe to newsletters. Sign-ups can be
promoted in transactional and confirmation emails. It is optional to include
opt in link on receipts of credit card, product registration cards, invoices
and warranty. The company's email and newsletters can be promoted in other
company's publications. Sites and industry directories can also be used for
promotion. Product shipping boxes are the next important place to include the
opt-in form. Many catalogers and retailers even include promotional offers of
non-competing companies. Newsletters which have topical articles can be used
for press release, along with information such as how to subscribe and content
being offered. This option is useful to smaller companies.

Bringing the Customers to You with a Contest

Internet citizens and anyone who has used email for any length of time knows
that they have to be on the alert for unwanted emails. This suspicion is one of
the reasons it is difficult to use unsolicited emails for internet marketing any
more.
Instead a far more effective method is to create excitement in customers you
already know is through some promotion that they want to hear about in their
email box. And when they are excited to see your emails arrive, they will be
sure to add your business email address to their favored email contacts list
and you will have circumvented the spam software problem that has been the
cause of your email delivery problems all along.

There are many ways to generate excitement in your customer base but perhaps no
other one is so additive for your customers as a contest. For the cost of a
small prize, people will work tirelessly to satisfy the terms of the contest.
And by structuring the contest so the customers must get their clues via email,
you are opening that door of email communications for future promotions and
marketing. That alone might be worth the price of the prize.

The great thing about creating a contest is you can structure how it works to
take the customers to your web site or have them collect clues that are
directly related to y our products or services and the contest itself can
become a big marketing "commercial" that the customers want to be part of. A
contest, along with the obvious value of helping to resolve your email
deliverability problems, can serve to generate web site traffic and energize a
sluggish site or a function on your web site that you want to see get more
attention.

Do you have a blog that isn't getting enough traffic? Hide a clue on it and
challenge the contestants to come and search for that clue. Want to see a
banner ad get more clicks, let the contestants know the next clue is hidden
behind that banner ad and then put the clue on your affiliates page. The clicks
to that banner or affiliate link will skyrocket. You can often cover the costs
of the promotion and the prize through the increased traffic to your web site
entirely.

An online contest can also help drive business to a brick and mortar retail
operation that you may be using your web presence to support. This is a
wonderful way to meet your online customers face to face by using the contest
to take the customers to your store to look for a clue. As they move through
the aisles of the store, in addition to eagerly looking for the next step of
the contest, they will be shopping and very often, buying things which is
exactly what you are looking for.

A contest that you set off via email is also a powerful viral marketing tool.
Your customers will naturally tell their friends and relatives about the
contest. And as more people hear about the contest, you may see a surge of
requests to join in on the fun coming through your online message services.
Just be sure to take those customers to an email registration so you can
harvest their email addresses and get your business email placed on their
favored contacts list too. In that way you cleverly expand your marketing base
while drawing new customers to your web site.

You may find that once you get started having contests via email and contests
that incorporate every aspect of your online presence, it might become a habit
you want to repeat often. The increased traffic, sales and expansion of your
customer base can be so lively that there is no reason not to use this
marketing tool often.

Advertise, Do not Spam

There is a fine line between advertising and spam and unfortunately many
business owners do not understand the difference between the two. This is
important because while a cleaver, well planted Internet marketing campaign can
help to attract new customers and keep existing customers loyal, spam is likely
to alienate both new customers and existing customers. This can be extremely
damaging to profit margins for the business owners. This article will take a
look at a few basic Internet marketing strategies such as banner ads, email
campaign and message board posts and describe how each can quickly cross the
line from cleaver advertising to spam.

Banner ads are one of the most popular strategies which accompany an Internet
marketing plan. These ads are usually ads which appear at the top of websites
and span the width of the website. It is from this appearance that they earned
the name banner ads but actually banner ads can refer to ads of a variety of
different sizes and shapes which appear in an array of different locations on a
website. In many cases the business owner purchases advertising space on these
websites but the banner ad may also be placed as part of an exchange or an
affiliate marketing campaign. Banner ad exchanges are situations in which one
business owner posts a banner ad on his website in exchange for another
business owner posting his banner ad on the other website. These agreements may
be made individually between business owners with complementary businesses or as
part of exchanges facilitated by a third party. In the case of affiliate
marketing, an affiliate posts and advertisement for your business in exchange
for compensation when the banner ad produces a desired effect such as
generating website traffic or generating a sale. The terms of these agreements
are determined beforehand and are generally based on a scale of pay per
impression, pay per click or pay per sale or lead.

Now that you understand what banner ads are, it is also important to understand
how they can be overused and appear to be spam. Judiciously placing your banner
ad on a few websites which are likely to attract an audience similar to your
target audience is smart marketing, placing your banner ad on any website which
will display the ad regardless of the target audience can be construed as spam.
Internet users who feel as though your banner ads are everywhere they turn will
not likely take your business seriously and are not likely to purchase products
or services from you as a result of your banner ads.

Email campaigns can also be very useful tools in the industry of Internet
marketing. These campaigns may involve sending periodic e-newsletters filled
with information as well as advertisements, short, informative email courses or
emails offering discounts on products and services. Loyal customers who opt into
your email list will likely not view these emails as spam and may purchase
additional products and services from your business as a result of this
marketing strategy. Additionally, potential customers who have specifically
requested additional information on your products and services will also find
this type of marketing to be useful. However, email recipients who did not
request information are likely to view your emails as spam. Harvesting email
addresses in a deceptive manner and using these addresses to send out mass
emails will likely always be considered to be spam.

Finally, message boards provide an excellent opportunity for business owners to
obtain some free advertising where it will be noticed by members of the target
audience. If the products and services you offer appeal to a specific niche, it
is worthwhile to join message boards and online forums related to your industry
of choice. Here you will find a large population of Internet users who may have
an interest in your products. You might consider including a link to your
business in your signature or posting the link when it is applicable to the
conversation. However, care should be taken to carefully review the message
board guidelines to ensure you are not doing anything inappropriate. This
technique is smart marketing. Conversely, replying to every message with a link
to your website when it is not relevant to the conversation is likely to be
construed as spam by other members. Once they begin to view your posts as spam,
they are not likely to visit your website via the links you post.

A Good Mailing List for a Bad One.

If you have ever used a mass mailing email marketing campaign, you know how
they promote their services. The appeal is that, in theory, the service has
collected a large amount of valid email addresses that they guarantee will go
to real potential internet customers. For a fee, they will take your marketing
message and broadcast it to that large customer base and the outcome will be
that you will see a percentage of those customers visit your web site or
respond to the email and from that percentage, a smaller percentage will become
paying customers of yours.

There are two problems with this marketing model. The first one is that no
matter how you dress it up, by buying into that kind of marketing program, you
are becoming a spammer. Now, it is bad enough that the explosion of spam in the
email world has made life difficult for the average cyber citizen and that those
cyber citizens are the human beings you want to turn into your customers. But a
by product of spam has also made life a lot harder for you and I, the average
internet marketing business person.

Life has gotten harder for us because of spam because of the reactionary
explosion of spam filtering software being used by internet citizens and ISPs
as well and those filtering programs are aggressive and successful which means
many of your emails never make it to the customers but disappear into spam
holding tanks to eventually be deleted. So because of this fresh problem, email
delivery failures have skyrocketed which has seriously harmed the value of email
marketing which is what we were hoping to use to prosper our online businesses
in the first place. Ironic, isn't it?

The second problem with that marketing model is that the large email mailing
list that the service brags about is of dubious value. For one thing, you may
or may not know how they harvested those emails. The odds that every one of
those email addresses is a valid customer email are very low. You have low
confidence in that mailing list and the only thing that makes up for that low
confidence is the huge number of email addresses that they have on that mailing
list.

A large mailing list is not a good mailing list if it results in a low
percentage of new customers, customers who purchase at low basket totals and
customers who do not return for repeat sales. This is why a new marketing model
is called for that abandons the mass mailing approach and abandons your
participation in spam which only makes you an accessory to the crime.

That new marketing model calls for you to look to your existing customer base
of clients who are already active users of your products and services and begin
to build a much smaller but much higher value email mailing list of customers
you actually know and that you know are high volume buyers who come back again
and again to buy from you. This approach to building your email list starts at
the end, with customers who already fit the profile of what you are looking for
and it builds out from there.

You can use that solid customer base to then build a larger customer base that
will also be loyal customers who will return solid sales to you for your
efforts. Through referrals, viral marketing, contests and give aways, you can
excite your customer base to share their love of your products and your web
site and bring in like minded friends and family members who will then become
part of your high quality mailing list as well. Then you repeat the process and
build your mailing list slowly over time.

This process results in a much smaller mailing list but one that you can be
confident that they will respond to your emails. Whereas working with a mass
marketing service, you may see a 1% response rate and a 1% sales rate from that
response group, you can look for a much higher percentage of response and sales
from your high quality email contact list because you already know them and you
know they will come back again and again to buy from you.

7 Ways To Make Money Using Nothing More Than Your List

An opt-in list can be quite crucial to any site or internet based company. Even
for a small venture such as a niche profit site an opt-in list can make a world
of difference and also add some extra income for your pocket. Rarely would you
see an e-commerce site, big or small, that is without an opt-in list.

An opt-in list allows for a company to market their wares and site via an
e-mail. With an opt-in list, a site and a subscriber consents to sending and
receiving a newsletter from your company. Through this, you can keep your
subscribers abreast of what is currently available in your site as well as
whatever is coming out.

And because there is mutual consent between the two parties, any mail sent to
the list is not considered as spam mail. There is a great number of
successfully read promotional materials such as catalogs, newsletters and such
that are sent because the subscribers themselves have signed up for them,
meaning, they do want to be sent those items.

Building a list is crucial, only a small percentage actually subscribes for an
opt-in list. Many people find promotional mails annoying but of you provide a
good newsletter or promotional material, you will see your list build up and
grow. You can also achieve this by having good content on your site. If people
like what they see and read on your site, then they surely would want more.
Newsletters would be a way to attract them back to your site. A little teaser
or appetizer if you will.

But other than marketing your wares and your services, an opt-in list can also
be used to earn extra profit. Not all lists can be used though. It would be
good to first build a successful list with a huge number of subscribers. The
more subscribers you have, the more money you can get. Here are seven ways to
make money using nothing more than your list.

1) Place advertisements. There are many corporations who will be willing to pay
to put their banners and ads on a list with many subscribers. Selling or renting
out lists is not a good idea so rather than doing that, many companies would
just rather place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. Your
newsletter could be placed with many ads and each one spells money.

2) Have affiliations with other companies that have at least a semblance or
relation to what your site is about. Here other companies will provide links
and brief descriptions of what they offer, products and services. With every
click made on the link that directs or leads a subscriber from your list to
their site, the company will pay you. This P4P or pay for performance.

3) Make deals with other companies by asking for a small percentage of sales
done through your list. With every sale done by customers that have come from
your list and have gone there because of your newsletter, the other company
will pay you a small percentage of your sales. The more people who buys from
them, the more earnings you get.

4) You may also get products from other sites on a consignment basis and sell
them to your list via your newsletter. Place descriptions, articles and photos
of the product in your newsletter. There will be those who will buy from you
and when that happens, you can order the product from the other site and sell
it to your buyer.

5) Sell e-books or a compilation of your articles on your list. Manuals and
how-to articles are in great demand. Many people will be willing to shell out
money to gain knowledge about a certain topic and subject. With your existing
list trusting your expertise in that area, an e-book could be offered and sold
or used as an incentive.

6) Create a network out of your list. Get people to invite more people to view
your site and subscribe to your list. The larger your list is, the more people
will be able to click on your links and affiliate links as well as make your
advertisement rates higher.

7) Subscribers are willing to pay for information if they know that it can be
trusted and relied upon. Use your list to get more and more people to subscribe
to you as well as browse your site. Lastly, you can use your list to earn money
by making them your partners. Your list will be the bloodline of your growth
and increase.

5 Things To Consider When Publishing A Newsletter

Providing a newsletter for your opt-in list subscribers provides many benefits
in terms of driving traffic into your site as well as boosting the sales and
profits of your site and company. This is a marketing ploy that will not hugely
dent your marketing budget and will not also require many man-hours in
developing this project.

With a newsletter, you can inform the public about your company and products as
well as services. You can keep them posted and updated about what's going-on
with your company as well as many of your promotions and offerings. With these,
you keep on reminding your subscribers that you are still here and is willing to
offer them good deals and services.

Newsletters also allow you to impress your subscribers. It can show your
expertise and knowledge about the topic at hand and the many benefits you can
offer them. When you impress people, they will become potential customers and
another great thing is that they can recommend you to their friends, colleagues
and family. All of them could very well be customers in the future.

If you do not have a newsletter or publishing one for your site, then you may
have to consider about researching and be well informed on how to publish one.
It is not as easy as it seems but if and when you get the right idea and
process, it will be smooth sailing from there on. Try to take the time to learn
what you need to learn and get that newsletter ready and good to attract
subscribers to your newsletter as well as traffic to your site.

In the next few paragraphs, I will provide you with some things to reflect on
when you decide to start your own newsletter for your site. Here are five
things to consider when publishing a newsletter.

1) Make sure that the content of your newsletter pertains to and closely
associated with your business or the theme of your site. Do not dwell too far
on what could be regarded as your field of expertise. You have started a site
and your theme for your site will always be something you are knowledgeable
about. For example; if you have a site that sells auto car parts, your
newsletter must contain articles or content like photos that pertain to cars,
auto parts and such. You may also include content about your company and your
staff.

Remember that visitors of a certain site are there because they are interested
in what the site has to offer. If they sign up for an opt-in list or for a
newsletter this means that they want to be updated for that certain theme or
subject. Be sure that when you publish your newsletter you are providing for
the need of the subscriber as well as their interests.

2) Ensure that you have well written, information riddled and content rich
articles. You articles will be the body of your newsletter and that they should
be able to excite your readers as well as provide information. Articles should
be well written and checked for errors such as spelling and grammatical errors
for it to look professional and believable. The trust of your client to you and
newsletter is at stake here.

3) Fact-check your articles. Make sure that you provide true facts and figures
so that your reputation as an expert and knowledgeable in that field is not
questioned. If you lose the trust of your subscribers these may persuade them
to unsubscribe to your newsletter. You will lose many potential sales this way.

4) Provide fresh and new articles that can provide new information to your
subscribers. If you publish stale and old news in your newsletter, there is a
tendency that people or your subscribers already have read and known about
them. This will lose their interest in your newsletter and they wont get to
read what is most important, your ads. They may not open or read any of your
succeeding newsletters losing your intention in writing and publishing
newsletters, to get them to visit your site and make a purchase.

5) Never use copyrighted materials such as photos and articles. This is
outright plagiarism, you may get into a lot of trouble for this. You can lose
your business and get sued over copyright infringement. If you do not have the
time to write your own articles, there are many willing and able professional
article writers that can do it for you for a reasonable fee. All your
investment in writing and publishing articles will be well worth it when you
see your list build up and your traffic increasing.

4 Ways To Get Your Opt In Subscribers To Trust You Quickly

While the rest of the world have developed many barriers and protections to
keep their e-mail accounts spam-free, there are also those that subscribe to
mails that promotes their products, services and their site. This is mainly
because these subscribes wants to know more about what these sites are offering
and can be beneficial for them. They expect to get be kept posted on what they
are interested in and what are new in the market or field they have chosen.

Businesses would be so lucky to have these kinds of customers; the basic
element needed to get these types of people is trust. When your customers trust
you they will reward you with their loyalty. Many internet users have gone to
great lengths in protecting their email accounts from spam mail. Some free-mail
internet providers and internet service providers offer spam protection while
there are also some internet based companies that screen your mails for you.

With an opt-in mail list, the mails you send containing your promotional
materials such as newsletters, catalogs and marketing media will go through.
Your intended recipient will be able to read and view what you have sent making
it a successful transfer of information. To be able to be allowed to do so, you
will need permission from your recipient, to get this permission; you need to
be able to get their trust. With the great lack of disregard for privacy in the
internet, getting the trust of an internet user you don't personally know is a
big achievement.

To build a good opt-in list you need people to trust you, for a faster and
quicker build up, you need to get your opt-in subscribers to trust you quickly.
The faster you build your opt-in list the faster word about your site and
company gets to be spread. The bigger the scope of your opt-in list the more
traffic you get spelling more profits. Its easy math if you thin about it.
Getting the numbers is not that simple though, or maybe it is?

* Getting the trust of your clientele shouldn't be so hard especially if you
do have a legitimate business. Getting your customers trust should be based
upon your expertise. People rely on other people who know what they are talking
about. Garner all the knowledge and information about your business. Ell,
frankly if you decide to go into a business most probably you have an interest
in it. Like how many basketball payers become coaches, you don't really venture
into something you don't have any interest in.

* Show your clients that you know what you are talking about. Provide them
with helpful hints and guidelines that pertain to what you are selling. Talk
about how to install a roof if your into hardware products or provide articles
on insurance settlements if you're a settlement lawyer. You don't have to be a
big corporation to make use of an opt-in list. If your customers see you as
someone who knows what he is doing and saying, they will trust you quickly.

* Be true to your customers, if you want to hype up your products and
services, provide guarantees. The more satisfied customers you get, the bigger
probability there is that they will recommend you. Generally, people will trust
someone they know, when that someone recommends you then you're a shoo-in. They
will go to your site and check it for themselves and be given a chance to
experience what the other shave experienced from you, so make sure to be
consistent in the service you provide.

* Another tip in getting a customer to trust you quickly is to provide them an
escape hatch. Show them that you are not there to trap them. Keep a clean list
that would enable them to unsubscribe anytime they want. Elaborate your web
form by providing information on how to unsubscribe from the list. Guarantee
them that they can let go of the service when ever they want to. Many are wary
that they may be stuck for life and would have to abandon their email accounts
when they get pestered with spam.

Remember that when you get the trust of your clients don't lose that trust.
Because if you do anything with their email addresses like sell them or give
them out, you will lose many members of your list as ell as potential members.
The true quickest way to gain the trust of your subscribers is when you are
recommended by someone they trust.

4 Crucial Things You Need To Do To Build your List

Online marketing may have developed a sudden surge these past few years, but
many in the know how have felt its rise even from way then. As more internet
based businesses are put up, the need to develop new marketing skills and
knowledge based on this new medium have arisen. More and more marketing
strategies are being discovered and developed to cope with the changing face of
business the business world.

The demand for online marketing tips and strategies have drastically grown and
a new form of business has been born, internet marketing strategies. While
there are companies that are all too eager to help your site and business build
a clientele for a fee, there also many ways that can spread the word about your
sites subsistence in a more cost free way. One of this is Opt-in email
marketing, also known as permission marketing.

Opt-in marketing requires the permission of a willing customer to subscribe to
your marketing materials, materials that take form in newsletters, catalogs and
promotional mailings via e-mail. The more opt-in marketing mail is sent, the
more chances there is to bag sales and more sales. To do this, you must build a
list of all those who wants to subscribe to your opt-in marketing list.

From your list, you will get your targeted customer, this is a good list since
they already have shown interest in what you have to show and sell since they
have willingly signed in for your list. These are the people who have liked
what they have seen in your site and have decided they want to see more and
maybe even purchase what ever product or service your company and site has to
offer.

Many people would think that building their lists would take hard work and a
lot of time to build and collect names and addresses. This is not so, it takes
a bit of patience and some strategies but in doing this list, you open your
site and your business to a whole new world of target market. Take the effort
to take your business to a new level, if traffic increase and good profits are
what you want, an opt-in list will do wonders for your business venture.

There are many sources and articles in the internet available for everyone to
read and follow in building a list. Sometimes they may be confusing because
there are so many and there different ways. Different groups of people would
have different approaches in building an opt-in list, but no matter how diverse
many methods are, there are always some crucial things to do to build your list.
Here are four of them.

1) Put up a good web form in your site that immediately follows the end of your
content. While some may say this is too soon to subscribe for a website visitors
application, try to remember that your homepage should provide a quick good
impression. If somehow a website visitor finds something that he or she doesn't
like and turns them off, they may just forget about signing up.

A good web form for subscribing to an opt-in list is not hard to do. Just write
a simple short statement about how they would like to see more and get updated
about the site. Then there should be an area where they could put in their
names and e-mail address. This web form will automatically save and send you
the data's inputted. As more people sign in, your list will be growing.

2) As mentioned in the first tip, make your homepage very, very impressive. You
need to have well written articles and descriptions of your site. Depending on
what your site is all about, you need to capture your website visitor's fancy.
Make your site useful and very easy to use. Do not expect everyone to be tech
savvy. Invest in having good programming in your site, make your graphics
beautiful but don't over do it.

Don't waste your time making the homepage too overly large megabyte wise. Not
all people have dedicated T1 connections, the faster your site gets loaded, the
better. Go for a look that borders between simplicity and sophisticated
knowledge.

3) Provide good service and products. A return customer is more likely to bring
in more business. Even then and now, a satisfied customer will recommend a
business always. Word of mouth and recommendations alone can rake in more
business than an expensive ad. As your clientele roster grows so shall your
list. With more members on the list, the more people will get to know about
what you have new to offer.

4) Keep a clean and private list. Never lose the trust your customers have
entrusted you. If you provide e-mails to others and they get spammed, many will
probably unsubscribe to you. Remember, a good reputation will drive in more
traffic and subscribers as well as strengthen the loyalty of your customers.

The 3 Things To Avoid When Emailing Your List

When you decide to have an opt-in list, it is not just a matter of sending your
subscribers your promotional newsletters or catalogs. There are many things to
consider in avoiding many complications. While there are so many ways you can
make people subscribe to your list, there are also some things you must do to
avoid subscribers from wanting to get off from your list.

Aside from that, you also want to avoid any problems with the law and your
internet service provider or ISP. There are now many laws and rules that are
applied to help protect the privacy of the internet users from spamming and
unwanted mails. With the popularity of the electronic mail as a medium for
marketing because of the low cost, many company's have seized the opportunity
and have flooded many people's e-mail accounts with promotional mail.

But, with an opt-in list, you avoid this annoyance because people subscribe to
the list; they want to receive the newsletters and promotional materials. They
have consented to being on the list by subscribing themselves, just don't
forget to put an unsubscribe feature everytime in your opt-in list so that you
avoid any confusion. There may be times when an email account was provided when
the real owner didn't want to subscribe.

It is essential that you keep your list clean and manageable. Arrange it by
using the many tools and technologies available for your opt-in list. Do not
worry; your investment in this marketing strategy is well worth it with all the
coverage you will get which will likely be converted into sales then to profit.

Keep yourself and your business out of trouble and potential run-ins with the
law and the internet service providers. Keep your operation legit and clean.
Your reputation as a legitimate businessman and a legitimate site depends on
your being a straight and true marketing strategist. As a tip, here are three
things to avoid when emailing your list.

1) Take notice of your unsuccessful sends. These are the e-mails that bounce.
Bounced emails, also known as undeliverable messages, are those messages that,
for whatever reason, were not successfully received by the intended recipient.

There are bounces that happen or occur because the server was busy at that time
but can still be delivered in another time. There are also bounces because the
inbox of the recipient is full at that time. There are those bounce messages
that are simply undeliverable ever. The reason for this is that it may be an
invalid email address, a misspelled email address, or an email address that was
abandoned and erased already.

Manage your list by putting markings on those that bounce. Erase an email
account from your list so that you have an accurate statistics and records as
to how many are actually receiving your mail. You may also want to check the
spellings of your email addresses in your list. One common mistake is when an N
instead of an M is placed in the .com area.

2) Always provide an unsubscribe feature in your site and an unsubscribe link
in your mails. When someone in your list files a request to be unsubscribed,
always take that request seriously. If you don't take them off your list and
keep sending them your e-mails, you are now sending them spam mail.

When you are reported as a spammer, you and your business can get into a lot of
trouble. You can be reported to the authorities and maybe blacklisted by many
internet service providers. You will lose a lot of subscribers this way and
many more in potential subscribers.

3) Do not provide pornographic or shocking and disturbing content in your
newsletters. It is hard to decipher the age of the recipient and many
complaints may stem from these. Controversial issues also are to be avoided to
not be branded by your subscribers. Stick to the nature of your site and
business.

Always remember these tips in this article so that you can have a healthy
relationship with your subscribers as well as be kept within the boundaries of
what is allowed in sending mails to an opt-in list.

3 Quick And Easy Ways To Build A Profitable Opt In List

You finally realize that you need a good opt-in list. After reading countless
articles and sought expert advices and have read many success stories of people
creating a small fortune with opt-in lists you finally decide to have one of
your own. Then it happens, you think you have known everything there is to know
about opt-in lists and have followed their advices to the T and you still
weren't able to make a profit.

In fact, you may be losing money. You maybe hiring writers to help you out, or
there are some expenses incurred, even if you have a big list, but only a very
small percentage actually buys from you, your still losing profit. You'll
realize that after a few months when you see your statistics and sales figures.

So what could have gone wrong? Why have others succeeded where you have failed?
The most common mistake is that you dived straight right in. You chose a topic
where you think could be quite popular and would earn you money. This just not
the case. Just because you wrote people from the list doesn't mean they are
going to buy instantly.

Here I will offer more advice, for those who have started an opt-in list and
have failed, you can rejuvenate your failed venture. For those who are
starting, here are three quick and easy ways to build a profitable opt-in list.

1) Get your customers to trust you and your products first. Just launching your
opt-in list would not make you an expert and a believable seller. Put many
articles first before you start an opt-in list. Write about the topic you know
and have started and used for your site. Try to put forums first to gain
knowledge about your customers about their wants and needs and target those
wants and needs.

Join forums from other sites as well. Provide expert advices and
recommendations. When you feel that people trust you already, you will be able
to start your own opt-in list. You can build a base as well with other forum
users. You can ask them to join your list. Friends are always good customers.
Put up a link to your site so that they may be able to see what you're business
is all about.

The certain truth is, the money will only come in when the consumers and
subscribers believe and trust in you. They want a product or service that could
be a good exchange for their money. People are not going to buy something out of
your recommendation if they don't know you.

2) Find a product or service that people want and need. Although it may not be
your forte, if you provide a service and product that you have researched and
learned about well, you can carry it on forward. Invest your time, effort and
money that you could sell as well as the buyers or subscribers of your opt-in
list can use.

While it is true that it is best to sell something that you have interest in,
there are not many people who have the same interest as you if you decide to
sell something that is not entirely popular or profitable. Do your research
well and you would see the profits come in. Also provide your subscribers with
promotional material that they could actually use and spread around.

3) Make friends with other opt-in list users. This is basically beneficial
especially if it is someone who has already launched a successful opt-in list.
These are people that have the experience in this venture and experience is
still the best teacher. While there are many articles available for you in the
internet to use, there is nothing like getting a first hand account from
someone you trust.

Experienced opt-in list users will be able to tell you what to do and what not
to do because they have gone through it. While different situations occur for
different people, the general concept can still be very helpful. There are many
things to avoid and these people will be able to tell you which ones.

Building a profitable opt-in list don't just happen overnight. There are many
preparations and effort to do. Opt-in lists are built from scratch, as your
list grows, you should also maintain the quality of your list. Keep it
organized and manageable. Get or hire help if need be, just make sure that your
subscribers are happy and satisfied and they will be willing to buy from you.

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