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Email is one of the most effective direct marketing techniques available. When done well it enables us to talk to large numbers of prospects and customers in an instant; alerting them to offers, telling them about new products and services and forming an ongoing relationship.

Done wrong, email marketing emails get deleted without even being viewed. Even worse, our emails can be viewed as annoying spam, damaging the very relationships we are all trying so hard to nurture. So, as professional marketers, how can we ensure our carefully crafted email marketing pieces get read in the first place?

It starts with the subject line

Research has shown that open rates vary enormously, depending on the subject line used. Common sense tells us that punchy subject lines with attention grabbing headlines are going to do better than dull versions. However, it comes as a big surprise to many marketers to learn that the best open rates are from ‘informative’ rather than ‘creative’ subject lines.

One notable study revealed subject lines such as, “[COMPANYNAME] Newsletter – February 2009″ typically outperform lines such as “The Future of International Trade” by a factor of 5 or more. The simple truth is that the best performing subject lines describe the subject of the email. To do something different flies in the face of hard evidence and is only attempted by the very brave or the foolhardy.

Not all email readers display the entire subject line. Just because you use Microsoft Mail doesn’t mean that all your readers do too. Keeping your subject line length below 51 characters will ensure that everyone can see all of your subject line, no matter what email program they are using.

Some words are better than others

Be wary of words that trigger spam filters. The obvious ones are “free” and “discount”. Most spam filtering works by scoring the email according to length, origin, words used, images and so on. Once a threshold has been reached the email is classified as spam and the software rejects it. Even punctuation such as exclamation marks in a subject line can increase your score, bringing you closer to the threshold. If you are unsure about how to avoid spam triggers in your email marketing copy, a professional email broadcaster will be happy to advise you.

Grab Attention above the Fold

In email marketing, preview panes are the equivalent of the copy that falls above the fold of a letter. Preview panes have become the standard way of quickly glancing at an email and deciding whether it’s worth reading or not. In our quest to get our emails read, our mission is to grab attention “above the fold” using our most compelling copy and imagery.

Design and write your email so that your offer, call-to-action, urgency indicator and branding all appear “above the fold”.

Be aware that each email reader will have a different preference for their preview pane. This results in the area available to grab attention being significantly different for each. Design and test your email marketing pieces in different formats to ensure your “above the fold” copy can be viewed in each.

Many preview panes block images by default, so ‘alt tag’ considerations should be included in the creative and design process. Alt tags also help improve accessibility to those with visual impairments. UK Companies are required by law to take reasonable steps to ensure accessibility under the 2005 amendments to the Disability Discrimination Act, so missing out alt tags could prove a costly mistake.

Perhaps because email is so ubiquitous and everyone writes emails every day, companies have a tendency to devalue them. However, as this article has shown, there is a lot to think about when planning an email marketing piece.

A final suggestion is that precisely because there is such a lot to think about and because things are changing so quickly in the world of email marketing, calling a friendly expert once in a while is a great shortcut to success.

Read more on Email Marketing – Getting It Right, Getting It Read…

Many small business owners select to reach out to potential customers through email mailing lists. This is such an effective way of marketing because everyone has an email account. The occurence of the matter is that most borrowers are a lot more wary of emails as opposed to they got in the past. It is important to find a way that you can get potential purchasers to click on your emails and we will offer you some favorably proven email selling info to make it easier for you achieve ideal clickthroughs in this article. <p>Email Marketing Tip – Choose Your Subject Line Carefully One of the best ways to do this is by choosing a good subject line. The subject line is a first impression which is why it needs to be absolutely perfect. By choosing a wonderful subject line you should not get banned from anyone’s email list. Most people traditionally choose to create a mailing list with somewhat in mind whether such a be an age group, economic group, or even a selected niche. <p>The most savvy of marketers have mailing lists from those of us that own posted information about their business. It is of a high total amount importance to still be these people in mind when creating your subject line. You should always try and put yourself in the position of the email user when creating your subject line. You should write a subject line that can resonate among the people on your email list. It is also vital to create a unique subject line that shows you are not just another normal spam email. <p>Email Marketing Tip – Don’t Over Do Punctuation Many people make the mistake of overusing exclamation points and question marks. Doing so will get you banned from someones email list faster than you can say email. If you put a lot of exclamation points or think about marks in the subject lines your email will automatedly be viewed as spam by most email clients. You should also try and avoid the typical spam words such as free or limited time offer. If you use these phrases as enormously as a lot of exclamation points then you serves to definitely get banned from everyones email list quickly. <p>At the same time, it is important to use the proper spelling and grammar when writing your email. This will permit you a lot in the long run when sending out emails to your list. Email Marketing Tip – Don’t Over Email Many first timers make the big mistake of sending more than one email out a day. Doing the will get you banned according to peoples’ email store immediately. Doing so will annoy people on the other end because they will recently view your email as spam. <p>Believe it or not, people do not want to gradually hear about how you have to sell. You should send emails only once and a while. If you send too several emails no one will listen to what you suffer to say. Instead, you should email people less, but put more thought into every and most every email. <p>Email Marketing Tip – Be Genuine Most people make the mistake of along with a subject line that implies the you hold previously talked to the person. Another mistake overly people take in is by coming across as if properties got friends. The majority of folks can spot these kinds of spam emails extremely quickly and will fast mark it as spam. Even if they do open it they will quickly realize what is going on. <p>Just remember, deception is never the best strategy when trying to get someone to visit your website. The best strategy is to be completely honest and to choose an honest and catchy subject line. You should treat your mailing list as an extremely valuable item. The reason for currently is that if you treat customers on your mailing list with sympathy you am able to go far with your business. Doing so will help you establish astronomical relationships with your clients. You can get FREE Internet Marketing Preview Ebook @ http://www.massivecashgenerator2.com.

Read more on Business To Business Email Marketing – How To Use Email That Gets Results…

One of the dimensions of online marketing is email marketing. It is significant for beginners who want to earn money online to learn that email marketing is as simple as composing a letter and send it to everybody’s inbox. The popularity of email marketing in the recent years has made the image of email addresses a very vulnerable medium which spams, bulk mails, and all sorts of newsletters attack. Even this is the case, email marketing remains to be a very powerful business promotion technique in as much as email addresses remain to be people’s private virtual edifice on the World Wide Web.

The web is very generous in giving email marketing tools for beginners, given the fact that a hundred of websites offer free mail hosting. It is just important for beginners to understand that employing email as a marketing strategy must be done with a concrete, comprehensive, and thorough plan. While it is cheaper to get a free email address, it is definitely ideal that the domain in the email address speaks the name of the online marketer’s company. Email readers definitely will pay attention to a bulk of letters if the address from which the mail comes from appears professional. The content, the design, the layout, and every detail of the emails being sent must mirror the online marketer’s business strategy.

Emails are only read if they are personal. Spams already taught us about this. One factor in choosing email marketing tools is picking a program or service that enables sending mails in bulk but are at the same time making each letter very personal. In other words, choose email marketing tools that speed up the sending process, those, for instance, just require the marketer to enter the list of recipient addresses and the content of the letter and then in one click generate unique, personalized letters to everyone. It is important for beginners to learn the different variations of marketing letters, from personalized replies and quotes to customer requests to official newsletters to press releases to personalized mails to auto respond notices. While email is quite a new technology, the ethics and professionalism required in any business setup must be applied in engaging in this marketing medium. Email composition, from language use to letterhead design, must be done painstakingly.

In email marketing, it is just fundamental that the mails being sent are not being thrown in the recipients’ spams or bulk mails. This is where the disadvantage of free mail hosting comes in. Websites offering free email hosting are suspicious in the eyes of email software programs, servers, and systems. So if Internet marketers can really afford it, they should hire email services from credible web institutions instead of sticking to free ones. These email service companies provide a wide array of amazing email marketing tools in as much as they ensure high-speed mail delivery and low to zero rate of bouncing mails. They also provide mechanisms on how to monitor and analyze the behavior of customers toward the mails individually and collectively. Included too in these marketing tools too are evaluation programs that assess periodic market campaigns, volume requests, actual purchases, demographic data, among many others.

Read more on Email Marketing Tools For Beginners…

The recent explosive growth of Internet has opened a lot of opportunities for marketers all around the world. A few years back a new type of marketing called Internet Marketing emerged, and sooner when email became the ultimate mode of communication on the Internet, a new Internet marketing technique was born: Email Marketing.

At first, when the internet marketers found that they can send out information about their products anyway they want through emails, they simply bombarded the email addresses of their existing customers, and also of those who were not on their lists. They sent out emails to public and private email lists, and even paid huge amount of money to get these lists for their broadcasting. When they saw that this is working great, they just keep sending out emails everywhere, and didn’t thought of any strategy to work on while doing that.

Sooner, email marketers from around the globe were just flooding their recipients, most of them never wanted to get any emails of such a sort. Finally, on a mutual agreement email providers all over the Internet implemented the spamming strategy and labeled all the email marketers as scammers. After this, no one even tried to read emails that ends up in their junk or spam folder.

Sometime later, opt-in email marketing strategy came in to place. Every Internet marketer started to use single and double opt-in email marketing strategy, and with this way even the recipients were happy to subscribe to the emails they wish to receive in future and deny requests to emails they don’t wish. However, a personalized catchy subject line with no particular personalized content failed to catch interest of email readers. This strategy also failed, but many still prefers to use it nowadays.

The ultimate email marketing strategy adopted by the Apple Company, I-Tunes, resulted far better than all other from the past. It was simple and efficient. After selecting any artist’s name you like, you can request the opt-in system to inform you via email about any new album or track that comes in. Then you will be expecting emails from I-Tunes that reflect your type of choice, and the significance of this strategy is that you are forced to open every email you receive from them, as the email reflect your favorite choices.
This customized email marketing strategy adopted by I-Tunes did play a very important role in verifying the needs of subscribers, instead of just spamming them or indulging them for un-relevant information. Any new Internet email marketer who wishes to be successful can use this strategy and make his/her business much more fruitful in a shorter period of time.

Read more on The hidden mysteries of Customized Email Marketing…

Email marketing is a type of marketing that uses email as the communication channel between the sender and the receiver. Broadly speaking, all emails sent to current or potential client for marketing a service/product can be considered email marketing. It is vital to understand two things, one – email marketing is the most effective online marketing tactic (second only to search marketing) and second – you cannot perform it manually.

Read more on Top Reasons to Buy Email Marketing Software…

Now is the time for email marketing solutions! As the owner and operator of a small, medium or enterprise-level business venture, you are required to sense the signs of the times and make sure that your business is prepared for the bumpy roads ahead. Sometimes this means cutting budgets. Scaling back your advertising budget doesn’t mean losing contact with your audience. In fact, Email marketing software is a cost effective alternative to big budget advertising.

Email marketing software uses a three point package in order to drive repeat business and help you to garner more business. Whether you are in retail, hospitality, or shipping, Email marketing software uses professional designs, data metrics tracking and comprehensive list management to target your audiences in the most efficient manner.

Your email design:
Online Email marketing software services provide you with hundreds of templates to choose from. As a bonus, they’re also very easy to use. The many varieties available give you options to match your marketing needs, whatever they may be.

If you need to showcase promotions involving various products, you can include images of these products to entice your audience to find out more or to purchase directly. In this case, it is imperative to ensure your digital images are premier in quality. Also, you will be able to link these images to your online sales pages so that interested parties can discover more about your products. This also ties into the effectiveness of the tracking beacon which will be explained later.

If you are sending out text based articles and newsletters, Email marketing software will help you to create different article sections complete with a table of contents, images and attention-grabbing headlines. Also, by adding a “read more” link at the bottom of the text, you will be able to track the results, such as the different people who are clicking on the article of interest to them in your email.

Having a professional design for you Email marketing software campaigns is easily accomplished. It is simply a matter of uploading your digital images and cutting and pasting content into the given fields, then sending it out.

Tracking:
As mentioned earlier, Email marketing software tracking and the design process, are interrelated. Together, these 2 features can really help you to determine your audience’s needs and wants. This is essential in establishing more targeted marketing campaigns, and therefore getting greater success out of your Email marketing software campaigns as you progress.

Email marketing software services provide you with detailed tracking on which of your subscribers have opened your email campaigns, clicked on the links (whether they are images or text), and who has forwarded your emails to other interested parties. This data is accessible through export features, so you can see your data in familiar programs like Excel. You will also be able to follow-up with your leads, as you will have real-time data on each subscriber, including their email address, as well as the time and date they interacted with or responded to your email.

The tracking features of Email marketing software campaign will give you valuable information on your potential clients’ interests. And, the better you know your clients, the better you can service their needs.

List Management:
The best Email marketing software programs will give you a highly comprehensive list manager. You will be able to ensure that you customize your subscriber list in any way, shape, or form that suits your needs.

Once you have data from your first campaigns, and have exported this data, you can now use the list manager to segment your audiences into their various interest groups.

Now the process begins again: recreate your campaigns specifically geared towards the needs and desires of your contact list, enticing them to purchase more and become loyal customers.

Some things to keep in mind about email marketing solutions:
Make sure that people who are visiting your website or entering your store location are adding their emails address to your contact list. Make sure that you are constantly making an effort to grow that contact list so that you can keep the cycle pumping.

Signing up for Email marketing software is really easy to do, and the better services offer you various payment options to suit your budget. The most common are the pre-paid, pay-as-you-go credit system and the monthly unlimited billing plan.

With the pre-paid plan, you purchase an amount of credits up front that suits your marketing strategy. And, because the credits never expire and there are no monthly costs, this method can save you money if your strategy involves sending out campaigns 1-2 times a month or less.

With the monthly unlimited sending, you get an unlimited amount of emails to send, and your fixed monthly cost is based on the size of your list. This works great if your marketing strategy involves sending out several times a month or more.

With these three components available through email marketing solutions, you can establish a cost-effective and targeted relationship with current and future customers. Due to the astronomical costs of big budget advertising and the need to scale back costs in this economic environment, now is the time to start using Email marketing software to drive your repeat business and make more money in tough economic times. Take back the control with email marketing solutions!

Read more on “TheTime is Now” For Email Marketing Solutions…

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

Read more on Choose Your Email Marketing Software Wisely…

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

Read more on 7 Email Marketing Best Practices…

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

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

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

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

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

The Axiom of Value

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Five-Step Process of Permission Email Marketing

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

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

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

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

4. Create a good email template by using a template provided within the email software, having your in-house team create one, or using the custom design services of the email software company.

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

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

Read more on Why Use Permission-Based Email Marketing?…

If you have the products or services that you want to sell on the Internet, you’ll want to create a web site where you’ll advertise what you are offering and you’ll also want to spread a word about your products or services to the world. You can easily and quickly do it via email. Email marketing is certainly one of the most powerful strategies in internet marketing. It’s quick, cost effective – you do not have to pay a set price for every email that is sent out – and allows contact people in all parts of the world. So, you can get more purchasers and respectively more revenue for less investment of time and money.

How does one accomplish bulk email marketing campaign?

You can use online bulk emailing services, or you can pay a marketing firm to do your bulk email promotions, or you can use direct email marketing software to distribute your email campaigns sitting at your computer.

Using software can be the most cost-effective method if you have the time to manage your prospects list and accomplish your email campaigns with a constant frequency.

There is wide choice of direct email marketing software packages available on the Internet market. Some are even freeware programs that don’t require any investment. Although they don’t generally have the value-added features that come with software packages that you purchase; however, if you aren’t running a large email marketing campaign, they may suit your needs for accomplishing specific tasks just fine.

What is Drip Email Marketing?

The concept behind drip email marketing consists in sending periodic emails to prospects and clients hoping to bring them to your website and make them purchase products or services. It is an effective method to generate new purchasers from your prospects and keeping relationship with your existing clients.
Drip Email Marketing tactic results from the idea that nobody purchases online products or services instantly. A visitor can come to your web site a few times before he becomes a purchaser. Keeping this in mind, how are you going to stimulate your prospects’ interest to your site and keep them informed about your products and services? This is where a drip email marketing campaign is quite to the point.

Imagine that a prospect has just visited your site and left you the email address. It’s important to note that you should add a sign-in form to your web site to collect the prospects’ email addresses. It’s rather useful if your sign-in form asks the subscriber to provide some about additional and not only the email address. I’m not talking about private information. I’m talking about the subscriber’s area of interest, hobbies, specific needs, or at least the emails he prefers to receive, text or HTML. All this information will help you segment your prospects and send more relevant email messages to each group.

So, based on the subscribers’ preferences, you set up a drip email marketing campaign catered to their specific needs. Each message you send them give more information about their inquiries slightly hinting them at you and your products or services. It is an importunate way to stamp your name in their mind. Remember, you don’t sell anything yet. You just give an advice and information about their particular needs and wishes.

For your existing clients, a drip email marketing campaign is similar. You only need to tailor the emails so they are oriented to the client after purchase. Your email drips must contain relevant information that can help the customer with the products or services he purchased. The customer must be sure that you are always there to assist him. When your client believes that you are a faithful and reliable partner, he is ready to purchase again from you.

It may probably sound like you will need more than one tool to accomplish your drip email marketing campaign. But you can find many programs on the Internet that can handle your growing lists of prospective and present clients. Our email management software must be flexible enough to treat each client or prospect according to the routine of your drip email campaign.

The most important thing to remember about drip email marketing is that you must not send meaningless emails. Each message must have an informative content, a real reason to contact your prospects and clients, not just a note saying “Hi!” or “How are you?”.

If your drip marketing email cannot keep the client’s interest, it will be deleted immediately next time when they read the sender’s email address. We all are busy people and won’t spend our time for dull messages. If you are trying to build the relationship based on trust and faith, you cannot tolerate that they never open your emails. You can start directly from the subject line. The subject itself must grab people’s attention and make them want to read your message. This is the essential concept behind a drip email marketing campaign – to develop a trust and faithful relationship with your customer by sending valuable information. When the rapport of informative and useful emails is established, your clients and prospects will be looking forward for every email from you and they will even recommend your company and your products to others. Isn’t it exactly what you want for you business? I’m sure it is.

Read more on Direct Drip Email Marketing Tactic…