By Sean Kenaston
In 2006, 40% of all email sent throughout the world was considered SPAM. This begs the question, “Will my email get to my subscribers?”
Every day it gets harder to determine if an email is legitimate; users find it difficult to distinguish between legitimate emails and spam. Spammers continue to find clever ways to bypass email filters and as a result the filters increasingly block valid emails in a desperate attempt to keep up. Many marketers find filters frequently catch their commercial emails.
The sheer volume of spam people receive has also created other problems. People will often mistake valid commercial emails, from mailing lists they’ve subscribed to, as spam and thus the email never gets opened. As this trend continues, some experts predict email will no longer be a useful marketing tool.
What can you do to avoid being marked as spam?
The best thing you can do is limit as many factors that may cause your email to be flagged as spam as possible:
* If you’re not doing so already, use a double opt-in mailing list. This will ensure they do in fact want to receive emails from you, plus they will recognize your name, which prevents any emails you send from being mistaken as spam.
* Once a subscriber has signed up to the mailing list, display a message on the website that tells them to add your email address to their white list to prevent it from being flagged as spam.
* Send your email as plain text. Avoid HTML emails as those tend to get picked up by the filters a lot more than plain text.
* Avoid using high threat key words such as ‘Free’, ‘Discount’, ‘Offer’, and ‘Money’ in your subject line as well as the email body. Most spammers these days are smart enough not to use these, but filters will still pick up on them and consider your email suspicious. If you need to use these types of keywords, you can space them out like ‘F r e e’, or include separating characters like ‘O-f-f-e-r’.
Will people abandon email for another electronic medium?
It’s difficult to tell where email marketing will be a year from now. In 2004, Bill Gates predicted there would be an end to all spam by 2006. Well, I don’t need to tell you that the exact opposite has occurred – there is more spam today than ever before, and there is no sign it will be letting up any time soon. It will only continue to get harder to find ways around the problem.
The good news is email marketing has already stood its ground. When blogs and podcasts emerged, many believed they would replace email as the dominant marketing media, but it did not happen. Yes, people embraced blogs and podcasts, but they still subscribed to mailing lists as they had before, despite the spam.
Email is still a strong marketing media and every indication shows that it will remain useful in the years to come. Unless everyone in the world suddenly decides to stop using email, there will always be a way to reach subscribers on the web this way.
About the Author:
Sean Kenaston is an Associate Editor at Ratings Hub - the first and only ad and affiliate link free site that provides 100% user-based reviews of various Internet marketing products and services. It is absolutely free and it’s the only place on the Internet offering completely unbiased feedback on products used by every type of marketer, from beginner to guru and everyone in between. Please visit www.ratingshub.no-nonsense-marketing.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_Kenaston
Monday, January 29, 2007
Friday, December 8, 2006
Email Marketing is Not Dead: Top 10 Reasons to Publish an Ezine
By Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D
Email marketing is far from dead, despite the fact it can be a challenge to build an opt-in list of email addresses. Even with the popularity and ease of publishing on blogs, an ezine should be a standard in your online marketing toolbox. Ezines are easy, accessible, inexpensive, instant, and interactive
Here are ten reasons to publish an ezine:
1. Gain name and fame; become widely known as an expert in your field to people you might not ever see or meet. You establish yourself as a thought leader and demonstrate your expertise in a way you could never do on a website or brochure.
2. Cultivate a relationship with your readers; establish trust and credibility. Your ezine is an opportunity to teach, to share interesting information, and to share your philosophy and real life experiences. Readers get to know you. Show them what you know, and also that you care. (There is that old adage that says 'people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care!')
3. Create quality content for your website. When you post your ezines on your website, you increase the chance of search engines picking up your site because you have more pages and more content.
4. Stay in touch with past, present and potential clients. You never know when, where or why a person will contact you for services, so you need to stay in touch, and make it easy for them to contact you. Some say people need to hear from you 5-7 times before they are ready to hire or buy.
5. Give people up-to-date information on programs, services and products you have created that can help them. How else will they know what you have to offer?
6. Create alliances and affiliations with other ezine publishers, programs and service providers that interest your readers. They will love you when you offer solutions from other sources that you don't provide yourself. You become a go-to resource for many of their needs. You can also earn passive income through affiliate programs.
7. Reinforce your branding. Your services may be great, but every business needs a look, a logo, colors, a name, a tag-line quote-things that sum up in one glance the essence or feel of who you are and what your business stands for. Your ezine is one more opportunity to put forth your brand.
8. Expand and grow your database: Ezines can be forwarded to a reader's friends and associates. Your list of subscribers can grow with people you might never come in contact with. You can reach a global audience instead of your local area.
9. Create a two-way dialogue with your readers: Ask your readers questions, survey them about topics, ask for their opinions and feedback. Your ezine can help you keep your finger on the pulse of your ideal clients; you can use their feedback to create more ezine content, or other products such as telecourses and e-books. And this in itself sustains the idea that you are really interested in them and in providing the kinds of services that are important to them: you care.
10. Bottom-line: sales. You turn prospects into clients. Your ezine can be a magnet to your website, to your products, to your services. People are more likely to buy from you when they feel they know you. Ezines are particularly effective for selling services where there may be a long sales cycle and where the relationship is important.
For more leading edge ezine tips go to www.coachezines.com . You can also subscribe to Newsletter Nuggets at www.newsletternuggets.com. Get Patsi's Secrets of Successful Ezines 7-Step Mini-Course to learn what you need to know to publish a successful ezine. snipurl.com/Ezine_MiniCourse Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D. is a writer and Internet Marketing expert with over 7 years experience marketing online and founder of Customized Newsletter Services.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patsi_Krakoff,_Psy._D
Email marketing is far from dead, despite the fact it can be a challenge to build an opt-in list of email addresses. Even with the popularity and ease of publishing on blogs, an ezine should be a standard in your online marketing toolbox. Ezines are easy, accessible, inexpensive, instant, and interactive
Here are ten reasons to publish an ezine:
1. Gain name and fame; become widely known as an expert in your field to people you might not ever see or meet. You establish yourself as a thought leader and demonstrate your expertise in a way you could never do on a website or brochure.
2. Cultivate a relationship with your readers; establish trust and credibility. Your ezine is an opportunity to teach, to share interesting information, and to share your philosophy and real life experiences. Readers get to know you. Show them what you know, and also that you care. (There is that old adage that says 'people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care!')
3. Create quality content for your website. When you post your ezines on your website, you increase the chance of search engines picking up your site because you have more pages and more content.
4. Stay in touch with past, present and potential clients. You never know when, where or why a person will contact you for services, so you need to stay in touch, and make it easy for them to contact you. Some say people need to hear from you 5-7 times before they are ready to hire or buy.
5. Give people up-to-date information on programs, services and products you have created that can help them. How else will they know what you have to offer?
6. Create alliances and affiliations with other ezine publishers, programs and service providers that interest your readers. They will love you when you offer solutions from other sources that you don't provide yourself. You become a go-to resource for many of their needs. You can also earn passive income through affiliate programs.
7. Reinforce your branding. Your services may be great, but every business needs a look, a logo, colors, a name, a tag-line quote-things that sum up in one glance the essence or feel of who you are and what your business stands for. Your ezine is one more opportunity to put forth your brand.
8. Expand and grow your database: Ezines can be forwarded to a reader's friends and associates. Your list of subscribers can grow with people you might never come in contact with. You can reach a global audience instead of your local area.
9. Create a two-way dialogue with your readers: Ask your readers questions, survey them about topics, ask for their opinions and feedback. Your ezine can help you keep your finger on the pulse of your ideal clients; you can use their feedback to create more ezine content, or other products such as telecourses and e-books. And this in itself sustains the idea that you are really interested in them and in providing the kinds of services that are important to them: you care.
10. Bottom-line: sales. You turn prospects into clients. Your ezine can be a magnet to your website, to your products, to your services. People are more likely to buy from you when they feel they know you. Ezines are particularly effective for selling services where there may be a long sales cycle and where the relationship is important.
For more leading edge ezine tips go to www.coachezines.com . You can also subscribe to Newsletter Nuggets at www.newsletternuggets.com. Get Patsi's Secrets of Successful Ezines 7-Step Mini-Course to learn what you need to know to publish a successful ezine. snipurl.com/Ezine_MiniCourse Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D. is a writer and Internet Marketing expert with over 7 years experience marketing online and founder of Customized Newsletter Services.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patsi_Krakoff,_Psy._D
Monday, October 9, 2006
The 5 Cardinal Sins of Email Marketing
by: Robert Burko
One of the most frequent questions my customers ask me is "What should I do to make sure my email marketing campaign is a success?" My answer is always different, depending on the client's industry, campaign goal, and many other factors. But in today's e-marketing landscape, there are a few pointers that stand true for any client, a few things that can really make or break an email campaign.
You could overlook these, and you'll still have an email campaign. But if you're stuck wondering why your email messages are yielding little to no response, you may want to take a closer look and consider if you're commiting any of these 5 email marketing sins:
1. When new subscribers sign up, I should treat them just like my old subscribers.
One of the most overlooked aspects of email marketing is the welcome message, or the message your subscribers receive as soon as they sign up for your email list. The welcome message is your first opportunity to connect one-on-one with your subscribers. Think of it as your first impression, since this is the very first of, hopefully, many email messages you'll be sending them. Of course, you want to make a good first impression: be courteous, friendly and very mindful of your audience. Make sure to remind them of the benefits of signing up, include links to your website and tell your readers how to get a hold of you if they need. It's also important to ensure the welcome message arrives shortly (if not immediately) after the recipient signs up. So your best bet here is to choose an email service provider that sends automatic welcome messages to your subscribers on your behalf. Some of the top email programs will allow you to fully customize your welcome message, so it reads, looks and feels just like your company.
2. All my subscribers are the same, so I should just send the same messages to all of them.
Well.. actually, no, and no. It's not rocket science: subscribers are individuals, just like you and I. They have different preferences, different habits, different personalities. Addressing your subscribers by their names is a good start (and an easy thing to do, since most reputable email service providers automatically insert your subscribers' names into the greeting field). But, in most cases, this personal greeting is just not enough. Say you own a clothing store, and you sell men's, women's and children's clothing. John Smith is a customer, and he loves your menswear collections. But he's busy, and he has no women or kids to shop for. So why would he waste his precious time browsing through your specials on blouses and bibs? It's been proven: In a recent study by DoubleClick, email users were 72% more likely to respond to a business e-mail if its content was based on the interests they had specified. Choose an email service provider that allows you to set up interest groups, and then allows your subscribers to choose which groups they want to belong to. Back to the clothing store, you would produce 3 separate emails (men's, women's, children's) and only send them out to the subscribers who want to read them, creating higlhy-targeted, personalized and effective email campaigns.
3. When a reader clicks on a link from my email, it doesn't matter if they end up on a page that looks nothing like the actual email.
Um, actually, it does matter. First-off, you want to provide a consistent image of your brand. That's just Branding 101. You wouldn't create business cards that look one way, letterhead that looks another way, and a store sign that looks completely different. So why would your email marketing campaign look nothing like your website? Chances are you already have a website, so all you really need to do is customize your email campaign to have the same look and feel. Many email service providers will be able to create you a custom template that matches the exact look and feel of your website. However, beware of the price. While some email service providers charge at least a few hundred for this, others offer free custom templates as part of their services.
4. My email recipients may enjoy my messages, but they don't really want to share them with their friends.
Here's the good news: According to a January 2006 report by Sharpe Partners, 89% of US adult Internet users share email content with their friends, family and associates. And 75% of them forward emails to up to six other recipients. It's called viral marketing, and it basically translates to word-of-mouth through email (as long as you provide good content, an essential aspect of any email maketing campaign). Some email service providers have taken this insight into consideration, so they have integrated the all-important "Forward to a Friend" feature in every email you send. A few email providers will even go a step further, and allow you to track which subscribers are forwarding your messages, so you can get a true glimpse at your "brand ambassadors" (and maybe offer them some extra perks).
5. After I send out my email campaign, there's nothing left for me to do.
If you look at it that way, you're really missing half the process, and jeopardizing the success of your future campaigns. Here's why: any reputable email marketing program will include campaign tracking and reporting. These allow you to view how many of your messages were opened, which bounced back, which links were clicked on, and, with some email providers, exaclty which recipients clicked on each link. This data not only converts email marketing into an incredible lead generation tool, but it also allows you to learn more about your subscribers. So if you operate a travel agency, and you see nobody clicked on the Mexico vacation link, but 200 readers clicked on the New York vacation link, you'll know next time to place a greater focus on New York vacations. You could even send a follow up campaign to those 200 readers with a special offer for a New York vacation upgrade. That's lead generation and a highly-targeted upsell in one shot. Are you taking advantage of these?
About The Author
Robert Burko is president and founder of Eliteweb.cc, an Internet portal and suite of Fortune 500 services for small businesses. Elite Email Marketing is a leading email service provider, and includes all the powerful features highlighted in this article.
rburko@contact.eliteweb.
Source : articlecity.com
One of the most frequent questions my customers ask me is "What should I do to make sure my email marketing campaign is a success?" My answer is always different, depending on the client's industry, campaign goal, and many other factors. But in today's e-marketing landscape, there are a few pointers that stand true for any client, a few things that can really make or break an email campaign.
You could overlook these, and you'll still have an email campaign. But if you're stuck wondering why your email messages are yielding little to no response, you may want to take a closer look and consider if you're commiting any of these 5 email marketing sins:
1. When new subscribers sign up, I should treat them just like my old subscribers.
One of the most overlooked aspects of email marketing is the welcome message, or the message your subscribers receive as soon as they sign up for your email list. The welcome message is your first opportunity to connect one-on-one with your subscribers. Think of it as your first impression, since this is the very first of, hopefully, many email messages you'll be sending them. Of course, you want to make a good first impression: be courteous, friendly and very mindful of your audience. Make sure to remind them of the benefits of signing up, include links to your website and tell your readers how to get a hold of you if they need. It's also important to ensure the welcome message arrives shortly (if not immediately) after the recipient signs up. So your best bet here is to choose an email service provider that sends automatic welcome messages to your subscribers on your behalf. Some of the top email programs will allow you to fully customize your welcome message, so it reads, looks and feels just like your company.
2. All my subscribers are the same, so I should just send the same messages to all of them.
Well.. actually, no, and no. It's not rocket science: subscribers are individuals, just like you and I. They have different preferences, different habits, different personalities. Addressing your subscribers by their names is a good start (and an easy thing to do, since most reputable email service providers automatically insert your subscribers' names into the greeting field). But, in most cases, this personal greeting is just not enough. Say you own a clothing store, and you sell men's, women's and children's clothing. John Smith is a customer, and he loves your menswear collections. But he's busy, and he has no women or kids to shop for. So why would he waste his precious time browsing through your specials on blouses and bibs? It's been proven: In a recent study by DoubleClick, email users were 72% more likely to respond to a business e-mail if its content was based on the interests they had specified. Choose an email service provider that allows you to set up interest groups, and then allows your subscribers to choose which groups they want to belong to. Back to the clothing store, you would produce 3 separate emails (men's, women's, children's) and only send them out to the subscribers who want to read them, creating higlhy-targeted, personalized and effective email campaigns.
3. When a reader clicks on a link from my email, it doesn't matter if they end up on a page that looks nothing like the actual email.
Um, actually, it does matter. First-off, you want to provide a consistent image of your brand. That's just Branding 101. You wouldn't create business cards that look one way, letterhead that looks another way, and a store sign that looks completely different. So why would your email marketing campaign look nothing like your website? Chances are you already have a website, so all you really need to do is customize your email campaign to have the same look and feel. Many email service providers will be able to create you a custom template that matches the exact look and feel of your website. However, beware of the price. While some email service providers charge at least a few hundred for this, others offer free custom templates as part of their services.
4. My email recipients may enjoy my messages, but they don't really want to share them with their friends.
Here's the good news: According to a January 2006 report by Sharpe Partners, 89% of US adult Internet users share email content with their friends, family and associates. And 75% of them forward emails to up to six other recipients. It's called viral marketing, and it basically translates to word-of-mouth through email (as long as you provide good content, an essential aspect of any email maketing campaign). Some email service providers have taken this insight into consideration, so they have integrated the all-important "Forward to a Friend" feature in every email you send. A few email providers will even go a step further, and allow you to track which subscribers are forwarding your messages, so you can get a true glimpse at your "brand ambassadors" (and maybe offer them some extra perks).
5. After I send out my email campaign, there's nothing left for me to do.
If you look at it that way, you're really missing half the process, and jeopardizing the success of your future campaigns. Here's why: any reputable email marketing program will include campaign tracking and reporting. These allow you to view how many of your messages were opened, which bounced back, which links were clicked on, and, with some email providers, exaclty which recipients clicked on each link. This data not only converts email marketing into an incredible lead generation tool, but it also allows you to learn more about your subscribers. So if you operate a travel agency, and you see nobody clicked on the Mexico vacation link, but 200 readers clicked on the New York vacation link, you'll know next time to place a greater focus on New York vacations. You could even send a follow up campaign to those 200 readers with a special offer for a New York vacation upgrade. That's lead generation and a highly-targeted upsell in one shot. Are you taking advantage of these?
About The Author
Robert Burko is president and founder of Eliteweb.cc, an Internet portal and suite of Fortune 500 services for small businesses. Elite Email Marketing is a leading email service provider, and includes all the powerful features highlighted in this article.
rburko@contact.eliteweb.
Source : articlecity.com
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