Email Marketing

One of the world’s most respected email and direct marketing service providers, VerticalResponse, now offers flat-rate unlimited email sending service options by monthly subscription. This was announced on October 28.

Until this announcement, if you wanted to email your list of 6,000 opt-in subscribers it would have cost you $72 per send. Switching to one of VerticalResponse’s new unlimited email plans, you will be paying $72 per month and will be able to send unlimited emails to a list of up to 8,000 contacts. For some email marketers, this could mean a dramatic drop in per-email-cost.

VerticalResponse joins other Email Service Providers who offer unlimited sending options:

• GetResponse offers unlimited auto-responders and unlimited emails for up to 10,000 contacts for only $17.95 per month
• MadMimi offers unlimited email newsletters and messages for up to 5,000 subscribers for $12 per month
• KickStartCart is more than an Email Service Provider, because it offers a shopping cart, digital product delivery, affiliate program and more.

If you’re overwhelmed with all this choice, contact me and we can discuss your email marketing needs. I offer a free 20-min telephone consultation.

Alternatively, read my article: Learn How to Pick the Right Email Publishing System Provider.

Unlimited emails deal really works for email marketers who send either weekly or biweekly email newsletters, or regular email promotional offers.

Are you one of them?

Consumers in the 18-to-34 age bracket are more likely to respond to marketing messages received by email than to advertising they see while using social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, etc. according to new research published in a white paper from Ball State University and ExactTarget.

ExactTarget, Inc. is a leading provider of on-demand email marketing software solutions. The Center for Media Design at Ball State University is a research and development facility focused on the creation, testing, and practical application of digital technologies.

Among other findings: the best time to send email newsletters is in the morning when recipients receive fewer messages, spend more time with each individual email, up to 13 minutes on average. Shorter, promotional email messages have a better chance of response in the afternoon and evening, when the time spent on emails drops down to 2 minutes or less, on average.

There’s a lot of other fascinating data available in this report which you can download for free from ExactTarget.

What is your experience? Please comment - I’m looking forward to your thoughts.

First, let’s talk about your ezine, or e-newsletter. If you intend to publish an informative ezine, do not expect much direct sales from it. Why is this?

Because the primary purpose of your newsletter is to establish your credibility, expertise and to create that relationship - we keep returning to this relationship thing all the time, don’t we? Do not think of your ezine primarily as an advertisement for your services or products.

In your ezine, you must provide useful content to your subscribers. 

By all means, promote your products and services in your ezine, but do not make it the most prominent part of the newsletter. Here it should be in the background, and shouldn’t take up more than about a quarter of the space.

For example, at the bottom of the newsletter you can have a section titled “About Me”, and here you can provide a brief summary of your business, and also mention that you are the author of such-and-such book, or creator of a product. Provide a link to your site where there’s more information.

Now, the most money you’re going to make is through so-called promo-emails, or some people call them solo mailings. While your ezine may have several articles, reviews, comments, recommendations, etc., in a promo email you will concentrate on promoting just one particular thing: it could be a new product you developed, a new type of service that you offer, or something like that.

Typically, your promo emails will be much shorter than your regular ezine. In case you’re sending your ezine in HTML format you may want to experiment and send the promo emails as plain text. Be sure to split-test this.

BTW, for those who are not familiar with the term, split-testing is when you send one version of your email to a subset of your list and another, different version, to a different group of the same size. You compare the results, and from then on use the format witch produced the highest response.

These promotional emails will usually have response rates that are several times higher than a response from your ezine.

The easiest and quickest way is to set up a PayPal account.

First of all, let me dismiss any notions you might have about PayPal being a Mickey Mouse solution that’s not appropriate for serious on line business transactions. There are several, successful, internet marketers who make millions on line, and they use PayPal as their payment processor, so why not you, too? I use PayPal, too.

As a side note here: You may already have a merchant account to accept credit cards off line, but the same company you currently use may not be the best way to go for your on line transactions. Many off line merchant account providers are not familiar with online payments, so make sure you ask all the right questions first.

By all means, if you have a merchant account, talk to them first and see how they compare to PayPal.

Why I like PayPal - there are no monthly fees, so you only pay a processing fee per each transaction, only when you actually make a sale.

First of all, PayPay will provide you with secure payment processing technology so you can take credit cards, but also e-cheques, and money transfers from checking accounts.

Secondly, PayPal offers a shopping cart, with enough bells-and-whistles as you need to create those lovely “PAY NOW” buttons you can use either directly in your email promotions, but also on your web site.

This may sound simplistic and obvious, but let me elaborate on that, so you’ll see what I mean.

Several of my existing clients whom I am coaching in taking their business on line, thought that they had nothing to sell. They are professional service providers such as life coaches, alternative health practitioners, etc.

For example, I have a client who is a Spiritual Life Coach. After our initial session it turns out she’s also a singer & songwriter! So, I said to her: “You’ve got plenty of product! It’s your motivational songs!”

Then, after our 2nd session, I hear about a book she wrote a few years back! It’s 80 pages, and she didn’t know what to do with it! Now it’s for sale on her web site! and the songs are coming next.

Now, what I’m saying is you need to have something to sell, and to figure that out you should look hard at all aspects of your business to find product opportunities.

For example, if you do live group sessions with clients you can create audio recordings and sell them as digital, downloadable info-products.

Although this one seems obvious, unfortunately the situation is far from being clear and simple.

It is one thing to follow the law and obey all the rules, but ultimately spam is in the eyes of the beholder! This means it is your audience, your subscribers who are the judge and jury and executioner who have the last word on the issue of spam.

In this case, power truly is in the hands of the people!

These days, it’s not so much the content of your emails that’s going to trigger spam filters, it’s your reputation as a sender. That’s why it’s imperative to keep your name and web site domain clean.

Don’t be tempted to send emails to a list you obtained from a friend, and send an email “blast” to them. This will definitely land you in the dog house.

To avoid being labeled as a spammer: deliver content that you promised. That means content that is relevant to your audience.

If you say “sign up for my ezine to learn how to get rid of fear of dentists” don’t send them articles on effective anaesthetic procedures your dentist just introduced, or if you provide reviews of fine-art books in your e-newsletter, then don’t talk about music or architecture.

Sending relevant content will improve your reputation and your response rate!

Using an Email Service Provider instead of your PC to send your email marketing messages. Here are some reasons why this is a good ideaL

• Sending email is all ESPs do - email is their livelihood and they will do their utmost to help you deliver your email.
• Turn on the double opt in option if it’s not already so. This will provide you with a clean list of active email addresses, whose owners are actually interested in hearing from you.
• Use the spam test option that’s usually built in - ask your ESP about it.
• Remove bounced addresses promptly - ISPs like Yahoo, MSN, EarthLink, for example, will punish you for repeatedly trying to send to an non-existing address. Many ESPs do this automatically for you.
• Give your subscribers a choice of receiving HTML or PLAIN TEXT emails.

Most of these tasks are done automatically, behind the scenes by your ESP.

Recommended Toolkit: Email Service Providers that I use and recommend are Aweber, GetResponse and 1ShoppingCart  which also have auto-responder services. For simple and easy e-mail newsletters, I recommend ConstantContact.

The Can-SPAM act is in force in the US (other laws in other countries, but if your Email Service Provider is doing business in the US, and/or your email subscribers reside in the US, than your email marketing also must be CAN-SPAM compliant!)

In short:

• Subject lines must clearly and conspicuously identify advertisement or solicitation. In other words, the subject line must be indicative of the actual content of your email.
• A valid electronic return address working for at least 30 days
• A postal address (P.O. box is OK) must appear – add a phone number as a best practice
• Must provide an opt-out mechanism for subscribers. Instructions for opting out must be clear and conspicuous and honoured within 10 business days.
• Don’t falsify or obscure the real sender.
• Don’t “harvest” email addresses from the Internet.

You can avoid being labeled as a spammer if you aks yourself the following questions:

Do I Have Permission to Send Email?

On your web site collect visitors’ email address and first name, in exchange for a free report (white paper/worksheet/check list/Q&A/10 Top Tips). Use a double opt-in process, so you can have a clean list of people who:

• are really interested
• have white-listed your email address (helps deliverability)
• provided a live email address.

On or near your sign up form, have a link to your privacy policy, better yet, have a one sentence summary of the policy displayed on the form.

If you intend to collect more than email and first name, you will get fewer people signing up. As a general rule, the more “required” fields on a sign up form, the lower the sign up rate. You may ask questions that may not be considered private, such as “When are you planning to buy xyz?”

On the sign up form, tell your prospects exactly what to expect, i.e. a special report in PDF immediately after confirming the email address, then a weekly/biweekly/monthly newsletter with such and such content. Be as detailed as you can. Providing a sample of the newsletter may also help to clearly define expectations of the kind of content they can expect.

Do I Follow Email Deliverability Best Practices?

Use a reputable Email Service Provider (ESP). Don’t fall into the trap of doing the email sending in-house. Aweber, GetResponse and other ESPs do this all day, and they make sure your emails get delivered.

Your ESP will also provide you with custom sign up forms (even unblockable pop-ups), and will provide your subscribers the ability to manage their own subscription (change email address, unsubscribe, change preferences/lists, etc.)

An ESP can provide data on how many emails were delivered, opened, how many subscribers clicked on any links in your email, etc.

Is the Email I am Sending Relevant?

With people’s inboxes bursting with junk, spam, and regular email, being compliant with the law is not a guarantee that your emails won’t be labelled as spam.

These days, spam is in the eyes of the beholder, in other words, even your double opt-in, confirmed subscribers may click the dreaded spam button if they feel that their expectations were not being met. To avoid this, state your publishing policy up front, provide samples, then once they subscribe, provide the content that is in line with their expectations.

Don’t copy what others are doing. Try to find your own style, your own voice. Again, you’re creating a relationship with your audience, and how can you do that if you’re copying someone else’s style?

The only way you can create that relationship is if you’re true to yourself, if you are who you are and you come across that way in everything you do, which includes your web site, your blog, your business card, and of course, your e-newsletter.