Email Service Providers

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?

Surfing the blogosphere I run into this cute button. I highly respect Aweber for being one of the top-rated Email Service Providers.

Here’s why I like AWeber:

• Robust list-management features
• Absolutely the highest CAN-SPAM compliance
• Very high deliverability rates
• Unlimited auto-responders
• Unlimited follow ups and broadcasts
• Low monthly fee for up to 10,000 contacts, upgradable to bigger lists for a nominal fee.
• Online archive of all or selected broadcasts
• RSS delivery of your e-newsletter
• Provides several ways for your contacts to subscribe: by email, sign up forms (standard and several un-blockable pop ups), manual add, and list import.

In December 2005 HTML email templates were introduced, however, even after the Fall 2006 upgrades to the graphical HTML editor creating an HTML email is still not as user-friendly as Constant Contact’s mail wizard, for example. However, for those who’d like to use their own custom-designed email templates, AWeber offers much greater flexibility and ease of use.

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.

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.

Programs such as Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird or online email services such as Yahoo, or Hotmail are not to be used. They may be free to use, but will not give you all the options you might like to have, and besides, may also be unlawful, depending on your country’s anti-spam laws, if any.

Most Internet Service Providers, and most online email services limit the number of recipients that you can use in any single email message. Usually that number is around 20, or so, and it varies widely from ISP to ISP. This means that, depending on the size of your list, it may take you several sends to complete the “blast”. Although this may be acceptable if you have a list of 50 or so people, anything beyond that will be impractical.

If you’re using your own email program to send your e-newsletter you don’t, for the most part, have no idea what happens to your beautiful creation once it leaves your computer. You don’t really know if your audience receives your messages, if they open them, if they click on any links that are included in the content, etc.

If you’re really strapped for cash, and have a small list I can recommend this new Email Service Provider called MadMimi. Their service is free for lists under 100 subscribers.

Last word on using your own email program: if you have to use it, please, remember to use the BCC: field for your recipients. BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy, and it simply means your recipients will not see each other’s names and email addresses.

I just wanted to post a quick note about a new development at Aweber, one of the most respected Email Service Providers, and one of the 4 that I highly recommend to my clients.

Aweber recently introduced a new style of hover pop ups that may be just the ticket for you. Take a look at their blog and see how powerful the new feature is.

If you’re not using Aweber yet they have a 30-day trial period, so you can take it for a spin.

If you already use a different Email Service Provider, you can still create your own popups for your web site or blog with this stand-alone Windows application. For the ultimate selection, tracking options, graphics and more in using floating, unlockable popups subscribe to AdImpact

I get this kind of question a lot, and also see it posted on online forums hosted by various ESPs. The questions is: “Should I resend an email (ezine, offer, solo mailing) to my whole list or only to those that have not opened (or responded to) the original send?” Immediately following this question is: “How do I do that?”

I will leave the “Why?” for you to answer, because it will be different to different people. If you send your ezine once a week, then I’d say “Probably no”, but if you send it once a month, I’d advise you to resend perhaps 2 weeks after the original send.

With special offers and solo mailings, it will be different, too. These types of emails are more aggressive in nature, so you may want to consider resending these more often than you would a regular ezine.

In this short article I am going to give you the “How”: specific instructions on how to create a temporary list of subscribers who haven’t opened an email. This technique will work with any Email Service Provider system that shows you exactly which email addresses were registered as “opens”, but I will use Constant Contact as an example. If you’d like instructions on how to do this in 1ShoppingCart, email me.

This technique works in general, when you want to re-send an email campaign to a list, but exclude those subscribers who have previously opened or clicked on a link.

• Create a duplicate of your existing list, name it “Resend xyz” where “xyz” stands for the name of your email that you’d like to resend, e.g. “Resend C2C.v2.14” would stand for “Contacts2Clients Volume 2. Issue 14.”
  If you have several lists, create the new one by merging your list. This list will now contain addresses of all your subscribers to whom you sent the original email.
• In Constant Contact, go to Emails > Reports, then click on the number of “opens” for your original send. This will display a list of subscribers. At the bottom of the list click the button that reads “Save as List.” Name your new list “Opened xyz.”
• go to Contacts > Export. In the Contact List drop down menu select “Opened xyz” list, then export it in either CSV or TXT format, it doesn’t matter. This will create a file called export.csv in your download folder on your computer (most likely on your desktop)
• Locate this file on your PC and rename it “Opened xyz.csv”
• Back to Constant Contact. Remove the subscribers who have already opened your email campaign by selecting the “Resend xyz” list and then upload the file “Opened xyz.csv” from your PC (follow this click-path Contacts > Manage Contacts > Remove)

This way your new, temporary list “Resend xyz” will contain only those subscribers who have not previously opened your original email campaign.

Use this list to resend your email campaign, then delete it. If you intend to resend several times, then rename the “Resend xyz” list as “opened” and remove the “new” openers from it. Each time you do it, the list will get smaller and smaller.

Things to Keep in Mind When Resending Your Emails

• How often do you normally send your emails?
• Are your subscribers used to seeing resends in their in boxes?
• Are you going to antagonize some subscribers who didn’t open your email in the first place, because the subject line wasn’t enticing enough?
• Should you also change the subject line?

You see, there are so many variables, and things to consider, and we’re out of time and space, as I am trying to keep this last issue of 2007 a short one.

Bonus TIP:
Before doing any “open heart surgery” on your lists, save a backup copy of your active subscribers to your computer.

Copyright 2007 by Boris Mahovac - Your Ezine Coach

If you’ve been around the Internet marketing arena for a while you must have seen these a lot. Almost every web site you visit offers some kind of freebie to entice you to sign up. Most marketers offer this incentive in a form of a special report (such as my The 4 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid in Marketing).

These special reports are usually delivered to the subscriber on-line, as a download from the so-called “thank-you” page (the page that opens once your subscriber confirms his/her address, if you have double opt-in set up). Most special reports are in PDF format, but some people have audio, or even video presentations of this content.

Alternatively, you could set up your free report in a form of a series of emails, effectively creating an e-course. Essentially, you would take your report and break it up into discrete chapters, or articles. Then what you do is set up an auto-responder to deliver those messages spread out over a number of days, depending on the content and the type of prospects you’re attracting.

If you’re teaching them a new skill, you may decide to send emails daily. If the advice is a more in-depth analysis or a white paper, spread the emails by a couple of days, and give your prospects time to take the new information in and process it.

Make sure the last message in the auto-responder sequence contains a version of your sales letter, or some other appropriate call to action. You may ask the subscriber to purchase a product, call you for an appointment, sign up for your tele-seminar, or whatever your choice might be.

I would also include some sort of “About Me” blurb, plus a mini call to action at the bottom of every email in the series as well, just in case a prospect decides he or she is ready to take it to the next level and hire you.

Toolbox

Please refer to my resource page to find about which Email Service Providers provide auto-responders, as not all of them do, unfortunately.

The best way to promote certain types of products and services is not by publishing articles that are related to your offering. Articles are a staple content for email newsletters, or ezines, but for some products, it’s much more effective to send your prospects and clients pure promotional content by email.

For example, one of my clients runs a well-established beauty salon, with a large customer base. She stays in touch with them on a regular basis - several times a week - by sending special promotions and coupons.

One of the things they do is “last-minute” bookings for certain services, so for example, if she finds that her Sea Salt Body Glow has no bookings for the next day, she will offer it to her email subscribers on a first-come first-serve basis at 40% off regular price.

Linda calls her email service the Lotus Time Club and calls her subscribers “members.” If you want to follow this technique, you may also want to consider using similar words to make your subscribers feel special, such as : exclusive, inner circle, limited, VIP, club, etc.

The frequency of your mailings will largely depend on the type of product and/or service that you offer, but you should test to see what your members prefer.

Toolbox

Please refer to my resource page to find about which Email Service Providers provide auto-responders, as not all of them do, unfortunately.

If you ever considered publishing and e-newsletter but hear yourself saying: “Ezines sound like a great way to stay in touch with clients and prospects, but I just don’t have the time. Is there an easier way to accomplish the same thing without committing to a regular publishing schedule?” consider this alternative: the evergreen ezine.

Some people call it the “canned ezine”, because it’s pre-written, and has an extended “shelf life”. There are two sub-categories here: an evergreen ezine that is fresh any time of the year, and a seasonal ezine.

Let’s say you want to stay in touch with your prospects every other week, and you want to keep them on the list for up to a year, after which time you would write them off as not interested and remove them from your list, or keep them on the list, and restart the sequence. This would require that you write 26 issues in advance (26 issues x 2 weeks = 52 weeks, or one year).

Once you have 26 issues ready, you have two options: you can either set them up as a series of issues to be sent on specific dates, or you can set them up as an auto-responder sequence. Most Email Service Providers provide an option of setting up your ezines to be published at any future date, but to set up an auto-responder you will need to sign up with an ESP such as Aweber, GetResponse or 1ShoppingCart.

Example 1 - Mortgage Broker
You could easily write a series of 26 articles that deal with your area of expertise. Simply make sure they are not time sensitive and you could set them up as an auto-responder sequence.

Then, as your prospects sign up on your web site, they will each start receiving the articles in a pre-set sequence: the 1st issue is sent on the day they sign up, the second 14 days later, the third 28 days later, and so on. The sequence is individually managed by the auto-responder, so it would be totally hands-free for you - once you set it up, you can forget about it and concentrate on other things.

Example 2 - Real Estate Agent
Your newsletter can be canned, but seasonal. In real estate there are certain seasonal patterns and trends that are easily recognizable, and you could write articles to accommodate those trends. For example, there are certain things homeowners should be doing in January, but different things in July. If you publish semi-monthly, you could create one issue geared towards sellers, and the second one for buyers, as each group has a different focus.

Bonus tip: in situations such as with our realtor, you may think you would separate the buyers and sellers (or cat-lovers and dog-lovers, or any other seemingly incompatible group) into two separate lists, and send them different ezines, but I would recommend that you consider sending all of them the same content - you never know when a “buyer” might forward a “seller issue” to a friend or family member who is thinking of selling.

Toolbox

Please refer to my resource page to find about which Email Service Providers provide auto-responders, as not all of them do, unfortunately.