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Archive for August, 2011

B2B Email Marketing or Business to Business EMailMarketing is an effective approach to getting the word out about your company or organization’s products and services. There are several considerations when planning a B2B Email Marketing campaign:
What are the goals of your B2B Email Marketing campaign? Again, the first step to a successful EmailMarketing campaign is determining your goals. Typically you goals could be to collect data from visitors
What businesses are your targeting in your B2B Email Marketing? Determining your target audience is a skill. Anthony Parinello in his must-read series ‘Selling to Vito’ outlines a process of determining your target audience. Here’s the gist. First take a look at your existing customer base. Who are they? What do they buy? And why? Second, take a look at your competitors. Who are their customers? Third, ask yourself ‘Who do I want to be my customers?’
What are your available resources? and How does this fit into my e-marketing strategies mix? The first resource to consider is what emailmarketing lists do you already have in house. *Customer lists, prospect lists, newsletter subscribers, personal contacts are the starting point. One of the first things we advise our clients to do is shore up their internal lists. Every contact you have with your customers or prospects is another opportunity to collect data…always get an email address. * If you’re not already marketing to your existing customers and prospects and want a turnkey emailmarketing system check out Intellicontact. Your existing list is your most important asset and the fastest way to profits.
What is your Hook? A compelling call to action is KEY to the success of your emailmarketing campaign. Are you offering a discount? Maybe a free trial of your software? You may want to test several different versions of your ‘hook’ and track to see which one pulls the best before launching your full blown campaign. For your existing customers, try asking them what is most important to them.
What are your available resources? Again, start with your inhouse lists. Other resources to consider: Are you able to follow up with the response? Will you be emailing yourself or outsourcing to a third party? Do you have inhouse design capability? Can you successfully track your results?
What is your B2B Email Marketing Budget? Successful emailmarketing can be accomplished to fit any budget depending upon your answers to the questions above. B2C Email Marketing budgets can run from zero costs to thousands of dollars.
And of course, don’t forget about CAN-SPAM. Make sure your email affords recipients an easy and foolproof way to remove themselves from your opt-in list.

The objective of marketing is to spark interest, provoke curiosity for the products and services and generate sales of the goods. Email marketing is just what you think – sending messages to existing or potential customers via email. Email marketing is an extremely powerful and effective marketing technique; it is also one of the most cost effective ways to tell the world about the products and services you offer. It’s much cheaper than a traditional advertising and may have a larger impact on immediate sales and long-term relationship strength.
Email marketing makes it possible for a seller and a buyer to communicate quickly and easily with one another creating a trust relationship. It’s “good” email marketing. But we must admit that there is a reverse side of email marketing. Yes, I mean Spam. Not all email marketers are warm and fuzzy. There are many among them who send unsolicited email promotions. Sending spam ruins a good reputation of any legitimate company or organization and can turn your happy customers into your worst enemies.
So, if you value your fair name and want to build a long-term relationship with your clients remember the rule number one of email marketing – not send unsolicited email.
Send permission-based email messages. The core of permission-based email marketing is that effective, targeted email messages are sent to a carefully controlled list of recipients who gave you the permission to contact them. It means that people on your list requested that you send them emails. And you would be wiser if you ask them to confirm their wish to be added to your list just to ensure that they didn’t subscribe by mistake, or that someone else didn’t subscribe them to your list. All this will serve you as a proof that you are not spamming. Permission-based email marketing allows you focusing on the prospects and customers who are really interested in what you are offering and are more than willing to become repeat customers.
Permission-based email campaign outlines Where to start from? How to collect people for a permission-based email campaign? How to manage a list of collected recipients? Every intelligent email marketer asks himself these obvious questions. We’ll review the process of putting a successful permission-based email campaign into effect below:
1) Get a system to manage your email marketing subscribers and mailings. You’ll need bulk email management software that will allow you create newsletters, manage subscribes, unsubscribes, bounces, and view reporting statistics like opens and clickthroughs. You can buy a program and run your email campaign yourself, or you can pay someone else to run it for you.
2) Create a sign-up form on your web site so you can start collecting subscribers. If you already have any lists of subscribers that have requested your communications, import those lists into you email management software.
3) Design a good email template for your newsletters. If you are not a HTML email designer, you can choose a template provided with email software, or hire someone else to create a template for you. G-Lock EasyMail provides you with several email templates within the software that can be used free of charge. A rich library of email templates is here: http://www.hotemailtemplates.com/
4) Compose the content for your newsletter. Your newsletter must contain your logo, information on your products and services, and links to your web sites. Send only a quality relevant content. Do not send meaningless emails. Check the spelling of your message carefully. Have someone else read it too.
5) Test your email newsletter. It would be smart to test your email message before sending it out to the world. Send it to yourself or to your associates to ensure that it looks like you expected.
6) Send your newsletter to your list. Think about the frequency of the email newsletter you will be sending. We recommend that you send a newsletter once a month at least. You can certainly send multiple newsletters if you sell different types of products, or have multiple email lists with relevant customers. You can also send promotional messages from time to time offering a discount coupon for a product or service, or providing your customers with the information they may be interested in. Sending your newsletters with a consistent frequency will let your subscribers know that you are in business and care about them. As your list grows, you will notice increased traffic (and increased sales) on the day of and the days following an email send.
7) Manage your bounces and unsubscribes. It’s nice if your email management software does this automatically. Do not send the messages to bounced email addresses, or to people who unsubscribed.
Wisely and correctly done email marketing can give you a great return for less investment of time and money.

Monitoring Email Marketing Campaigns – Using Email Marketing Effectively

We placed a full article on our site on email marketing generally, ie setting up email processes, creating the right design and content, and choosing the best timing for your campaign. This short article summarises what to do and check once you have sent out your campaign.

1.Set up a proper email marketing M/I system

Be sure to check which mails bounced, which were opened / unopened and who clicked on which links. This kind of M/I is essential in measuring the success of your email marketing spend and in tailoring your follow up.

2. Check your open rate

For good email marketing, you need to measure your overall relationship with your audience. Around 30% is OK. Less than 20% and you are probably not engaging your readers. We have observed that open rates tail off rapidly when people send too many mailings in a short space of time. On the other hand a string of well constructed teasers can be very effective.

3.How many SPAM complaints did you get?

If your mailing list is made up of proper subscribers who are expecting to hear from you, you should expect no SPAM complaints at all. Any more than 0.1% and you are doing something wrong which is causing a negative reaction with your readers. Find out what it is and stop doing it.

4.Know who clicked which links

Good software (such as that which NCS has used for some time in its email marketing) will show you the email address of everybody who clicked on each link in your mailing. Consider follow up emails to those who clicked certain important links (e.g. the link to your new product)

5.Compare campaign statistics

If you take email marketing seriously, you should check the results of campaigns sent at various different times to find when its best reach your target audience.

6.Delete the unsubscribes

Make sure those who unsubscribe hear from you no more. Likewise, be sure to stop sending emails to addresses which have a hard bounce (e.g. no such email address, no such domain).
You can resend emailings which bounce with a soft bounce (i.e. something like mail box full) you may get through next time.

7.Archive them

It is a good idea to archive your emailings on your website. They add to the richness of the site content which can help with your search engine rankings. And you can refer to them in subsequent articles, or exchanges with your clients.
Although these are simple points, it may well be useful to get input from an experienced web promotion company on how to develop your internet marketing in this way

Malcolm Tebbutt
Director, Net Commerce Solutions

Email marketers are anticipating mobile email marketing to be a game-changer this year; a movement that will greatly affect your email marketing campaigns.

With more and more people converting to smart phones, there will be a strong influx in the number of businesses implementing mobile apps, utilities, sites and email campaigns in an effort to reach consumers where theyre most active on their phones.

How does this affect your email marketing?

The most successful email campaigns are those adding mobile to their mix of email and social. Email campaigns that offer mobile versions of their HTML newsletter are definitely performing better than those that are neglecting the mobile user.

Consumers have their mobile phones on at all times and can access email newsletters at leisure whenever a spare moment arises. As such, some email marketers report high click-through rates on mobile email newsletters.

Email marketers can also expect to do more email marketing on-the-go. Some global ESPs have recently launched a free iPhone app. This email application for iPhone users enables clients to add subscribers to mailing lists, send newsletters, track sends, and monitor list activity, all from their iPhones. There will be an increase in email marketing smartphone apps.

What will be interesting to see is how these mobile applications evolve from basic applications to more comprehensive tools?

Perhaps email marketers will soon also be able to design their newsletters on smartphones, with an emphasis on pictures and videos rather than text, to instantly put together quick email marketing emails if pressed for time.

The title is, as you would have realised, a pleonasm. Managing is all about reconciling.

There is a debate over whether the figures for the last quarter of 2010 show a drop of 0.5% in GDP or if it was static. Either way the news is not good. Whilst for email marketing there had been a rise in value, the report was rather depressing and suggested that times will get a bit tougher in the near future.

The pressure will be on you to see if you can wring any more income from those on your email lists. If you know you can then the first question will be why you have not done so before. For the rest of us it will be whether the risk of alienating subscribers to our emails lists is worth the predicted return. The answer to that is easy enough to discover. A dog could do it.

How did you come by your present decision on frequency of emails? Was it a guess, did you just take over the percentage or perhaps was it experience? Unless it was by recent experimentation it is probably worth finding out if it is currently at the right level.

It is unfortunate that there are no simple answers in email marketing. There are just too many variables. Ballpark figures are available but it is precision that gives top quality returns. Ballparks are big places.

Let us go back to dogs. They habitually push barriers, moving nearer the fire, gazing at their food bowl, getting a little further away when off the lead, each time waiting to be told they have gone too far. They know they will be scolded but it is a small price to pay. Try it yourself.

Take a percentage of your email list. Again the precise figure is down to your circumstances but whatever you go for it should be a statistically significant sample. Whilst many would say that you should not pick and choose which you go for, I would eliminate those who give the best returns, who promise much in the future and any who would be a significant loss to my business. After all, I treat these specially in any case.

If your current frequency of emails is, say, once a calendar month then opt for four-weekly intervals. It might not seem that much of an increase but it does work out to around 8%, something we all would be pleased with.

You should compare the returns from this email list to those on the larger one over a period, perhaps three months. If there is a significant increase then you have been wasting your resources.

There will probably be costs, the most expensive being that some will click the unsubscribe button. Anything that affects your email lists negatively is of concern but see if there is a way to identify those who opted out, obviously before they do. Shuffle similar people onto another email list.

Email marketing software gives the ability to check if you are not getting full value from your email lists. It would be silly not to take advantage of it before others take advantage of you.

 
 
 
 
 
 
I personally think that while writing to someone, you can get everything out you want to say, without interruption, and they can do the same. When you read your message, you absorb what is typed, and really get to know a person. There’s really no reason to keep anything back, since chances of ever meeting these buddies in person, is slim.

The more you write back and forth, the more you get to know the person. I like to send pretty stationery with my e mails, and I think my e mail buddies enjoy them. What a small thing to be able to do to put a smile on someone’s face. You can send pictures, and let the other person get more of a sense of who you are. I have a friend I’ve had for thirty nine years, but she works full time, and I don’t get a chance to see her much, but I can e mail her, and we can keep in touch with each others lives. I have another friend for twenty three years, and I am able to e mail her every day, or every other day, and keep in touch. We can send jokes to each other, or wise quotes, or prayers. Sometimes, since she is at work, I just send a picture with a “hi.” If she knows Im having a rough time, shell send me a cute angel or something to make me feel better, and it does. My aunt and uncle live in Texas, and I’m able to stay in touch, and send pictures, keeping them up on our family, showing them things we’ve done around the house, like the seven foot tomato plants I picked tomatoes from and sent to my uncle. If I do anything on the inside or outside of the house, I can just take a picture, and send it to my e mail pals, instead of simply explaining it to them. Besides adds and junk mail, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy a friendly note and a pretty picture to pop up on the inbox during the day. If you just go into images on your browser and do a search for a flower or a heart, etc., and save it to your documents, you can insert it into your e mail, too. Click in the square you type in, then go to insert at the top of your e mail, then picture, then browse, and go get the picture from your documents. I know when I receive something special, it makes me feel cared about and loved. Wouldn’t it be great if we all thought of that, and started sending more e mails with nice pictures? Millions of people feeling good. All that positive energy. All that good karma. And its so simple to do, and enjoyable to oneself as well. Now that you know how to do it, why don’t you join me on my quest to make at least a few people smile each day?

Stay with the followers and approach your perspective clientele via Emails. Be honest and tell us, have you ever thought about it? If your answers are affirmative NO, then why not give it a try. Its indeed the best and a sort of direct online marketing tool that guarantees instant results, if executed correctly. This will assist you in building a long lasting relationship with the clients, which further augments the growth of your business. However, you ought to contemplate few guidelines.

Like other marketing strategies, Email Marketing services also associates few mantras that will work for you if implemented properly. Rigorously following the guidelines will assist you in structuring a perfect marketing plan that couldnt go wrong anywhere. Firstly, you ought to create subcategories and bifurcate your existing and perspective clients. Also, put in the upcoming queries. Similarly, separate the Email Ids who dont want your services or interested in hardcore bargaining. You will encounter many uninterested people but dont get disheartened or discouraged. All you need to do is to put them aside and concentrate on your Email Marketing campaign.

After the segregation, simply create your mailer or newsletter you thought to send. Remember, only useful information should be included, no extra information or lengthy paragraphs are required. The content in your Emails have to be crisp and concise. Also, create a gateway within your Email that can redirect the readers to your site via hyperlinked words or hidden links. This will solve your purpose and you might end up receiving few instant queries.

Constantly implementing this strategy will certainly endorse your brand and bring in more business. This form of marketing is being utilized across the planet, and marketers are enjoying heavy business with this.

However, few marketers find this process a tad complex and technical. If it is so, then approach an Email marketing company where you can handover this marketing campaign, explaining them the concept and the nature of your products and services. In context with that, their professionals will commence with the campaign to extract the expected results.

Is Publishing Private Email Illegal and what can you do to stop it

I have recently read a thread on a forum where a forum member posted the entire contents of a private email she’d received from someone she had done business with. As soon as I read this thread I said to myself:

” Never do business with her!!”

All the warning lights went on. Imagine a business associate behaving so unprofessionally as to publish private correspondence?

What has cyber space become?

It should be the law of the land and understood by all that emails are by their very nature private and not for publication or publishing on public boards.

I aired my disgust when I saw the post and unbelievably received very little support.

Was that due to fear of retribution by the forum thread starter or an indication of apathy to such matters?

The forum in question doesn’t allow private forum messages between members to be made public and yet allows this. Presumably this means that they respect the privacy of members messages but not that of none members. This is rather sad and short sighted as todays none member could be tomorrows fully paid up member!

I raised the issue of legalities on the forum. I at first assumed the poster could be sued for publishing private emails but I am not sure this is correct.

Is publishing private emails illegal?

I would have thought that publishing private emails is illegal or at least covered by some form of Internet law. It might be the case that publishing private emails is covered under copyright laws, but I am no expert!

Check out this useful forum thread here on the details.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum44/1500.htm

This forum thread (linked above) indicates that the email author has copyright and so their emails cannot be published without their permission.

For a more detailed look at the legal issues surrounding publishing emails or even forwarding emails without the consent of the original author visit this law site here .

Meanwhile it also might be the case that Internet Service Providers prohibit the publication of private emails as per their terms of service. They take violations of their terms of service very seriously and can withdraw service from anyone who breaches their code of conduct.

It is always worth checking your service providers terms of service to see if your emails are protected by copyright and if so, how you can report people publishing your emails online, to your service provider.

The last word

Whatever the law, please don’t air your dirty laundry in public and keep your whingeing, whining, bitching to your close pals and family who you can trust not to forward your rants to the people concerned.

But as we know that is how gossip starts!

It appears the Internet is no different. Welcome to cyber space!

Internet in Society From Email and Social Media, To Cyberstalking and Cyberspying

In this article, we’ll be talking about the use of computers and the internet and how family law cases may be affected. Part of this discussion will focus on issues involving shared information by email and social media networking. We’ll also introduce some very serious matters that may rise to the level of criminal activity. Those are cyberstalking, cyberharassment, cyberbullying, and cyberspying. The “cyber” in all of these activities refers to the use of computers and electronic devises in stalking, harassing, bullying, or spying on another person.

Social media is useful evidence in family court. 
Social media includes emails, online images, photographs, videos, social networking posts and comments, blogs and microblogs, tweets, and so on. If you’re using social media to communicate and network, be very cautious about your content and the messages you share.
When you post to YouTube, Facebook, or MySpace, to name only a few, you publish information that’s useful as evidence in your family law case. Images and messages posted on social networking sites are strong evidence in family law courts. Opposing parties and their attorneys routinely look to social media forums to gather evidence for use in court.
Always protect your privacy online!  Never provide your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) — social security number, birth date, mother’s maiden name, bank information, and the like — in any email message. Don’t give away anyone else’s PIIeither. Criminals use PIIto exploit and steal identities. Think before you send and remember that email is about as secure as a postcard — any carrier can read it and forward the content.
Cyberstalking and cyberharassment of others.
When the internet or some electronic means of communication is used to stalk another person, and there is a malicious pattern of threats, then that is known as cyberstalking — the threat is a credible one. The term cyberharassment involves using email, instant messaging, blogs, and the like, to torment and harass someone — the torment is very real to the victim of this electronic activity.
In Arizona, like many states, communicating electronically via the internet is combined with more traditional harassment laws, making cyberstalking a form of criminal harassment. Under our anti-cyberharassment law it is a crime to intentionally or knowingly harass someone, whether anonymously or not, by communicating through electronic or telephonic means.
Cyberbullying between children.
We hear more and more about online bullying of children by other children. Many states have enacted cyberbullying laws to prohibit this type of harassment between minors. Arizonahas an anti-cyberbullying statute that, when violated, may result in punishment of a petty offence on up to a misdemeanor. Not all states have specific anti-cyberbullying statutes, but they may instead apply other existing laws to prohibit this form of electronic and online activity to protect children from being threatened, harassed, and bullied by other juveniles.
Cyberspying and eavesdropping on communications.
Spying is espionage — that is, clandestine surveillance. Spying involves obtaining information secretively, without permission from the person who holds the information. So cyberspying involves using computer technology and electronic devices to secretly obtain information.
In Arizona, eavesdropping on an electronic communication includes a transfer of data or intelligence by computer or telephone, among other things. A person may commit a crime by intentionally eavesdropping on another’s communication, even if one of the parties to the conversation is a spouse. When someone eavesdrops on an oral or electronic communication, without consent, then this act of listening in is essentially spying.
The felony act of communication interception is accomplished by intentionally intercepting another’s communication without consent, either by electronic means or by the use of some other person to accomplish the same end. A felony may also be committed by tricking, or conniving, a communication service provider into disclosing the content of another’s electronic communication. Even the possession of a device that could be used to intercept an electronic or oral communication, with the intent to use it, may be a criminal act.
No matter how innocent a party’s motivation is in attempting to acquire evidence for a family law case — spying or cyberspying on the other party’s private communications, without their knowledge or consent, is a bad idea. If you’re in a divorce, don’t spy on the opposing party’s computer or email, doing so can seriously undermine your case and could even result in criminal sanctions.

If you are looking for job and circulating your resume across the World Wide Web, then you ought to know about the advantages of using the right email address so as to attract the attention of best companies and recruiters. Even before the subject line of your resume mail, the concerned authorities will pay attention to the email address. So why not make the best use of it?

You are surely aware of the current job scenario and know that it is very tough to get a fairly rewarding job with a good number of perks. If you dream of being a part of certain organizations, then your goal becomes doubly difficult because as the late Jackson said, you are not alone!.

Hundreds, or probably hundred thousand people, out there are trying hook and nail to get the job that you want. This means that you will have to have an edge over them so that you do get selected. But for that you have to make sure that the recruiters or the HR department personnel short listing the resumes or the interviewers do notice the special abilities in you that make you the best choice.

This is not a major problem and can be solved with something as humble as your email address, which we are sure you have been taking for granted all this while.
However, you got to know and believe that your email address speaks a lot about you and you must take the full advantage of using it to achieve your desired goals.

The right way

The right way to make your email work for you is to word it in such a way that it attracts the immediate attention of the company recruitment panel. It should in fact sound like the very summary of the cover letter, containing the most important points that actually matter. For example, if the job ad says looking for a wildlife photographer, then make sure that your email address does indicate that you are an expert at capturing the wildlife in the most fascinating way. Something like NameLoves@wildlife-photo.com is sure to catch the attention of the concerned people.

Just make sure that it does not seem to be overhyped. Make it seem probable and innovative. Do not take it lightly or go over the top. Keep it sweet, simple and to the point. You will be amazed at how your chances of getting the right jobs appreciate considerably with such a simple move.