Our recent analysis of customer retention provided me with insight into how effective TalkwareMEDIA Studio is as a browser based email marketing software. 22 of our customers have been with us for over a year. 67 have stuck around for more than 6 months. That is amazing when you think about all of the choices available. And we continue to add customers on a daily basis. Thank you!

Additionally, upgrades are made almost twice a month with at least 4 major upgrades every year. This means we are constantly adding new features - for free.

But it is clear what keeps our customers around. Customer Service is the most important feature for everyone. And this is always at the top of our list. I get emails almost everyday from customers thanking us for taking care of issues. While it is important for customers to learn how to use the software, sometimes it is more efficient to just do it for them.

Every person connected to optimizing our software thinks about it everyday. Our goal is to make it easy to use, while keeping it affordable and advanced - all at the same time. And I think we do a great job at accomplishing that goal.

Recently, I've been noticing something unusual on my social networks, such as the Email Marketer’s Club and Facebook. Interactions between bloggers and these social clubs are also beginning to creep into the inbox, and that’s all for the better.

Most importantly, I see a humanizing effect in which a blog post or comment also includes links to profiles, pictures, contact information and comment forms. All are ways to launch discussions instead of just pushing content one way.

And, they're becoming a way to connect with your customers and readers via your email messages. One-way communication is out, replaced by the digital conversation.

What the Print Dinosaurs Can Teach You

Print might be fading away as a communications medium, but publishers know the most about putting a human face on an impersonal medium. Just open the nearest newspaper or magazine.

Regular columnists often have small "mugshots" accompanying their copy. The editorial page, with the letters to the editor, is one of the best-read sections. Many publications also post the reporter's email address or office number on the story or in the masthead, which appears in the same place every time. All of these help establish a connection between the paper and its readers.

Advertisers have had to rely on less direct methods. Consumers don't relate as well to a faceless brand, so companies have used personal endorsements or created mascots to inject a little life. Remember the Marlboro Man, Speedy Alka-Seltzer, and Spuds McKenzie for Bud Light?

Email publishers are also expanding their engagement methods, by adding links to comment forms in their email content and tacking the form itself to the end of the Web version.

Now, it's time for email marketers to step up, because readers expect to be able to interact at every level of the online world.

If you publish a regular newsletter (one that provides content to your readers, not just your weekly sales flyer in disguise) and you want to increase engagement rates, then read on to see what social tactics make a perfect pairing when used in email.

1. Humanize with a Mascot or Actual Employee

If your company uses a mascot or spokesperson in print or broadcast media, you naturally want to feature it prominently in your email communications, and not just because you want to be consistent.

Think of "Jack" and you immediately recognize the Jack in the Box brand, have an opinion on the products they sell and the humor they normally do it with. If they have a newsletter, you can be sure pictures of Jack should be all over it.

Another example: Beleaguered communications company Sprint is trying to use their new CEO Dan to bring a face to the company in order to strengthen its bond with consumers. Its TV spots include an email address consumers can use to sound off to him, good or bad (dan@sprint.com).

2. Add a Picture; Build a Bond

Use a picture of your most identifiable mascot or spokesperson, or the author if the material carries a byline. This can build trust, help the reader identify with the writer and strengthen the desire to respond.

Try this simple test. How do you respond to each of the three scenarios below. (No, I won't give out grades but I'll know if you cheat). Which of these three gives you the strongest bond and reinforces your trust in the information the author provides?

If there is one area that regularly throws up questions, it's deliverability. Perhaps some of the specialists can weigh in here...

Text/HTML

1. If you send your email as multipart/alternative and have a text version with wording that differs significantly from the text used in the HTML version, what are the likely deliverability consequences?

I ask because I see many big brand emails where:

    * The text version is just a link to the web version of the email, or
    * Some of the text in the HTML version is "invisible" since it appears as an image. So the text and HTML versions are similar when viewed by a human, but won't appear similar to a piece of software trying to "read" the text.

Are these brands making deliverability mistakes, or do they know something I don't? I'd always assumed this would lead to a higher spam score in, for example, SpamAssassin?

(N.B. Using images to display text also causes problems when images are blocked.)

2. Is there any deliverability penalty if you send just an HTML email but coded as text/html rather than multipart/alternative?

(Ignoring the question of whether you'd want to!)
Reputation and links/images



"...some receivers auto-enable images and links for the highest reputation senders."

I know that certain email certification programs have this benefit at selected ISPs. But...

3. Are there any ISPs where a solid reputation (but no certification) means your images and links are automatically enabled?

If so, this would add more weight to the argument that deliverability tactics are not just about getting email delivered.

Somehow, those deadlines keep rolling around like clockwork! If there is one issue that every electronic newsletter publisher will face, it's the never-ending struggle to gather and write useful, relevant, engaging content.

Every successful e-newsletter publisher understands how vital it is to produce unique content regularly. The key to attracting new clients and developing lasting relationships with existing customers via your e-newsletter, is to deliver high-value, actionable "know how" and information that serves your audience.

E-newsletters are an exceptionally cost-effective, efficient way to transfer knowledge, both to prospective and existing customers. It is through this knowledge transfer that prospective clients learn about your company, your capabilities, and how you can help them. These communications build trust and establish a foundation for a future business relationship.

Likewise, sharing ideas, strategies, and best practices helps existing customers get more value out of the products and services they have already purchased; shows them how they can add on products and services; enhances your support level, and protects your products and services from becoming exchangeable commodities in their eyes.

Recycle Existing Information

Consistently writing outstanding content is hard work, but it isn't the exclusive domain of professional writers. Why? Because the primary requirement for good content is that it represents value to the reader. Substance is far more important than form.

Simply taking information you already have and putting it into context adds value to your audience. For example, if your e-newsletter includes an article on practical techniques for performing oil analysis on manufacturing equipment, you could add a checklist of items that your technicians use when they perform this function. Or, you could include an article about an upcoming oil analysis training class with an excerpt from your training manual.

In these cases, you don't write content from scratch. You simply gather information that previously couldn't be found in a single place, add a meaningful context, and deliver it to your audience.

To find these gems, ask yourself, "What would be useful, pertinent, and entertaining to my audience?" Look around your company and uncover those valuable nuggets of knowledge that have already been created, and that your market needs and values.

For example, if you publish a technical tips and tricks e-newsletter for software developers, have a product manager or lead technical support representative contribute heavily to the article. If you are publishing an industry trends and analysis article for the financial services marketplace, find an in-house expert or maybe even a compliance person to develop and review content.

It's definitely a bonus to have a professional writer spice up your e-newsletter, but the majority of the content must come from experts within your business.

Balance Promotion & Education

The most successful e-newsletter publishers are adept at balancing the promotional material they include with the amount of educational material they offer. E-newsletters work best over an extended period of time and require that your audience keep listening and interacting. Include too many sales promotions and advertisements, and your audience will unsubscribe in droves.

You will find that by focusing on the content side of your e-newsletter and improving it issue to issue, you will attract and retain clients without overt promotional material.

Jump-start Your Creativity

The following list offers different categories or sources of content for your business e-newsletter. Hopefully, this list will jump-start your creativity and spur you to publish better, more content-rich e-newsletters.

1. Product Know-How
- Technical question contests
- Frequently asked questions and solutions
- Recurring issues that you could proactively address
- Product tips and best practices
- Descriptions of ways to optimize the use of products and services for different customer situations
- Selected sections from your training & support materials
- Product updates & fixes
- Detailed product support information
- New downloads

2. Industry Know-How
- Legislative or regulatory changes that affect your products/services or stakeholders
- Industry trends or insights
- Industry opportunities
- Reports on needs or unsolved problems in the marketplace

3. Spotlight Articles
- Feature articles about successful stakeholders and the things they are doing in their businesses that your audience would value
- Press highlights about your customers, partners, employees, etc.

4. Feedback
- Excerpts from discussion databases, Weblogs, and online forums that you host
- Testimonials, comments, suggestions, or constructive criticism from stakeholders
- Survey responses

5. Training & Educational Opportunities
- Conferences, seminars, or other events that might interest your audience
- Webinars or product training classes
- Books and useful industry reports
- Interesting articles and websites

For e-newsletters to employees, partners, shareholders, and others who require more intimate knowledge about your business, some additional ideas about content you might include are:

1. New products and services
- Benefits, features, and functions
- Product collateral
- Pricing information
- Sales/call scripts
- Ideas for repositioning old products
- Special events or sales
- Changes in product status, price, availability, or delivery times
- Product training opportunities

2. Company calendar information
- Trade show, conference, and event information
- Registration deadlines and appropriate forms

3. Sales and Forecasting Information
- Percentages and units sold compared to objectives
- Sales areas that need to be improved

4. Competitive Intelligence
- Information or knowledge about competitive companies, products, or services
- Opportunities within your industry that your company can leverage
- Purchasing trends

5. New Corporate Policies and Procedures
- Benefits information
- Travel and expense reporting procedures
- Promotions and new hires

6. Sales Strategies and Techniques
- Sales tips from prospecting to closing
- Sales and marketing book reviews
- Articles from sales and marketing speakers or consultants
- Winning sales strategies of your top salespeople

7. Motivation
- Spiffs, promotions, or sales incentives
- Opportunities for fun or team building offered by your company
- Recognition for outstanding sales team contributions

8. Company Vision and Objectives
- Company philosophy or mission
- Changes to company philosophy and implications
- Changes in organizational structure -- include who, why, how, and when

9. Customer News
- New customers
- Press highlights about your customers
- Unresolved account issues
- Compliments or "wins"

10. Advertising campaigns
- Dates and times of ad campaigns for your company's products and services
- Collateral for these ad campaigns
- The purpose, rationale, assumptions, and goals of the campaigns

When your corporate e-newsletter addresses topics beyond the scope of your own products and services, you have an opportunity to enter into rich, significant conversations with your marketplace. By offering insightful commentary, actionable knowledge, and entertaining discussion, you can differentiate your business and carve out a defensible industry niche.

E-newsletters promote and encourage communication, collaboration, and productivity and can be a key element in your company's pursuit of operational excellence.

Let’s face it. Email marketing is here to stay. Many people use email in their daily communications, many use it even more than a phone. Many companies use email to build and strengthen connection between them and their customers, to have good customer relationship. How effective is direct email marketing compared to traditional marketing? You will find out in this article.

Advertising and marketing online and offline have at least one thing in common - you have to know your target audience. Market segmentation is very important because you don’t want to loose your money sending your ads to someone who has no interest in it.

Cost/benefit

With direct email marketing, you can have 1-1 communication with your customers and prospects. With Group Mail product, award-winning email marketing, you can start creating your email marketing campaigns inexpensively. You will have ability to send HTML email newsletters in order to get better conversion rates and to include your graphics. Also, if you prefer hosted ASP services you can use services like Constant Contact, Vertical Response or some other quality service.

Using Opt-In Manager from Group Metrics package you will be able to get the necessary info from your subscribers and store it in your database. Importing data from existing applications or databases couldn’t be easier. Group Mail can import practically any file type, text, CSV, binary, databases, and email address books. At present any database that supports ODBC or OLEDB (SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, Access, FoxPro, Excel, etc.) can be imported directly into Group Mail using the free Database Importer plug-in. This is very important in order to create highly-personalized campaigns, and with the advanced IF THEN ELSE personalization you will have real 1-1 communication.

Using Group Mail for your direct email marketing campaign you will be able to create unlimited lists with unlimited recipients in each and to make list segmentation. So this way you can send different emails to your prospects, clients, business partners, press or any other group about your company.

Traditional marketing is much more expensive than direct email marketing. If you want to start a direct mail campaign you will have costs for creating and printing your brochures and delivery expenses. Not to mention TV or print advertising. Beside that it is much more expensive, it takes much more time to create and implement any of the traditional marketing campaigns or offline advertising and response ratio is usually much lower than with using email marketing. If you use double opt-in practice for getting subscribers (we always recommend that practice), so that you require that people confirm their request to be on your list, it means that they are interested in what you have to say so they will be interested in your products, too.

Imagine that you want to announce your new software product, update, conference or webinar. You want to inform your business partners and clients because it is most likely that they will be interested in it. You have two choices: to use email to notify them or to use traditional techniques like sending letters or using a phone? What is better for you? You already know what is cheaper.

Tracking

The second advantage using direct email marketing compared to traditional marketing is tracking. Practically, you can find anything about your email marketing campaign with Group Metrics product. You will get detailed statistics about how many people have opened your emails, what is your click-thru rate, which articles or ads were the most popular in your email newsletter. You can get some of that data without services like Group Metrics but there is more hassle. For example, you can embed a 1×1 pixel in your email newsletter and you will count the open ratio. Also, you can use PhpAdsNew for tracking clicks on your links.

There are no such precise techniques for tracking in traditional marketing. Can you know precisely how many people have seen your last TV commercial? No! Can you know precisely how many people have seen your last radio commercial? No! It is the same like with advertising in print magazines. There are some techniques like using equipment like “people meters” or some surveys regarding popularity of certain programs in which your ad was broadcasted but it is not so accurate, at least not that accurate like email marketing tracking. In this case you will usually have to pay to some marketing agency that will make that research. Another option is to include a special phone number or web site in your offline campaigns but even then you won’t know exactly how many people have seen your ad.

Getting feedback

Another advantage that you get using email marketing is in getting feedback. With products like free PollDaddy you have ability to easily create polls and to get feedback from your visitors, prospects and clients, whether you want to use it on your web site or email newsletter. Using polls in your email marketing campaigns, you will get feedback about your company or products very fast and inexpensively.

How about if you want to get feedbacks from people using traditional survey techniques? Depending about your survey size, you will have to hire people who will ask questions. Later, they will need to make survey analysis. You already know that this way your costs will be much higher and you will get the feedback much later than using email marketing.