Email Marketing Tips – Blog GetResponse

We’ve all seen those outrageous infomercials, advertisements or email messages touting unbelievable achievements by purchasing Product X or Service Y. (The most common niches I see for this type of advertising are weight loss and making money.)

In the past, claims like “I lost 75 pounds in three months” and “I earned $7000 my first week!”  have been allowed because of three simple words: “Results Not Typical”. While 99% of the participants may have only lost four pounds in three months, those three little words protected advertisers.

But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is about to change that. Following two separate research studies, the FTC found that consumers felt these claims were representative of what the average person could expect to achieve. They did not view these success stories as a one-in-a-million result, even with the “Results Not Typical” disclaimer.

If these changes are instituted, advertisers who use this type of success story will have to:

• Provide clinical data substantiating that these results were the average; or
• Eliminate such success stories fro their advertising campaigns; or
• If using non-representative success stories, they must be accompanied by a disclosure of what their average customer achieves.

The new guidelines would affect those who make specific, quantifiable claims. Having someone comment on the ease of use of a product or service would not fall under these new guidelines.

If you have not received your current campaigns in awhile, this is a great opportunity to update them and make sure you’ll be in compliance.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

The economic pressures have certainly been evident in the retail sector this year, as is evidenced by the number and frequency of email offers flooding mailboxes this season. Without “outing” any individual retailers, you have to ask if your customers need daily (or more frequent!) emails from you.

In the last post, we talked about engaging your customers and how that creates loyalty…which creates sales. One way to engage your customers is through surveys or polls. Why not survey your list to find out their preferable delivery schedule and then test the results to see if what they say is what they mean!

If you are establishing an email marketing or newsletter campaign, a once-a-week delivery schedule is a great starting point. Your list may also be receptive to special pricing, limited deals, or “hot” news one other day during that week. The key is to get the click (and hopefully the sale) without alienating your reader by flooding them with too many emails.

Remember when we discussed how engaged customers are more loyal and generally buy more? KitchenAid has developed a Weekly Specials program that can be customized by their customers. To see this example, go to the page above and click on the image labeled “Weekly Specials”” (obviously that link changes weekly so I can’t use it!). Once there, click on “Product Alerts”.

KitchenAid runs a one-day special every Monday on a product in their outlet store. These are money-savings deals with a short window and significant savings (I recently purchased something for 67% off). The Product Alerts allow you to select the products in which you are interested to receive information about sales in that category. Notice that they are very clear in stating, “You can add or change categories at any time.”

In this way, KitchenAid can email its customers more frequently because they are providing the latest information, sales, and rebates for specific types of products that the customers have selected. Since email notifications go out by product line, customers can delete emails regarding blenders after they’ve purchased one, yet keep receiving emails about other products of interest.

By implementing a system such as this you could easily mail your customers twice weekly – and have them sitting by their inbox waiting for your mail!

How could you adapt this for your business? Please share with us…

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Looking for just the right words for your squeeze pages, subject lines, or email marketing?

This list of 1000 words that get response was posted for human resource professionals, but the majority of them could be used in your marketing efforts.

One hint – whether you’re writing a resume or email copy – is to bullet point ACTION words!
Just a few examples from this list include:

Accelerate
Achieve
Automate
Choose
Compare
Compete
Create
Customize
Call
Develop
Deliver
Discover
Eliminate
Enjoy
Experience
Explode
Free
Gain
Generate
Get
Give
Grow
Heighten
Heal
Increase
Improve
Inspire
Inform
Imagine
Lead
Love
Motivate
Prove
Profit
Perform
Preview
Prosper
Promote
Protect
Qualify
Recommend
Realize
Receive
Reveal
Rush
Relieve
Save
Secure
Send
Shape
Simplify
Slash
Solve
Start
Succeed
Support
Test Drive

If you go to the list linked above, you’ll notice that many of the above words are shown as adjectives and not action words. If you compare my list of actions to their list, you’ll see how easy it is to get to the “root” to create exciting copy for your squeeze pages and emails.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Recently, someone wrote our support staff asking if it was safe to import free or purchased leads into their autoresponder system.

It is our policy (and the policy of most – if not all – companies such as GetResponse) not to allow these types of leads to be imported. Your subscribers must have requested information from you specifically. This is entirely different from them clicking on a link, filling out a generic opt-in form, and having their name sold to tens or hundreds of people.

While there are a number of ways to build a list, GetResponse provides an easy alternative with their service at GetSubscribers. This service can add targeted subscribers to your list each and every day without the need for them to confirm.

If you are looking for a simple way to build your list, you may want to check it out!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Datran Media recently released their second annual survey of over 2,000 online marketers, regarding their insight into the best online promotional methods.

Over 82% said they were planning to increase their use of email marketing in 2008. ROI from email marketing was anticipated to be much higher than other promotional avenues by 55% of respondents. When compared with other media buys, email came in on top, over display, search, print and other media channels.

Interestingly, email serves a double purpose, as seen by survey respondents, who leveraged email as a sales tool as well as utilizing it as a media channel.

Email was used to send newsletters by 80% of the respondents. In addition to using email as a sales tool, it was also used to reactivate dormant customers, enhance customer relationships and increase brand awareness.

An important note is that over 81% send TARGETED email campaigns, with less than 19% sending untargeted campaigns. The majority of targeting was based on actions or demographics / location.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
Get Response

You can have the best autoresponder campaign or email newsletter in the world, but if nobody signs up to receive it, what’s the point?

One of the ways to build your list is through a landing page. But I’ve seen too many landing pages that try to be all things to all people. The result is a confusing message and poor conversion.

Before creating your landing page, you need to determine your goal. If your goal is to have visitors opt-in to your list, do NOT distract them from doing that.

If this is an opt-in page, this is not the place to sell them your product. Don’t include ads which easily allow them to click out and abandon your site. And including links to all your other web sites will simply distract them and keep them from doing what you want: opting in.

Have you given your landing pages a check-up lately?

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Following the expansion of our customer support staff and the extension of support hours until 8 PM, we are pleased to announce another step forward in helping you take full advantage of our service.

Planning your campaign for the weekend?

In addition to the regular 9-8 EST Mon-Fri telephone, live-chat and email and our existing weekend email support, we are adding telephone and live-chat service on Saturdays, 9-5 EST!

Starting next Saturday, October 28th our helpful customer support representatives will be standing by to provide you with all the help you need to turn that Saturday email marketing campaign of yours into a great success!

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of GetResponse customer support representatives and developers for the amazing work that they are doing.

It takes a lot of effort to maintain infrastructure that delivers millions of email marketing messages every day, and I’m proud that we have such a wonderful team of talented and Internet-savvy folks who enjoy sharing their professional enthusiasm with customers like you.

To give you a flavor of what it’s like behind the operations, please step into our international offices and meet a few of our team members, who ensure that GetResponse runs smoothly every day.

We have plenty more exciting features, technology updates and improvements in store over the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more.

Regards,

Simon Grabowski
CEO
GetResponse

North American Office

When Jonathan, Customer Support Supervisor is not preparing his mouth-watering barbeque, he is providing GetResponse customers with top-notch service over the phone and live-chat.

Marija, always kind, courteous and friendly, is always ready to help GetResponse customers with their support questions. Marija is one of our live-chat and telephone support representatives.

Customer Support Supervisor, Bobbi-Jo, having just received an installment of “Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service” book is busy… doing just that.

European Office

Eveline is an energetic email support representative and trainer. Always full of great ideas, she has a keen grasp of how to get things done… fast!

Anna likes to keep her paper files, notebooks and at least 4 mugs close at hand. Her office is far from virtual bits and bytes, and her administrative support is invaluable.

Head of GetResponse Business Development, Chris and his team are taking care of our enterprise customers, helping private label partners and forging new business alliances.

GetResponse Project Manager Jacob and Jacek (one of our talented developers) are working together on an exciting new GetResponse technology upgrade.

Complex database structures, algorithm optimizations, email deliverability monitoring procedures… GetResponse developers’ bread and butter.

PS.: To meet more people behind GetResponse, please take a look at our team page.

A popular anti-spam organization, SpamHaus, was ordered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to pay $11,715,000 in damages to e360insight and its CEO, David Linhardt. e360insight sued SpamHaus earlier this year over illegal blacklisting of their mailings.

Additionally, SpamHaus was barred from causing any email sent by e360insight or Linhardt to be “blocked, delayed, altered, or interrupted in anyway”. The court also ordered SpamHaus to publish a public apology for deeming the group a spammer.

SpamHaus, a British-based organization, did not accept the US jurisdiction and believes that the order is not enforceable. “As spamming is illegal in the United Kingdom, an Illinois court ordering a British organization to stop blocking incoming Illinois spam in Britain goes contrary to U.K. law which orders all spammers to cease sending spam in the first place” SpamHaus stated.

At GetResponse we use SpamHaus as one of the methods to filter inbound spam and prevent spammers from abusing legitimate email marketing and autoresponder campaigns. We regret that the US court system can be used as a weapon against a non-profit organization that strives to keep our mailboxes clean.

UPDATE

In a proposed court order dated 10/6/2007 Judge Charles Kocoras of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois calls on the organizations responsible for registering the Spamhaus.org Internet address to suspend the organization’s Internet service. Both ICANN and Tucows, the Spamhaus.org registrar, are named in the order.

A spam-savvy Illinois lawyer shares his perspective on the issue and believes that the outlook may be bleak for the anti-spam organization.

UPDATE #2

A federal judge presiding over a spam dispute rejected a marketing company’s request to suspend the domain name of an anti-spam group that ignored an $11.7 million judgment against it.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles P. Kocoras denied a proposed motion from e360 Insight, which sued the Spamhaus Project over its “black list” of spammers. Wheeling, Ill.-based e360 Insight contends it is improperly on the list because it is a direct marketer that does not send unsolicited e-mail.

Email marketing can be profitable for any business, no matter what kind of product or service you are selling. It is significantly cheaper than other advertising methods and it enables you to build credibility with your subscribers. As a result, you can generate more sales and profits.

The foundation of email marketing is a targeted, responsive and permission-based email list. If you have a list of subscribers that trust you and consider you to be an expert in the field of your interest, you are on the right track.

Below you will several list building ideas that will help you make the most out of your email marketing.

1. Provide useful, relevant and unique content. Your visitors will not give you their email address just because they can subscribe to your newsletter free of charge. You have to provide unique and valuable information that will be useful for your subscribers.
2. Add a subscription form to every page of your website. Make it elegant and accessible. Locate it at the top-left corner of your site, as that’s where the human eye will initially travel.
3. Make the sign up process as easy as possible. You shouldn’t ask for too much information upfront, because you will lose subscribers.  Collecting just the name and email address should be enough for most email marketing campaigns.
4. Address your visitors’ privacy concerns. Most people are worried that they will receive spam after giving out their email address. Tell your potential subscribers that you respect their privacy and link this statement to a privacy policy page.
5. Show an example issue to your visitors. This lets your potential subscribers review your newsletter before they sign up and determine if it is something they’d be interested in.
6. Create a web-based newsletter repository. By putting an archive of all of your newsletter issues you can make it more appealing for your visitors to subscribe. You will also generate additional traffic from search engines.
7. Contact other newsletter publishers. Let them know that you’d be interested to announce their newsletter if they’re up to do the same for you. This way, both of you can build your lists faster.
8. Give away useful free stuff. Write an ebook or a PDF report. Hire a programmer to create downloadable or web-based software. Then give it away to your visitors provided that they join your list.
9. Request that your subscribers pass it on. Word of mouth is a powerful viral technique that works great with email marketing. If your subscribers find the content you share with them to be useful and informative, they will pass your newsletter on to their friends. This can be a good source of new subscribers.
10. Let others reprint your newsletter, as long as its content is unmodified. Many webmasters and newsletter publishers are actively looking for high quality content, and if they reprint your newsletter, you will get new subscribers, traffic and links pointing to your site.
11. Include a “Sign Up” button in the newsletter. If you are using plain text instead of HTML, provide a text link to your subscription page. You may feel that this is not required, because the subscriber is already on your list, but remember that your readers will forward your newsletters to others, or reprint it online. You want to make it easy for them to subscribe.
12. Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page is typically designed only to build your list. It features a powerful headline and a couple of most important benefits that should make your subscribers salivate to sign up to your list. Once created, use a service such as WordTracker to find hundreds targeted keywords, and advertise on them using pay per click advertising on Google, MSN and Yahoo.
13. Include testimonials in your squeeze page. This is crucial. Put 1 or 2 strong testimonials from satisfied subscribers on your squeeze page. This can be in any format, but you may find that multimedia (audio or video social proof) is more “believable”. People like to follow footsteps of other people.
14. Blog religiously. Blogging is a great way to communicate with your potential customers, and it creates a nice synergy with your email marketing. Be sure to include your newsletter sign up form on each page of your blog.
15. Use co-registration service to build your list. Co-registration is a great way to build your email list. Your newsletter’s ad appears on other website’s and their visitors are able to check your subscription box and become added to your list. A good co-registration service can be found at GetSubscribers.com.

Simon Grabowski is an owner of the web-based GetResponse email marketing software that makes it easy for thousands of marketers and small businesses to send their newsletters and build their email lists. Try GetResponse free of charge at http://www.getresponse.com

If you are actively marketing on the Internet or doing just about anything online, you will find that your email address spreads all over the web in no time. Suddenly you are receiving dozens of emails every day, or if you are like me – even hundreds.

Handling an Inbox that stores hundreds or thousands of messages and consistently grows in size can be a real headache and a big frustration.

Managing email suddenly becomes a major challenge. The good news is that you can fight back and reclaim your inbox.

(more…)