Hello and Happy Holidays! We hope you’re getting in the spirit of the season and keeping the stress levels under control. We know there’s a lot of pressure during the holiday selling season, so we decided to offer a few tips to help you hear that Ka-ching sound along with the sleigh bells!
We’re not going to get complicated, or hit you over the head with techniques you can review in previous blogs. We just want you to relax, think things through,  then get creative! Here are 4 steps to get you started:

1.    Don’t panic, PLAN! Feed your imagination with some GetResponse Email Analytics! A short review should tell you which types of offers get the best results and why. You could also check your sales stats to identify any product trends or buying patterns. If you ran a Christmas campaign last season, look at what worked and what didn’t.  Now, your strategy – what segments should you target, how personal should you get, and what can you execute in the time you have? Finally, check out the competition…take a guess what they’re going to do, then up the ante!

2.    DISCOUNTS! BOGOs (buy-one etc)! COUPONS! Oh, my! Remember our blog on Coupon Clippers Gone Wild!?  So you know they work, but maybe you want to focus on volume sales this Christmas? Try free shipping or 10% off orders over $xx! It’s an e-commerce tactic that really works! And don’t forget that…

3.    DESIGN MATTERS: We’re guessing you’re sending HTML messages, cards, and coupons this season. Now, let’s get creative! Start by browsing through our 300+ designer templates, but if you can’t find one, we can create a custom template for you! Add face-to-face video greetings and promos to animate your content without clutter!  Just remember to maintain that balance of text, media and graphics…optimize for delivery and leave the glitz and glitter to the malls. That counts double for calls to action – make them pop, but keep it simple!

4.    TARGETING WORKS: The personal touches are more important than ever around the holidays, but it’s not just about strengthening relationships. if you take the time to segment and/or target your subject lines, offers, messages and yes, your design, you could increase open rates by 20% and almost double your CTR!1  That means more Christmas ka-ching for you!!!

Remember, you don’t have to plan it all in one day, but don’t wait too long – the holiday season runs from mid-November through the end of December, so you need to start asap!  Now that you’re up and running, we’ll help you with the next hurdle – crafting and testing your content – in upcoming posts, so stay tuned!

Hope you find these first few tips useful, but maybe you’re way ahead of us. Send your holiday campaign ideas and comments so we can all have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

1 MarketingSherpa “Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008″

Hoping for a profitable Holiday? Here are 4 things you can do now! is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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We hit a BIG milestone at GetResponse today − 300,000,000 emails sent since the launch of GetResponse 6.0!  I would like to congratulate our very intelligent email marketing customers on producing such an avalanche of campaigns and building such high-quality subscriber lists to send to. Many of you are now up to speed on the fantastic new features and rocking your emails with video, designer templates, and much, much more.

This milestone backs up our last blog post claiming that Email Marketing is the fast, easy and low-cost channel that businesses are turning to during the crunch. Of course, our customers knew this all along and are way ahead of the pack. But it’s still great to have top-tier analysts and media experts lining up behind us and bringing a ton of data to support the Truth. The more feedback we get, the closer we will come to making Email Marketing the ROI Killer App for ALL marketers!

ANNOUNCEMENT! We will be launching a competition to find out which one of you sends the 500,000,000th GetResponse Email!  It’s fast approaching, so watch this space for more details!

Email Explosion Follows 6.0 Launch! is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Author – GetResponse Email Solutions Manager, Marcin Luks

Confirmed Opt-in improves campaign results! We analyzed over 700M messages sent from GetResponse Pro accounts between August 1st and November 1st 2009, and compared certain “success” factors for confirmed opt-in and unconfirmed opt-in users. Check out the newest stats now!

The battle between “confirmed opt-in” and unconfirmed opt-in supporters has been raging for almost as long as email marketing has existed.  Much has been said, yet the endless stream of articles and shouting matches on blogs and forums continues. We’d like to help sort it all out, starting with the basics:

Definitions:

Unconfirmed Opt-in (also “unverified opt-in” or “single opt-in”) takes place when a new subscriber is automatically added to a mailing list, without any “extra steps” to verify his/her intention to join.

Confirmed Opt-in (“verified opt-in” or “double opt-in”) means that before a  new subscriber is added to a list, a confirmation email is sent asking the subscriber to confirm his/her intention to sign-up by clicking on the link in the email message. If the link isn’t clicked, the address won’t be added.

Now some marketers have objected:

‘Why annoy my new subscribers with unnecessary verification emails? What’s the point, anyway?’

Well, there are several very important reasons to verify:

1)    Keeping your lists clean – Typos are a common problem with web sign-up forms. Who hasn’t made them? However, this is a huge headache for mailing list managers.  One wrong letter and your emails could be sent to a totally different person, or the mailbox may not even exist, so you’ve wasted your time and money, and possibly annoyed some prospects. No matter how innocent the “offense”, both situations can cause serious deliverability problems with Internet Solution Providers (ISPs), like redirecting all your messages to junk folders or even blocking future emails.

2)    Dodging malicious subscriptions – Imagine the effect of someone subscribing email addresses to your list as a prank or, even worse, using a malicious script to fill out all sign-up forms on the Internet (including yours) with bogus information! Or spammers using forged email addresses to send millions of emails, including the one used to sign up to your list. Or how about a competitor or an old high school enemy setting you up for a “joe-job” by adding anti-spammers and/or authorities to your mailing list? This stuff CAN happen to you, and HAS happened to many others! Using confirmed opt-in takes care of these problems for you, now and forever, AUTOMATICALLY!

3)    Avoiding the “spammer” label – What happens when subscribers complain about your emails and send spam complaints to your email marketing provider (like GetResponse) or to your ISP? Many providers, like Yahoo, Gmail, AOL or Hotmail, will sometimes ask you to prove that your list consists only of email addresses from subscribers who willingly signed up to receive your messages. In most cases, the only undeniable proof is confirmed opt-in subscriptions. If you can’t provide that, you might be labeled a spammer! We all know that could cause major problems for your business, so better protect your list (and your reputation) beforehand, than pay for it later.

4)    Increasing your email deliverability – A list consisting of verified addresses, and subscribers who are 100% certain they wish to receive your emails, dramatically increases email deliverability. But that’s not all – you get much better open and click ratios and fewer complaints and removals. All these factors improve your reputation as a sender − and your email marketing results.

Clean list -> less complaints and better deliverability -> more sales!

5)    Paying less for your list – When you host your list with GetResponse, you are charged according to your mailing list size (GR pricing). With unconfirmed opt-ins, you’ll always have a fair amount of subscribers that don’t want to stay on your list or cannot receive your emails for some of the reasons we discussed. With the confirmed opt-in model, you won’t be paying for contacts that don’t return revenue, so you save!

Now, what do the unconfirmed opt-in supporters say in their defense?

‘Confirmed opt-in lists lead to reduced revenues.’

It’s a MYTH!

Let’s look at the facts. The Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy (ISIPP), GetResponse partners, call it an “illusion”: ‘Any perceived short-term ‘loss’ is more than compensated for by: higher advertising rates, higher acceptance of email, higher response rates and higher conversion rates’ .  In other words, the confirmed opt-in process improves Return on Investment (ROI). By sending to a confirmed list, you have a much higher probability of success. Period!

‘Confirmed opt-in reduces your list.’

Really, what’s the point of keeping a larger mailing list if a significant number of subscribers have no intention of remaining on your list, or the email addresses never existed in the first place? What if they were replaced by high-quality contacts that might actually purchase from you? Now do the math and decide if you can afford to waste time and money on unconfirmed subscribers.

If verification is so important, you might ask –

‘Why is GetResponse making it optional to choose between confirmed and unconfirmed opt-in?’

Email Marketing is always evolving. At the moment, confirmed opt-in is becoming the standard, as more and more experienced and responsible marketers switch from unconfirmed opt-in to confirmed.  But, as with every evolution – individuals need time to experiment and decide for themselves which is the better option.  As we mentioned earlier, there are two sides to this argument and we want to give you the freedom to choose. Let me ask though, after reading this article, which side will you be on?

Why You Should Choose Confirmed Opt-In is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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You are now experiencing the totally new look and features of GetResponse! We hope you like it as much as we do! The more you use the new release, the more ideas you will get for exciting new campaigns. The new interface makes it easier than ever!

To help you get to know the new GetResponse, we have prepared a special GetResponse 6.0 Migration Guide for you, click here to take a look. With this new version of our service, we have also made some changes to our pricing plan. From now on, our fee will be based on the email list size. Now you can choose a plan that will be just right for your needs and your wallet!

To take a look at our new pricing options please click here

The new pricing plan includes powerful new features, and more ease of use than you thought possible– all guaranteed to make your email marketing ROI sky rocket!

Get a head start right now with these powerful tools and features:

• 300+ Designer Templates
• Video Email Marketing
• Online Surveys
• Email Analytics
• and much more!

We hope you truly enjoy and benefit from the new GetResponse! If you have any questions or ideas, simply email us. We love hearing from you!

Thank you for your business!

Introduction to New GetResponse! is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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