Melissa D
Experienced Educator, Trainer and Coach; President, Wise Ways Consulting, Inc
Email Newletters
With all of the email contact services out there (Constant Contact, iContact to name but two), what have you found to be the best service to go with? Is there a specific company that you find most helpful?
And if you're using one of these services, how has it improved your business marketing?
Any tips for someone starting down this path?
Answers (14)
Hi Melissa,
I know that a lot of the Real Estate agents and small businesses I work with use Constant Contact and they seem very happy. The email newsletters also come through very professional and 'intact' even using Vista.
Tip = Make the content informative, fun, and useful.
If you need help or additions to your email newsletter, please let me know. I am working on ramping up my freelance writing and photography sides of my business.
Good luck!
Melissa
Terri L M
Planning and Strategies Consultant; speaker, trainer, author.
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Melissa:
There are a number of these types of services on the Internet these days, most of them are pretty similar when you do the research. They all offer templates you can select from...a few offer to do customized templates for you to best portray your brand, most offer tracking and analytics to show you who is opening your e-mails, who is clicking on links, etc., most provide database management features to help you maintain a 'clean' list. The biggest difference I have seen is generally in the price. Most have a graduated fee schedule based on the number of names in your database.
I've been doing my newsletter four years now, but as a 'static' .pdf attached to an e-mail. Am anxious to incorporate it into my web site (under construction) so that it can become more interactive, with links, have tracking capabilities, etc. While the newsletter is well received, it's too 'old technology' and needs ramped up to something like what you are looking for.
Either Constant Cotnact, or iContact is going to be the same in terms of ability to get your email out. The features they offer is going to make the differrence, and that's a decision you're going to have to make. I would not try to do it yourself. ISP's get testy when you send out large amounts of email, and may even disable your account
If you're looking for how to put an e-zine or email together, go to gitomer.com and sign up for his e-zine. He uses every trick in the book with great effect.
Links:
Martin M
Customer Service Professional, Internet Marketer and WordPress Blogger.
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Melissa, hi,
I use Aweber and I've been very pleased with it. The delivery rates are great and the range of services it offers covers everything I need. They're probably very similar to Constant Contact.
Cheers,
Martin.
Larry S
Owner, PersonalNewsletters.com
Best Answers in: Advertising (1), Software Development (1), Web Development (1)
Which email service you use is the least of it. The real challenge is coming up with the content, and doing so consistently over the long haul.
The key is to make your content useful to your audience. If your first issue is useful, they will open the second one. Any issue that does not meet their needs is going to increase the likelihood that subsequent issues will fall victim to the Delete button. Or worse, people will simply mark you as spam. If that happens enough, you could be black-listed.
As another poster suggested, humor and fun are good. People are more likely to open a newsletter if they know it will brighten their day. Of course, you don't want to go overboard with this and appear silly.
The tone of your newsletter should be conversational and up-beat, not bureaucratic.
Finally, your newsletter will be most effective if you can personalize it in some way. Try to stay away from the "email blast" approach. The email services you mentioned, as well as many others, allow you tailor different "campaigns" for different people. In your case, you might want to send certain content to HR departments, other content to educators, and yet other content to small businesses. It is better to send one relevant article to each person than to send the same pack of mostly-irrelevant articles to everyone. You want to respect your readers' time. Moreover, if someone gets a long newsletter that, at first glance, contains mostly stuff they don't care about, she's going to toss it and miss the one gem that was just for her.
Feel free to contact me if I can help further.
Clarification added 4 months ago:
Melissa, I just sent you an email with some further thoughts through the "Contact Us" facility on your website.
Anita P
Marketing Manager, HP Software + Solutions, South Africa & Africa
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Hi Melissa,
By way of a quick tip it would be prudent to:
- operate with privacy quidelines
- ensure that you establish areas of interest of each of your target audiences and direct only pertinent info to them, with the option to have click thru's to anthying else they may deem relevant.
- alwyas ensure that you are able to monitor and evaluate the online experience you are putting out.
- also, there may be merit in looking at additional points of online departure to support your email campaign.
Hope this helps :)
Kind regards,
Anita
Mary Beth S
"Just a Girl Who Prints"... Blogger @ girlswhoprint.blogspot.com
Best Answers in: Customer Relationship Management (1)
Melissa, I've been extremely pleased with Constant Contact, particularly due to their comprehensive customer support.
While this is essentially a "diy" product, there's still a bit of a learning curve before developing the fluency to navigate and edit templates in order to produce a professional appearance. Anyone who does not already have some background in layout, editing blocks, and pleasing design is going to struggle to create a truly professional look.
CC offers a dedicated CSR for your account, who you can contact personally for assistance. Additionaly, the live daily tutorials will help you get your feet wet, so to speak. They also hold classes and workshops(many of them free) in most major cities on a regular basis, which take you step by step through different capabilities and best practices.
As to tips for newbies:
1. As crucial as good content is, if you don't have anyone to mail it to, it won't matter - so - develop a strong contact list!
2. Don't get discouraged while you're learning how to create a pleasing look.
3. If all else fails, just hire someone to do the layout - then you can focus your time, energy and talent on your content!
Regarding marketing: the tracking reports allow you to see what topics are being clicked on by recipients, who is actually opening the newsletter, and who is forwarding the newsletter. This helps you refine what you do, or plan follow-up for topics that seem to be generating more interest.
I started out with the free trial from CC, and quickly subscribed when I saw how much value it brought to my marketing efforts. I now include the 'badge' on our website.
Hope this helps - feel free to contact me with questions - happy to help if I can!
:) mb
Free webinar on this very topic next Wednesday: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/376351930
featuring a range of solutions including those mentioned in your enquiry.
http://www.cambridge.cjvdigital.com/
Prue.lee@cjvdigital.com
Links:
Andre N
Urban Conversationalist
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I've been using iContact for nearly two years now and it's been quite effective for the hyperlocal blog that I maintain here in Birmingham.
The best thing about all of these services is the ability it gives you to provide both a text and/or more visual piece for subscribers. I'm finally getting ready to look at embedding audio and video in the newsletters as well. They also help you manage the lists of subscribers, making it easy to sort through the lists using whatever variables you provide as well as making it easy to manage additions and, when necessary, unsubscriptions.
No matter what service you choose, the moment you begin to try to reach a large amount of folks, signing up for a contact service is one of the best investments that you can make.
Margot C
writer, consultant, activist, rabblerouser
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I'm late to this party, but hope this information will be helpful. I participated in the #smbiz Twitter chat on newsletters last week. I've linked to a digest below. We work with companies to create e-newsletter content (and feed a chosen distribution channel) and would be glad to work with you.
Hope this helps!
Links:
Sasha G
Marketing Services at Peer Evaluations LLC
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That depends. When I see a newsletter coming from constant contact, for example, I instantly think about small b2c business, or small online retail. For a larger b2b company, I would consider using EmailLabs or Vertical Response, for example. it's just the first feeling - but it's important, when you are trying to opt-in the potential customers or retain those you've already have
Links:
Michael L
Owner, FreedomFire Communications and Telecommunications Consultant
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I always recommend AWeber when this type of question is asked. Top industry reputation, feature rich, cost effective, great customer support, free ongoing training, plus a free 30 day trial. They're easy to work with too .... able to customize most anything if you ask.
Link provided for more information.
Links:
Hi Melissa,
There are several companies out there that provide similar email services. However, I would recommend eROI over the rest. eROI distinguishes itself from other similar companies by offering similar services in the ways of creating, sending, and tracking email but also offers help outside of email such as website design and a new EventROI platform that handles customizable invites, registration, and even payment.
If you are looking to set up a relationship with a great company that can take care of your email needs as well as offer many other resources for future use, I would say that eROI is absolutely the way to go.
I've added a link below to some free information on basic email marketing best practices that eROI offers in their resource center and it's a great place to start if you're looking for a little extra info on the subject. Hope you find it helpful!
Links:
I've been to a few free seminars for Constant Contact and it is a very popular service and rightly so. Very easy to use and manage. Out here in San Diego they offer free seminars almost every month. Below I've attached the link where they post upcoming seminars for Washington D.C. If one comes up, I'd highly recommend attending.
Also, in my home town a company called Exact Target seems to be making very big strides as a e-mail newsletter and marketing solution. I'd also recommend checking them out.
When you just start out there will be a temptation to place every email in your address book on the list, but sending newsletters to people who did not ask for them will turn off as many people that it might turn on. The biggest piece of advice I can give when starting out is to start asking permission to send newsletters to your audience and respect their wishes. If you are consistent and respectful of their privacy, they will take notice and your list will grow naturally and properly.
I've attached a link to a great Seth Godin blog post that will be perfect for your current situation.
Hope this helps!
-Chris
