Launching a succesful Email campaign is a strategic move on your part if you want to stay in front of your customers and gain new ones. Here are 12 great tips:

1. Set an emailing schedule and stick with it.
2. Send interesting emails early in the week (Monday through Wednesday)
3. Send mailings overnight (schedule them to go out sometime after 2:00 AM)
4. Offer both plain and HTML emails (your audience should be able to see both versions)
5. Use the words FREE and NEW in the title of your emails, if applicable
6. Offer seasonal advice (don’t be all business, insert humor once in a while…or often)
7. Provide full URL of whatever you promote (blog, website, landing page, etc.)
8. Couple each headline with an URL (put the product name and the URL under it)
9. Include unsubscribe instructions (give people a chance to get out if they want to)
10. Create a Privacy Policy and make it visible (a must and common curtousy)
11. Hide the distribution list (use bcc and save yourself a lot of headaches)
12. Don’t overdo it (people like new stuff so keep it upbeat and don’t bore them to death)

If you can think of some other ones I would love to hear from you. Drop me a line in the “comments” section and I’ll add your stuff if it’s relevant.

Spam Email

Spam? Who came up with this?
The modern meaning of the word “spam” has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit” follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of canned ham.

Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors cram the word “SPAM” into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.” The name stuck.

Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam” is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail”, or “UCE.”

Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?
Chances are, you’ve been spammed once or trice…before. Somehow, your e-mail address has found it’s way into the hands of a spammer, and your inbox is suffering the consequences. How does this happen?

There are several possibilities:

• Random Address Generation
  Computer programs called random address generators simply “guess” e-mail addresses. Over 100 million hotmail addresses exist – how hard could it be to guess some of them? Unfortunately for many unsuspecting users – not too hard. Many spammers also guessed:
  • “standard” addresses, like “support@yourdomain.com”,
  • “info@yourdomain.com”, and “billing@yourdomain.com.”
• Backstabbing Businesses
  Businesses often keep lists of their customers’ e-mail addresses. This is a completely legitimate practice and, usually, nothing bad comes of it. Sometimes though, the temptation to make a quick buck is too great, and these lists are sold or rented to outside advertisers. The result? A lot of unsolicited e-mail, and a serious breach of trust.
• Web Spiders
  Today’s most insidious list-gathering tools are web spiders. All of the major search engines spider the web, saving information about each page. Spammers use tools that also spider the web, but save any e-mail address they come across. Your personal web page lists your e-mail address? Prepare for an onslaught!
• The Poor Man’s Bad Marketing Idea
  It didn’t work for the phone companies, and it won’t work for e-mail marketers. But, some spammers still keep their own friends-and-family-style e-mail lists. Compiled from the addresses of other known spammers, and people or businesses that the owner has come across in the past, these lists are still illegitimate. Why? Only you can give someone permission to send you e-mail. A friend-of-a-friend’s permission won’t cut it.

Stop The Flood to Your Inbox
Already drowning in spam? Try using your e-mail client’s filters – many provide a way to block specific e-mail addresses. Each time you’re spammed, block the sender’s address. Spammers skip from address to address, and you may be on many lists, but this method will at least slow the flow.

Also, use more than one e-mail address, and keep one “clean.” Many users find that this technique turns the spam flood into a trickle. Use one address for only spam-safe activities like e-mailing your friends, or signing on with trustworthy businesses. Never use your clean address on the web! Get a free address to use on the web.

If nothing else helps, consider opening an entirely new e-mail account. When you do, you’ll start with a clean, spam-free slate. This time, protect your e-mail address!

Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future
Want to surf the web without getting sucked into the spam-flood? Prevention is your best policy. Don’t use an easy-to-guess e-mail address. Keep your address clean by not using it for spam-centric activities. Don’t post it on any web pages, and don’t use it in social media or newsgroups. IF you need to use one on your website, use this format: “suchandsuch [@ ] yourdomain.com”

Before giving your clean e-mail address to a business, check the company out. Are sections of its user agreement dedicated to anti-spam rules? Does a privacy policy explain exactly what will be done with your address? The most considerate companies also post an anti-spam policy written in plain English, so you can be absolutely sure of what you’re getting into.

Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure
Many a first-time marketer has inadvertently spammed his audience. The first several hundred complaints and some nasty phone messages usually stop him in his tracks. But by then, the spammer may be faced with cleanup bills from his ISP, and a bad reputation that it’s not easy to overcome.

The best way to avoid this situation is to have a clear understanding of what spam is: If anyone who receives your mass e-mails did not specifically ask to hear from you, then you are spamming them.

Stick with your gut. Don’t buy a million addresses for $10, no matter how much the seller swears by them! If something sounds fishy, just say no. You’ll save yourself a lot in the end.

The Final Blow
The online world is turning the tide on spam. In the end, people will stop sending spam because it stops working. Do your part: never buy from a spammer. When your business seeks out technology companies with which to work, only choose those with a staunch anti-spam stance.

Spam has a long history in both the food and e-mail sectors. Hormel Foods opened a real-world museum dedicated to SPAM. While the museum does feature the Monty Python SPAM Skit, there’s no word yet on an unsolicited commercial e-mail exhibit. But, if all upstanding netizens work together, Hormel’s ham in a can will far outlive the Internet plague that is UCE.

Solution:
Use Aweber - Founded in 1998, we create email marketing software to help small businesses automate email follow up and email newsletter delivery. Our growing team shares a wealth of experience and knowledge about permission-based email marketing with the over 65,000 current clients we work with daily.

Rapid Fire Email with an Autoresponder

Email autoresponders (also sometimes known as mailbots, automatic email and email on demand) are powerful web marketing tools that you’ll find it difficult to manage without.  Email Autoresponders are the secret weapon of email marketing and are a fantastic way to attract new leads and start building trust with potential clients.

 These “mailbots” make things easier than ever, helping you to minimize your daily routine by handling email support for you. Best feature they are known for is allowing your email address to automatically respond to an inquiry with a specific message, anytime. This is an easy way to distribute information about your company to your potential clients.

Email autoresponders will distribute your messages to your audience on a time frame that you pick. These autoresponders will allow the creation of targeted sales due to the fact that it can also offer similar items or discounts without your intervention. 

Spam

Of course, speaking of email – it’s impossible not to bring SPAM into conversation. Everybody hates it but somehow we managed to live with it, just like a pesky rodent roaming around the house. Spam can cause serious financial damage which is why even the government got involved a few years back in order to combat and prevent it.

If you try and send out broadcast email messages to hundreds of people using your own computer you may be accused of spamming and your mail may be blocked. AOL SPAM blocking is very well known for this practice.

So how do steer clear from annoying your client with “unwanted email” if you are using an autoresponder.

Here’s a practical example on what you should do:
When a web visitor finds your website and submits their details (name, email, etc.), showing they are clearly requesting more information about your company, the autoresponder will send a confirmation email asking them to click a link to confirm their subscription (also called “double opt-in”).

Once you receive their confirmation – keep it in a safe place. This way, if they ever come back after you accusing of spam, you can always provide their confirmation email. Some people forget that they ever signed up for your autoresponder and will immediately report you as Spam.

If you do not receive a confirmation, wait at least 1 week and then follow up. If, by the second request you are still not receiving a confirmation – drop their name from your mailing list

You should also be aware that there are 4 new rules issued by the Federal Trade Commission that amend the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003:

1. The ability to opt-out of a mailing must be accomplished by one single action – either replying to the email, or clicking through to a single web page. Only.
2. The first new rule relates to the definition of “person” for the purpose of whether CAN-SPAM applies. This applies to everybody… Meaning, anyone, including non-companies, can be liable for sending commercial email.
3. The use of a post office box or private mailbox (“PMB”) as the physical address in commercial mailings satisfies CAN-SPAM.
4. For any mailing which contains advertisements from 3rd party advertisers, either the party who the email is “from” must have an advertisement in the email (in which case they become responsible for processing opt-out requests) or all of the advertisers with advertisements in the mailing are responsible for opt-out requests. This is known as the “Designated Sender” rule.

So – what’s the solution and how can you make sure you comply with the law of the land and still get your message out?

Solutions

Subscribe to enterprise solutions for automatic response email by using a paid autoresponder service. Email automatic response software or web-based subscription can improve your email marketing campaigns and save you time and money; not to mention the aggravation dealing with the FTC.

There are some open source software packages on the market that you could download and install but I would advise against that.  Usually – the more subscribers you have in your list, the sluggish the software becomes. Plus you will start getting picked up by the “spam police”. Also, you may run the risk of being flagged by your own hosting company and they will shut you down too. That is why I switched to AWeber services.

There are many other services out there, like GetResponse.com but today I’ll discuss AWeber.

Aweber

AWeber has been around for over 10 years and has the backing of hundreds of online businesses.  Aweber is possibly the most popular commercial solution for both autoresponders and email list management solutions generally. 

This software service helps small businesses automate email follow up and newsletter delivery for website visitors at a decent price. They also provide an integrated Web Form Generator, which helps a great deal when you want to launch a new campaign or change the existing form you already have.

Why AWeber and a few other similar services can do it better than you? Because they establish agreements with ISPs (Internet Service Provider) to make sure mail from their servers isn’t marked as SPAM; and that’s important – as we seen above.
Conclusion

Email autoresponders will save you time, so you can load up your marketing sequence and then focus on attracting more prospects.  Email autoresponders will save you effort, because you don’t have to keep track of who has received what message, or which one is due next.  You can use email autoresponders to handle newsletters, mailing lists and subscriptions. You also look professional and credible to your clients when you send custom, personalized email autoresponders.

Landing Page Touchdown

Landing pages are the new direct marketing approach towards “getting” in front of your clients. Landing pages are where your clients are going to end up when they have clicked on an ad that you’ve placed and are usually contained within your web site.  

Consider landing Pages as a “Swiss army knife”. They are useful in many ways: selling the exact product the client wants and thus employing a “sharp shooting” effect for your marketing efforts; educating the client and yourself about likes and dislikes with your service or product line; they give you adjustment levels on how to direct your overall marketing based on their popularity, etc.

 Landing Pages consistently increase campaign conversion rates by 25%, 50% or more. These are pages that are available to link to from your website or email, or subscribers can type the URL into their browser bar to see the content.  Because you have about 3 seconds to grab attention, make sure these pages are optimized, short and to the point, includes at least 1 CTA (Call To Action) and contain light but great looking imagery that attracts the eye and makes the web visitor like you and your product.

How Do Landing Pages Work?

Email
Usually (if you decide to employ email to carry on your message), landing page URLs should be included in this type of communication, right next to a CTA that encourages the reader to click on your link. Traffic is sent from a link in an email to a landing page designed to prompt a purchase.  For a newsletter landing page, the conversion activity is entering an email address into a form and clicking “Accept.  If you’re asking users to register for a newsletter, ask for only an email address.

Send auto-generated email each time a person registers.  One of your CTAs could be the free offer of a free report that requires their email address in order to download; it will give you a second chance at acquiring their business through ensuing follow ups. 

Conversion
A visitor taking the desired action on a transactional landing page is referred to as a conversion. The efficiency or quality of the landing page can be measured by its conversion rate, the percentage of visitors who complete the desired action. 

Since the economics of many online marketing programs are determined by the conversion rate, marketers constantly test alternatives and improvements to their landing pages.  Long term, the online business battle will be waged over conversion rates and return on investment (ROI), not traffic acquisition; by that I mean unnecessary traffic vs. intended traffic for the purpose of looking for your specific product or service.

When you know more about prospects; their motivations, needs, and preferences, you can provide the information they need to pull themselves into a conversion. 

Double or triple your online conversions, leads, and sales by creating and testing effective landing pages. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in online marketing is to simply put up a landing page for a product and accept whatever conversion rate it generates as the final number – the “best you can do”.   

Even after a customer has decided to accept your offer, the conversion can be lost.  Any flaw in site functionality and usability can cause you to lose the conversion, so ensure your privacy information is posted and there are no hiccups in form processing. 

Campaigns
Get a visitor to tell a friend; get a visitor to learn something, which could even include posting a comment or giving you some sort of feedback. Landing Pages are common in internet marketing campaigns, especially email and PPC marketing management. An ineffective landing page can ruin even the most successful ad banner and email campaigns.

The more you customize your landing pages to meet the requirements and fulfill the expectations of visitors from various campaigns, the better your conversion rate will be. 

Another example of a landing page are those created for display campaigns, so when you click on a banner or sponsored graphic, you are brought to a specific landing page.  Even if your search campaigns worked well so far without landing pages, ignoring them as the final step in optimizing your online marketing campaigns will cost you money. 

Conclusion:
Landing pages are the bridge and gateway to your website. They can be very effective at generating leads for your business and money in your bank. Landing pages should offer clear, simple navigation, allowing your site visitors to find product overviews and details easily.

Landing pages are excellent when you ran out of options to get more traffic with less cost and effort; they are a great way to monitor the success of your ads and marketing message.

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 helps build credibility with your subscribers. As a result, you can generate more sales and profits.

The foundation for successful email marketing is a targeted, responsive and permission-based email list. If you have a list of subscribers that trust you and consider you an expert, you’ve completed the first step and are on your way!

Make the most of your email marketing efforts with the below list:

1. Provide useful, relevant and unique content. Your visitors will not give you their email addresses just because they can subscribe to your newsletter free of charge. You have to provide unique and valuable information that will be useful to your subscribers.
2. Add a subscription form to every page of your website. Make sure it stands out so it is easy to find. If appropriate, you can also include it in more than one place. For instance, your opt-in form might always appear in the top-left corner of your site, while you also include an opt-in at the bottom of some of your popular articles.
3. Make it easy for your reader to sign up. The more information you request, the fewer people will opt-in. In most cases, a name and an email address should suffice. If it’s not necessary, don’t include it here. (Note: If you don’t have a Privacy Policy, put the words “privacy policy generator” into a search engine and you should be able to find a suitable form for your readers to review.
4. Publish a Privacy Policy. Let your readers know that they can be confident you will not share their information with others. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Privacy Policy web page and provide the link to it below your opt-in form.
5. Show your first issue or other sample to your visitors. This lets potential subscribers review your newsletter before they sign up to determine if it is something they’d be interested in.
6. Archive past newsletter issues. A “library” of past newsletters is both appealing and useful to visitors and builds your credibility as an authority. In addition, if your articles are written with good SEO techniques in mind, they can send additional traffic to your web site through good search engine positioning.
7. Contact other newsletter publishers. Introduce yourself and explore ways you may be able to help each other. Perhaps you can introduce other publisher’s newsletters or print articles they have written to your list, with a link to sign up. When you contact them, be sure to tell them why you think THEIR readers would like what you have to offer and why YOUR readers would benefit from their newsletters. This is a win-win scenario; both of you will build your lists faster!
8. Give away bonuses subscribers can use. Create an opt-in bonus for joining your subscriber list. You can write an ebook or PDF report, or even hire a programmer to create downloadable or web-based software. But don’t limit yourself to only a gift for new opt-ins. Remind your readers that the next bonus is coming soon. People hate to miss out on things. If you systematically pass on “goodies” throughout the year, your subscribers are unlikely to leave.
9. Ask your subscribers to 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 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 the content is not modified. 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 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 has one goal ? to get an opt-in and build your list. Think of it like a mini-sales letter for your subscription or opt-in bonus. It features a powerful headline and a couple of very important benefits that should make subscribers salivate to sign up to your list. Once created, use a service such as WordTracker to find hundreds of targeted keywords, and advertise there using pay-per-click advertising from Google, MSN and Yahoo.
13. Include testimonials on 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”. To increase that believability, include full names, locations and/or urls; don’t use “Bob K, FL” as a testimonial name.
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. You can start a free blog at Blogger or WordPress.
15. Post on other blogs. Post great comments and information on similar blogs with a link to your squeeze or opt-in page. Also comment on others’ blogs through trackbacks. In most cases, your comments will be posted on their blogs with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers.