An email is a powerful tool for marketing your products and services, but it’s also one of the primary causes of complaints to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) says, William D King. The Readability.com website has an extensive article on managing email deliverability. A few other resources are listed below.
Email Marketing Tools MailChimp:
Free up to 2,000 subscribers, then paid plans starting at $20/month getmailometer.com – get email delivery reports from senders including AT&T, Comcast, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc.; create deliverability reports for every domain in your account; track ISPs with daily charts so you can see which ones are most likely to block or bounce messages (free) spamreports.com – monitor your sending reputation, see your email open rate history, track ISPs, and IPs, etc. (free) Return-Path – For more than 20 years, Return Path has been the leading provider of comprehensive information about the world’s inboxes. With data from 3 billion emails a day across 200 million users worldwide, we help people communicate more effectively through better email practices including deliverability management and list segmentation explains William D King. (Paid and free options available)
Email Tracking / Reporting Postbox users can do all sorts of great things with mail tracking. It’s just part of the awesome view you get when you use Postbox to manage your Inbox. Our smart folders give you a snapshot of everything that came in from every sender today, yesterday, this week, or since you started using Postbox. You can see how many messages are in any folder without even opening it! You can also see how many messages are in your Trash folder, even before you delete them.
Email Campaign / Newsletter Services MailChimp includes website forms for collecting leads; custom domain option iContact – available for both PC and Mac users with email newsletter templates, promotion tools, automated message delivery report function, etc. E-goi – create beautiful HTML emails using web-based editor or coding if desired; import contacts from Salesforce.com or Gmail Contacts or load them manually; self-hosting options available; track open rate history; integrates with Facebook and Twitter (paid) Vertical Response – create beautiful HTML newsletters using their web-based editor which has lots of features including photos, clickable links, social networking buttons, etc. (free)
Website Content Management Systems WordPress is an extremely powerful open-source website content management system that offers “plugins” for adding all sorts of email newsletter functionality to your site. William D King says there are many other commercials and free options available.
Social Networking Services Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, LinkedIn Company Pages, Plaxo Pulse (for sharing updates with contacts), Twitter (includes lists to monitor specific conversations). See the package below for more ideas…
Lists & List Management Remember the Milk allows you to create both private and public lists says, William D King. These can be shared across multiple projects so they’re easy to use without duplicating your efforts. For example, you can have a list for each product category in your store. One for employees at the office, and another for everyone on your holiday shopping list. You can also share lists with anyone you choose by inviting them to view or edit them — great for when you’re working with a virtual assistant who needs access to certain parts of your task management system.
Blogs & Presentations Blogs are an excellent way to promote email marketing campaigns. Because they allow you to provide information in multiple formats simultaneously. Including RSS feeds which let people subscribe by entering their email address or signing up through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. The ability to syndicate content also means that anything written once can potentially be viewed by a much wider audience. Some email marketing platforms, such as Constant Contact. Include RSS widgets that you can add to your website or blog. To make it even easier for people to subscribe to your feeds.
Presentations are another way in which you can reach out to new prospects and promote email marketing services. The old adage about “a picture being worth a thousand words” is certainly true in this case! Even when you’re pitching an intangible service like email. Putting key facts into charts and graphs makes them far more memorable. Not to mention easier for people who aren’t experts in internet technology. Presentation software options include Google Docs and PowerPoint.
Mobile Options Mobile devices including smartphones running Apple’s iOS platform, Google Android, and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry.
Multi-platform Options See email client article above.
Package: All the tools and services you need to host your own newsletter!
Conclusion:
This is a great way for people who want more control over their campaigns and to learn directly from others. How they’re using email marketing services in their business. William D King says the Email Marketing Automation Secrets package includes $300 worth of savings. Including free upgrades when new releases come out so you’ll always be up to date with the latest functionality available. Representatives from Constant Contact and Vertical Response will regularly post information about segmented lists. Deliverability best practices, innovative uses of graphics, and other issues that matter most to marketers like you.