The list-unsubscribe email header has been around for quite some time.  Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, and many others have adopted this to assist with unsubscribing from mailings.

When the header is found in the message source there will often be an “Unsubscribe” button in the email client to unsubscribe from that mailing list.  This makes it easier to unsubscribe and less likely that the subscriber will flag it as spam (rather than searching for your unsubscribe link)

The header will often look like:

List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:unsubscribe@domain.com>, <http://domain.com/unsubscribe.php?id=123>

Or:

List-Unsubscribe: <http://domain.com/unsubscribe.php?id=123>

Including this has a number of direct advantages such as:

• Making it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe – Thus less complaints
• Fewer people needing to mark it as spam (many people will do this if they do not want to search for your unsubscribe link)
• Increased deliverability – including the header is often thought as a positive thing from most filters and ISPs

If you are using 1-2-All 5.0 your mailings will automatically add this header for you whenever you have an unsubscription link anywhere in your mailing.

If you are still using an older version of 1-2-All (such as 4.8x) you can add this header by going to Lists > Custom Headers

While we are still working on 1-2-All 5.0 – we would like to share a couple of the changes and improvements that will be delivered in this next version.  This is our largest product update to date (across our entire product line) so there is a lot of information to cover.  This post is just a preview of some of the exciting new features & changes that will soon be available…

Multi-List Management

Prior to 1-2-All 5.0 every action was typically specific to a list.  With 5.0 we are dramatically switching the process so that all options can affect multiple lists (if you should choose to do so.)  When you log in you will no longer be forced to select a list before starting to import, send, etc..  This sounds like a minor change, however after using the new version you will find a lot of time saved and an increase in general usability from this adjustment.

Subscriber Filtering

1-2-All has had decent subscriber filtering (allows you to segment your list into specific conditional groups) but with 5.0 you will be able to take filtering to an entirely new level.  In addition to filtering based off subscriber data you will be able to filter off nearly any action the subscriber has taken.  Thus you can filter your list down to users who unsubscribed from one list, subscribed to another, read a specific campaign, and clicked on a specific link on a specific day.  Combine that with our advanced and/or grouping options along with being able to apply filters (as always) to any type of campaign and mailing that is being sent out – including auto responders.

Subscriber & List Actions

An existing feature that you may have overlooked in the past are subscriber & list actions.  Currently you can set specific things to happen based on certain actions the subscriber takes.  For instance when a subscriber unsubscribes from one list you may want to automatically remove them from other lists as well.  We are building this existing feature into something much more comprehensive.  Currently actions are based on subscriptions/unsubscriptions.  With 5.0 you will be able to set specific changes/actions based on any action the subscriber takes.  This includes subscribe/unsubscribe, reads/link tracking, forwarding mailings to friends, and more!

Advanced Message Options

Personalizing each mailing you send has always been an important feature.  We are taking this to a new level by offering dynamic variables and conditional content.

Dynamic variables mean that you can take a current personalization tag (such as %TODAY%) and alter it dynamically (such as %TODAY+2%.)

Conditional content will allow you to show certain parts of the message depending on the subscribers details.  Much like sending filters but for content.  You can think of this as if you were able to add if/else statements throughout the content of your mailings.

Reporting

I am quite excited about the new reporting options that will be available in version 5.0.  We have an extensive list of new reports along with individual report options.   These are significant enhancements in the way that you can analyze campaigns, past mailings, list reports, user reports, and more…  This is a major section to discuss so we will be releasing more information about this soon.

In addition to the large number of new internal reports you will also find many options to export data (for external analysis) along with Google Analytics integration.

User Management

New user management options will simplify the way permissions are set along with making it much easier to resell 1-2-All as a hosted solution.  The basic ideas of “accounts” and “users” remain the same but we will be introducing new user group options along with a number of new user/account limits/settings

Integration & Public Options

Subscription forms are getting a make over with new style options along with new “completion” options.  You will now be able to redirect to different URL’s, show a custom message, or let it go to the defaults.  You will also have multiple integration options for each subscription form.  Such as embedding it into your current site, popup, link to it, etc..

Database sync (for bringing in subscribers from external databases) now supports MySQL, MSSQL, and PostgreSQL.  We have added a number of new options for each sync and you can even write custom SQL queries.

The public section of 1-2-All has always been an odd issue for many clients.  While they would like the public section, many users want to restrict it down to a list or user account.  We have solved this dilemma.  There is now a general public section, list specific public section,  and an account/user specific section.  Each type of section can be enabled or disabled and everything is SEO friendly.

Sending Methods

You will find new sending settings.  We are doing away with some of the more complex settings and replacing them with easier to use options.  Functionality will not be lost by doing this.  You will now be able to set a specific number of emails to send per hour without having to specify how many messages to send before doing pauses.

1-2-All currently supports multiple sending methods – such as rotating through multiple SMTP servers when sending.   1-2-All 5.0 will also let you choose which sending methods/SMTP servers are used for each account.  That allows you to have different sending methods for each account/user if needed.

Templates

We are including a large number of free email templates that will be pre-loaded into 1-2-All 5.0.  New options will include highly requested features such as system wide templates, easier options to add purchased templates, and more.

Our new template system along with our new editing and message creation options will allow you to lock parts of the template.  Ensuring that your client does not accidentally disrupt the general design and only changes what is needed to be changed.

Add-Ons

As we extended and updated every other section of the software – we have done the same with the 1-2-All add-ons.

A/B Split has been revamped and will prove to be quite exciting compared to the current version.  The update will allow truly advanced split testing and will be included for free as part of the 1-2-All product.

AutoRemind is more integrated then ever. EmailCheck has new integration areas and will soon have new reports shown when you run it. ActiveRSS will support easier custom templates.  We also have a couple of new add-ons (that have been requested by numerous clients) that will be announced during the beta.

Extendability

While we worked on planning and developing 5.0  we have kept extendability on our minds.  We will be doing this with multiple methods.  Firstly we will be releasing 1-2-All with 99% of the files unencoded. This will allow a great number of changes.

We are re-working how language files can be translated.  The changes will allow you quickly be able to translate a section (such as the public section) without having to sift through the text for the admin section.

With the release of 1-2-All 5.0 beta we will begin to release API documentation as well.

New Support Documentation

As the product advances we are committed to making sure everything is user friendly and easy to use.  There are always times where a little more assistance/help docs are required.  You will find in-line help documentation (that is unbranded) throughout the software.  We will also be releasing quick start guides (both branded and non-branded for the resellers) along with an extensive collection of articles and video walk-throughs.

More to come….

This post is only scratching at the surface of what is to come with 1-2-All 5.0. We will be posting more specifics on each area along with new screen shots in the near future.  There are a lot of new items and changes that we will be discussing in great detail.

Please note that while we are nearing a beta we do not have a set date at this time.  We choose not to specify an exact release date as we would much rather prefer to ensure the product is complete and stable before releasing.  We do however expect the beta to be released sometime in Quarter 1 of this year.  Please subscribe to our blog or newsletter to be kept up to date with this.

A sender’s reputation can follow not only an IP address but a brand and a sending domain.   A holistic approach is necessary when considering a sender’s reputation as no one factor alone determines what that reputation is.  Reputation can be broadly defined as the opinion of a community toward an object.  Knowing what the community looks for when determining a reputation will allow you to maximize your delivery rates.

Spamtraps

We first eluded to spamtraps when we discussed Paid Subscriber Lists. A spamtrap is an email address that appears to be valid but is in fact used by ISPs to catch spammers. You will sometimes hear these referred to as “honey pots.”  Spammers use harvesting programs which scan millions of web pages looking for email addresses.  These email addresses may come from old email addresses which are recycled by ISPs in order to catch commercial emailers that use old, rented, or paid subscriber lists.  Some sites bury email addresses in their source code so that they are picked up by harvesting programs.  The company where the email originated is then alerted to any incoming emails that go to that address at which time they contact your web host and file a spam complaint.  Spam traps are bad news.   Its been reported that your delivery rate can drop as many as 20 points drop with one spam trap hit.   Spamtraps are one of many factors that ISPs look at when calculating your sender reputation.   Not only is your delirability affected but they can result in temporary or long term blocks.

Good list maintenance is necessary for avoiding spam traps.   Here are some things you will need to avoid:

• Poor List Sources -  This includes avoiding paid subscriber lists as mentioned previously
• List Poisoning – Using confirmation Opt-In mailings will reduce the chances that you will receive invalid email addresses
• List Aging -  Because spam traps are often used by recycling old email addresses use bounce management to remove any old email addresses and also remove any inactive addresses from your list.

Sender Authentication

This is used to prevent domain forgery and spoofing and provides a framework for helping ISPs to distinguish between legitimate email senders and spammers.  ISPs Identifying and verifying a claimed domain name has been authenticated or authorized for sending from a MTA makes it possible to treat suspected forgeries with suspician,  reject known forgeries, and block email addresses from known spamming domains.

• Sender Policy Framework (SPF) – a record that allows you to determine which computers can send emails on behalf of your domain.  Adding an SPF record to your domain name’s TXT entry, while not required, can help improve email delivery rates by reducing the chance that the emails you send will be seen as spam.  It can also help prevent others from sending spam and using your domain name.  This is used by Bellsouth, AOL, Gmail, and MSN/Hotmail.
• Sender ID – is very similar to SPF record except this extends the verification process to include the purported responsible address included in the header.  Used by MSN/Hotmail
• Domain Keys – an authentication standard that is designed to verify the DNS domain of email sender and the message integrity.  All outgoing emails are digitally signed with a private encryption key to match a public key that is published in the sender’s DNS record.   Used by Gmail, Yahoo, SBCGlobal, British Telecom, Rogers Cable, Rocket Mail, etc.
• DKIM – an enhanced authentication standard that allows a person to verify that a message comes from the domain that it claims that it came from.

Getting Technical

Your system admin should be able to assist you with ensuring that the following technical configurations are in line as they can improve or harm your sender reputation.

• IP Address – because email originates from this address you need to establish a low history of spam complaints, spamtrap hits, and low bounce rates in order to have a positive reputation that will affect your long term deliverability.   If you wish to qualify for whitelists, feedback loops, and reputation services, your IP address must have low spam complaints, unsubscription management, and proper setup for the domain associated with it.
• Sending Domain or Subdomain – Domain registration and domain age are two factors for establishing a positive reputation.  Newly registered domains are regarded with suspicion as spammers often hop from domain to domain.  If a sending domain has a bad online reputation it will result in low deliverability rates.
• RFC Compliance – these are information documents used as governing standards for internet traffic.   RFC 2821: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and RFC 282: Internet Message Formatare relate to email reputation.
• Reverse DNS – used to identify the domain name associated with an IP address.  The IP address is the only data that can not be forged and not having this enabled is in violation of RFC standards and a requirement for many ISPs.  If this is not enabled or is configured improperly you must immediately contact your server admin.
• Bounce Management – An email address is considered dead and should be removed from your list if it bounces 3 consecutive times or if the time between the most recent consecutive delivery rejection is in excess of 15 days.

Where to Go From Here

The final way to improve your deliverability is to get certified or accredited by a reputable organization.   There are three different types of ways to get yourself certified!  The first gets your emails automatically whitelisted or delivered to ISPs and companies that are working with the relevent program.  Another audits your email practices so that you can display a seal of approval next to your sign up form.   Another allows you to display an icon next to your email in your inbox that indicates that your email passed a quality test.  We will focus on whitelisting programs here:

• Goodmail Systems -  ISPs supporting this program ensure delivery with a “certified” icon attached.  This accreditation is supported by Yahoo and AOL.
• Sender Score Certified – Acceptance in this program puts you on the whitelist that includes 240 email address as well as MSN/Hotmail and Roadrunner.
• Habeas – requires business processes and email practices.   Their safelist is support by many email receivers including AOL, Earthlink, Google, and MSN
• SuretyMail – While not technically a whitelist a large number of ISPs, spam filters, and mail servers take this accreditation into account when making delivery decisions.  Senders with this accreditation will see improved delivery.

If you are concerned about whether you have already been blacklisted you can go here.

While all ISPs score a sender’s reputation by giving different weight to various factors you can be assured that all major ISPs are using some type of equation to determine your reputation.   How they calculate your sender reputation score determines whether your mailing is received in the inbox, the junk mail folder, or even delivered at all.

Email Filters

Its important to familiarize yourself with the following individual filtering methods.  In the past ISPs would block emails based solely on one of these filters but as weaknesses in this approach became inherent they can no longer rely on any one method.  Each of the following filtering methods play a role in your ISPs’ delivery decision:

• Content Filtering – Uses the email subject line and the body content to come up with a spam count score.  One of the most popular spam filtering packages is SpamAssassin which is used in EmailCheck.
• List Quality Filtering – A lot of spam lists particularly paid subscriber lists contain a lot of bogus email which results in high bounce rates.   ISPs use this to detect which lists contain bounces that exceed a certain quantity and then disallow all emails from this IP address or sending domain.
• Volume Filtering – Because spammers send bulk emails without regard to accuracy or volume this checks the number of simultaneous connections that are opened (known as threads) at any one time with your ISP.  The server may then reject all messages based on the number of open connections.  1-2-All Email Marketing uses a single thread sending method.
• IP Address Filtering – When an IP address is added to this filtering list the process is known as “blacklisting.”   Once blacklisted all emails from a particular IP address are disallowed.
• Domain and URL Filtering – Checks the email domain used to send a mailing as well as any URLs included in the message.

Legal Compliance

You need to be aware of regional laws aimed at curbing spam.   In order to ensure that your mailings are permission based it is good policy to ensure that an opt-in mechanism is in place before you begin email marketing.

Can Spam Act

• ensure that all mailings contain a functional unsubscribe mechanism
• all unsubscribe requests must be honored within 10 days
• commercial mailings must include the physical location of the sender
• criminal charges for fraudulent sender or deceptive subject lines

European Union E-Privacy Directive

Canada PIPEDA

Australia Spam Act of 2003

Whitelisting and Feedback Loops

Some ISPs provide whitelisting and compaint feedback loops as methods for improving deliverability.  Those that do typically require senders to have explicit opt in permissions for subscribers.

• Whitelists -The opposite of a blacklist where the ISP receives requests from legitimate companies to be added to a list of pre-authorized e-mail addresses from which mailings can be delivered regardless of spam filters
• Feedback Loops – A reporting mechanism whereby an ISP provides the sender with data including unsubscribes and spam complaints.

Spam Complaints

Most people have seen a “Report Spam” button on their email client.   When this is clicked on a spam complaint is logged at the ISP level or it is also relayed back to the sender if they are a part of a feedback loop.  If you receive too many spam complaints then you will damage your sender reputation.   A good way to reduce your spam complaints is to ensure that all of your subscribers are opt-in.

Spam complaints do not track the reason why recipients make a spam complaint.   It is possible that even if subscribers opt-in to your list they may forget they are subscribed or no longer find your mailing relevant.  If you receive a high number of spam complaints on a list where your subscribers have opt-in to then this is usually a good indicator that your mailings are either irrelevant or sent to frequently.

Many people interested in email marketing, especially those new to it, want to know how many subscribers they can send to through their list at one time.  The thinking here is that email marketing is a sheer numbers game that can be mastered by being handed a large list of prospective leads.  The more emails you can muscle out at one time the greater the chance you have of maximizing your returns. In doing so they succumb to a “cold calling” mentality.  They do this despite the fact that cold calling as a model offers the lowest possible return of all prospecting methods.  What happens is that you annoy the very people you are trying to reach to the extent that your message loses all relevancy to them.  You actually do the opposite of what you set out to accomplish.   You minimize the returns you can expect from your leads and in the process dilute the message you are trying to deliver by sending the same message to too large of a pool. You can also damage your sender reputation and so reduce your email deliverability.

This happens because expectations in such an approach are based on the faulty assumption that if you feed enough people with the same message you cost effectively reach more people that will buy into what you are selling.  The failure of this approach is due to the fact that the right questions aren’t asked in the beginning and there is no strategy mapped out for reaching the audience that is being marketed to.   It’s a brain dead approach to marketing with a clear lack of imagination.  They fail to ask themselves how the message they are attempting to deliver is being received by their subscribers.  Not everyone is going to respond to the same message.    People are too different to respond the way you want them to if you send them the same generic message.

One report showed that the number of read open and click through rates are 2.5 times higher for mailings sent to fewer than 100 subscribers than emails sent to 100,000 subscribers or more.  Effective email marketers send out to lists of subscribers that are segmented and targeted to specific demographics. The email design and email copywriting techniques are targeted specifically at the people the message is being sent to.  As a result their mailings are far more effective.

Ideally you would be able to craft a message that is specific to each and every person that you are trying to reach.   Your ideal subscriber list would consist of an army of one.  In such a scenario you could expect high read open and click through rates.   However,  such an approach is far too impractical to be seriously considered.

You can however increase the relevancy of your mailing by segmenting your list and sending them out to targeted groups of subscribers.  Segmenting lists involve separating lists into demographics that are based on similar needs or interests.  A 2006 study by Jupiter Research found that engaging audiences with more relevant communication can increase net profits by an average of 18 times.

You can begin segmenting your list by creating additional subscriber fields in your subscription forms and sending out targeted mailings to specific groups based on those fields.    List segmentation is an expansive subject which we will explore in greater depth in future articles.

The focus in email marketing has turned away from list building and toward relationship building.   Email marketers learn more information about their subscribers so they can segment their lists into groups that they can reasonably expect to respond similarly.    They then send out targeted mailings to smaller but more specific lists of subscribers.  As a result they can expect higher open and click through rates.

One of the keys to success in e-mail marketing is to reduce the number of spam complaints that you receive. Spam complaints can hurt your sender reputation with your ISP or hosting provider. They can even cause you to be blacklisted and  prevent your messages from being delivered to millions of users of popular web e-mail providers such as Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo mail. In spite of these potentially very significant consequences, many businesses that rely on e-mail marketing as a major part of their advertising efforts fail to understand the steps that you can take to prevent spam complaints from being submitted. Consequently, they suffer from low email marketing delivery rates.

The first and most important step you can take is to include an unsubscribe link in every message. Beyond this, the unsubscribe link should be two things: obvious and painless. It may seem counter intuitive to place a large and readily apparent unsubscribe link in your messages, but the fact is that people who enjoy your messages will ignore it anyway, and people who want to unsubscribe will do so quietly without causing you any grief. You also want a completely painless unsubscribe process. Ideally, a single click and it’s all done. The less complicated or frustrating this process is, the fewer spam complaints you are likely to get.

Another thing to keep in mind when you are sending out mailings is that the large mail providers use system-wide filters. This means that if a certain number of Hotmail users flag your messages as spam, it becomes more likely that your messages will be automatically routed to Hotmail users’ spam boxes. Most people never check their spam box for legitimate mail they might have missed, so your mailings will simply never be seen. This is why it’s very important to make your messages appear as legitimate as possible to your recipients.

The simplest way to do this is to optimize your subject headings. Each message’s subject line should make it exactly clear what the message contains, and in a professional manner. For our own newsletter, for example, we start each message’s subject with the text “ActiveCampaign News:” followed by a description of the individual newsletter, such as “Products Updates & New Services.” This makes it clear that you are receiving a newsletter from ActiveCampaign, and makes the recipient aware of the message’s purpose right away. There is much less chance that this will be mistaken for spam than if the message were titled something like “Great New Products!”

You can also help people to recognize your messages by using clear and predictable sender information, such as your company name, e-mail list name, or personal name, depending on what subscribers to your particular list would be likely to expect. Our company newsletter is addressed from “Company Name, Inc.” and is sent from the e-mail address info@ourdomainname.com, exactly as one might expect. If you maintain a mailing list called the “Dog Breeding Newsletter,” you would probably be better off using the list name as a From header rather than “XYZ Kennel” or “xyzkennel@somedomain.com”

Finally, you can avert many problems by simply reading and promptly replying to any complaints are requests that you receive by e-mail. If someone writes to you to ask that they be unsubscribed, it will be much better to simply remove them from the list rather than send them an unsubscribe link. You may also be able to retain a reader who otherwise may have unsubscribed by responding to concerns about mailing frequency, content, or other issues that may arise. By being responsive to your readers, you will build up profitable long-term relationships and benefit from their word of mouth.

In general you can expect about 10% of your mailings are going to be reported as bounces. If your bounce rates are considerably higher than this then there are a few things you may want to look at. It could be that your mail server is rejecting mailings from being sent due to the content in your messages or you have been blacklisted. Another explanation for why your email delivery failure may be high is that the mail server you are using is either temporarily down or it is unreachable. High bounce rates impact your campaign not only because the sender’s reputation suffers but the delivery rate to valid email addresses is slowed. For this reason it is very important to keep your subscriber lists clean.

Bounces generally fall into one of two categories, hard bounces and soft bounces. What is typically referred to as a hard bounce is a mailing that was returned by a recipient mail server. This could be because the address is either invalid or the domain name doesn’t exist or is not recognized.

Examples of hard bounces which are defined by bounce codes in Email Marketing include:

5.0.0 – Hard – Address does not exist
5.1.1 – Hard – Bad destination mailbox address
5.1.6 – Hard – Mailbox has moved
5.1.7 – Hard – Bad sender’s mailbox address syntax
5.1.8 – Hard – Bad sender’s system address
5.3.2 Hard System not accepting network messages
5.2.3 Hard Message length exceeds administrative limit

In general a soft bounce is returned because of a temporary problem having to do with the email address or the recipient’s email server. For example, even if the email address you are sending to is valid the message could still bounce if the recipient’s mailbox is full.

Examples of soft bounces which are defined by bounce codes in Email Marketing include:

5.2.0 Soft Other or undefined mailbox status
5.3.1 Soft Mail system full
5.5.3 Soft Too many recipients

You can reduce the number of bounces in your lists by including unsubscription links in your mailings, you can have Email Marketing add an unsubscribe link to your mailings automatically or through a personalization tag. Another thing you can do is add an update profile link to your mailing, Email Marketing includes an update your profile personalization tag which you can also easily insert into your mailing. Another way to decrease bounces is to have addresses removed through setting up bounce management. In Email Marketing you can set up a cron job, cron_bounce.php that will cycle through your list and remove hard and soft bounces after a set number of times. Unless you set up this cron job you will need to manually run the bounce check until Email Marketing cycles through all your mailings and removes addresses after they bounce a set number of times. Bounces will not show up in statistics unless bounce management is set up using a POP account for bounces and if no bounce management is selected all bounces will be sent to the From sender’s address.

Another good idea is to include custom fields for phone or address so that you can use the phone or mail to update the address of those subscribers that bounce. Follow this link for more email marketing tips.

We’re excited and you will be too about the release of Email Marketing 4.80. This is a significant update that will enable you with multiple sending methods whereas as you were limited to a single sending method in the past. Now admins can add more SMTP servers and Email Marketing will loop through them. Sending orders can be changed, and every sending method / smtp server has its own limit of emails to send before moving on to the next sending method/smtp server. One obvious advantage to this is if your web host restricts you to a set number of emails that you are allowed to deliver per hour. Before this meant that you would have to slow the rate at which you send emails to be compliant with your sending limitation. Now that you can set up multiple SMTP servers you can move to another SMTP server or another sending method once your limitation has been met. This allows for muc faster and more flexible email marketing delivery.

Other minor changes in 4.80 include bug fixes, updates to the subscription forms, and updates to sending filters.

Multiple SMTP Screenshots:

It seems counterintuitive that you should want to offer your customers a money-back guarantee. After all, the customer’s money is really what you came for. Once you’ve got it, and you’ve delivered your product, it makes sense that the transaction should be finished, right?

But this idea makes customers nervous. What if they buy the product only to find out that they can’t make it work for them the way they had hoped? What if they misunderstood the promotional literature and come to find that a critical feature is missing? What if they just plain change their mind? We’ve all experienced these worries when making a purchase, and your customers are no different. Your job is to put their minds at ease. Because nervous people don’t buy. They put it on hold and then forget to get back to it. It happens. You can probably think of plenty of times when you did this yourself.

Enter the money back guarantee. If you know you can get your money back, you worry less. You feel less pressured. You have some breathing room. So you go for it. As a business owner, you’ve told your customer that you are willing to shoulder the burden of their potential buyer’s remorse.

This is actually a win-win situation, because if you know that you’ve represented your product accurately, and that it is of a high quality, you can already predict that the vast majority of people who buy from you will not ask for their money back. You have the advantage in the situation: you already know that your customer needs what you are offering. As long as you are actually delivering what you promise, the only people who will ever take you up on the offer are the ones who simply misunderstood. And, frankly, you want them to return the product to you for a refund. Otherwise you’ll have a dissatisfied customer out their talking about all the things your product can’t do. This build up a perceived deficit in what may otherwise be a great product. The moral of the story is that you only ever want happy customers who will tell people nice things about you.

Offering a money back guarantee not only alleviates your customer’s anxiety about purchasing, it also conveys confidence. If you’re willing to give them 30 or even 60 days like we do with our own web software, just to make up their minds about whether the product is worth it, they know you mean business. If you’re selling crap, this strategy is not going to work for you. But when you’ve worked hard to produce a product that meets your clients’ needs, the sales you will gain by using this strategy will vastly outweigh the refunds you end up paying out.

Email Marketing succeeds as a form of direct marketing because compared to printed mail or printed newsletters it delivers immediate results, statistics are easily tracked, and it is inexpensive. Email marketing not only receives quicker response rates,  it also saves a significant amount of time.  Unlike mailed advertisements there is little delay and unlike web sites which rely on site traffic to generate sales,  advertisers can push sales without waiting for someone to visit their web site.  Mailings that are regularly sent out on a lets say weekly, bi-weekly, or a monthly basis are an affordable way of automatically attracting repeat business.  Mailings that are properly formatted and contain brand logos reinforce brand identity and product awareness.

The immediate impact of email marketing can be seen in generating web site traffic.  This represent a golden opportunity for marketers to make money through email advertising.   This is all the more true when taking into consideration that ideally you will be reaching out to a vast pool of subscribers who have opted in to receive mailings based on subjects that are of genuine interest to them.  You can use embedded links in your mailings to direct customers to areas of your site that hold their interest.  Then you can follow up with personalized mailings that contain targeted content.

Newsletters afford marketers the interactivity and personalization that print based marketing never had any way of achieving. Managing your list of subscribers with a database that may include any number of subscriber fields allows you send mailings in bulk and at the same time keep a high level of personalization. You can generate subscription forms that contain any number of subscriber fields with customer data such as address, zip code, gender, and country.   You can then include this information in mailings by using personalization tags or you can create sending filters to send to groups of subscribers based on subscriber fields.

Email marketing is especially attractive to marketers because it delivers results that are measurable.  Newsletters allow advertisers to track users through statistical tracking which can include bounces, unsubscribes, read opens which track which subscribers have opened and read a mailing, and link tracking or click through rates.  These statistics can be used to correlate   Marketers can then employ new strategies in order to strengthen response rates.

Email marketing has been widely hailed as second only search marketing as an effective online marketing tactic.  Unlike mailed advertisements there is little delay and unlike web sites which rely on site traffic to generate sales,  advertisers can push sales without waiting for someone to visit their web site. There’s also an eco-friendly reason for going with email marketing route.  Unlike its print based cousin email marketing is green friendly as it is paper free.

While email marketing is legitimately used by reputable businesses in order to market to their existing client base, unsolicited mailings known as spam continue to cloud the industry by infuriating about anyone that has ever had an email account anywhere.  As previously mentioned this is not only disruptive but it also cast a shadow over anyone that email markets as sometimes even legitimate permission based mailings are misidentified as spam.

Because the medium has been pervasively exploited legislation has become necessary in order to combat spam which has universally become a headache for individuals and businesses alike.  Businesses interested in email marketing should thoroughly investigate anti-spam legislation such as the United States’ CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act).  The name itself points to spams seedy nature in delivering mailings that our not only unwanted but offensive in nature.   Also be sure to study the European Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 or your Internet provider’s acceptable use policy.   Some ISPs have restrictions on the  mailings that you are allowed to send so that is also something you will need to check before hosting your own email marketing service.