Email Marketing News and Tips

Archive for the ‘Compliance’ Category

ESPs (Email Service Providers) are becoming more strict on who they allow you to send to.  Email addresses MUST be opted-in.  That means you must have permission from the recipient to receive an email from you.   Below are a few ideas to help build your email marketing list using social media.

1. Start with who you know

Export your lists of people you know and business colleagues who know you from your Linkedin, Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo accounts. Send everyone an email from you personally asking them to join your list. Link off to a hosted version of an opt-in form to collect them.  If you need assistance your email service provider can assist you.

2. Facebook

Almost everyone has a Facebook page.  If you don’t you should.  Send out an email to your fans and friends asking them to join your email list. Direct them to your hosted opt-in form and encourage them to sign up with some sort of incentive. If you have a Facebook Fan page you can put an opt-in form right on the page.

3. Twitter

Tweet to your Twitter list some sort of an offer for joining your opt-in list.  Forward them to your opt-in form using a Boomerang Hot Link to save space.

4. Blogging?

You can easily include an opt-in form on your blog.  Contact your Email Service Provider to learn how.

5. Comment on blogs and discussion boards

Offer helpful comments on blogs or discussions boards that your prospects might visit.  Make sure to include a link to your site where your opt-in form is hosted.

Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned email marketing professional, your company's Internet Reputation is important to your business. Your Internet reputation is built primarily by how you market on the Internet. What exactly is an 'Internet Reputation'? Let's explore. Email Marketing and Your Business Whether you use a third party email marketing company or you do-it-yourself by setting up your own email server, your reputation begins with the first email marketing campaign you send. How is this... Continue reading

You hear the term Spam regularly but do you know what it means and the laws in place to protect us from it? The CAN-SPAM Act is a law passed by Congress and signed by the President in 2003 that requires national standards for sending commercial emails. CAN-SPAM is an acronym (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing). It was prompted by the inundation of spam people started to receive in the 1990s. Any unsolicited email is considered Spam. Fortunately most companies are now... Continue reading

"Okie dokie artichokie, let's get this show on the road!" I say to my loyal fans. Granted this is only my second post, but I'm going to pretend those of you who are returning to read my banter again are "loyal fans". As promised this post will include some handy dandy tips on how to write effective e-mails to your fans. For those of you who aren't in bands and just like the way I write or whatever, this is actually good information so people take what you e-mail more seriously. Half of e-mail marketing... Continue reading

Microsoft recently released the newest version of their Office Suite, Microsoft Office 2010. In this release is, of course, Outlook 2010. From an email marketer's point of view, the first thing that pops into my head is, "How will Outlook 2010 render HTML email?" As many of you are aware, beginning with Outlook 2007, Microsoft began using the Microsoft Word engine to render emails within Outlook. One would think that Internet Explorer would be used to render the email, but that is not the case. Sadly,... Continue reading

The short answer is "no". I speak with email marketers on a daily basis and they frequently ask if they can send to an email list that they've purchased. Unfortunately, these lists are a waste of money and will only cause problems for you and your email service provider. It may seem like a simple solution, but the phrase "If it's too good to be true, then it probably is." applies here. These lists are typically old, so email addresses are out of date and possibly non-existent. For those addresses that... Continue reading

Creating an email that renders the same across all email platforms can be tricky, since all email clients have their own set of rules. Here are some tips for creating emails that will render correctly across all email platforms. Use a Table Structure Many platforms don't support absolute positioning (float, margin, padding) , so tables work much better as the framework for your design. Use Inline CSS It's a pain, but it's more reliable than using CSS in the header. Gmail, for instance, strips out the CSS... Continue reading

We're all aware of the CAN-SPAM laws and the steps we need to take to stay compliant. In fact, it's become so routine that most of us don't give it much though. However, there have been a few spam-related lawsuits recently which serve as a reminder to us to make sure our messages are in complete compliance with the law. A judge has awarded a San Francisco attorney $7,000 in damages in a rare trial under California's anti-spam law - $1,000 for each unsolicited, misleading commercial e-mail he received.... Continue reading

One size doesn't fit all when it comes to an Email Marketing account. For example, you can have many divisions, departments and users all using one account. Sometimes you may need to keep templates, reporting and billing separate. You may need to... Continue reading

For email marketers, getting an HTML email message to render consistently in the popular email clients is probably one of the most frustrating parts of HTML email job creation process. There are about 10 or so popular email clients that most people use and each employs a different array of standars support that could range from complete to no support. To understand why support for email standards is important, I found this article that explains the topic in detail. The article titled "Why Web Standards... Continue reading