Email Marketing Basics

Writen by Ted Lewis

A crucial part of any online business is keeping in contact with your customers. The only way you can do that is with email. In these days of massive bulk emails, email certainly has its disadvantages, but it’s still one of your most effective tools in the battle for your customer’s business. While we would all love to have such a killer website and product that every visitor would purchase our stuff on their first visit, the reality is that just ain’t gonna happen.

Email marketing has earned a bad reputation in the last few years mostly because of the actions of indiscriminate bulk-emailers. You know the type. They send spam after spam of offers for of questionable pharmaceutical products, watches, software, and um, how shall we say…um, personal enhancement. They are easily recognizable by their misspelled subject lines and undecipherable “from” addresses. For good reason, most people are now extremely wary of handing our their email address.

So to get them to sign up on your email list you need to win their trust, and pique their interest. You can win their trust by calling your emails an “e-newsletter”. Make it sound warm and friendly. Pique their interest by offering them some type of exclusive info of the kind that they came to your website for in the first place.

Promise your customers that their email will never, EVER be sold or given away. This is an absolute MUST. And stick to your promise. This means that you must always carefully scrutinize every e-newsletter that you send to your list to make sure it is within the bounds of your customer agreement. Your customers are trusting you, expecting your emails to them to be relevant to their interests and useful in some way to them. Otherwise, they’ll certainly stop reading them, and most likely will start unsubscribing from your list.

One thing you most certainly don’t want to do is to start sending them emails with commercial offers that are unrelated to your core business. This is suicide and will cost you dearly in the long run. For example, if you run an e-newsletter pertaining to your real-estate development course, don’t start bombarding your customers with emails, or even ads in your e-newsletter, pitching your latest auto-detailing info course to them.

You also want to make sure your e-newsletter doesn’t degenerate into nothing more than a glorified sales pitch for your stuff. Your customers are savvy and will know when they’re being hyped-to. Keep your promotions and links to your website subtle, yet still present, and you’ll build trust with your customers. Eventually they’ll realize you’re not just a fly-by-night course-pusher wanting to make a quick buck, and you’ll start to see more sales as a result.

Your email list is a potential gold mine for you, but you must treat it with care and caution. Do so, and it will reward many times over.

Till next time…Success to you!

-Ted

Ted is part of an Internet information marketing group that makes its home at:

http://www.InternetProfitMentor.com

Check it out for some up-to-the-minute info on marketing YOUR information online!

Email Marketing - A Simple Way To Make Money On The Internet

Writen by Collins Deconle

Email marketing is big business. It can boost your sales and skyrocket your profits in your online business. Once you set it up it literally runs itself.

Email marketing involves sending your offers or sales messages to interested prospects. It is one of the most cost-effcetive of all marketing methods.

Setting up an email marketing campaign is simple and you can do it without requiring any sophisticated equipment or resources.

You'll need an autoresponder service to automate the process. You simply preload your autoresponder service with your messages, set the intervals of the delivery of your messages, and you're done.

When running an email marketing campaign, you'll have to have a way of capturing your prospect's contact details. Using freebies is an incredible marketing tool. It is a great way to entice people to join your list. You can give away a report, ebook or other item that will be of value to your target prospects.

By giving something for free to your prospects, you can almost instantly ensure your success in getting people to subscribe to your mailing lists.

There are hundreds, even thousands of downloadable products, such as ebooks, reports and software, you can give out for free to your site visitors in order to get them to join your lists.

You can make huge amounts of money with email marketing. But you have to find out how successful email marketers do it and follow in their footsteps.

Collins Deconle writes about internet marketing and other topics. For more information on email marketing, visit his website: http://www.emailmarketingbusiness.com/

Email Marketing and Web Communication: Ten Key Tips to Get Your Messages Read

Writen by Ross Storey

There’s an old saying ‘Manners maketh the man (or woman)’ and this still applies in the 21st Century, even though everything now seems to happen twice as fast.

Most people respond much better if you treat them respectfully. People appreciate being spoken to politely and you can definitely include consumers here. Yes, if you are into Internet marketing, it may be a hi-tech world, where bits and bytes circle the globe in the blinking of an eye, but people still respond better to being spoken to as a friendly equal. This particularly goes for language in advertisements.

Here are some important things to remember when you are emailing someone with a sales pitch.

1. DON’T YELL WITH CAPITALS: By all means use ‘caps’ in your message to highlight key points, but don’t write whole sentences in capitals. This is the online equivalent of screaming in someone’s ear. Bolding key points is a much better alternative to capitalizing.

2. Be TIDY With FORMATTING: I read a lot of sales emails every day, and it never ceases to amaze me how so many email ‘salespeople’ – perhaps we can call them ‘e-sellers’ - don’t bother to properly ‘dress up’ their email messages. There are many available email message formatting systems available, like Formatit.com, which you can use to make your emails presentable, and very likely, more profitable. Line breaks, you see, behave badly in cyberspace, and, although your email may look fine as you type it, the message could have line breaks all over the place, when it’s received. Sloppy presentation like this, sends out a clear message that does not favour people buying from you. Any sloppy line breaks are hard to read. An ideal line length is about 50 – 60 spaces.

3. Write Your Ads Like You’re SPEAKING to an INDIVIDUAL: When you email someone you are, in effect, striking up a conversation with them. You are hoping they’ll take the time to ‘listen’. A little bit of humour, a little bit of your own personal style, will not go astray in your message. Be friendly and be polite. Emails that are abrupt or too direct, can be read as insulting or critical.

4. Say PLEASE and THANK You a Lot: As a web marketer, I always start my messages by thanking people for ‘clicking in’ to my message. After all, they have taken the trouble to open my email, ahead of possibly tens or even hundreds of others, who they have not bothered to open. I always thank them for their trouble. I know that when people are polite and thank me, I always feel better towards them and welcome the respect.

5. Keep Your email Ads PUNCHY and SHORT:Email, by nature, is a time-saving tool. It’s quick and it’s to the point. Keep you message to the point and don’t try to cram too many ‘sales pitches’ in the one email. It’s very unlikely that people will read the whole thing from top to bottom, so keep your selling to six paragraphs or so. This is for emails you may be sending to a safelist. If you are emailing your regular mailing list, perhaps with you newsletter, then you can afford to follow the regular format, which may be quite long. This is because you newsletter subscribers generally know what to expect because they hopefully have read more than one edition.

6. ENTICE Your Readers to READ to the BOTTOM: If you want to send a longer than usual e-mail sales pitch, it’s good strategy to put a paragraph in, near the top, saying something like ‘If you read to the bottom of this email, you’ll find a great no cost download’. Teasers like this are very effective and may even prompt readers to immediately scroll down to the bottom to check out what they can get.

7. AVOID the Word FREE in Your Message: Why, because the spam filters will get you. While FREE might be the most attractive word in email marketing, it’s also one of those that spam filters will likely detect to block your message. You need to be a bit creative. Instead of FREE, why not use words like ‘no cost, ‘gratis’ ‘give-away’, ‘gift’ or ‘bonus’.

8. AVOID Too Many SYMBOLS: Those of us old enough to remember cartoon comic strips, will remember how cartoonists often used symbols to show a character ‘swearing’. Such as, ‘Why You #@!*’ Too many symbols in your message could have the same effect – making your message confusing and unfriendly to readers. Use symbols sparingly and to draw attention to important points.

9. DON’T Have Too Many BLOCK Paragraphs: Although grammar purists will tell you that paragraphs can have many sentences, so long as they are on the same topic, use short paragraphs of only one or two sentences. Short is better, because these days, people do not want to read great slabs of text – they will simply tune out. You can also highlight key points in your sales message, simply by isolating them in one lonely sentence.

10. EMAIL People As You Would Like THEM to Email YOU: This sounds a bit biblical, but really the same applies in general life. Try to put yourself in the reader’s shoes after you’ve finished your message. Would you like to have such an email sent to your in-box. Would you find such an email polite and friendly? If anything ‘jolts’ as you read your own email, make sure you soften it with further friendly communication.

You will likely find that showing some ‘manners’ in your email communications, will translate into greater profits and more buyers. Thank you very much for reading this article and best wishes to you in your endeavors.

Ross Storey is a completely bald (it’s fashionable), 52-year-old public relations and marketing consultant, writer and editor who has been involved in web marketing and design for more than a decade.

http://bestwebcopy.zapz.biz

http://www.quokkasoft.com

http://bestprographics.zapz.biz

Copyright ฉ 2005 Ross Storey - Please feel free to publish this article, so long as you keep this resource section complete

E-mail Marketing and the Small Business

Writen by Tarsha Polk

As an Internet Marketer, I feel it is my duty to inform micro to small business owners about the benefits of email marketing as part of your marketing strategy. But, before I get into some benefits, lets talk about a few things you should be aware of.

First of all, be familiar with CAN-SPAM. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them. For more information visit www.ftc.gov. In a nutshell, this means, do not send emails to individuals/groups advertising or promoting your products and services unless you have permission to do so.

If you attend a tradeshow and collect several business cards from a drawing, make sure you also have a sign up sheet for those who want to receive your newsletter, coupons, ads, etc. Just because they left you their business card does not mean they want SPAM from your company. Get to know the terms opt-in/out. Opt in means that someone has signed up on your website or sign in sheet giving you permission to email them information about your services. Opt-out means they previously opted in, but no longer want to receive information from you.

Secondly, invest in a email newsletter service so that you can have professional looking HTML or Text-based email messages sent to your opt-in list. Most do-it-yourself services are very affordable and starts at $20 per month. If you choose to use your outlook or other email service, be sure to send a blind email when sending to a distribution list. What is a blind email? Here's an example of an email I would send in outlook to 50 people:

To: tmarketinglady@yahoo.com

Cc:

Bcc: 1234@abc.com, 567@abc.com, 211@abc.com

By putting your own email address in the " To " line and the recipients in the " Bcc " line, this will avoid everyone on your list from seeing others email address. Not only is this thoughtful, but people will appreciate you protecting their privacy.

Now, the benefits of using e-mail marketing in your marketing strategy.

Low cost - using email marketing is less expensive then using print, radio, or TV advertising to promote your products.
Better metrics - it is sometimes difficult to determine if a customer coming to your store came in because of an ad, but with an email marketing program with built in tracking, you can see how many people opened your special offer, how many clicked on the coupon, and how many clicked through to your website or landing page.

DIY - you can do it yourself. Most all email marketing services come with built in templates you can choose from. All you have to do is type in your text and upload any images. If you do not have any of the templates or want the newsletter to look like your site, hire a web designer to make you a custom template and upload it to your email service.

Targeted information - with email marketing, you target each group with different messages. For example, your list may contain customers who purchased from you in the past and ones who have not. You can segment your list into 2 groups and send customer loyalty discounts to previous customers.

Now that was just a brief overview of e-mail marketing. Using it is not difficult at all, but if you do not have the time to manage your email campaign, hire a consultant to work with you.

Tarsha Polk, a.k.a. The Marketing Lady™ is a small business marketing coach. She will guide the business owner to Think Bigger, Broader, Differently, and Smarter through marketing consulting and business coaching.

Email Marketing Advice: That FROM Field Can Really Sting You In The Butt

Writen by Joan Pasay

It sure is a big responsibility to be in charge of the company Email Newsletter. Once a week you, and only you, are responsible to carefully craft an email marketing message and get it out to all of your sacred e-newsletter subscribers.

You take the job seriously and get started early in the week. You want this email message to be really great. The company is counting on you! Your email marketing campaign is one of your employer's core marketing activities.

1. It is Wednesday. You take the afternoon and carefully craft the weekly company email message.

2. It is Thursday. You spell check the weekly company email message.

3. It is Friday. You ask your marketing buddy across the office to proof the weekly company email message. You don’t want to embarrass yourself with grammatical errors or an article that does not make sense!

4. It is Saturday. You sleep on it and are confident the weekly company email message is ready to go.

5. It is Sunday. You take the day off and have a really great afternoon with your boyfriend. You are worry free! Your weekly company email message is all put to bed and ready to go.

6. You wake up early on Monday morning, get to the office and login into your Email List Management service and get your weekly company email message all queued up.

7. You press send and watch your weekly company email message go into cyberspace. “Oh, goody!” you exclaim. “Think of all the business I am going to bring into the company with this carefully crafted email marketing message!”

8. It is Monday, one second later. A subscriber receives the weekly company email message in their inbox.

9. It is Monday, two seconds later. Your subscriber looks at the FROM field.

10. It is Monday, three seconds later. Your subscriber seems perplexed. “Hmmm, who is Mary Franklin?” they think.

11. It is Monday, four seconds later. Your subscriber takes a deep breath, says, “Never heard of her,” and presses the delete button.

12. It is Monday, five seconds later. You are in a meeting with your new boss. You yelp, grab your butt and scream, “I think I just got stung by a bee!”

You did. And you let it out and you painted the target on your hiney.

Your name might mean something to you but your email list subscribers probably have no idea who you are and will freak out when they see a strange email in their inbox from some gal named Mary Franklin.

If you are Anthony Robbins you can get away with it.

Since I assume you:

-have never walked on fire

-are not almost seven feet tall and

-don't have a huge toothy grin

You don’t qualify to put your name in the From field of your weekly company email marketing messages.

Think about it from your subscriber’s point of view.

-They subscribed to an email list from your company.

-They expect to receive a message from your company.

Instead they receive a message from someone named Mary Franklin. Someone they have never heard of, never met, never seen, and is not mentioned in any literature that belongs to the company.

I think the only logical reaction would be to press the delete button. Wouldn’t you do the same thing?

Here are some suggestions for a FROM field that will mean something to your email list subscribers:

-Your company name and URL (Hey, you can put anything you want in here, so the clearer the better).

-The name of your periodic mailing (only if it is well- branded).

-Your company name AND the name of your periodic mailing.

Keep your name to yourself. I hate to bruise your ego, but no one cares if a message comes from you expect people who know you.

Feeling like you have a few swollen, red bumps on your rear?

Go check your FROM Field.

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Earn good karma, forward this article to everyone you know who has an email address.

Copyright Joan Pasay - 2005

E-mail Marketing

Writen by Swati Gupta

E-mail marketing can be extremely beneficial at helping to build a positive relationship with your customers, however if miss used it can be equally damaging. The most difficult part of e-mail marketing is building up a list of targets that will be interested in what you have to say to them.

An opt-in newsletter is a fantastic way to start building trust and respect between you and your target market. However, to do this you need to deliver content that will engage and interest the people that subscribe to your newsletter. Get in touch with us today about building an e-mail marketing campaign that will offer value to your potential customers, not just litter their inbox with spam.

E-mail marketing is use to do marketing, means its advertisement, which helps consumers to take right decisions that what would be purchase or what would not be purchased because it tells all features, if it is good or bad. Email marketing applies to attract customer also which tells to customer that you should buy that product because that has best quality with cheapest rate then any other product of this category.

Email marketing also effects maker to increasing their sales, profits and production. With the help of marketing, a company can implement their goodwill.
With the help of email marketing, two peoples who are very far from each other can also make business transactions; they can buy or sell anything without touching product. On the internet, there are a huge number of sites of email marketing, which helps in both marketing and market. These sites also tell the main features (including background) and price.

With the help of email marketing, we can buy or sell anything to and from any corner of the world within few seconds. Email marketing makes world so small to earn easy money.

swati gupta

Email Marketing 101 - What You Must Know Before Starting an Email Marketing Campaign

Writen by Michael Turner

Before you start an e-mail marketing campaign it is important for you to know what e-mail marketing is, the benefits of e-mail marketing, and whether or not e-mail marketing is right for your business. Once you are educated on the finer points of an e-mail marketing campaign, you will be poised to either learn more and get your campaign going or else find another means of marketing your products.

What is E-mail Marketing?

E-mail marketing is a way by which you promote your business and services to individuals by e-mail. Frequently, people opt-in to receive these types of e-mails so you are not spamming people with unwanted mail. In these e-mails you will provide information on your business and service and information for individuals to contact you if interested in these advertised services. This is a great way to reach many individuals quickly and is very cost effective.

Now that you know what e-mail marketing is you need to learn about the benefits of an e-mail marketing campaign.

Benefits of E-mail Marketing

There are many benefits of e-mail marketing simply because the majority of people check their e-mail every day, if not multiple times per day. This means you have the opportunity to reach people almost immediately. Also, e-mail marketing is a billion dollar business so it certainly has a track record of being effective.

Other benefits of an e-mail marketing campaign includes saving a significant amount of time and money. An e-mail campaign can be started and completed in the matter of hours and then sent out immediately. The traditional method meant designing and printing advertising materials, stuffing and addressing envelopes, and finally mailing them. This included a lot of additional work and time, not to mention money.

You will also see your sales increase with this type of marketing campaign and generally you will receive a response rate of 5-15% with this type of campaign.

Now that you are aware of the benefits, is an e-mail marketing campaign for you?

To decide whether this type of campaign is for you or not you need to ask yourself some questions.

Question #1

What are your goals and how will you achieve them? You need to know what your goals are and what you are trying to achieve from a marketing campaign before you can decide what type of campaign will best benefit you.

Question #2

What resources do you have available to devote to this campaign?
You want to make sure that you have enough time to properly plan and carry out an e-mail campaign, not to mention the money and other skills it will take to create a successful campaign.

Question #3

Are your prepared to handle an onslaught of orders and questions? When you send out an e-mail for products or services, you need to be prepared to handle a lot of orders short amount of time, not to mention many questions. Be sure you are prepared before you start this type of campaign.

Michael Turner shows you exactly how to increase web site traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it today at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

eMail Marketing: 8 Tips on Sending HTML eMails

Writen by Radhika Venkata

1. Size of the Html emails:

Size does matters. If the emails are bulky, spam filters think they
are spam. So they will be deleted or directed to junk folder. Better
be less than 20 kb.

To make Html emails with small sizes follow these principles-
Don't use WYSIWYG editors to create Html emails.
Don't attach images to messages. Upload the images to your website
and link from there.
Mind attachements that you will send with emails.

2. Javascripts and executable attachments:

Don't insert javascripts and those sort of things in your Html emails.
They potentially decrease the deliverability of your email in to
your subscribers inboxes, because people disables these in their email
clients to run.

3. Html complexity:

Most of the email clients support only minimal html. Like simple
break tags, paragraph tags etc. Don't use complex html code like
frames, sliding menus etc.

4. Hiding and Tracking links:

Great advantage of Html emails is you can hide your affiliate links
and track who opened the emails (only if images are downloable).

5. Easy to publish on the web:

Make a template for your Html emails. So let all emails be consistent in
layout. You can publish the ezines or ecourses on the web directly from Html
emails. You don't have to format like in text emails.

6. Attachments:

All mailing list managers has the ability to attach single or
multiple attachments. But spam filters triggered by attacments in
many email clients. So put them as download links.

7. Links in Html emails:

Try not to misdirect your subscribers. Best way linking is by using
legit wording. Like if you are keeping the following affiliate link
(example - www.affiliatesite.com/affiliate.php?idxxxx) for a search engine
optimization ebook, keep this url linked to the word
'Search engine optimization strategies guide'. Don't link to affiliatesite.com
This way subscribers know what they are clicking and what to expect
after clicking.

8. Email clients limitations:

Not all email clients display Html emails properly. So offer a choice
for your subscriber to opt for text emails in your email letters.

Radhika Venkata (c)

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Email Marketing: 8 Reasons Why It is Ideal for Small Businesses

Writen by M White

Email has revolutionised business communications over recent years and has rightly earned the label of the Killer Application of the Internet. The use of email marketing has had a similar and profound impact for companies looking to promote their products and services.

It has been especially powerful for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). Without the marketing budgets of larger organisations, SMEs nevertheless have the same requirements for a cost effective, successful and measurable method of communicating with their customers. Email marketing offers not only this but can be used in every element of the marketing process, from building your brand, driving traffic to your website or marketing special offers, to providing customer service or technical support.

But just why does email marketing offer such possibilities to small business and, indeed, organisations of all sizes? Below are outlined 8 reasons why email marketing has to sit right at the top of every SME’s marketing activities checklist.

1. Successful

First and foremost, email marketing produces results! A well designed campaign using a properly managed mailing list will give response rates which are much higher than other direct marketing methods.

While there are many variables that contribute to response rates, indications are that overall email marketing gains a response rate about 5 times higher than direct mail. By getting a much larger percentage of people interested in what you are offering, immediately you are massively increasing the number of potential sales. Added to this, the quick response methods allow a much faster turnaround of questions and objections thus clearing a way through to closing the sale.

Even though the unacceptable rise in Spam has had a detrimental effect on the proper commercial use of emails in marketing, the success levels of well run, targeted and fully compliant campaigns using full opt-in lists continue to advance in leaps and bounds. Effectively, whatever your goal, email marketing delivers in a way that few , if any, direct marketing methods can match.

2. Targeted

The more targeted your marketing message is, the more likely it is to be successful. Email marketing provides the means of customising each message which is sent out, so that the information, promotion or offer can be individually personalised and targeted.

Effectively, using targeted HTML emails gives you the opportunity to quickly and easily tailor the message to directly respond to each prospect’s own needs and interests. Results consistently also show that the more you can personalise your messages, the higher your response and conversion rates will be.

In many respects, a well run email campaign makes the concept of “one to one marketing” available to all, because of the way that it is perfectly suited to segmentation and personalisation. Whereas printed mailers are created, printed and fixed, with email marketing you remain in control of the process for longer giving you more flexibility both in the overall approach and offering.

3. Economic and Cost Effective

Email marketing eliminates the significant time and expense of full graphic design, printing, postage, handling and so on which is associated with printing and processing traditional direct mail campaigns. Yet with graphic html emails, you are able to create the same imagery and provoke the same responses with the added benefit of having follow up information instantly available via your website.

Perhaps just as importantly, with the correct maintenance of an email list, the cost benefits increase as does the ROI through the closer relationship established with the recipients. Coupled with the higher response rates that email marketing attracts, you therefore get more positive responses, more quickly and at a lower unit cost! Win – win situation!

4. Trackable

When using email marketing, you can track the results of your campaign in real time thus providing you with instant feedback on its success. This allows you to respond to developments as they happen and to follow up while the campaign is still in progress.

For each message, you can see whether:

* it was received successfully;

* it was opened and read;

* the recipient used the links in it to reach your site.

There are two immediate benefits of this level of information: firstly, it puts you in a position to be able to make changes to a campaign already underway to improve its response rate; secondly, when sending out follow up messages, you have the possibility to segment your mail list according to the action taken on receipt of the initial one. This allows you to respond immediately to any issues which arise and to complete the feedback loop quickly and effectively.

Moving forward, you also have a complete record of those elements and links which worked best for you and those which require changes to improve their performance. The experiences taken from the campaign can then be applied to future campaigns with a high degree of accuracy.

5. Measurable

As the adage goes, “If you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage it” and measuring the success of your marketing spend is more important today than ever. To make best use of your budget, it is essential to keep track of not only the costs but also the results and the revenue that the campaign specifically generates. This will allow you to focus your activities with the most appropriate methods in future.

In addition to tracking the recipients' reaction to the email, you can also follow their subsequent path through your website, with the appropriate software. This allows excellent visibility as to the success of the landing page and the anticipated route through to the purchase or sign-up page, according to your campaign's objectives.

Together, this information is invaluable when planning future campaigns or being able to precisely calculate the costs and sales generated by any email marketing activity that you undertake. Hopefully, the ROI (Return on Investment) you achieve will be as good as the campaigns run by companies which have reported ROI rates 40 times higher than those achieved with direct mail!

6. Testable

To achieve the best possible response rates, it is common practice to send any intended piece of marketing material to sample groups to test its effectiveness before starting the main campaign. With traditional direct marketing, this process can be time consuming and costly.

However, with email marketing, this process is fast and effective with results available almost immediately, thanks to the instant measuring of the results. Additionally, as there is no printed material involved, the turnaround for any changes in layout or wording required as a result can be incorporated into the main mailing quickly and easily.

7. Immediate

The speed at which business happens is constantly increasing. Email marketing allows you not only to keep pace with these changes but stay ahead of them, not only in terms of the speed of response to the campaign but also the creation of the campaign itself.

Firstly, the "Call to Action" can be immediate and ideally handled through the website. When you read a compelling offer in an email you can respond using the links in the message itself, usually taking you to a specially created page with additional information and recommendations. Responding to a direct mail piece, on the other hand, requires a much more active response, such as completing and sending off a form or even just picking up the phone. Just as importantly, the responses start to come back immediately! On average, 80% of the responses happen within 3 days as opposed to the weeks which is more normal for traditional direct mail.

Secondly, the creation and distribution of the email campaign is also much quicker. Carefully constructing, producing and sending a good html email which is going to bring the top level results, need only take a matter of days (or indeed hours if you are working with a supportive partner!) rather than weeks for a printed mailer.

8. Flexible & Adaptable

Email marketing is adaptable enough to support your business in many different ways and can help to achieve a variety of different goals. While email marketing is often considered stronger when you are looking to maintain customer relationships rather than forge new ones, it is in fact able to fulfil a variety of different purposes for your business. Some of these are:

* Increase the number of visitors to your website

* Attract new clients, leads or registrations

* Build stronger relationships with existing clients

* Provide improved levels of company, product or service information

* Build brand awareness

These goals can be achieved through the use of emails to distribute different items, each offering different opportunities for strengthening the relationship with the company's customers. Some of the more common ones include:

* Sales promotions / vouchers

* Account statements

* Company Newsletters

* Press Releases

* Product Announcements

Summary

Email marketing is in itself an excellent method of communicating and distributing information and an essential part of an integrated marketing strategy. Like all marketing methods, it is most influential when used in conjunction with other media with the result that the sum of the parts being more powerful than the individual parts themselves.

With the use of RSS feeds and blogs gaining greater acceptance as corporate communications media, there will undoubtedly prophets of doom announcing the imminent demise of the use of email marketing as a tool for the future. The astute marketer will, however, develop these up and coming channels alongside their email marketing program and so be ideally placed to offer our customers the information they require by the method they prefer.

"Emarketing" Mark White is an emarketing consultant and specialist working primarily with small and medium sized companies in the UK. For help with Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, Business Blogging and online business development help, visit Rosetta Alba Emarketing Services or his blog at eMarketingMark.com

Email Management Made Easy

Writen by Tawnya Sutherland

Work-at-home moms know how important time management is in running a successful business. Often they need help with daily operational procedures and learning how to make the most of their time. Here are some tips to help you run your business more successfully.

Organize your email in color!

If you use Outlook or even Outlook Express, use color to organize your email. I have a visual personality so sorting by color organizes me quicker and without much thought involved on my part so it works for me. Maybe it will for you too!

I have all my clients email headers in red, my personal email from friends in green, family gets blue, e-lists get purple and the vendor email is brown. This way I can easily scan priority email every morning. It also makes the spam stick out since I leave this black and can scan through it easier to click and delete.

So how do I color my headers in my email box? The first thing you need to do is to select a message from the person you want all messages color highlighted.

Next you're looking for the Organize button located on the Standard toolbar. (You can also find Organize in the Tools menu). The Organize feature will open at the top of your mailbox.

On the left you should find the "Using Colors" option. Click it. The statement in this feature is simple enough.

By default it is trying to color messages "from" someone and the senders name from the highlighted message is already filled in, so... all you have to do is to pick a color from the drop down list at the end.

Click the Apply Color button and never overlook an email from that person again.

Another tip from Diana Ennen of Virtual Word Publishing, http://www.virtualwordpublishing.com is:

Get into the habit of scheduling a certain time of day to read your e-mails. Don’t keep your e-mail box open and check constantly throughout the day. When you do, your Outlook owns you. You will find you will accomplish so much more when you do this. A simple just send a quick e-mail can turn into valuable work time being wasted. Let your clients know when you routinely answer your mail and then they will be used to hearing back from you at that time.

For those work-at-home moms, time is of the essence. As successful virtual assistants, we know that we can better do our work for our clients globally if we successfully handle all aspects of our business in the most time effective manner.

Stop by our forum at VAN, http://www.VANetworking.com for additional tips on how to start your business and keep it running more successfully. We are of group of over 2300 aspiring and successful virtual assistants who strive for excellence in all we do.

Tawnya Sutherland, founder of Virtual Assistant Networking (VAN) (http://www.vanetworking.com) and author of The VAS System, a Virtual Assistant Startup System, is a Certified Internet Marketing Specialist sharing much of her online marketing experience at VAN to help aspiring and successful VAs turn clicks into cash at their websites. Contact her at tawnya@mediamage.com or the Publicity Rep for VAN, Diana Ennen at diana@virtualwordpublishing.com

Email Management and Email Archiving

Writen by Marci Crane

The necessity for better email management and email archiving grows everyday. Email (electronic mail) changes and evolves with technology. In order to understand the email management technology that will be best for you or for your business let’s take a step back and look at the origins of email itself.

Where Did Email Come From?

Believe it or not, email actually existed before the Internet did. The use of email began as early as 1965 when users of mainframe computers (huge computers that are used to store massive amount of data such as census reports, etc.) would share time on one computer because it was impossible to buy lots of little personal computers as there were none. These mainframe computer users would leave electronic messages on the computer for other users who would be using the same computer at another time. In a way, it was like simply leaving a note on an office desk for a co-worker, but the message was electronic and thus did represent an early form of electronic mail.

The ARPANET Contributes to Email and Email Management

The ARPANET computer network was the intellectual predecessor to the Internet. The ARPANET was also the first network that allowed data to be transferred in packets (referred to as packet switching). Transferring data in packets allowed more information and communication to go through one physical line instead of many lines which either carried communication from one node to another or were dormant as was often the case when circuit switching was the main method of data transport. The ARPANET greatly increased the popularity of using email as a means of communication. The ARPANET probably also led to folders and other email management tools, which were helpful in the organization and location of specific emails.

What About the @ Sign?

The development and the evolution of the ARPANET also led to new developments in electronic mail. Ray Tomlinson was one of the privileged few who had access to the ARPANET and was the first to use the @ sign to separate the name of the user from the name of his/her computer. Through the developments of the ARPANET and Ray Tomlinson’s contributions, email rapidly became more popular amongst computer literates. Email soon became the killer application of the ARPANET.

Additional Email Management Solutions

As more and more people began to be aware of the ARPANET, they began to be aware of the benefits of rapid electronic communication. Because of the demand, other protocols were developed for other groups with time-sharing computers. These protocols allowed many groups to send electronic messages to each other. They then started sending messages to other computers which required the name of the sender’s computer and the name of the receiver’s computer instead of just one sender name and one computer name.

Networked Email and Increased Email Management

With the development of local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs), email was able to be transferred electronically from one node to another or from one computer to many others. The process today uses mail user agents and mail transfer agents to send emails almost anywhere in the world.

Email Management Tools

Email management solutions are in demand today. Users want email management tools to do the following:

1. Store copies of in-bound, out-bound, and internal e-mails.
   
2. Provide spam, failover, anti-virus, data storage, and compliance services.
   
3. Avoid negative affects on email management users and email management infrastructure.
   
4. Make installation easy with e-mail archiving, spam filter, compliance, anti-virus.
   
5. Provide 2TB of RAID 5 storage.
   

Most of the information in this article can be referenced to the following link.

For more information in regards to email management, email management tools or email management software please feel free to contact Wala Systems.

Email List Management

Writen by Brian Beshore

How do you get the most out of your list?

We all know that a lot of marketing is done to a list but, say you have a sizable list. Now what?

Once you have a list of any size built-up, you must start broadcasting to it. This is important for a couple of reasons;

1. You have to realize that a good percentage of your list will have people that are new to marketing on it. You might think of these subscribers as being in a kind of stasis--they're really just checking things out. So one purpose of broadcasting is to stir up some interest or excitement among these new-comers.

One good way to do this is with contests. For example a friend of mine had a referral contest and the prize was $200.00 cash. The great thing about this contest was that, even if you didn't win, you still got a lot of really great free things for signing-up, and it was free also.

2. You will make many more sales and sign-ups with your broadcasts.

Don't broadcast more than about once a week, but do broadcast. One week, give away freebies, or have a contest or business tips, the next week advertise. Be charming and entertaining. Use some flare, to have a more distinct personality and stand out from the crowd of faceless form letters!

Remember, if you don't broadcast to your list and keep it active, your list may soon shrink to nada.

Copyright 2005 Brian Beshore

Brian Beshore is an Internet Marketer and professional copywriter for Article Insider.
He is the creator of the Become Your Own Boss Program;
http://www.surfinsafari.net

Emailing to Third Party Lists: The Dangers Involved

Writen by Robin Houghton

One of the questions I get asked most often is 'where can I buy a reliable list of email addresses?' I have only one answer: don't even go there.


When you're just starting to build your list, you may not have email addressses for all your customers, let alone prospects. It's tempting to go down the traditional route of buying in a list - after all, it's a standard direct marketing tactic. But there can be problems with this, for example:

• Email addresses frequently change. If the addresses are over 6 months old and haven't been mailed to in that time then you should question the value of the list.
  
• List brokers rarely have individual email addresses on their books - so you may get a list of names and job titles but with generic email addresses (sales@, info@ etc). Delivery to these kinds of addresses often results in your email never reaching the intended recipient.
  
• Email list brokers should be able to demonstrate the provenance of email addresses. How were they obtained? What did these people actually opt in to receive? Beware that if the list broker has no audit trail to speak of, in the case of a spam complaint you may be in a difficult position.
  
• Who else has purchased these addresses and emailed them? If they have been re-sold too often or to the wrong kinds of customer that will negatively affect your campaign and may associate you with spammers.
  
• If you are planning to email private individuals with whom you have no 'prior commercial relationship' then you are almost certainly contravening the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications legislation (if your target recipients are outside of the UK then check the legislation in the relevant market). The Website of the Information Commissioner's Office has useful guidance notes on how to interpret the rules at http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/eventual.aspx?id=96

So what's the answer? Focus primarily on building your houselist. Yes, it takes time, but it's not impossible. Ask permission at every opportunity, encourage forwarding of the newsletter ... it's worth it, not least of all because houselists outperform bought lists in every sense. For example, they deliver higher click-through rates, better conversion rates, better pass-along rates and a better response to survey or feedback requests. Over time, your houselist will increase in value as a communications tool. Home-grown is best!

Robin Houghton is a director of enewsworks, a UK-based email marketing agency specialising in the full service - from strategy to delivery. Sign up for her free ezine eTips at http://www.enewsworks.co.uk/etips/google.html

Emailing in Business and Quality of Life

Writen by CD Mohatta

Communication in earlier days -

There was a time when during prehistoric times, people used to communicate in sign languages. Today most of us talk to each other through a short SMS. Times have changed. Has human being changed? Have our basic desires changed? No!

About the modern world -

How to live in this modern world and still maintain close contact that touches the hearts while using latest technology? Every communication need not be heart to heart. A simple business mail needs to be precise and to the point. But what about our communication with our friends, and family?

Even business needs communication that talks the language of heart. Look at the successful advertisements. You will find that the company is trying to touch the consumers' hearts. Study any close business relationship, and you will find that the relationship has crossed the "to the point talk" of business and reached heart to heart talk between the buyer and the supplier.

Communication for better relationships-

For long lasting business relationships and for living a satisfied life, we need to communicate with everyone we come across in the language that is dear to all of us. That is the language that touches the heart! How to do that? Can that be done?

Writing and answering emails -

Emails are the most popular and common method of communication in today's world.
Most of us, who are otherwise not on our computer all the day, try to find some time to check our mails and answer them. Emails have become preferred method and a second habit, rather an essential part of a modern person.

How do we talk to each other on emails? some of us are very brief where as some others believe in writing long paragraphs to send a small message. It is same as our behavior in other areas of life. Those who believe in speaking less, write short answers and mails. Our habits carry themselves in our method of writing mails. But the habit of sending short mails is becoming more prevalent.

Why brief mails ?

Why it is that brief mails are becoming more common? Is it because most of us are finding no time to talk. We are always so busy and rushed that gone are the days when people used to sit down and write their text after deep thought. For a majority of young population the main task is to finish answering all the mails as soon as possible. How does one talk heart to heart in such a life?

This reflects our living style in the modern world. Most of us want to achieve our goals as soon as possible. No one has the time to sit back and reflect. Life is becoming a prisoner of work. Even our ancestors used to work, but are we living a satisfied life such as they used to? The answer would be no. Brief writing habit is part of the deterioration in quality life

Emails - The cause of poor quality of life?

Are emails one of the causes of deteriorating quality communication? This can be debated. But the ease of answering and the hurry to open another mail and answer propels us to finish our mails fast. The technology is making us do it. The response of computers is so quick that we work in an unknowing hurry. Is this not worth a thought?

What can be done?

We must try to live a satisfied and happy life. For that, we must communicate better.

Our communication must be heart to heart, even when we are rushing through the day. That is little difficult but not impossible as it sounds. Sending eCards, and Egreetings
can help us in doing this to a great extent. A quick search on the net, and you will find a big resource of cards that talk the language of the heart. It may take a little more time, but will give us satisfaction at the end of the day.

Mohatta writes about different aspect of life. Love, inspiration, pains, humanity, truth etc. He is currently dedicated content writer for EcardUniverse.com He writes text for the eCards, Wallpapers, and Screensavers for http://www.screene.com

Emailing For Dollars

Writen by Brian Grinonneau

Email marketing, that is, permission-based email marketing, is providing new hope for small business owners who have obvious disdain for traditional forms of advertising. This powerful tool is effective, immediate, targeted and inexpensive. Email campaigns build relationships and foster customer loyalty, two elements sorely missing in much of today’s marketplace.

Prospective customers like email marketing too. An email study undertaken by Doubleclick uncovered some surprising consumer preferences:

54% said they would like email to replace telemarketing

45% said they would like email to replace in-person sales calls

40% said they would like email to replace direct mail

33% said they would like email to replace retail coupons

The effectiveness of email is more predictable than other forms of advertising. Another Doubleclick survey found that 78% of online shoppers purchased an item because of a link they clicked on in an email message.

Email is now. If you have a special that you want to promote today, you literally can do so with a mouse click and studies show that nearly 90% of your recipients will make a buying decision within 48 hours!

You can segment your email list by age and gender demographics and by interests in certain types of products. No other form of advertising allows for such a precise targeting.

Email is much less expensive than any other form of advertising. Compare the costs of mailing lists, paper, postage, graphic art work, TV or Radio production, and you’ll be astounded.

The fine-points of setting up an email campaign are best left to a professional. After the initial set-up which includes, email collection, e-newsletter composition, content selection, and email design and distribution, you may well be able to put together future mailings on your own.

Email marketing will continue to be a valuable tool for small business owners. Those who use it will win the battle for their prospects’ attention, drive new revenue and become customer favorites. Those that don’t…

Brian Grinonneau is the general manager of McMann & Tate Advertising, an agency that insists its clients tell their story like it has never been told before.

E-Mail in a Single Click of Send Button

Writen by Kundan Upadhyaya

I have found the Quickest way to mail to my friends in a website. It was amazing to experience a quickest way to send mail. The particular website I am talking about provides the facility to send mail in a very short period of time, the most interesting thing was that it didn't ask me to sign up into the web server or to get an email id from it. I just filled up the To, From, Subject and Body directly, it was sufficient to send a mail.

This Quickmail facility can also be used to send a mail by giving an arbitrary e-mail ID in the From field, because the website doesn't bother to check whether the ID you are providing in the from field exist or not. That means you can surprise your friend with a funny email ID like - email@yourname.com , your friend will think that there exist a website in your name and it provides the email facility. Moreover if you want you can conceal your E-mail Id if you don't want to reveal your ID to the person you are sending the mail.

I think this Quickmail is the most interesting mailing facility provided in the network. Other conventional mailing services ask you to sign up an account which is a lengthy process in itself, then every time you will have to log in to your account to send a mail.

Sometimes we don't have much time and have to send a mail in urgency, in such a situation this type of mailing is of ultimate use.

If you want to Experience Such type of Mailing You can Visit to http://quickmail.dgstonline.com

URL - http://quickmail.dgstonline.com

Email Hosting Services

Writen by Seth Miller

Building a web site that can make your company’s presence known by numerous clients is said to be easier said than done. But in today’s society, this endeavor, which was quite difficult to achieve before is now made simple thanks to the comprehensive tools and resources made available by several companies and professionals that specialize in web hosting and email hosting services. These services mostly deal with helping clients to efficiently make business transactions online, even if it entails a reliable web hosting resource for your site along with some all-encompassing internet hosting packages.

Basically, email hosting services are designed to give every user the ease of access that he needs to develop his e-commerce site. They incorporate extra features that are directed at a high level of customer satisfaction. Email hosting, as a primary instrument for communicating with your clients, allows you to efficiently send your emails. The good thing about this hosting plan is that there are no limitations on the number of email accounts you can have, aside from the fact that you’re given the edge to generate and organize all your corporate emails with great ease and convenience.

What’s more, you can lay hands on professional email hosting services that are in accordance with your custom requirements. Get your hands on a wide range of email hosting plans designed to fulfill your emailing needs, and ultimately boost the web presence of your company.

Bank on a reliable email hosting provider to furnish your needs; you’ll be confident about getting the most out of the reasonable costs of having a domain name of your own and keeping in good condition your own email servers. As a result, you can be sure that you’re heading in the right direction.

Email Hosting provides detailed information on Email Hosting, Email Domain Hosting, Email Hosting Services, Business Email Hosting and more. Email Hosting is affiliated with Free Animated Ecards.

Email Hosting - Learn How To Use eMail To Grow Your Business

Writen by Joe Duchesne

Email is a wonderful thing. It costs next to nothing and can be sent almost anywhere in the world in a few minutes. When email is used properly, it can help move your business forward. When it is not used properly, it can hurt your business.

Here are a couple of ways that email can hurt your business

The first way that email can hurt your business is by sending unsolicited emails to every email address you can find. This is now commonly referred to as spam and it is an epidemic of major proportions. In fact, there has been talk that spam has made email almost useless as a form of communication. The average person gets so much junk email in their boxes every day that many people simply select all and delete without bothering to go through each message.

There is a second way that an email may be hurting you online. If you are conducting business online and your principal email account is from a free email service like hotmail.com or yahoo.com, you are practically shouting to people that you don't take your business seriously. Asking someone to fork over money on the internet is already difficult without giving off signals that people shouldn't trust you or your business. Getting an email account with your own domain at the end of it does not have to be expensive.

Web hosting can provide you with an email account

With most hosting companies out there you can register a domain name of your choice, sign up for a hosting account, and then create your own email account with your domain name at the end of it. It doesn't have to be a complicated process. A good web hosting provider will even help you by walking you through it. The result is an email that let's people know you are serious about your business and are ready to be taken seriously.

Start a weekly or monthly newsletter

Start a newsletter to build trust in you and your company. Use email to keep in touch with your customers and prospects. Provide valuable content. Don't bombard your customers will ads or sales letters. People like to buy from people they know, like, and trust. A newsletter could help you move in that direction. Newsletters are also excellent for cross selling other related products and services to the ones your customer has already purchased. Remember to keep the content quality high and the information as useful as possible. Make it easy for people to get themselves removed from your newsletters if they so choose. Using a newsletter can be a great tool for increasing sales.

Use email as a troubleshooting tool

Because email is so fast and easy to use, it can be a great way to provide sales support to your customers helping you to keep your phone costs down. When we use the phone, we usually feel that we need to engage in chit chat, and other banter besides the purpose of the call. Using email, you can quickly answer your customers' or prospects' questions and be right back working on whatever you were doing before the interruption.

Overall, email can be a very useful tool if not abused. Cheap, easy to use and quick, it can really help to boost your productivity when used properly.

This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/, a web hosting company that will answer the phone when you call. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely as long as you link back to my website from this resource box.

Email Hosting

Writen by Seth Miller

Every time we hear the word “email,” the first thing that comes to mind is a computer. Yes, computers have made a large contribution. Anyone can now have all the information that he needs in just a click of the mouse. In today’s world where everything seems to be maneuvered by computers and other automated machines, more and more people have come to recognize the value of emails, especially in the field of communications.

Emails, to a great extent, serve as the main conduit for getting in touch with someone, especially when it comes to sending information overseas. The advent of the Internet, especially when blended with email resources and breakneck-speed connections, was the vital factors that led to helping lots of businesses to transport their service operations overseas.

As a consequence, email hosting has come into being. But what is email hosting? How does it make a difference in the day-to-day operations of a certain business?

Email hosting is commonly referred to as an Internet hosting service that is in charge of operating email servers. It is a kind of web hosting support that provides users with the ability to send and receive email. There are different services that cater to email hosting packages. But the majority of these services is meant for providing assistance to large-scale businesses; it also includes some viable services, such as granting access to custom configuration, an assortment of accounts, and utilization of own domain designation.

Taken as a whole, email hosting is a great choice for re-establishing your identity. It is well matched for both home and business consumers who call for certified email addresses as their domain name but do not necessarily want to get involved with web hosting. As a result, electronic mail can be conveyed and obtained by means of an email program or software application or by way of any computer with Internet access world wide. Hence, in the world of marketing, email can either make or break a certain business.

Email Hosting provides detailed information on Email Hosting, Email Domain Hosting, Email Hosting Services, Business Email Hosting and more. Email Hosting is affiliated with Free Animated Ecards.

Email Fundraising Serves Four Strategic Functions in Direct Mail Program

Writen by Alan Sharpe

Email is cheaper than direct mail but that’s not why
you should embrace it.

Your non-profit organization should be communicating
with donors and members by email for four strategic
reasons.

1. Involve

Email, by its very nature, is interactive. Your readers
expect to see links in your email messages, links that
they can click. Your readers expect to be able to hit
Reply and answer a question you’ve posed, or share
their opinion. Email is attractive to donors and
members, and your organization, because it helps
them get involved.

By using “Forward-this-to-a-Friend” buttons in your
emails, and message boards and forums on your
website, your email messages help your constituents
share information with friends and colleagues, and
discuss relevant topics. If your donor file has plenty
of donors who are not engaged in any meaningful
way with your organization, email is a cost-effective
way to make them more active, with their happy
cooperation.

2. Advocate

Email is powerful because of its immediacy. The letter
you draft and send at 10:09 am arrives in your
donor’s email inbox within minutes, a feat impossible
using a letter, envelope and postage stamp.

Because email is immediate and because it
encourages interaction, it’s the perfect medium for
mobilizing your members. With email, you help your
members simply and easily advocate for your cause.
The more sophisticated email systems on the market
let you customize each email message so that it
contains the name and contact details for each
member’s local, provincial/state and federal elected
officials. The easier you make it for your members to
act as advocates, the higher your response rates will
be to petitions and other “take action” messages you
mail to further your cause.

3. Fundraise

The key to raising money online is not your website
but your email. Email is how you build relationships
with your members and donors. Email is how you
invite them (and inspire them) to donate. Your
website is simply where your donor makes the
donation. Some donors, of course, will chance upon
your website and give a gift while they are there, but
these kinds of donors are in the minority.

One exception is emergency appeals, where
organizations like The Red Cross, Doctors Without
Borders and Habitat for Humanity raise a great deal
of money online from strangers. But the secret to
securing second and subsequent gifts from online
donors is your emails, not your website. Your website
informs and educates, certainly, but your emails are
the vehicle that must transport your donors
there.

4. Inform

A leading cause of donor attrition is lack of
communication by the non-profit. Donors who send
gifts but do not hear from their charity often enough
soon take their gifts elsewhere. Just as important as
frequent communication is relevant communication.
And that’s where email newsletters are so attractive.
Because a good email system integrates with your
donor database, you can customize email newsletters
for the unique interests and preferences of each of
your constituents.

Kathy, for example, wants to receive alerts about
AIDS orphans but not refugees. Bill wants to receive
bulletins about Sudan but not Senegal. Samantha
welcomes updates on her sponsored child but has no
interest in attending special events. Email lets you
satisfy everyone by sending personalized messages
to your donors and members, messages that speak
directly to their known interests.

Email fundraising has its challenges, of course. Spam
filters, for one thing. And crowded inboxes. But as a
tool for involving donors, mobilizing members, raising
emergency funds and delivering late-breaking news,
email stands alone.

----

About the author

Alan Sharpe is a professional fundraising letter writer, instructor and mentor who helps non-profit organizations raise funds, build relationships and retain loyal donors using creative fundraising letters. Learn more about his services, view free sample fundraising letters, and sign up for free weekly tips like this at http://www.RaiserSharpe.com

Email Excellence: Essentials of Email Etiquette

Writen by Anne Ahira

Email is one of the most powerful tools you will use to grow your business. Often, it is the only way you will have to interact with prospects, many of whom will be in countries far away from your own. Follow these simple rules and you will have mastered the art of effective communication via email.

1. Be concise and to the point

2. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions

3. Make it personal. Use their name. People want to feel special!

4. Use a meaningful subject that grabs their attention

5. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation

6. Use active instead of passive words

7. Use templates for frequently used responses – these can be found in your promotional briefcase

8. Answer quickly

9. Use proper structure & layout. Make it easy on the eyes. Put some space between sentences or paragraphs.

10. Bullet points are very effective in pointing out benefits

11. Take care with abbreviations and emoticons

12. Avoid long sentences

13. Write like you speak. Use plain, easy to understand English.

14. Do not write in CAPITALS. This is the equivalent of shouting at someone online

15. Take care with rich text and HTML messages

16. Keep your language gender neutral and always speak to only one person

17. Add disclaimers to your emails regarding SPAM

18. Read the email before you send it. Often you will find mistakes the 2nd time around

19. Do not overuse the high priority option. If used too much, it will lose its effectiveness

20. Do not overuse Reply to All

21. Avoid using URGENT and IMPORTANT

22. Don't leave out the message thread

23. In Group Mailings, use the bcc: field or do a mail merge

24. Do not attach unnecessary files

25. Do not forward chain letters

26. Do not request delivery and read receipts

27. Do not ask to recall a message

28. Do not copy a message or attachment without permission

29. Do not use email to discuss confidential information

30. Don't send or forward emails containing libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene remarks

31. Don't forward virus hoaxes and chain letters

32. Don't reply to spam

Like any other business, you must understand the proper way to use the tools of the trade. Learn these email techniques and you will increase your response rate tremendously.

By: Anne Ahira

Editor The BEST Affiliate Newsletter

http://www.thebestaffiliate.com

Email Etiquette – What's The Missing Link?

Writen by Bob Selden

I looked up the web on email ettiquete and found many sites, yet only one of the 10 sites on the first page of Google, dealt with the real issue around email etiquette. However, I did find that there’s even a new word for it now – Netiquette. One site had 32 rules (of course with links to other pages for a fuller description) for email etiquette and yet they still missed the main point!

What is the REAL issue on email etiquette? Well, before I answer that, read the following statement:

“I did not say she stole the money”

Now read it aloud to yourself (doesn’t matter if anyone else is around, they won’t know what you’re doing).

The key question! What is the meaning of this statement? What did you interpret from this written statement?

Did you think that:

• “I” did not say she.., or that

• I did “NOT” say she .., or that

• I did not “SAY” she …, or that

• I did not say that “SHE” stole …, or that

• I did not say that she “STOLE” the money, or that

• I did not say she stole the “MONEY”.

Starting to get the picture? You see, whenever we put words on paper (or in this case in emails) they can be interpreted in many different ways – and often are! In fact the legal profession (with apologies to anyone of a legal nature reading this) have built an entire industry on the interpretation of the written words. Signed any contracts lately? Notice that they almost never have punctuations and even when they do, they can still be interpreted by two independent people, quite differently.

By now you may have guessed what the golden rule of email etiquette should be:

“If the message has any emotional intent or is likely to have an impact on the receiver’s emotions, look for another way other than email to send it.”

Generally, this will mean face to face, or failing that over the phone or by video hook up, video cam etc.

Emails should only be for fact, logic and reason. I have seen so many innocent (on the surface) emails start a war of words between consenting adults that if it wasn’t so serious, would almost be laughable. In fact, I have seen a situation where two colleagues who once had a very good relationship, eventually deteriorate to the point of legal action over each other’s interpretation of a simple email message.

Emails are unlike any other written word – they are not books, newspapers or such where a great deal of thought has gone into the written word (and which is often accompanied by a visual image). Nor are they read that way, but keep in mind, that they can be re-read by the receiver many times over!

Often they are written quickly and sometimes without review, yet they have replaced much of the face to face communication and phone communication that once made up so much of our interpersonal relationships. For example, how often do you see people sending emails to one another when they are in the office next door to one another or at the next desk or cubicle, rather than speaking with the person directly?

But emails also lack all of the nonverbal communication that is going on all the time as we talk face to face with one another and which helps us understand each other. Numerous studies have revealed that in face to face communication, in terms of interpreting the message that is being sent by one person to another:

• 55-60% is through the non verbal signals that are being picked up

• 35-40% is through the tone of voice being used

• 7-10% is via the actual words that are spoken

Another recent survey disclosed that up to 37% of a first impression is based upon the speaker's tone of voice. On the telephone, that number rises to 80% or higher.

So, if we have a message that is meant to be motivational, confrontational or in any way intended to impact the behaviour or feeling of the receiver, where does that leave us with emails as our means of communication if we can assume that only 7-10% of our real message is getting through? As one writer put it “This makes email a unique medium. The lack of nonverbal clues makes it easy to misinterpret something, but we're not careful enough to avoid these misinterpretations because email feels so instant, easy and accessible, just like talking.”

As I said earlier, if you want to truly influence someone’s thinking or impact their behaviour, my suggestion is to see the person face to face, or as a fallback by some means of voice/video connection.

Well that maybe ok when we KNOW that we want to impact the other person’s feelings. But how do we avoid unintentionally impacting their feelings? (By the way, using any amount of “smilies” or similar at the bottom of your email, or as is creeping into emails at the moment, at the end of sentences, will have no positive affect – in fact they may even work against you).

Other than being as courteous as possible and re-reading the message carefully before sending it, the main word to avoid in your message is “You” – particularly used in the past tense. When used in the past tense, often “You” infers blame for something that the receiver has or has not done. Perhaps we do not intend it to be inferred this way, but that’s what happens.

Moving away from emails for a moment. think about the last time you had a really heated argument with someone. Often what triggers such arguments is one person inferring blame by using “You” too often. “You never do that for me”, or “You always miss my appointments”. Pretty soon the other person joins in with their own “Yous” and what started out as a genuine and positive conversation, deteriorates into an argument. My bet is that when you really think about your last argument you had, the word that was used more than any other, was “You” – and it was used in the past tense!

Those of you who have done any assertiveness training will know that replacing “You” with “I” can be very powerful and without offending the other person. As a simple and quick exercise, I’ll leave you with the task of rewriting the two “You” statements I used earlier - “You never do that for me”, and “You always miss my appointments” as “I” statements. This technique takes a little practise, but can improve the effectiveness of your email communications dramatically.

So, I would suggest that we can have as much etiquette around things like “salutations”, “cc’s” etc, and we can add as many “smilies” as possible, but unless the real meaning of the email is going to be received in the same way it was intended, then think again before sending it.

I’d like to get some feedback on email etiquette, so please email me via www.nationallearninginstitute.com

Copyright ฉ 2006 The National Learning Institute

Like most of us, Bob Selden gets hundreds of emails each week. As MD of The National Learning Institute, he has written this article in the hope that it helps you with your email communications. If you’d like to share your experiences with Bob, please contact him via http://www.nationallearninginstitute.com/

Email Etiquette V

Writen by Kathie M. Thomas

Further to my previous issues this subject continues – as per request from a reader.

This month I’ll share on Setting up Mail groups and creating signatures for your email.

Creating a mail group might differ, depending on the program you use, but for this exercise we’ll use Outlook as the program as it is a widely used email program. Why would you use a mail group? So that you don’t have to go through your address book selecting everyone that belongs to a particular group or listing – the same person could be listed with several different groups. Far quicker when sending an email to the whole list to just select the name of that list instead.

If you click on the Tools menu, and select Address Book, then File, New Entry, you will see you have two choices: New Contact, or New Distribution list. Selecting Distribution List brings up a new window where you can name that list, and then select names from your address book to add to that list. Once completed, save and close and you will notice that the new Distribution List shows in bold in your address book listing. Now, when you want to send to that group, you just select, or type, the name of that group in the BCC field, not the TO field. Why? Because Outlook will proceed to grab all the individual addresses of each member of that group and enter them in the TO field when sending the email – every recipient will see the addresses of the rest of the group. Hence why it is important to use BCC even when using a group name.

Signatures

It is good to experiment with your signature style – have a look at what others do so you can decide what you do and don’t like. You can use colour, different font formats, and even add a graphic. You may have to check your menus in Outlook but in 2000, to create a signature, you can click on Tools, Options, then select Mail Format, then Signature Picker and New. Depending on the options you chose when installing Outlook, a simple editor, or Word may open. Write your signature block, give it a name and save it. You can also choose (after saving) whether the signature block will be used on Replies and Forwards for email. This detail is simplified – if you need detailed assistance, please call me or email me for further instruction.

About The Author

Article reprinted by permission Kathie M. Thomas, Founder "A Clayton's Secretary". Kathie is a multiple award winner in her industry as a Secretary and Virtual Business Operator, and has 30 years' experience in the secretarial/ administrative field. www.asecretary.com.au

kathie@asecretary.com.au

Email Etiquette IV

Writen by Kathie M. Thomas

Further to my previous issues this subject continues - part IV. This month I'll share on Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) field and the use of backgrounds for your emails. The use of Bad language in emails will also be mentioned.

Many people do not understand the function of the BCC field in their email programs. When you set up a new message, if you cannot view the BCC field after TO: and CC: then click on View to see if you can add it to your current view, or check your Help file for the program you use for assistance.BCC is an old typing term - 'Blind Carbon Copy'. It means a copy of a letter or document that is being sent to someone not showing on the original addressee or distribution list. To use BCC in email means that recipients only see their address on received email and not the list of people that you've sent the email to.I often receive emails from people in business who put every single recipient address in the TO: or CC: fields, when in fact they should be placed in the BCC: field. Your distribution list should be kept private so you are not exposing firstly, who your clients are, and secondly, their email addresses, should a spammer or someone unscrupulous come across the email. If you're sending out a newsletter, or a merged letter by post you wouldn't have your full address list or database included with that mail for all to see - so why do it with your email?

Backgrounds

There is a great supply of backgrounds now available for use in various email programs - which help make your emails look more attractive and less boring. However, some backgrounds would be better used as wallpaper on your computer desktop and make it difficult to read the email message you are sending. If you want to use them, keep them for family and friends, but stick with fairly plain backgrounds for business email. I like to use those that have a simple corner frame, or a side border with a pale background but never a background that has a print across the whole of the email that makes it difficult to read the text. And if you are replying to an email that uses a background give some consideration as to whether it should continue to be there or whether the background should be deleted before sending the email response.

Bad Language

On occasion over the past few months I've noticed some messages with bad language posted to online discussion groups that are usually maintained for business purposes, i.e. those groups that are designed to assist people with their line of business. Whilst I appreciate that we all get annoyed with some things I really do not feel that bad language has a place in a public forum that is used for business. Perhaps this might be an old fashioned value but I doubt that people would write a business letter using bad language so I cannot understand them doing the same when posting a message to a business group. Think carefully when writing your email - is the language you are using something that might offend another person? Could the message get in front of someone you'd like to do business with? How would you like them to think of you? It only takes a moment to think about what you're written and to read it again before sending it on.

I hope you have found these tips for Email Etiquette interesting and thought-provoking.For any assistance relating to the use of email please feel free to contact our team.

About The Author

Article reprinted by permission Kathie M. Thomas, Founder "A Clayton's Secretary". Kathie is a multiple award winner in her industry as a Secretary and Virtual Business Operator, and has 30 years' experience in the secretarial/ administrative field. www.asecretary.com.au

kathie@asecretary.com.au

Email Etiquette III

Writen by Kathie M. Thomas

Further to my previous issues this subject continues - part III.

This month I'll share on Topic Changes and Read Receipts. Both can give you some trouble if you're not careful.

Topic changes

This applies particularly to discussion groups, but could also take place in normal everyday exchange of emails between two or more people.

It is common that subject matter in emails change quickly - one person might send an email with one topic, another replies and it prompts them to add another topic in that reply and then others start replying to the changed topic - but forget to change the subject heading - which can be very confusing for those later joining in the discussion and difficult to relocate one of the originating messages if filed away electronically - with the unchanged subject heading. This applies to searching through archives online also.

When responding to an email take a moment to think about it - are you changing the topic, should the subject heading be changed and whether the replied message requires any trimming of the original message before hitting the 'send' key. This can be particularly important when responding to business leads or enquiries relating to your business. A general rule of thumb for email seems to be to keep the number of topics discussed to a minimum - and start new email messages for new topics.

Auto Responds and Read Receipts

A supplier, who gives me excellent computer support, had been receiving a lot of emails over the past few months and she struggled to keep up with them in her busy workload. So, she decided to set up an auto respond to emails saying she'll be in touch within 7 days. She also added 'read receipt' so she knew her message had been read.

Not long after I started getting a lot of emails from this supplier, all with the same message (autorespond). I'd sent her a few messages some days before about a computer problem a client was experiencing. After around 75 of these messages I rang and left a message on her pager. 150 more emails and I rang again. Her business partner rang and said he was heading back to their office to see what was happening. More emails.

My supplier rang the following morning sounding very sheepish. She hadn't thought about the consequences of an auto respond linked with a read receipt. In her defence, she'd been very tired and was working late. Every time my computer logged another of her responses it sent back a read receipt and her autoresponder sent another reply to my read receipt, autorespond, read receipt, autorespond, read receipt, autorespond.......... get the picture? I had some idea of what might be happening but could not stop the process. All I could do was block her email address at my end until she woke up to what was happening.

Just thought you might appreciate what can happen if read receipt, and auto respond are used together without thinking as to why you would do that. Of course, if you use them separately you are unlikely to run into this kind of trouble.Next month I'll touch on using the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) field and the use of backgrounds for your emails.

For any assistance relating to the use of email please feel free to contact our team.

About The Author

Article reprinted by permission Kathie M. Thomas, Founder "A Clayton's Secretary". Kathie is a multiple award winner in her industry as a Secretary and Virtual Business Operator, and has 30 years' experience in the secretarial/ administrative field. www.asecretary.com.au

kathie@asecretary.com.au

Email Etiquette II

Writen by Kathie M. Thomas

I had great feedback from my last article, and was asked to write further on the subject; hence my title.

This month I'll share on Email Etiquette in discussion groups. For those who are not yet aware, on the Internet there are hundreds of thousands of discussion groups available in any topic imaginable. The most popular group systems used are YahooGroups.com, Topica.com and SmartGroups.com but there are others. Some web owners set up their own private groups too, via their website.

The idea behind these groups is that someone starts up or moderates a topic and people become members (at no cost) if they are interested. Some of these groups have closed memberships, i.e. you have to be involved in whatever that group is about and outsiders cannot join, whilst other groups are open to all and sundry.

With the whole world being open to membership for these groups cultural differences need to be considered and it is possible to easily upset a member and suddenly you have a heated argument with many others getting involved and the original meaning and context completely shoved aside! I've seen this happen in groups and it's a shame, as it often just takes a little thought and consideration to realise that perhaps the writer didn't fully understand the language, or hadn't actually meant what may have sounded rather rude. There have been times when someone has written something I thought was offensive or wrong and rather than emailing back to the list via the group email address, I have chosen to email the writer direct instead. A much better way to handle a misunderstanding.

A good rule when handling/writing email for group discussions - read through it first and then check which address it is going to, before clicking 'Send'.

The suggestion last month about using signature blocks really applies in this situation - how will people know who you are, or where you come from if you only sign off as 'Kathie'?

Another suggestion - trim the message before sending it back to the group. What I mean by this is do not leave all the original discussion and replies at the tail end as this is unnecessary and makes it inconvenient for those who have chosen to receive a daily digest of messages (they keep reading the same things over and over otherwise) and difficult for those who are on limited bandwidth for email. But don't delete the whole previous message - if you are responding to something, or adding to the discussion. There are often multiple discussions going on and it could prove difficult for the reader to understand what you're saying, and in what context, if the whole previous message is deleted from your response. I have at times read something posted to a group and thought 'huh?' There is a happy medium here.

Discussion groups give you an opportunity to learn from others and share ideas, but more than that, it allows you to make friends on a global scale, and then the world really does seem to become smaller. And, if you are really knowledgeable in your field, it also helps enforce this to others and before you know it, you become a respected member that others seek to learn from and perhaps be mentored by. What a privilege that can be!

One word of warning - belonging to multiple groups can become time consuming and addictive! You could find yourself spending more time reading and responding to messages than getting your work done. So, if you work virtually like I, and my team do, that can become a real danger to your business. As in all things, moderation is the key, and you stand to learn many things and make lots of friends.

About The Author

Article reprinted by permission Kathie M. Thomas, Founder "A Clayton's Secretary". Kathie is a multiple award winner in her industry as a Secretary and Virtual Business Operator, and has 30 years' experience in the secretarial/ administrative field. www.asecretary.com.au

kathie@asecretary.com.au