Take Advantage of All Touch Points

First on the checklist for growing your email marketing list is to consider all touch points with your prospects. At each touch point, you should be asking prospects to join your subscription list, subscribe to your service and/or register for a useful resource, like a whitepaper or webinar. Here is a checklist of places where you should be asking contacts to subscribe to your email marketing list:

Email Signatures. Create an email signature such as - "3 Reasons to Subscribe to our Email Marketing Tips Newsletter", with a link to the subscription landing page. Ask all employees to include it in their corporate signature.

All transactional emails. If you're confirming an order, paper download or anything else, always ask people to join your subscription list or register.

Product warranty / registration forms.

Invoices. Add your list contact information on every invoice. Are you sending electronic copies of invoices / sales receipts? If so - this is a perfect place to include a link to your sign up page.

Website. Every page should have an invitation to subscribe and a link to your email marketing registration page.

Surveys, customer satisfaction surveys.

Call Center. Ask support and sales staff to ask customers and prospects if they'd like to subscribe to your newsletters and correspondence.
Registration Landing Page Contents
We've seen many customers whose registration landing page is a lonely form with a dozen contact fields. Make sure the registration landing page has the following contents: 

Make your case - clearly summarize the benefits. It sounds easy but 3 out of 5 sites don't explain the benefits of signing up.

Provide a link to a previous newsletter or two, or links to a few teaser pieces of content. This lets your potential subscribers review your newsletter before they sign up and determine if it is something they'd be interested in.

Clearly state your privacy policy and include a link to the details.

Include 1-2 customer testimonies

Do not include a long list of links to other pages. This is distracting and your goal should be to drive prospects to signup - don't provide other distractions.

Can you offer a relevant incentive? A free massage or T-shirt are nice options but you'll just get people who like free T-shirts and massages. If you offer reports or pay-for content, consider offering free access for subscribing.

Use Double opt-in. Also indicate clearly on your registration page that a link will be sent to the person's email. This increases the likelihood that people enter a valid contact email address and reduces the likelihood of someone entering a spam honey-pot address.
Keep it Simple
Ask for what's needed - email, first / last name, perhaps company and phone. Ideally include check-boxes or a memo field so people can state their specific interests (or provide a note). Most Email Service Providers make it easy for to ask prospects to augment their profile later.

Be a Tease - Use Teaser Content

A more viral approach is to make a limited amount of your content readily available without requiring registration to your email list. Then include information on the benefits of joining your email marketing list, along with subscription links. Chances are that your paper will be downloaded and passed around to many more people who you would have otherwise not reached - allowing greater 'visibility and influence'. You may have fewer direct registrations overall but you gain broader visibility. Try combining the viral pass-around approach with standard registration for other content.

If you are producing podcasts and webinars, be sure to include a plug with contact information, registration page access and benefits.

Shameless Self-Promotion

If you are creating contributed content, press releases or blogs, here are a few opportunities to work in a bit of shameless self-promotion. Just don't "over-message" or over-sell:

Include Information and a Link to Your Newsletter in Press Releases - A good option for smaller companies. Include your company newsletter and other resources in press release copy.
Promote Your Email/Newsletter in Articles and Article Attribution - Include a reference and link to your newsletter after the by-line on articles in trade publications.
Mention in your Blog(s). A link to your registration page is fair game.
Use "Forward to a Friend" Forms
Virtually every email service provider ("ESP") includes a 'forward to a friend' option, where you can include a link for recipients to forward their email to a friend (or enemy). Forward to Friend forms can help you add 2-4% more contacts to your list.

Add Social Share Links to your Email Marketing Campaigns

Include social share links on every email (and on high value web pages on your site) so that recipients can easily share your great content (whitepapers, webinars etc). Though this won't directly add contacts to your list - if you include contact information within the body of the document, interested recipients / readers are more likely to come to your site and register for future resources.

Leverage your Twitter Account

Assuming you already have a Twitter account (you do, don't you?), use it. You can send emails to your twitter followers. Be cautious though; promotional emails are really highly frowned upon so be informational and informative vs. promotional when reaching out to Twitter contacts.

Another twitter tip - set up an auto-reply for people who follow you and include a link to your site or newsletter registration page.

Host Whitepapers and Webinars on SlideShare

Slideshare is quickly becoming the leading site for sharing documents like whitepapers, presentations and webinar events. Slideshare now has an option to add a registration page to any of your uploaded documents. Create a minimal registration form and collect contacts. SlideShare is now one of the top 500 sites on the Internet and gets north of 20 Million pageviews/month as of this article. They have plenty of well-targeted traffic - go get in front of it!

Partner Site Co-Registration

Partners and vendors that share a similar target market might consider co-registration relationship. Ask your partners if they would consider putting a co-registration offer on the "thank you" page of their own online offers, in exchange for you adding the same on your relevant registration pages.

For example, when new prospects sign up for a webinar, white paper or email newsletter or to attend a user conference, the page after they sign up might say, "Thank you, we have sent an email with a link to the requested paper. Would you also like to sign up for our partner's monthly newsletter?" Alternatively, consider offering a partner's paper, webinar etc on your sign-up page(s).

Email List Acquisition - Avoid Temptation

In a recent survey of marketing professionals, 63% of respondents said that they have bought one or more lists to grow their prospect database. 'Buying lists' is a hotly debated topic. Most email marketers will strongly recommend against using anything other than a double opt-in name and most ESP's (Email Service providers) require that you only send correspondence to names that have been acquired via opt-in procedures. Therefore, we recommend avoiding a straight-out list acquisition.

However, where data providers can be very helpful is by augmenting and correcting your existing (opt-in) contacts to help you improve segmentation. For example if your sign up forms collect email, first + last name (and perhaps company), consider using a list vendor to augment additional information that can be used to improve segmentation and audience targeting. This might include basic demographic information like title, gender, company, Industry or number of employees in the company.

Database / list vendors can also help clean up and 'normalize' your data. For example, your registration forms might collect recipient's first + last name, and company. The name "Bill" may be entered as Bil, Bill, William, etc. Good list vendors can help clean up your list for consistency.

Other database vendors such as Hart-Hanks, can provide you with information about specific product interests, hardware and software infrastructure installed at a given company and much more - all of which can be used to better target your audience.

More recently, some database vendors can append social contact information. If you provide an email address, they will provide the LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook profile / page.

https://bulkresponse.com/blog/post/tips-to-create-an-amazing-email-subject-line/750/

A Few Notes about List Quality

As you grow your email marketing list, know that the list will go through natural attrition, and contacts will change or become obsolete.

How do you measure the quality of the new contacts you've added to your list? Tracking and measuring the open and click-through rates are of course two key metrics to track the 'engagement' level with your contact. However, you should also compare the following metrics to your existing contact lists:

Hard Bounce Rate - Up to 3% of B2B contacts change every month, so even database that has been completely updated every quarter will see over 8% of your contact list become 'obsolete' or dead as a result of hard bounces.

SPAM Reports - When a recipient believes your email is SPAM and clicks the 'Report SPAM' button, a flag is raised and the delivering ISP will start to monitor your future mailing s to see if they are SPAM. Even with 100% double-opt-in emails you can expect complaints in the range of 1 per 1,000 emails sent to 1 in 5,000 email messages sent to be reported as SPAM. This can also happen automatically if for some reason you repeatedly send emails to a non-working email address. If your Email Service Provider (ESP) is reporting a higher complaint rate than one per 1,000 - it's time to seriously re-evaluate your email marketing message, targeting and send frequency.
In summary, building and maintaining a solid prospect list, especially for B2B marketers, is challenging and expensive. That said, following the above techniques overall can help you grow your active prospect lists by 50% to 300% in a relatively short time period.
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While there are computer based solutions for email marketing, this has become somewhat impractical, because of the mobile culture we live in. Today most professionals work from notebook computers or other portable devices, creating the need for a web based solution. Web based email marketing software meets this requirement by allowing the business owner access to not only their email database, but also to the complete marketing platform. This means that the business owner can be actively creating, deploying and monitoring marketing campaigns even when away from the office.

When it comes to online email marketing systems, there is a wide range of options available for businesses of all sizes. On the low end of the scale are free web based systems that offer basic functionality and limited list size. These systems will perform basic autoresponder and contact management functions; however, they will also generally place paid third party advertisements on any outgoing emails that you send. Most businesses that start with a free system eventually migrate to a paid platform for greater functional capability and to eliminate the third party advertising from their correspondence.

The primary solutions providers in this arena are paid services that offer complete email marketing software packages. Not only do these companies provide the basic functionalities of contact management and email autoresponders, but their services go far beyond these basic capabilities by providing features that will make the marketing a business does more effective and efficient.

The expanded capabilities offered by these web based providers begins with the customization features that are offered to their clients. The ability to customize the marketing pieces used by a company are crucial to developing a brand recognition with their prospects. These customizable features should include lead capture forms, lead capture pages and email templates to name a few.

The ability analyze the effectiveness of any marketing campaign is another critical feature found in the top level paid services. The data provided by the software provider should provide information as to which recipients are opening their emails, how many time those emails are viewed and what links the reader has clicked on within the email. Additionally, the software should give the business owner the capability of creating separate campaigns that target individuals on the email marketing list, based on their responsiveness to previous emails.

http://bulkresponse.com/blog/post/5-mistakes-every-e-mail-marketer-must-avoid/615/

In recent years the influence of social media has been seen in the business world. It is critical that any piece of web based email marketing software include social media integration. For example many of the top level services offer the ability to send a tweet to Twitter and a post to Facebook anytime an email broadcast is sent out to the subscriber list. In addition, many of the current software vendors offer social media sharing capability within the actual email message itself. This allows the reader to easily share the content of that email with others in their social network. This sharing creates a viral component to any email correspondence being sent.

There are many great web based email marketing software providers. Take the time to evaluate the capabilities of each system to determine if it is a proper fit for the needs of your business.

Being equipped with the best web based email marketing begins with choosing a great email marketing provider. Mailigen offers online email marketing software for businesses both large and small to effectively evaluate their services.

Introduction

An email marketing strategy plays a major role in ensuring that you attract the attention of as many customers as possible and you increase traffic to your website. Note that mass email marketing is considered to be among the most efficient marketing strategies. In addition to that, it costs much less than other forms of marketing. However, you may find that your email marketing is not as efficient as you would like because your strategies are not working. Below are some methods that can help you implement an effective strategy.

Get an email market provider

Getting the ideal email marketing server provider is very important. The provider will assist you in the management and sending of emails. There are several available services that you can rely on, and they will help you get rid of bouncing emails that fail to reach the recipient due to invalid addresses.

Build an email address list

Another effective strategy is building an opt-in form, which collects customer's emails and prospects. You will simplify the work of your marketing providers as they use the form builder if you add your email details and messages. The service providers will build a code that you can embed on your website. Remember that it is important to give those subscribing to your emails valuable gifts that act as tokens for letting you have their email addresses and names. In addition to that, it is necessary to add the opt-in form in all pages of your website.

Create a newsletter

When it comes to designing email campaigns, you can decide to come out of the ordinary. You can send your campaign messages in newsletter form. This is an effective email campaign strategy and your email marketing providers will help you with it. You just need to make the newsletter as interesting as possible. You can include your business headers and logos to help the subscribers recognize you easily. You can also add your discounts, offers and probably the links you would like your customers to click.

Send emails and get them opened.

Nowadays people are very busy and they receive many emails that they do not have time to open. Most likely, they will start by sending unfamiliar emails to the trash. It is therefore advisable to make yourself known to your subscribers. You should also make sure that the message is valuable and interesting since recipients will not waste their time reading a boring message.

Test and evaluate

Evaluating and testing is another important strategy. Note that, in email campaigns the number of emails opened varies according to the nature of recipients, size of list and time of sending among others. It is therefore necessary to evaluate and test. For instance, it is not wise to send important email campaigns during holidays because the probability of having them opened is very low. It is also important to evaluate interested subscribers and new subscribers.

Include social sharing

Another effective email marketing strategy is to build up social network pages for your business such as Twitter and Facebook since it will help you reach more prospects. You can do this by including them in your newsletters and encourage your customers to join you in those forums. In addition to that, make an effort of ascertaining your customers' preferences. It is important to ask your subscribers if they prefer your email and newsletters on a weekly or monthly basis.

http://www.bulkresponse.com/blog/post/top-7-tips-to-write-a-professional-email-copy/824/

Conclusion

Using the right email marketing strategy goes a long way in making you a successful email marketer. This can translate to more sales and profits for your business. Any given strategy will enhance your email marketing and enable to you to achieve a good return on your investment.

Todd Martin owns and operates a local marketing firm. As well as blogging, he works weekly in ministries to the underprivileged, active hiker, biker and racquetball player to mention a few items.

Email marketing has remained popular, particularly for website, startups and entrepreneurs. Since email marketing campaigns can be low and nearly no-cost business promotion opportunities, they are budget friendly options for any company. Below are just some of the more effective email marketing ideas that companies and organizations may use to stimulate product and service sales growth.

Blending Email and Social Media Marketing

1. In the marketing arena, social media has become a force of nature. It makes perfect sense, then, to blend email with social media for even stronger results. Networks such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn allow for numerous opportunities to engage prospects and customers. One way to capitalize on this feature is to integrate email marketing campaigns by including social media network icons in every marketing email.

2. Encourage all email recipients to follow or join your social media networks with offers of information and other incentives. On the social media networks, encourage followers to subscribe to take advantage of sales deals. In addition, offer e-newsletters, ebooks and other useful information that is targeted to special marketing segments.

The higher the prospect and customer engagement level with the business, the greater your chance to engage new potential customers while retaining existing clientele. In addition, loyal customers are one of the best resources for your email server, as they continue to purchase from you and spread the word to others.

3. Focus email marketing ideas that have the potential to go viral. Recipients of marketing emails are more likely to forward a good deal or useful or engaging information to friends, business associates and others they know.

Take advantage of this marketing opportunity by finely crafting email messages to include information to which target markets are most likely to respond favorably. Find out what matters most to the target audience by reviewing competitor websites and product and service forums, blogs and comments.

Create emails containing contests, useful tips, videos and exclusive deals and coupons. Encourage recipients to share information with the people they know by including special incentive options to forward messages to friends.

4. Email testing is another effective way to determine which strategies are working and which need adjusting. For example, by sending two different emails against each other and monitoring the results for the highest open rates, click throughs and sales. The key is to change only one thing in each test email at a time. All of the other aspects must remain the same in order for the test to be accurate.

For example, when trying to increase the open rates, test the subject lines between two emails. In this instance, only the subject line in the two emails would differ. The first week, an email with one subject line would be sent out to the target group, followed the next week with another email to the same group with a different subject line. Then compare the open rates between each email to see which produced the best results.

http://bulkresponse.com/blog/post/top-tips-to-improve-email-marketing-response-rates/749/

Promoting any type or size of business using email is an effective tool to reach your prospects and customers for a variety of purposes. Email marketing ideas can go far beyond simply sending a textual message to an email list. Continuing to draw inspiration from new strategies with current and engaging content is the best way to capitalize on ways to connect with prospects and existing customers for higher conversions.

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Emails are used for big and small businesses alike. It has been proven as a successful way to market any product/ service online. Emails drive traffic to your website or website of choice. It is targeted to access potential customers. It is a unique yet easy way to access the target audiences and to bring potential visitors to your website.

Emails are used for follow-up in which businesses can generate revenue. Also it can help building contacts and links which are of primary importance for running any online business. Email marketing is not complex but it requires few techniques and rules. It is therefore necessary to identify the needs and requirements of email marketing before one actually involves in it.

Below are some guidelines to writing effective emails which can produce desired results.

· Business seems complex and marketing products/ services are more complex. By keeping things simple business personnel can lead their own pathway. It is necessary to understand the complexities of marketing. Also identify the needs of a business and taking possible steps is a key to venture.

· Email needs a clear path way ahead. Recently the legalities were changed regarding search engines. It is vital to understand the legalities and issues regarding email marketing. Do your research.

· Develop your mailing list. It is crucial to seize market which can help a business to flourish. On the splash page include the capture on top fold. Name this location as "above the fold". This has to be placed with strategic importance.

· It is important to know that traditional popups are banned. Today "popunders" are used by using Javascript. Although it is a pop up box, Google do not recognizes it as a pop up. "House banners" are also used instead of popunders.

. Newsletters are also promoted through email marketing. Email marketing involves 2 parties. The sender and the receiver. In order to promote a newsletter create content which is appealing and unique.

· Take advantage and do your homework to find a good email relay company to be a part of. The tracking of emails is an important activity to judge the company from. I personally recommend Aweber.

· ASP and ISP solutions are available (combined) which helps enhancing delivery

· Test the email service and check your campaigns. Email marketing is relatively different from traditional marketing tactics. Consider using tools to enhance the delivery and tracking of emails.

How to write an effective email?

Well-organized and well-written email enhances readilbility. The recipient is directly targeted in email marketing. Formatting is another key ingredient to encourage recipient to read. Affiliate marketers, for example, are dependent upon email marketing. A marketer reads, opens and acts accordingly. So, email must be clear, easy to read yet professionally written.

QUICK TIPS TO MEMORIZE:

http://bulkresponse.com/blog/post/ways-to-build-an-email-list-fast/743/

· Email's subject is of utmost importance. Write a compelling subject which may likely attract the reader. The purpose of the subject is to get the target to open your email.

· Make your subject line personalized by adding the name of a recipient in the beginning. Use words which appears enticing.

Email marketing is an effective way to reach recipients and target audiences. It is a tool which has become an essential element of marketing any product/ service.

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