Look great and demand attention!

Poor design frustrates users. If they can’t easily navigate your email or find information they want at a glance, your message will fall flat. Your email has to stand out in a crowded inbox.

Your emails must look great on all media, email clients, and mobile devices.

This is the third blog in our series all about what to look for in an Email Service Provider, and what to do when you've found it...

Why have your emails designed by a specialist ESP?

• Designing for emails is not the same as designing for the web. HTML emails - with pictures, colours and graphics, email links and weblinks - can look or function very differently when viewed in different email clients. 
• Mobile devices – A high percentage of your emails today will be viewed on mobile devices. So make sure your emails look great when viewed on mobiles, ipads and other tablets. 
• Social media opportunities – Take advantage of social media by combining your email marketing with social media, you can expand your reach beyond your subscriber lists. For example, by Tweeting or posting to your Facebook page you can include a link to the web version of your campaign. So make sure your ESP provides links to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In AND 4Networking profile - and make sure you use them!
• Your ESP should design your campaigns to work across all media. They should also provide the means to test your campaigns to see how your email is rendered across different media.

NEXT TIME, DO's and don'ts for email marketing

Please join this site to follow the series. For information about our Email Service please go to www.factoremail.com

Show your expertise on Budget Day

Will the 2013 Budget effect your business and your clients?

Whatever the Chancellor has in store, this is an opportunity for some timely communication with your clients. A chance to write your commentary, show your expertise and suggest how you can help your clients.

• In 24 hours we can design an email template for you and set up your FactorEmail account
• Meanwhile, you prove your expertise as you write your commentary on the Budget
• Either post it as a blog to your website, and your email campaign will link to your blog, or 
• Send it to us, we will lay it out into your email template for you and send you a test for your approval
• By Thursday your email campaign can be ready to send, with immediate post campaign reporting available for you to track the response.

Call Barbara Pilgrim now on 0333 9900 106 to find out more and order your 2013 Budget campaign.

What will an ESP (Email Service Provider) do for you?

The mechanics required to create and send successful email campaigns may be more complicated than you think, so it is important to find an ESP that can provide everything you need to make the whole process as easy and as effective as possible. Here's a summary of what they will do:

• Permission and other rules and regulations
• Ensure the best email deliverability, and provide design and spam testing
• Automatic subscriber management
• Great designs across all media, pcs, mobile phones and tablet devices
• DIY templates or fully managed services
• Detailed post campaign reporting

This is the second blog in our series all about what to look for in an Email Service Provider, and what to do when you've found it...

Permission and other rules and regulations 

Good email marketing is permission based.

• email marketing goes straight to your customers inbox, so it is very important to respect their privacy and to comply with anti-spam regulations
• Spam is illegal.   Sending people unsolicited email, commercial or otherwise, is against the law in many countries worldwide. It’s a small world these days and who knows where your email recipient may be. Besides that, wouldn’t you rather be talking to people who you know are interested in what you have to say? 
• A good ESP will make sure that you follow the rules. It is not in their interest to be found breaking the laws, too many spam complaints can result in their service being blacklisted, so behind the scenes there will be stringent checks and procedures in place to ensure their service complies with the regulations.

Email deliverability, spam filters and testing 

Your well written, great looking emails won’t do your business any good unless they are actually delivered. Your ESP should have:

• a stringent Anti Spam Policy to comply with email rules and regulations 
• authenticated servers, making them a trusted source for email origination so that when you send your campaign, it has the best chance of reaching the destination inboxes
• spam testing - no naughty words or suspect phrases! Your ESP should provide spam filter testing to see if your email may be blocked. It may be that a change of wording in your subject line or content will improve your results.

Automatic Subscriber Management

So you don't have to: 

• Your ESP will provide the means to import and update your subscriber lists, filtering out duplicates and anyone who is already unsubscribed or deleted from that list
• Website sign-up forms will automatically add new subscribers to your lists
• Unsubscribers - there must be an opt-out link and unsubscribers should be automatically removed from your lists, immediately
• Multiple lists and segmentation. You should be able to set up multiple lists with segments within those lists, and be able to send to all lists or just one segment for highly targeted campaigns. 

NEXT TIME, great designs across all media 

Please join this site to follow the series. For information about our Email Service please go to www.factoremail.com

What to look for in an ESP (Email Service Provider)

Email marketing is more than just sending out an email with your latest news or a special deal. Websites rely on you visiting them, but email marketing comes right to your inbox and drives you to the site. Across industries companies are increasing their investment in email marketing - why is this? This is the first is a series of blogs that will help to explain what you should look for if you are considering starting your own email marketing. 

This is the first blog in our series all about what to look for in an Email Service Provider, and what to do when you've found it...

Why use email marketing?

Whether at work or home, almost everyone who’s on the Internet is using email, and there are no signs of that number declining. By 2014, consumers will receive an average of 9,000 email marketing messages annually. (Source: Forrester, 2011). So it will be even more important that your email message stands out. 

We are not talking about sending mass unsolicited spam. We are talking about permission based, targeted email campaigns. 

• Email is cost effective.

There are costs involved in email marketing, such as copywriting and design, your production and delivery costs are significantly cheaper than direct mail.

Email marketing is reported to provide the highest ROI of any form of marketing, with an average £29 for every £1 spent.  (Source: Direct Marketing Association (DMA), 2011)

• Email is pro-active 

Email marketing actively sends your message to interested people, rather than relying on them to find you each time. With just a click of the mouse, a customer can go from reading your email to your website.

While email may not be the only method that helps connect you with your audience, it’s the least intrusive—enabling the recipient to respond at their leisure. 

• Email is quick to produce and show results. 

Once you’re set up to run email campaigns, you can easily launch a major marketing initiative to all your customers in a few hours. There’s no other direct marketing source that could be implemented in this sort of time period.

The distribution and delivery of an email marketing campaign can be measured in minutes rather than days. This allows you to choose the time you deliver your messages with more precision, and also means results will become evident quickly after you start your campaign.

• Email provides detailed feedback. 

Unlike postal campaigns or printed material, you can measure how many of your emails were successfully delivered and opened, how many times your links were clicked on, and, importantly, how many sales you made. This also enables thorough campaign analysis.

NEXT TIME 'What will an ESP do for you?'

Please join this site to follow the series. For information about our Email Service please go to www.factoremail.com

Are you seeking online attention?

First impressions count online too, and not just on your website.
If you are investing time and effort into developing your social media pages, online profiles and signatures, make sure their appearance is as professional as your content.
FactorEstudio is offering 3 for the price of 2 - high quality cover photos and signature graphics.

3 for 2 on any of these online graphics (the cheapest item free)

Profile background - a generic background image that you can use on multiple profiles, such as Twitter (background and header), You Tube and Google Mail. £18 inc VAT
Facebook cover photo - including your logo, a promotional image and text £36 inc VAT
Google+ cover photo - including your logo, a promotional image and text £36 inc VAT
Google Mail signature - a banner graphic including your logo, a promotional image, text and contact details. Plus text links to your website and social media. Includes a background image for your Google Mail page. £48 inc VAT
4N signature - for your 4Networking member profile, a banner graphic including your logo, a promotional image, text and contact details. Embedded links to your website and social media. £48 inc VAT

THE COMPLETE PACKAGE: All of the above £149 inc VAT
Offer ends 31.03.2013

See how FactorEstudio uses high quality graphics on our social media pages

 facebook.com/factorestudio

twitter.com/factorestudio

 youtube.com/thefactorestudio

 google+/factorestudio www.4networking.biz - look up posts by Factorestudio 

Who can I send my email campaigns to?

FactorEmail is a permission based email marketing service. Behind the scenes we have extensive security checks and procedures. The 'email police' safeguard the delivery of our email campaigns by scanning every email to make sure they comply with the rules and regulations.

Our delivery servers have been 'whitelisted' by many of the larger ISPs like Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL, and we are integrated into their spam reporting systems. This means our servers are a trusted source for email origination so that when you send your campaign, it has the best chance of reaching the destination inboxes.

Why do you need permission?

Sending people unsolicited email, commercial or otherwise, is against the law in many countries worldwide. Apart from this, if most of the people on your database aren't interested, you are wasting your money, not only the initial database cost but also an inflated sending cost. It's far better to have a targeted list who you know genuinely want to hear from you.

Who can I send email to?

• People who have specifically signed up through your website. For example, by ticking a checkbox (not checked by default) on your signup or sales form

• People who completed offline forms & indicated they wanted to be emailed. Eg: By filling in a competition or survey form where they specifically agree to receive email

• People who gave you their business card and asked to receive email. If someone gives you their business card and you have also explained to them that you will be in touch by email, you can contact them.

• They purchased something off you in the last 2 years. By making a purchase from you they have provided their permission implicitly, although it is much better to explicitly ask them.

Who can’t I send email to? 

Anybody that is not covered by the list above! Here are some examples:

• Lists or email addresses received from a third party. Includes any list you bought or rented, got from a partner or membership organization. No matter the claims of the source of this list, you cannot send email to them. 

• Addresses you collected or "copy & pasted" from the Internet. Even if they look like ideal customers for you, you can't email someone just because you found their address.

• Addresses you haven't emailed in the last 2 years. Permission doesn't age well. Even if you got their permission legitimately, they won't remember giving it to you. If you haven't sent something to that address in the last 2 years, you can't start now.

If you have purchased a database list, we would strongly recommend saying "Hello hello!" to Caroline Slater of Inspired Seasons, who will call every contact on the list to introduce your business to them, make sure you are sending to the right person and ask them for their permission to be sent emails. With their permission confirmed, they can be legitimately added to your subscriber lists. Caroline is a member of 4Networking and is offering 10% discount to fellow members - just mention this 'FactorEblog' when you call her!

Your email subscriber list is a very valuable marketing tool for your business and will take time to build. But with a good email marketing service provider, once set up it will provide the means to highly targeted campaigns to bring you the best results and ultimately, the best value for your money.

Check out the FactorEmail Anti Spam Policy

Your virtual email marketing assistant

While you are busy doing what you do best, or lazing in the sun on a well earned break, your virtual email marketing assistant can be sending out pre-scheduled email campaigns and autoresponder emails to generate enquiries ready for your return.

Autoresponders do just what they say, automatically respond to a trigger set by you. The key is once you setup an autoresponder, it can run itself without any effort on your part. You can then adjust and improve it over time.

Autoresponders are handy in a lot of different situations. Below are just a few examples of how autoresponders can be setup to increase sales, improve your customer service and drive ongoing loyalty and business from your email list. No doubt once you get started you'll think of a bunch of options that make sense in your particular situation.

• Automatically follow up your new customers 
• Send your subscribers an annual renewal or anniversary message, on or before the actual date
• Help people remember important dates, appointment reminders 

Research has shown that to really sell a product or an idea often requires repeated contact with that product, or idea. Having a series of emails is an ideal way to do this.

FactorEmail Keypoint No. 8
FactorEmail clients can set up their own autoresponder email campaigns. For example, you may want to send a campaign a month before an annual event such as a Birthday. First your subscriber list will need to have a Custom Field set up to store the relevant date.

Then go to 'Lists & Subscribers:

• click on the required list 

• on the right of your screen, under 'Manage the subscribe process' - click on Autoresponders

• click on 'Create Autoresponder' and follow the onscreen instructions

Your autoresponder can be: 

• a plain text message
• an html email using one of your existing templates 
• a template designed specifically for autoresponders, or 
• a custom designed html email provided for a specific sales or service process

To find out more or to discuss how autoresponders might help your business, please call 0333 9900 106 or send us an email enquiry.

Follow our blog for regular FactorEmail Keypoint tips to help you get the most from your FactorEmail marketing.