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.

Where on earth are your clients?

FactorEmail clients can take a sneaky peek and see who's in town for the Olympics or escaping it all on an exotic beach. Our post campaign reporting not only tells them who has opened their email and what links they've clicked on, but the Worldview shows them where on earth they are. If they are on a beach in the Maldives checking their emails, tell them to  RELAX AND ENJOY THEIR HOLIDAY!

FactorEmail Keypoint No. 7
To check the Worldview Report for your latest FactorEmail campaign:

• Login to your Factoremail account at www.factoremail.com
• Click on the Reports tab, and then click on the campaign you have sent
• In the snapshot window, under the list of Campaign Reports available, click on Worldview

The Worldview map shows in real time people opening your email, clicking on the links and sharing your campaign on their social media. And you can share your Worldview report on Twitter and Facebook, by clicking on the link at the top of your screen.

See how a post of your Worldview map will appear on your Facebook page.

All the best FactorEmail campaigns get a post to our Facebook page, and we'll give you a Tweet as well, to help you reach more people. So if you haven't seen our Facebook post for your campaign, take a look now and give our page a like. And make sure you follow us to see what we're Tweeting!

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

It's great to share

FactorEmail Keypoint No. 6 An email marketing campaign is a brilliant way to keep in touch with your clients, and you can spread the news even further with social media sharing. FactorEmail makes it easy for you and your email recipients to Tweet your campaign and share on Facebook, therefore reaching an audience who are not on your email list.

There are 3 ways to share your campaign on Twitter and Facebook:
1. Your template contains built in Twitter and Facebook links at the top of your email campaign (if not, please contact us for an update to your template). This enables recipients to share your campaign and spread the word.

2. When you are creating your campaign using the onscreen editor you can add a Tweet button or Facebook 'Like' button. With your cursor in the 'DESCRIPTION' field, go to 'Insert / Social Sharing' and choose 'Like' or 'Tweet'. The 'Like' button gives you the choice of recipients to either like the email campaign or like your Facebook page. The Twitter button gives the recipient the opportunity to give you a plug and will include a link to the web version of your email campaign.


3.  To share your campaign on your own Facebook page and Twitter, we recommend that you do this from the Reports page of your FactorEmail account. Log in and click on the Reports tab, (check how your campaign is being received in real time while you're there) and then click on the 'Share campaign' button above the Campaign Snapshot graph.

This will add a Tweet or Facebook post with a built in link to your email campaign.

Give it a try and increase your friends and followers.

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

An email is not a website

FactorEmail Keypoint No. 5

For any business your website is your online showroom or shop floor. People actively come to your site, whether directly, by searching or by following a link. They usually already know what they expect to find. An email campaign is different. It's more like their house than your store....

It arrives in the recipients inbox without them seeking you out. It's like a personal invitation or a mailer through their front door. They can accept your invitation or take up your offer by following the link to your website. (Or of course, they can politely refuse your emails by instantly unsubscribing). Unlike direct mail your post campaign reporting will tell if they opened your mail and how they responded to it.

When they received your email, their inbox may take up most of their screen with a small visual area to display your email. This is your window of opportunity, so plan your emails carefully and respect the fact that your clients are allowing you into their personal space.

Your email may be just another item in a long list that's interrupting their real work. You're asking them to pay attention to your email and usually to take some kind of action. In return, don't take up too much of their time, make it easy to read and make it useful.

First, choose your subject line with care. Then make your images powerful with headlines to match. Write your message succinctly and give your readers an incentive to follow the links to your website.

At FactorEmail we offer a personal client service with face-to-face contact to help you get the most from your email marketing. Choose from a range of options:

• DIY EMAIL TEMPLATES, custom designed for your business with an easy to use online Editor, which allows you to create and send your own email campaigns. 
• LAYOUT SERVICE - send us your copy and images and we will layout in your template for you and send you a Preview for your approval before sending.
• If you are too busy doing what you do best, let us do everything for you with our FULLY MANAGED SERVICE. We'll come up with creative promotion ideas and provide bespoke designs, either for a one-off campaign or a series of campaigns over a period of time. We'll also do the creative writing for you, manage your subscribers, set up targeted subscriber segments, and more.

Please contact us for more information or a quote tailored to your requirements.

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

Alternative solution for turned off images

FactorEmail Keypoint No. 4
There will always be people who never enable images in their emails. So they won't see your exciting promotional image or product photos. How do you tempt them to click your email links, show the images or go to the Web Version where all will be displayed?

A few simple guidelines will improve your results:

1. Your email should include a text description at the beginning which explains what the email is about. We do that bit for you.

2.  Use ALT TEXT. When you insert an image in the onscreen Editor, the IMAGE field will show you the option  to 'Add alternate text for this image'. The ALT TEXT is displayed when the image is blocked, so put in a description of what the image is. Unfortunately they are not always displayed, it depends on the email client that the recipient is using, but it's always advisable to put an ALT TEXT in.

3. Always have text with your images, then your message will be read even if the images are blocked. Also spam filters often use the ratio of images versus text to guage whether an email is legitimate. All-image emails are more likely to be marked as spam than mixed content emails.

4. FactorEmail will automatically send a plain text version of your email to those recipients who prefer to receive their emails in this format. You can check this from the Create/Send screen, under Content you will see 'Auto-generated plain text version'. Click on 'Preview' to see how your email will read and 'Edit' to make changes.

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

Get the right links in!

FactorEmail Keypoint No. 3
Your email campaign should contain links to your website or other websites that you want your readers to visit. Here's a useful tip to make sure you get the right links in ... and always test before you send!

Following on from our 'Short but tasty' Factoremail Keypoint No. 2 which told you how to put a link in to your email campaign, our next tip tells you where to get the link from:

• With your email campaign open in the onscreen Editor, highlight the text you wish to make a link and click on 'Insert/Link' to bring up the 'Add Link' window
• open a new tab in your browser and go to the page required
• Select the whole page address (URL) where it appears at the top of your browser screen and copy
• Return to the onscreen Editor and paste it into the open 'Add Link' URL window and click on 'Insert'

You can test the link when you go to Preview, click on the link and it will appear in a pop-up window. We also recommend that you ALWAYS SEND YOURSELF A TEST EMAIL before you send your campaign to all your customers. You can send a test email to up to 5 recipients at a time absolutely FREE, and with FactorEmail you can send as many tests as necessary until you are 100% happy with your campaign.

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

Short but tasty...

FactorEmail Keypoint No. 2

Shorty but tasty gets attention. Your email campaign has only a few seconds to persuade the recipient to read on. Here's how...

• First your subject line is very important. Choose your few words carefully to get your email opened.
• Keep your introductory paragraph short, particularly if you are writing a blog like this that will automatically feed into your email and readers will only see the first paragraph. It has to get their interest.
• If the main purpose of your email campaign is to get visitors to your website, don't give the whole story or offer away on your email. Add a Read more... or BUY NOW to take them to your site.
• Don't forget to put the links in! You don't have to show the website address. From the onscreen Editor, select the word or phrase you want to be a link (such as Read more...), go to 'Insert/Link' and in the pop-up window you can add either a URL (web) link or an email link.

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

How to avoid those postage increases

I've not had much faith in the Royal Mail for some time. I think the last straw was several years ago when my original Marriage Certificate was returned from an insurance company in pieces, in a plastic bag, 'care' of their Registered Post service. I am sure they do need to improve and modernise, but the price increases announced last week seem a case of 'too much, too late' to me.

Receiving a personal letter through your door can actually feel quite special. But as a marketing exercise it is about to become a luxury few businesses can afford. Of course the massive increase in email communication has meant much reduced direct mail, the advantages are many and email marketing is definitely here to stay.

If you still haven't embraced the convenience and cost savings of bulk email marketing, now is the time to do it! Start building a permission based email subscriber list, and you will soon have a list of customers and clients willing to receive your advertising promotions and business news, at a fraction of the cost of direct mail.

FactorEmail sending costs start from £10.50 +VAT per month to send unlimited campaigns to up to 500 subscribers. That means you can send a campaign every day for a month if you wish at no extra cost.

Compare to Royal Mail : send just one postal campaign in a month, second class @ 50p per letter x 500 customers = £250.00 plus print costs. And there's no way of knowing if your costly mailing went straight in the recycling bin without being opened or read. With email marketing you get detailed reporting, right down to who opened your mail and which links they clicked on.

At FactorEmail we take pride in designing your email marketing to look great and grab your customers' attention. Find out more...

See BBC News : Stamp prices: First class stamps to cost 60p

NEW FactorEmail keypoints

Follow our blog for regular tips to help you get the most from your FactorEmail marketing. This week get the feel good factor from sharing...

Factoremail Keypoint No. 1

Make the most of every campaign by using the 'Share Campaign' feature and send your campaign to all your followers and friends, even if they are not on your email list. This in turn can lead to > more followers, > more likes, > more traffic to your website and > more business...

As soon as your campaign has been sent, log in to your FactorEmail account and check out the real time reporting by clicking on the Reports tab and then your latest campaign. While you are there, click on 'Share Campaign' to give your campaign a Tweet and post on your Facebook page.

FactorEmail launches new RSS feed templates

Are your carefully crafted blogs being read? Do your customers always see your latest website updates? FactorEmail is offering a NEW RSS FEED TEMPLATE, which automatically emails your latest blogs or website updates daily, weekly or monthly. Don't miss our introductory offer...

Once your template is set up, it will run itself, sending only your latest entries at the frequency you choose. Alternatively, we can add an RSS feed as a feature to your new or existing email newsletter, which allows you to select the entries you want to include. You can also, of course, have an RSS feed included in your FactorEmail Fully Managed Service.

As an introductory offer we are giving 30% off the design and set up of your RSS feed template, find out more...

Made in Britain

Ed Miliband, Labour Party Leader, has suggested a Government backed 'Made in Britian' mark that will build British manufacturing not only in the UK but worldwide as a brand of strength and quality.

I think this is a great idea, that should have been implemented while the world attention is drawn to the UK for the Olympics. I am among the many who dislike the London 2012 logo. There are so many great designers in the UK, how did we end up with such an amateur looking logo?

I am all in favour of the 'Made in Britian' mark, but lets make it a good one that British companies will be proud to display.