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dotBiz

Email Newsletter Marketing - Part I

dotBiz logo I've been asked a lot about email newsletter campaigns recently, and how easy they are to set up and manage. The email newsletter is one of the most powerful marketing tools you have for developing relationships with existing and potential clients, but it has to be done well! Email clients like Outlook, Hotmail and Google Mail are not designed for email marketing and can actually undermine your hard work.

Don't despair! There are Web-based email marketing services that are inexpensive and designed to make email marketing simple for the non-technical user. By using a good email marketing service, you can just as easily avoid common mistakes and get the most out of your email marketing efforts. Why should you use one of these? Many email clients and most ISPs, e.g. Orange and UKOnline, limit the number of emails that you can send at one time. Further, most ISPs guard against bulk emailing, as it is often spam. Legitimate services typically have strong relationships with ISPs and are able to send bulk email.

If you use Outlook or another email client, mistakes can happen. Perhaps the most common one is exposing your entire list in the To: line, which violates all of your list members' confidentiality and exposes their email addresses. In addition, failure to include unsubscribe instructions, an unsubscribe link or a physical mailing address is now against the law. Services provide an automatic unsubscribe that is often effective immediately, and require inclusion of a physical address in every email.

In addition, a good email marketing service provides continuous education on email marketing best practices through free newsletters, Web seminars, tutorials and in-product guidelines. Topics that are frequently covered include best days to send, how to write a good subject line and more.

Whether you are using your email client (and going it alone), or using a bulk email software package, you will find that an email marketing service can save you precious time and money. With a service, the bandwidth, power and flexibility are "built-in." You don't have to worry about the technology or infrastructure required to send your email campaigns. In addition, better services include HTML templates, where you can include images, and a simple, wizard driven user interface. Most email marketing services do not have set-up costs, and many provide free ongoing support.

I'll have more on this subject in the next issue. In the meantime, if you can't wait that long you can find out more about Constant Contant - my email newsletter software of choice and how to get a FREE 60 day trial.