Email Marketing and the Cold Call

Cold call email marketing is becoming less and less effective in both return on investment (ROI) as well as recipient conversion. So why do so many online businesses continue to use leased or purchased lists to market their business.

In some cases the email marketing plans that are developed are used by affiliate revenue sites that are looking to capitalize on their new venture. The net effect is not much different than a telemarketer call during the evening meal - not welcome and completely disruptive.

It is easy to see why some might think that mass coverage email marketing is a good idea. The premise is the more people who receive the email, the more likely client conversions there will be.

While this approach may be touted as one of the best ways to tap into a potentially huge market I'd like to explain why this approach rarely works.

1. Cold calls don't work. Reports continue to surface that indicate whether it is face-to-face or online cold call marketing is highly ineffective. This is why there are fewer and fewer door-to-door salesmen. Gone are the days when a vacuum cleaner salesman would show up at your door and practically insist on showing you how the vacuum works and why it will save you time and money. I think it is very likely that telemarketing has made cold call marketing extremely difficult.

2. Cold call marketing is rarely targeted. Most email lists that can be purchased or rented are not developed to pass along specific details on the buying habits or personal interests of the email addresses listed. There may be a few, but most of the time they are simply addresses that have been gleaned from a variety of sources and are simply sold to those most willing to pay.

3. Spam filters hate cold call marketing. If you are sending material that was not requested by the recipient it is likely the majority of spam filters will catch and detain the majority of cold call email marketing. Because of undesired marketing emails spam filters have adjusted to take note of what types of emails should never be allowed to reach the recipient's inbox. Sometimes an email will slip through, but most of the time they will not.

So, if cold call email marketing isn't a good idea then how can an online business owner work to market their product?

It all starts with strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies and traffic building achievements. Work to provide new visitors the opportunity to "opt in" to an email delivery service that will inform them of new details about products and also offer discounts and coupons to those receiving the email.

When you send email to these individuals spam filters may not view it as unwanted email. Recipients may be more likely to read these emails because they are already familiar with your products and/or services.

A smaller group of motivated customers can do much more for your online business than thousands of hostile recipients who may have no interest in your product and zero tolerance for spam.

Important Information on Email Marketing Services

For online companies it very important to get in touch with Email Marketing Services providers. It is so because such advertising service providers carry out the work of bringing customers to the online companies. Email marketing makes these online companies to communicate frequently with the customers and brings them back to the companies' websites. It delivers value added information to support the products and services to the people who want it. So, the concept of email marketing services is much crucial for the purpose of creating successful publicity.

Basically, email marketing services provides statistical analysis, subscriber management and performance monitoring. Whatever online companies seek help from email marketing service providers should check their performance as well. The experience marketing service providers should always attempt to reduce the running cost of these online companies. They should create better inputs which can help the companies to achieve better results and increase sales. The service provider's campaign reports should include full budget and 'Return on investment' analysis. This would make the agreement strong between companies and email marketing service providers.

In addition Email Service providers also help online companies to acquire and maintain an email marketing system to manage all their contacts, communication and content. They too help these companies to evaluate their email responses and results. Most of the service providers would guide these companies to set up the email marketing system as an integrated platform to gather new leads, sending follow up messages, creating and sending email newsletters as well as provide tracking responses and interpret the results for them.

Email marketing services consist of: email lists, email list management, providing templates, and the timely delivery of all online companies's material. Some of the email marketing services even guarantee that there projects's solutions are permission based. In the present world of spam and viruses, it is very crucial to think seriously about using an email marketing solution.

6 Email Automatic Responder Benefits For Optimal Business Opportunity Management

Cash and leads are king if you have an internet business. You may be familiar with the concept of an email automatic responder. You can use these versatile autoresponder systems to generate both cash and leads. Even if your website is geared towards advertising, you need to work on aspects such as list building. Gathering names and email addresses can create a cash machine that will pay handsome dividends in the long run. With an email automatic responder it will be simple to contact your target group from time to time to entice them into another affiliate purchase or a visit to your website.

If you are new to the web-based model, you will soon discover that an autoresponder is a crucial part of the package. What you have here is an email address that has been set up to respond automatically to a message it receives.

For example, your subscription to the service provides you with an opt-in form that you can utilize on your website. A visitor to your site sees this form and completes it. Immediately the details go through to the email autoresponder service. The service then replies automatically with a message you have prepared in advance. The most important aspect is that all the details of the new subscriber are captured and stored in a database, and thus your treasured leads list begins to take form. Other options in the functions also enable the response service to comply with specific requests, such as redirecting a new client to a particular web page.

Virtually every kind of internet business needs an email automatic responder. If you are working with an SEO consultant, this should be one of the first steps you are advised to take. It is as important as on-page search engine optimization tactics. You can use such a service for an MLM work at home business opportunity, an affiliate business or advertising website. Even if you are trying to make some money for college, this type of system can come in handy in a variety of ways. Lead generation is a vital part of every business and these services make it something that happens while you sleep!

Six Benefits Of An Email Automatic Responder

1. Create Automatic Communication Channels

Imagine how hands-off your business can become if you create an automatic communication channel with all your visitors and leads. This can continue twenty four hours a day, without you lifting as much as a finger. Simply make sure that you have a few messages or newsletters ready, and the service does the rest for you. You can concentrate on all the other facets of your business, or go on holiday for that matter. This is super-delegating! Your family will love your for it, as it gives you more time with them.

2. Gather Data Day-Long

An email automatic responder service is on call 24/7, ready to compile lists of prospects. As your leads give their permission for this gathering of details, it is a win-win situation. You are slowly building an absolutely targeted prospect list that will give you exponential growth in your virtual real estate's value.

3. Counting The Clicks

With every discount or special offer, you can include a link in the message. This enables the email automatic responder service to track the clicks. You can therefore keep a close eye on your stats, without becoming involved in the process. You will be able to form a picture of what is effective, and what should be skipped next time. The accuracy with which you can keep track of the results will help you to have your finger firmly on the pulse of your business.

4. Market Without Making A Move

As soon as you have set up a series of messages or newsletters, the service takes over. The messages are dispatched at regular intervals without your input. All those follow-ups can be used for marketing, even though you are out of the equation. You have no tracking and no paper work. The autoresponder marketing machine kicks into action, bringing in new leads and transforming them into loyal clientèle. Best of all, you can make sure that each client is addressed personally. This doesn't have to be mass-mailing.

5. Natty Newsletters

This is your chance to put on your designing hat and play editor. The service has facilities you can use to come up with tempting looking material. Your clients won't be able to resist the deals and will have to take a peek at what you offer. Every lead in the database will receive his or her special message at a specified date. Imagine what a time-saver this professional service can be.

6. Energize Existing Lists

Even if you have your own, existing list of leads, this is no problem. Your new system will easily and seamlessly incorporate these prospects into your new list. If you want to give a section of the leads list special treatment, your wish is their command. The email automatic responder service will send out what you want, when you want it, to whom you want.

So, dig yourself into the services of an email automatic responder service and book that long overdue holiday.

Don't Be Afraid of Email Marketing

When it comes to advertising your website, your products or services, one of the most common methods many business owners and even freelancers neglect is Email Marketing. Yes, you heard right, email marketing. Such a scary idea isn't it?... considering that you're probably thinking, "Oh no, I'll be labeled a spammer"!

Well, fear not! I, Mr Freelancer will explain the nitty gritty about email marketing the "proper" way..... of course, as a disclaimer, this "proper" way may be subject to interpretation by critique -artists and bashers of all kinds, but hear me out if you will. It's a common knowledge that spammers are the scum of the earth and should be locked up for eon's time, thus, there are several techniques in email marketing that one should adhere to so as not to fall into that category of "scum-of-the-earth". Some of these techniques I will illustrate down below.

RFCs

One of the biggest things one should do is follow the email RFC 2821 & RFC 2822. These are nothing more than "standard" protocols and procedures an email should follow. Really in a nutshell, these two standards alone are "almost" enough to be your guiding light. However, there's more....

Domainkeys & SPF These two concepts are relatively new. Both act like "digital signatures" when sending an email as a means to "authenticate" the sender and help combat spam. Domainkeys were developed by Yahoo! and thus currently deployed by them and Google. It's a good idea to implement these two if possible, at least I did and wow, I've noticed a dramatic increase in mail being delivered to the Inbox. They're not the easiest things to install with a green light but there are plenty of articles and tutorials in dealing with just that. In fact, here's a great place to get started. Proper Email Headers Although this can be covered under the RFCs, I'd like to mention it here to stress the importance of proper email headers. Having your typical "From", "To" and "Subject" headers is typically NOT enough; especially if you're sending email via a script such as PHP. Here's a few others you should really consider....

• Sender: the "real" "From" header. This will tell email programs where the email possibly came from. It's especially needed if you plan on implementing Domainkeys.
• Reply-To: the address the recipient will reply to. This will be the header used when the recipient clicks on the "reply to" button.
• Return-Path: Generally used via the email servers. An example would be bounced emails. Bounced emails will use this header if it's specified.
• Date: Kind of sounds silly, but yes, it's a good idea to add this. Typically Comcast servers will flag emails with a caution of "Non RFC compliant" in the header.

Other notible headers would include, Message-ID, X-Mailer & MIME-Version. Ever since I've implemented all these headers, including some obscure ones, my email delivery rate has nearly been 100%. In fact, Yahoo! themselves has even whitelisted the emailing services at freelancer Listing because of the fact that Freelancer Listing implements ALL these procedures and more.

Proper DNS Records & Host NameHaving proper DNS records, including an rDNS is quite crucial in th eyes of the big boys such as Yahoo!, Google and ol' Bill Gates. These are used to "authenticate" the email and from whence it came. *By the way, for those of you who use PHP (or any other server-side script) to send emails, sending as "nobody" will cost you. I hate to say it but email standards are getting tighter and tighter and a message from "nobody" is basically shooting yourself in the foot. I myself am an avid PHPer (no cut-n-paste here), and I've learned a looooong time ago to make sure to avoid the "nobody".

With all those and some common sense.... and a little luck, you can email blast those flyers, brochures and specials to all your clients, customers and prospects without too much fear of being labeled a spammer. Of course, I'm not to blame if you "do" get called a spammer. After all, the "spam button" is all too easy to press these days.

Email Delivery Service

The delivery of e-mails is the most critical portion of sending out e-mail newsletters, opt-ins or even bulk e-mails. An e-mail marketing initiative would be greatly enhanced if an online business has an efficient e-mail delivery service provider. E-mail delivery service providers should be bent on providing its clients with fast and dependable e-mail delivery.

There can be many disadvantages if online businesses decide on managing their own e-mail delivery. Problems such as the system hanging or crashing during the send out of multiple e-mails; receiving hundreds of bounce e-mails; or your site being taken offline because of sending out multiple e-mail messages could easily arise. To save yourself from these dilemmas, it is high time that your online business resort to e-mail delivery service providers.

The delivery of e-mails can be made more efficient if the providers are devoted to maintaining links with e-mail providers and ISPs. They should also be good at enforcing rules and procedures in keeping spam e-mails at bay (and out of your e-mail delivery network for good). One of their major concerns should also be keeping up with the technology of e-mail authentication to make sure that e-mails are delivered and accepted. Of course, e-mail delivery should also be highly dependable and high-performing.

Most e-mail delivery service providers have their own technologies of e-mail delivery engines. These often provide simultaneous parallel email delivery, variable allocation of resources, and retry capabilities (in multiple levels). E-mail delivery service is then assured even if the online company is sending out just a dozen messages per day or millions (there is no difference).

The most effective type of e-mail marketing is by sending out newsletters. Newsletter marketing is suited to most of its recipients: doctors receive medical newsletters; educators are delivered with newsletters on literature or science (or whatever fits their expertise); mothers are sent out parenting newsletters. It's all about giving the readers what they need.

When it comes to sending out newsletters, there are e-mail delivery service providers who can make their professional services available by doing newsletter delivery management. Most of them have programs that target all kinds and sizes of newsletters and also additional features such as intuitive interface and integration elements. The providers do the services for you, most of them do not require you to install any hardware or software on your system, neither is there a need to configure networks.

There can be many features that are added to the basic e-mail delivery service. Such services as automatic birthday or anniversary e-mails to customers; standard automated e-mails (which contain web pages); or e-mails being sent out once the recipient clicks on a certain web page are not uncommon. In addition to the regular e-mail delivery, these service providers can also manage e-mail campaigns for online businesses.

E-mail campaign management can do the following: automation of e-mail campaign tests (this optimizes the response on the campaign); automation of the e-mail campaign itself (with website retrieval for automated responses); most can provide tracking of responses, analysis and reports. The great thing about hiring an e-mail delivery service provider is that they can send out targeted e-mails (most of which are based on behaviors such as opens, clicks and even conversations). Custom integration can also be made available.

It is time to consider getting services for e-mail delivery when there is a great need to reach hundreds or thousands of e-mail recipients. This would greatly increase the probability of closing many deals each day and, thus, making you more money. E-mail delivery services are equipped with the capacity to scale up to millions of messages (newsletters, bulk e-mails or opt-ins) every hour. Some providers can also manage numerous data centers along with several distributed e-mail servers. They could also provide multi-user management to be able to host customer lists.

Looking at all these aspects, e-mail marketing is no longer such a basic task anymore, is it? If you would want to reach out to millions of clients with just one click, it is now possible so make use of that power. Invest on e-mail delivery services and you are in for a few, major surprises.

Email Hosting and the Advantages

Email hosting has its own advantages when it comes to business applications. The Internet has become an industry standard for doing business whether you are simply communicating with members in the same office or you are dealing with clients and partners all over the world. The majority of written business communications are now done via email services.

This means that any business whether large or small is going to want to look into email hosting services.

Hosting email as part of the onsite services a business's networking department would handle, would require additional equipment, someone versed in handling email information and servers and a host of software applications including firewalls and spam blockers. This can quickly become expensive and places not only an additional financial burden on your business but also an additional burden on your network.

Email hosting takes care of that by providing your business with the email addresses and services that it needs without having to worry about all the equipment or the expense. You get a higher level of reliability and redundancy in addition to the features you are looking for. There is also the added benefit of the fact that email hosting is going to be a fixed rate expense and you can obtain any number of email addresses that you want whether it is just a few for a small business or you need hundreds to cover all your employees.

You also have the advantage of offsite backups. Provided that the individuals using it use web mail options or leave a copy on the server, you can pull up the emails for a particular persons account simply from the backups done on the email servers for whatever email hosting company you are using in case of a computer hardware failure. This can save a great deal of time, effort and trouble.

Giving consideration to the fact that emails are considered a standard of communication handling everything from important information, updates and meeting discussions to being a forum for formal written discussions in lieu of hard copy. Having the ability to obtain the majority if not all the messages on a person's account can encourage a greater sense of peace of mind for your business.

There are numerous advantages to email hosting. It is generally less expensive to use email hosting than it is to host the email servers and all the related and necessary services. It is easier to maintain backups and you have the option of both on and off site access through web mail options. There is also the benefit of being able to choose the number of email accounts you need. These are all advantages that come from the use of email hosting. The biggest however is the amount of money that it can save your business when you consider outsourcing your email hosting. Companies, which offer email hosting also, can ensure that your email addresses match your domain name making it more professional and easier for your business.

Small Business Voice Mail Services

The voice mail system was developed by Bob Cohn and Peter Olson in 1982. Voice mail system is a centralized answering machine which stores, records and plays back the voice message from users both inside and outside a company. Voice mail systems support shared message storage, fax delivery, teleconference, voice to text transcription, retrieval via printers and more. The two basic operations of a voice mail system are telephone answering and voice messaging. It is not possible to attend every phone call coming to an office during busy hours. In such a situation getting a small business voice mail service would be the best choice.

Hosted PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is ideal for small businesses. These telephone systems are integrated with VoIP technology and provide excellent voicemail features. VoIP services are used to receive calls directly through the internet or from a VoIP PBX. Each staff can be provided with a unique voice mail box. If any call remains unattended, the caller will be automatically forwarded to the voice mail. With voice mail services, users can be notified of new messages, and they can simultaneously pick up or leave messages from anywhere via email, computer or phone. In addition to this, you can forward or delete the received message.

Nowadays, every small business looks forward to benefit from voice mail services. Advanced voice mail service providers offer automated attendant facility with directory service access to make calls to various departments in your office. Small business voice mail service is a complete and full function telephone service with no heavy investment required for setup. Considering their functioning, voice mail services can help to give your small business a professional image, make ordering service easier, enhance customer relations, and improve productivity. Therefore an efficient voicemail system is an excellent option to consider, when launching small businesses.

Nowadays, all major telephone operators are providing voice mail services to customers at affordable costs. Voice mail services allow small business firms to maintain that customer friendly image. Voice mail services figure among the most powerful types of telephone services available today. By skillfully making use of this advanced technology, small and medium business can grow at a much faster rate, creating a great impression on their customers and associates.