What You Need to Know About Email
If you are like many email users, you know the basics about how email works and a bit about using it as a vehicle to market goods and services.
But how, really, does email work? What happens when the message is sent and received? Here are some areas where you have to educate yourself before you embark upon email marketing campaigns.
1) Know how email is delivered. Start by looking at email servers, and then set out to learn about DNS (Domain Name System) and SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) transport and delivery. These seem arcane, perhaps, or like something your IT guy should be managing. You should know it, too, though. Then you can begin to comprehend how filtering and blocking features may be catching your emails before they reach potential clients, and you'll know what happens when bouncebacks occur. If you're really ambitious, jump into RBL (Realtime Black Hole), which service providers use to drop known spammers and URIBL (Realtime URI Blacklist), which is another tool used to stop spammers.
2) Display is important. Email is written in HTML, but today's email marketers have to learn about responsive design because so many recipients use mobile devices to read their messages. What is the responsive design? What coding is used in it? Learn about responsive design's strengths and limitations so you can get the most of it.
3) Statistics. Sure, you were bad at math in school. So were many marketers and entrepreneurs. But if you can manage a business, you can surely understand email statistics. By studying email data, you can quickly learn which messages work and which do not, how many bouncebacks have occurred, which offers clicked with audiences and made them, in turn, click. Data can drive better decisions.
4) Fundamentals. Remember direct-mail marketing? Well, the same principles apply to email marketing in many respects. Metrics matter. Knowing the market you are targeting, the message you're sending and the medium you're using are all keys to a successful campaign. A successful campaign means nothing, however, if you can't understand it and, therefore, can't repeat it. Seeing the customer make a purchase because of a website they saw on their laptop, or from a mobile email they read on the go, can inform future campaigns. Email's cheap and effective, but that doesn't mean you can stop paying attention to product, price, placement and promotion, as well as why the success occurred.
5) Privacy. Best practices in data privacy should be a key to your marketing. Protect your customers' data with as many layers of security as you can afford. Have a plan in place, though, if a breach happens. Don't be caught off guard; know what you are going to do, who you are going to call and how you will report incidents.
Marketers love ideas. They love words and images. They are more artistically inclined than many in the business world. But today's challenges require that they add a bit of statistical and technological understanding to what they do.
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An effective email marketing system should include the following tools:
- Automated email sequences that drip on your contacts over time to build trust and convert your subscribers into active and happy customers.
- A email scheduler for planning your announcements, newsletters, and special occasion emails weeks or even months in advance.
- A simple way for you to create sign-up forms so you can connect your marketing efforts to auto-populate your contact lists (we provide WPNewsman plugin for WordPress for free).
- A professional collection of quality responsive HTML email templates that you can install and use for your newsletters on the fly.
- An automated way of processing bounce and unsubscribe emails to be in compliance with the CAN-SPAM law in various countries.
- Training and support from those who have years of experience in email marketing systems, management and success.
With G-Lock EasyMail7 you have the right email marketing system to help you maintain and grow your business.
I have used several versions of EasyMail and recently upgraded my version to 7.0 and we bought several copies for the company I work for as well. The cost is very reasonable and the tech support is prompt. Updates arrive frequently.
I love the fact that my mass emails can be highly personalized and still look like regular emails, vs. emails from Constant Contact etc. I can also go into the HTML code and tweak things if they are not right. We use Amazon Web Service SES which is very affordable. A great product for those who have reasonable computer skills to set everything up.
Thank you G-Lock!
Martin Ucik,
President at singles2couples.org