Archive for November, 2007
AWeber’s Sean Cohen Interviewed at Recognized Expert
Justin Premick - November 30th, 2007
Setting up your first email campaign and not sure what to do? Need a refresher course on how to put together a simple yet effective email marketing program to convert your website traffic into loyal customers?
Our own Sean Cohen turned up on the Recognized Expert Marketing Show last week with plenty of great advice for budding — and established — businesses.
Posted in : Email Marketing | No Comments »Spam Complaints: How Many Is Too Many?
Marc Kline - November 29th, 2007
With some things in life, what is “too much” is quite clear.
Last week, we might have had too much turkey or sweet potatoes, or in the ensuing weeks we might go over our holiday spending budgets. When we hit the scales or balance our checkbooks, we know whether or not we went overboard.
Still, in other cases, we need some guidance on the matter. For instance, if we receive too many spam complaints from subscribers, the deliverability of our messages can really suffer.
But how do we know when we’ve received too many of these?
Posted in : Email Deliverability | 18 Comments »Holiday Marketing Tip: Don’t Send Pointless Greetings!
Justin Premick - November 28th, 2007
Can sending a “Happy New Year” or “Merry Christmas” greeting hurt your email deliverability?
Earlier this week, I was talking with Tom (our founder) about the holiday marketing tips we posted recently, and we got to talking about the email habits of both publishers and subscribers around this time of year.
There’s something that thousands of businesses (and in my experience, especially small businesses) do on holidays that brings you little benefit while making it harder to get your email through. Plus it potentially hurts other areas of your email marketing and your business as a whole.
So what is it?
Posted in : Email Deliverability | 32 Comments »Cyber Monday: Hype or Holiday Opportunity?
Marc Kline - November 26th, 2007
If you’ve spent a few days now away from your computer (and your inbox), you might now open email only to find a flood of messages from businesses you’ve purchased promoting specials, with many of them arriving just this morning.
If so, that might have struck you as a coincidence, but it may not have been.
Cyber Monday, a term coined in 2005 by Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation, is ostensibly the day when many consumers return to work after the Black Friday weekend, only to surf online for more holiday deals.
This year, more businesses are jumping on the bandwagon to take advantage of this potential rush. So, should we join them and send out messages to our own subscribers?
Posted in : Email Marketing | 11 Comments »Short on Ideas For Your Email or Blog?
Marc Kline - November 23rd, 2007
You’ve stuck to a regular schedule for posting to your blog or writing email messages. People have come to depend on your wise words of worthwhile advice and information.
You don’t want to let them down and risk the growth of your readership and business!
Despite this pressure, or sometimes because of it, we’re all liable at one time or another to sit down at our desks, open a new message or post, crack our fingers, rest them on the keys, then … nothing. We draw a blank.
How frustrating! Fortunately, we have options.
Posted in : Articles & Tips | 6 Comments »How Does Your Business Give Thanks?
Marc Kline - November 20th, 2007
If you’re in the U.S. like we are, more than likely this Thursday you will be celebrating Thanksgiving, and as we sit down with our families for dinner we will be thinking of some of those things we’re most thankful for, namely our food, our prosperity, and our loved ones.
I will venture to say that most of us won’t be thinking directly of email marketing, but if it has helped our business to grow and prosper this year, we probably do think of it with a great deal of gratitude at times.
So, before the holiday hits and we shut our computers off, let’s talk for a minute about email and giving thanks.
Posted in : Email Marketing | 4 Comments »Thanksgiving Holiday Hours
Justin Premick - November 20th, 2007
On Thursday, November 22, we’ll be eating turkey, seeing family, watching football, and generally enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday.
Our offices will be closed, but rest easy — the servers are still coming to work Thursday. We’ll be keeping an eye on them to make sure they don’t try to take the day off, too 
We’ll be back in the office at 8:00AM on Friday, November 23, so if you have any questions on Thursday shoot us an email and we’ll get back to you then.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted in : Uncategorized | 1 Comment »5 Holiday Marketing Tips to Beat a Slow Season
Justin Premick - November 16th, 2007
According to the National Retail Foundation, holiday shopping for this year is set to increase, but only by a modest 4%. Just about every other report or story I’ve read about this holiday season has suggested it won’t be a good one.
As other direct and indirect competitors vie for your subscribers’ pocketbooks, how are you going to make sure your business isn’t left holding a lump of coal?
Posted in : Email Marketing | 21 Comments »Do Your Post-Purchase Emails Alienate Customers?
Justin Premick - November 12th, 2007
It happens all too frequently.
A business puts in the time and expense of getting a customer to their website or store, establishes trust and credibility, and gets that person to make a purchase. Which brings them to that critical first post-purchase contact.
Do they use it to provide more value? To reinforce the buying decision? Show the customer how the purchased product is even more valuable than they thought?
Nope.
Posted in : Email Marketing | 13 Comments »Email Scheduling: How Soon is Too Soon?
Marc Kline - November 8th, 2007
Somewhere in the back of my mind I was waiting for it –the first Christmas song of the year. This time I was at a local coffee shop (OK, it was the local Starbucks).
John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)” made it through about 10 seconds of play. Then, the stereo went silent for about another 10 and we were back to quiet, singer-songwriter cafe music.
From a back room I heard someone scream “It’s too early for Christmas!”. It might seem odd at first, but this got me to thinking about email marketing and how we schedule our messages.
Posted in : Email Marketing | 23 Comments »« Previous Entries
