Discussion lists with advanced email features have numerous options that complement many communication arenas that are in use today.

Dundee internet hosted Discussion lists created in ListManager™ have the flexibility to:

1. Create Customize landing page

2. Brand your list(s)

3. Integrate into existing databases and websites

4. Share photos

5. Share files

6. Run unlimited lists under your domain, ours’ or theirs.  

7. Employ one or many list administrators.

8. Provide numberous options and contols

 Create * Share * Grow

“It worked flawlessly…. Thank you….!”
Rick of History News

Discussion Lists – A Complement To Communication is a post from: Mailing List Services and email list management

Everything has a lifecycle including email.   Our lifecycle, like everything else has a beginning, middle and an end with a lot of stuff going on in-between.    Comparatively speaking an email list subscriber’s lifecycle is not much different, each subscriber or email address has a distinct beginning (when someone subscribes to your list), a middle (accepting your email messages) and an end (severing  their membership by leaving your list or junking your email).  However, unlike our lifecycle, you can harness the lifecycle of email using simple strategies to deliver the right message at the right time.

Because email is such a valuable marketing tool, it’s prudent  to utilize every method at your disposal to keep your members interested, engaged and reengaged –  after all,  you receive  a lot more benefit sending messages to an involved subscriber  rather than continually  sending messages  to those  email addresses that have lapsed  into oblivion.  So, rather than send that one message to all three lifecycle stages, plan to deliver the right message at the right time by knowing  and understanding the various email lifecycle stages that can be tracked and measured, expected and managed.

Email Lifecycle Stages:

There are three main email lifecycle stages.  They are the:

1. Potential or interested customers:     A prospect who opted in to your list, who potentially wants to receive communication from you and may not have a buying history with your company.   Your goal at this life cycle might be to: 

• Confirm their subscription
• Set their expectations so they know what to expect from you  by use of a welcome letter
• Ask for their email preferences: (i.e. How often do they want to hear from you)
• Conversion (Visits to your website, purchase a product, forward an email, etc.)

2.        Current or engaged customers:  At this stage, your subscribers like your product and your email messages.  It’s been shown that the engaged group has a direct correlation between email marketing messages and growth revenue, therefore the goal here should be to move the subscribers in the first and third stage to this stage, and keep them there.  You might do this by: 

• Acknowledge their patronage- consider creating a VIP program
• Continue to send personalized, relevant targeted messages based on their mailing preferences and buying habits
• Email renewal notices
• Send messages based on their  website page visits to your company
• Encourage them to share their good experience with you with their friends and always, always say THANK YOU 

3.        Disinterested or lethargic customers:  This is the last lifecycle, the separation phase where your email is considered an annoyance, or they don’t care because they never open your email anymore, and probably delete it or earmarks as spam.  They’re just not interested.  However, they haven’t unsubscribed so is there still hope?  You goal here is simple, you need to move these subscribers to the second stage, the engaged stage.  You may find success by first removing addresses that haven’t responded for ( let’s say for example) the past  6 month and segment the rest into smaller manageable groups.  Plan to execute a reactivation email campaign that may include a:

• Invitation to reconfirm to your list
• Link to a preference page
• Survey with an offer
• Special just for that day

Each of these life cycle categories are measurable.   Each can be predicted.  Each, can be managed.   The email  campaigns goal should be different for each lifecycle and can be as simple as having a goal to have your  interested customer confirm their new subscription.   Just as you plan, your email campaigns have a plan for the lifecycle of email.   And the best part, it’s easy to do.  Don’t know where to begin, contact the team at Dundee Internet, list hosting provider since 1997.     

————————

Just for fun: Test you sender reputation knowledge:  http://mailing-list-services.com/sendrep.htm

LifeCycling to Your Email Goals is a post from: Mailing List Services and email list management

Email has many benefits; it’s fast, inexpensive, targeted and measurable. You can test it with numerous variables to see what combinations work best and change up a campaign as needed. Email marketing puts you in control of the returns you receive, with the ability to get the RESULTS you want.

7 Steps to get RESULTS from Your Email Campaigns

Refine your Goals – are you looking for more customers, more traffic more leads?

Enthusiastically create your email campaigns – do not forget to include a call to action (ask for the sale, email address or visit) and a related landing page for your offer.

Select and Target your audience with segments and personalized messages tailored to their preferences.

Use A/B Split Testing – try different variables, a secondary landing page, change colors, and insert different graphics.  Make sure to randomize your test group.

Listen to your subscribers – send your message at the time your recipients want them.  Know the composition of your list: business email addresses versus generic email addresses, State based or overseas recipients: timing may be everything.

Track and Measure your results – from beginning to end: opens to purchase.

Simply put, improve on your next campaign – compare statistics from previous mailings, look for weakness; review your call to action, time of day, content.

Create * Share * Grow

“Just want to give praise to the owners, and employees of Dundee Internet. I have been a customer for over eight years and they continue to provide great customer service. Thanks for helping me.”  Bob G Chamber of Commerce

Expect RESULTS from Your Email Campaigns, really? is a post from: Mailing List Services and email list management

Your computer screen is zipping along with charts, graphs and numbers.   So far so good, everything looks great.    You believe the email campaign is a success, so many website visitors, even more than you had hoped for.  Management is waiting for your report; how many people clicked on the yellow shoes, they ask – Clicked on the yellow shoes? You wonder, was I supposed to track that too?

Yellow Shoe Marketing

It all comes down to using the right set of parameters and performance indicators, the key performance indicators (KPIs) to collect the data  you need.  It goes without saying, knowing the objective of the campaign (yellow shoe clicks) will allow you to choose the KPIs you believe will be the most useful to determine the success or failure of a campaign.

When you start reviewing which KPIs  to use,  it may seem a bit overwhelming, after all, you’re only trying to measure how well your email campaigns are doing and are they doing as well as you think.   So why should you be concerned with which KPI’s to use?  Because, the key performance indicator of success is your Conversion Rate.

Conversion rates are not standardized, organizations measure conversion rates differently from one another.   For example, a real-estate company’s email campaign might base their success on the number of completed buyer profiles received, a shoe store may measure the number of clicks on their yellow shoe, while similar competing industries will have dissimilar conversion goals; such as opens compared to a success rate based on the number of unsubscribes in a mailing.

KPI’s are important because they:

• Assist with organizational objectives – what do you want to achieve?
• Are success indicators – Are your results comparable to your market and competitors?
• Are uniquely defined by the individual organization – Who, in your company defines the goals for your email marketing efforts?

The common types of Key performance indicators used in email marketing may describe strategic goals in terms of quantifiable parameters, which in turn will allow you to estimate the success of your email campaign.   The common key performance indicators themselves, are not based on standardized formulas –the formulas used can be defined as needed

For example, there are at least two acceptable calculations for email Open rates; one based on delivered emails while the other based on total emails sent.  Both formulas are very acceptable.  What definition are the formulas then based on the actual click on an email, or when an image renders in an email client or when someone clicks on a link within the message?
Some commonly used Key Performance Indicators

• Churn Rate
• Click through rates
• Click to Open Rate
• Conversion Rate
• Delivery rate/percentage
• Email Bounce rate
• Email Open Rate
• Referrals/forwarded messages
• Number of sales versus number of new site visitors
• Shopping cart abandonment
• Spam complaints
• Unsubscribes

In conclusion, there are many ways to measure a successful email campaign.    The KPIs define a set of values to measure against.  Selecting the right KPI’s is contingent on having a good understanding of the email campaign goal and expectations.  However there a degree of ambiguity that comes into play, which may not be of concern if your numbers are going up, ROI is climbing, and your subscribers are happy.

Email Ambiguity – can you really test for that? is a post from: Mailing List Services and email list management

Is a Feedback loop just email noise?

Thinking about Feedback loops?

Email has many handlers, which translates into “not all your email will be delivered as intended.”  When an ISP receives many complaints about a particular email going through their email servers (where “many” is a number based on the discretion of the ISP), the ISP may deliver those messages to the recipient’s junk folder or decide not to deliver those messages at all.  (Complaints can be collected on report spam pages, webmail, email clients or other.)

If you’re the originator of the message, that isn’t good news as your marketing efforts are wasted: your intended recipients may never look at their junk folder or worse yet, they never received your email message because it was never delivered.

Consider a typical (major) ISP, such as AOL.  AOL like all ISP’s (for a variety of reasons) want to protect the in-boxes of their email recipients from SPAM and unwanted junk mail.  Ideally, they want to handle incoming email problems before they get out of hand and quickly resolve those “Report Spam” button issues. One way they do this is using a communication system known as FBL or “complaint” Feedback Loops.

Feedback loops are:

• A service that several major ISPs provide on an individual basis, to bulk mailers such as an ESP (Email Service Provider) like Dundee Internet Services.
  • An agreement between a major ISP and an ESP, where the ISP automatically forwards SPAM complaints originating from the ISP’s email box user to the ESP.  (The  sender’s organizations)
  • Used by the ESP to automatically removed the offering email address.
  • Critical for good list hygiene.

Feedback loops can:

• Identify companies that want a preemptive approach to reduce the amount of spam sent to their users, those companies that are diligent about monitoring their mailings for abusive or otherwise unwanted content.
• Streamline and automate the spam reporting process with specific identifiable-readable parts of an email:  using various headers used to describe the structure of MIME messages (RFC2045 and RFC1341)

Bottom line, as an ESP or any entity running mail servers with bulk mail distribution should sign up with the feedback loops programs as it’s a good way to curtail spam and maintain a good IP reputation.  Marketers using an ESP with FeedBack Loops benefit too, their ISP is a responsible sender and as a result, a responsible sender delivers their email.

Which ISP’s offer Feedback Loop agreements, check out this partial list

http://www.mequoda.com/articles/email-marketing/10-email-feedback-loop-lists/?floater=99

Is a Feedback loop just Email Noise? is a post from: Mailing List Services and email list management