When I tell my friends that I work in the Email Marketing industry, they cannot help having an odd reaction, like if they were thinking so… are you sending SPAM to people? So I have always to clarify than email marketing does not equal to SPAM.

I explained to them that sending personalized emails with relevant information about my company, products or services is just another tool to contacting customers and people who have requested this mailing for business or own interest. 

I also tell them that responsible email marketing, based on permission, is actually a new communication channel that may substitute the traditional mailing. We can think in a Bank as example, they may save millions in paper just sending their information and new products’ information by email instead of through my mailbox.

Given the Internet adoption in our household nowadays, email marketing definitely becomes a saving-costs and resources advertising channel, highly efficient and even ecologic.

But they are partly right. There are always people taking the advantage of the new technologies, abusing, sending unsolicited email advertising to the Internet users. However we cannot let this people to ruin a fantastic mean.

For instance, I wouldn’t personally buy a customer database to launch my marketing campaign. These commercial databases are sold telling you that the persons involved have already agreed to receive your email campaign. In my opinion, these persons may have given permission to this company, but not my company specifically, Therefore I think that this would be a very aggressive manner to reach my potential customers and so, my marketing efforts would be ruined.

If I like to reach new potential clients, I would send them a personalized email, introducing my products and services and inviting them to join my database. It´s not only respect and politeness, it is also be responsible with your business reputation.

Krasis has the pleasure of announcing a new version of MAILCast.

Our developer team, taking into account the needs and requests of our users, has working hard last months to finally achieve an excellent result.

As many of you would already know from this morning after log into your user account, MAILCast has new functionalities. All of them have been done to make it easier for you, sending your email campaigns and your newsletters.

Next I will introduce you the latest improvements of MAILCast 4.0:

· New “Basic” interface. Now you can choose whether working in the classic interface, or new basic one. This new simplified version allows to access to all channel’s functionalities from a single screen. You will not have to scroll the side bar. Try it! You’ll enjoy it.

· Excel integration. Many users were demanding this and here it is. MAIL Cast’s external channels that before were linked to Access, now they can also work with Excel.

· "One-Click ZIP Publishing".  This new functionality extremely simplifies your direct marketing´s tasks. Publishing your graphics bit by bit, and after composing the HTML in the content editor is over. Design your communication in HTML on your computer with any program, and include images and resources, as you wish.  Then include all your files in a ZIP file and upload it to MAILCast who will process them, publish them in the Internet and will get them ready for edition just before you do the mailing. Publishing an own design was never easier.

· Specific version for mobile devices. In the first step of the campaign composing process, you will find a new sheet called “Mobile version”. So you can type a shorter version for those subscribers who will read your mail from a mobile device.

· Sender’s personalization for every user. You only need to include in your Access or Excel document two fields called “Sender" and "SenderEMail". That way every subscriber will receive the email from the appropriate sender. Your marketing could be even more personalized.

· Personalized fields with own values in the test emails. Now you can introduce the values for each personalized field, as you wish. So that you will obtain a more “real” test version of the final mailing version.

· Content index automated generation. With a new label in the automated templates, you will have the option of generating an index, short or larger, with internal links to the different news included in an issue. MAILCast will automatically do it for you.

· News reutilization between issues.  When you are using the automated composing functionality in MAILCast, so useful creating newsletters, you can mark already used news as available for composing again, and vice versa. This facilitates the reutilization of the content between issues of the same channel.

· New templates versión. Although you may not notice it in Outlook or other ESPs, the new templates are optimized to improve the visual experience of subscribers using Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail.

· Improved stats. At the time of checking the reports, you will find that they are generated faster tan before.

 · Improvement linking external databases.

And don´t be shy, your opinion counts!! So, please, don’t hesitate in sending us feedback about MAILCast. It will help us improving more and more…

Here some basic points that help me to develop my email marketing campaigns. You may need to do some changes according to your specific goals. I find it quite useful and simple; just gathering the basic information that I need to file in order to see the results of the campaign in the long-run.

-          Campaign name

-          Sending date

-          Goals (open rates, CTR, Bounces, Subscriptions…)

-          Database segmentation (potential public to reach)

-          Campaign subject (write at least 4, then you can choose the more adequate)

-          Get your List ready (additional info, filters…)

-          Create your HTML email (don´t forget the Unsubscribe link, forward a friend)

-          Check the links on your newsletter (if they are working correctly, where they go, landing page…)

-          Schedule your mailing in the appropriate day and time.

-          Monitor the results (reading, open-rate, CTR, subscriptions, cancellations, website activity, increased traffic to your web, comments, customer feedback).

-          Analyze the results in relation to the planned goals

-          Conclusions and recommendations to future campaigns.

As we said before, the relationships between customers and companies are changing. More and more, Internet has became the code to develope commerce (B2B, B2C, C2C...). This is modifying the original concept of buying and selling.

If you want to survive in the new global market you need make changes to increase sales. You must win customers' trust in the new economic system.The best way to count on users' loyalty  is the permanent communication.

The on-line support makes possible a direct contact with customers. It is a help system that get in touch the user with Customer Service or Technical Service. A good on-line support site must solve the issues easily. It usually gives email notifications about issues' progress and let you search the interaction history you have.

Although on-line support accessibility is fundamental, response to customers is more important. If we promise a 24x7 service we have to keep it without exception, because they trust in us. It is hard win the loyalty of  our customers, so we have to use some tools, such as on-line support, to achieve it and keep it.

Customer Segmentation is the subdivision of a market into discrete customer groups that share similar characteristics. It helps developing customized marketing programs, as you can better adapt your product and service to particular customers’ needs. Say that you like to target University students. Logically freshers won´t have the same needs that those students who are finishing their degree. While the first ones will be looking for residence, flats, academies, funding, etc., the second ones will be looking for work placements, travelling abroad, junior jobs, Research or PhD studies,… Then it would be essential to gather what year they are on in your database.  

Therefore Customer segmentation should be a fundamental step in your Email marketing strategy.  The much information you gather from your customer, the better. Name, surname, telephone and email address are not enough. Try to get your customers´ gender, age, profession, job´s title, location, language, industrial sector, likes and dislikes, shopping pattern, annual budget… so next time you send an email campaign, you can personalize further and filter your database, creating different messages for different public, sending the right product to the right person. Improve your effectiveness improving your database, divide and conquer!

These are the main steps to develop an e-marketing campaign:

I posted yesterday about how important is looking after our database. Being providers of Email Marketing services, we received many call asking us whether we will sell commercial databases, too. Krasis promotes permission-based Email Marketing, and therefore, we don’t provide customers databases. Besides, when our customers sign the contract, they confirm that will not be using MAILCast to send Spam.

There are two different approaches that apply to Email Marketing: Opt-in and Opt-out

Opt-in is an email that is explicitly requested by the recipient. I.e. Sign in to receive a newsletter.  In order to quickly gain opt-in recipients, the easiest way, among others, will be including a sing-in form in your webpages (managed by a automated subscription manager, if possible). Countries such as UK, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Germany or Italy have already adopted the Opt-in policy in the name of the persons’ privacy.

 Opt-out is based on tacit consent, so it assumes a general permission to send emails to customers who has not explicitly stated that they don´t want to receive such information. This is closer to the traditional mailing approach, and to the Spammers philosophy.

Now, one and other approach have generated an extensive debate. Mainly because stats are saying that only 18% of your potential customers would accept to receive your information by email. . However this 20% people are really interested in your services and products… Should we apply the Pareto 20/80 principle?

It is your decision.

One of the most influent factors in your email marketing campaigns’ success is your database. Your subscribers’ list is your treasure. Your mailing´s effectiveness and sales conversion depends on your database, and not only that…as well your reputation.

What I mean is that if you don’t care about your database, then it may be a big number of your emails bouncing-back, and therefore the email service providers will include your IP in their “suspicious” lists of spammers, affecting to our reputation…and if this practice goes on and on, then we´ll end up in the serious black list. What means that our mailing campaigns will be never accepted by some email providers, even if our subscribers have given us permission and accepted to receive our communications.  How many people do you know who is checking their “Junk folder” daily, given that they actually receive hundreds of spam emails in their inbox? Hmm…great! So what can you do?

You should check, clean and update your database. How many times? As much as you can! This will depend on how often you send email campaigns. After every mailing, you should delete duplicated emails addresses, spelling mistakes in the domains, and don´t forget to analyze your soft and hard bouncing.

Check the reasons of your soft bounced-back emails.  Your subscribers may have changed their email account for many reasons. Try to get in touch with them and confirm their details and their interest on receiving your newsletters.

Delete your hard bounced-back emails. No fear let them go!! Because they will ruin your IP reputation and the effectiveness of your future email campaigns, let them go, no pain.

A well-done newsletter becomes a fundamental ingredient to achieve the company on-line success, because it works like a direct communication channel to  your customers and it gives you the opportunity of informing them about products and services with credibility, easiness and  effectiveness.

By means of this kind of periodic sendings we can reach our audience, fitting the pattern of clients we like. Besides, newsletters allow us keeping a permanent contact with our suscribers and increasing their loyalty to our firm. It gives real information about the company, the global market, the sector, the products, some news... among others.

Nowadays ther are many specialized computer tools that make easy the edition and design of newsletters. These sort of software aplications allow you make attractive and characteristic presentations to become an online marketing star, with options such as personalization, scheduling mailings, reading statistics, cliks statistics, RSS... And all with a very low cost.

If you still haven't one, get a complete software to create newsletters. No doubt. Try one fully functional so it will give you a good image and prestige over the competitors.