More important than that is understanding the answer to the question “what is email marketing?” in the real world. We all receive plenty of email marketing messages each and every day, most of them we lump into the SPAM category. They are wastes of time and space, they slow down and infect our computers, they try to sell us enhancement creams or steal our bank account information and of course they give the rest of us a bad name.

Therefore email marketing in the real world has fast taken on the definition of SPAM.  Again from Wikipedia, SPAM is, “The abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.”

In other words, email marketing for consumers is fast becoming aligned with fraudulent garbage. For sketchy, illicit or downright illegal business operations, email marketing has taken on the definition of the cheapest way to exploit loads of money from the unsuspecting public at large by poking and prodding repeatedly ad nauseam until somebody purposely or inadvertently caves in.

Now, what should email marketing be? I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

Now that we know what email marketing really is, by the literal definition and by the interpretations of both consumers and spammers, we should take a look at what email marketing should be. Email marketing should be I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

• Insightful
• Marketing
• (that’s)
• Personalized
• Optimized
• Relevant
• Targeted
• And
• Never
• Tired

Let’s break this down piece by piece so we have as clear a definition as we can. Email marketing should be insightful marketing. In other words, we should be using all of our judgment, knowledge, expertise and experience to deliver quality, handcrafted messages that not only will produce results, but also speak to the desires of our audience.

Email marketing should be personalized. First, that means building a permission based list of people who really want to hear from you. From there, it means using your name and showing pictures of yourself so your audience knows who you are. It means segmenting your list so that different people receive messages containing what they are most interested in, rather than a generic message of no real value.

Email marketing should be optimized. You should be testing every aspect of your email campaigns to see what works the best. Try different subject lines, content, layouts, color schemes, delivery times and more.

Email marketing should be relevant and targeted. Once again, segment your list into groups and learn what your audience is really interested in. Make your messages timely and full of valuable information that people can really use. Don’t just send what you feel like talking about; send what people want to hear.

Finally, email marketing should never be tired. This means that you shouldn’t keep sending out the same retread emails over and over again and you shouldn’t keep using that same template you had from your first email campaign in 2002.

Refresh your campaigns…bring in guests from other websites or companies to write on special topics…change your layouts so that they are more visually appealing and convert better in the process…think of new, fresh ideas for every email and always be trying new things… stay ahead of the curve and integrate new technology, services and methods instead of playing catch-up down the road.

So how can I answer the question, “what is email marketing”? How about, I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

Why reduce your email list size?

There are actually several reasons why you may want to reduce your email list size. To begin with, with a smaller list you will be spending less money on your campaigns. You won’t be earning any less revenue however, because the names you eliminated using customer satisfaction surveys were the ones you weren’t converting in any event. Remember, with email marketing and the list you maintain, quality is far superior to quantity.

When you reduce list size using customer satisfaction surveys you’re of course finding out much more information along the process. Yes, you could shrink down your list size by sorting through stats to see which names have been the least active and engaged with your messages. However, you won’t be gaining any of the additional insight that can be so crucial to your overall efforts.

By asking the right questions with your Internet survey software you can get to the root of the problem. Why are the disengaged people unhappy with what you’re sending them? What could you do to make people happier? What kinds of people are the least involved with your messages? And much more.

The result is that your list may be smaller, but you’ll also know exactly what your list members want to be seeing, hearing about and reading. You’ll be able to see a much higher conversion rate because your information will be more targeted, and you’ll be spending less on your campaigns because your list is smaller. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

How to do it

To get started in your efforts towards creating a happier, smaller list for your organization, first you should be using Internet survey software that’s directly connected to your email software. The majority of email service providers allow this now, including two of the most cost effective, iContact at $9.95 per month and Constant Contact for $15 per month.

The sole purpose of your customer satisfaction surveys shouldn’t be to reduce list size, that’s more like a side mission. The main objective of course is to diagnose your campaigns to spot weaknesses and problems, and to get the pulse of your prospects and customers to see what they are really interested in.

At the top of your survey, include a link to unsubscribe, or ask if they would like to stop receiving communications from you, at which point you could manually remove them from your list. Then work your way into the meat of the survey. After all of the questions have been asked, again ask if they would like to continue receiving your communications. Include a text box after a no answer to give people a chance to say why.

Now in addition to utilizing Internet survey software to improve the effectiveness of your campaigns, you should have also leaned yourself out a bit. When you’re on the fence between two different costing areas, in some cases a list of 499 names gets one fee structure and 500 names gets another, you can instantly reduce your costs without any negative consequences.

If you send out customer satisfaction surveys once every six months or so, you’ll be continually able to weak out some of the worthless names on your list, keeping costs down, eliminating overhead and improving your efforts in the process.

The point being that if you use email survey software in the right way, you’ll see a boatload of great results. Here are a few tips to help you make the most from any customer satisfaction survey software.

The best way to keep your list members happy is to know what they want from you. Your viewpoint of what you think your customers and prospects want to know, and what the truth actually is may be quite different from one another. You may think that everyone is dying to see your “Inside the CEO’s brain!” newsletter, but in reality everyone signed up to your newsletter expecting to see discounts and periodic sales or special offers.

Customer satisfaction survey software can help you get to the truth of the matter very easily. In fact, just one check box question can provide you with all of the information you need. Ask your list members, “What kinds of messages would you enjoy seeing from us?” Allow them to select as many as they want, and provide a text box for suggestions as well. You’ll quickly determine what people expect from you.

Ask them a few other multiple choice questions as well to find out even more answers. Ask them questions such as, what do you enjoy the most from receiving our emails, what do you like the least about our communications, what would make you happier or more involved with our company, and on down the line. You’re essentially asking the same thing each time, but by asking it in different ways you can really hone in on the specifics.

Another key question to ask is “How often do you want to hear from us?” Even when someone is interested in your emails, too many of them can quickly turn them off. Conversely, too few emails and people will forget about you… quickly.

The more you know about the expectations and desires of your list members, the more adequately you can serve them and convert them into returning clients and customers. The best and simplest way to find out detailed, firsthand information such as this is through customer satisfaction survey software.

You can use all of this information to completely overhaul your email campaigns, or you can use the information obtained from customer satisfaction survey software to segment your list into more specific groups. For example, if 25% of your list actually was highly interested in your “Inside the CEO’s brain!” newsletter, you can segment those people and continue sending the messages to them without alienating the rest of your list.

I also recommend that you ask basic questions like what kinds of messages do you want to receive from us and how often would you like to hear from us when someone initially signs up to your list. It will keep that person happier from the beginning, and you’ll be able to target them more effectively right from the start.

Remember that happy list members put money into your pocket. Utilize the best email survey software programs to keep your list as happy as possible.

Here are some factors that may be leading to the messages from your email marketing program being tagged as SPAM along with what you can do to prevent that from happening. Wouldn’t it be great to reside amongst the very happy 6% of messages that are positively received by their intended audiences?

Your messages aren’t reaching your list members. The problem could be that your email marketing ASP isn’t reliable enough. Do some research into which email service providers have the highest deliverability rates, which have good reputations and so forth. Problems could arise for many reasons including if you get assigned a recycled IP address or if the servers of your email marketing ASP are overstuffed.

Your messages aren’t being identified. Your list members may be having a hard time distinguishing your messages from the saturated, nearly all encompassing SPAM pile (Remember, 94 percent!). To remedy the situation you need to be sure to have a recognizable name in the “From” field. Your subject line needs to be short, to the point and grammatically correct. Read more on this issue in a former email marketing tip of the week.

Your messages aren’t being read. You may not be compelling enough with the subject lines your email marketing program utilizes. Additionally, it may be time to scrub your list clean of list members who are uninterested in your messages. From here on out, get some information on your list members when they signup. Find out what kinds of messages they want to receive from you so you can segment them accordingly. Don’t forget to set the ground rules either. Inform your new list members when they can expect to receive your messages and how frequently you’ll be in their inbox.

Your messages aren’t being displayed properly. What kind of template or design are you using within your emails? Excessive images can leave the monitors of your list members filled with open spaces and X marks. Complicated HTML or other coding languages could load improperly. Keep your templates simple and clean, and consider offering a text only option for subscribers. Check out another post to learn more about choosing an email marketing template.

Starting from sheer deliverability and ending with your emails being displayed properly, there are lots of landmines and pitfalls that your email marketing program can run into. Find a quality email marketing ASP, identify yourself, compel and target your list members and design your messages effectively and your email marketing program will hopefully find a home in that 6% sliver of opportunity.

Some people are at a loss for how to do this but the truth is it shouldn’t be too difficult to change the style and focus of your messages in order to connect with your list at a much more appropriate and effective level. Here are some ideas you can use to reach out to your list more successfully.

Learn when they signup – Find out about your email list members when they signup for your list by providing a checkbox question where they can pick what kinds of messages they want to hear from you. This will help you segment your list (see below) but will also provide you with firsthand information on what your list members actually want to be receiving from you.

Conduct a survey – Most email service providers today come with survey features that will allow you reach out to your existing list with easy to use and effective surveys. Ask them straightforward questions without being afraid of receiving negative feedback. Ask them what they like and don’t like about your emails, what you should change, what’d they like to see more of and so on. Use a combination of multiple choice questions and open ended short answer questions for maximum results.

Segment your list – Using the above information or other data that you have on your list members you should segment them into smaller, more focused groups. This will allow you to send out specific newsletters or blasts that only the most interested people will receive. See last week’s email marketing tip of the week for more information on segmenting and targeting your list.

Get personal – Far too many businesses try to take the approach of providing a completely impersonal message or service. Customers want to buy something, not have a friend, right? Well it’s actually far more effective to personalize all of your communications. Show a small picture of yourself in every newsletter so people can associate a name and face with your business. Share a short anecdote. Take questions and answers. Be honest. Show some personality.

Switch your perspective – Hopefully you view all of your newsletters when they go out. Next time, don’t view them as the satisfied creator, view them as the skeptical list member. If you received this message from another company, what would you think? Would you want to buy something or take another action? Would you roll your eyes at all of the self promotion or ineffective sales tactics? If you can’t give yourself an honest review, have your friends or family members do it for you.

Remember, you have to reach out to your list members on their level. Provide them the information they want in the way they want to get it. Segment your group, get personal and view your emails critically.

Hopefully this email marketing tip of the week can help your organization more effectively connect with your list members and improve the success of your email campaigns.

5 Ways to Differentiate Between Email Marketing Programs

1. Price: The price for different email service providers can be quite different. Many popular programs start plans for between $10 and $20. However, many other companies really target larger businesses and have services that start at $100 or more.

Additionally, your price may increase based on different factors. Some companies increase price based on total emails sent, while others increase price based on the size of the list you have, regardless of the number of emails you send.

2. Surveys: Many businesses today are turning to customer survey software to help them connect with their customers and clients and to further improve their own offerings. There are of course many separate providers that deal with surveys, however many email service providers also provide online survey solutions

The benefit to integrating the two services in one spot is that you can quickly send out a survey to your entire list or to particular segments of your list without having to export or recreate your list in a separate environment. Of course, housing both services under one roof can also lower costs and provide a level of convenience that two separate services couldn’t provide. If you’re also in the market for customer survey software, than you should seek out the email marketing programs that provide that as well.

3. Customer Support: When you encounter a problem or have a question, you need a company that is going to be responsive to your needs. With options such as forums and live chatting in addition to emails and phone calls, you should have plenty of ways to reach out to the staff of most email service providers. However, some take more pride than others in this area and you’ll quick see which businesses live up to your expectations.

4. Templates: You want to have a vast selection of templates to choose between. Only a handful, no matter how great they look, isn’t going to help you out very much. You need to stand out from your competition not blend in with them. Additionally, consider that email marketing programs often target different types of businesses and therefore will have more templates geared towards specific areas or styles than others.

5. List Management and Building: What are the options you have for building your list and managing it? You should be able to break down your list based on a wide range of variables. You should also have signup links and buttons for your websites as well as an autoresponder.

Finally, steer clear of any company that says they will provide your list for you and build your list instantly. Purchasing email lists is a great way to land yourself in legal trouble while you watch your campaigns flounder along without success.

As you can see, there are clearly plenty of ways to differentiate between different services and providers. These are just 5 ways that should help you spot which email marketing programs may be the best fit for your organization.

Email Marketing Opt In

Optin email marketing is basically the honest, legitimate way of email marketing wherein people sign up for your list willingly and manually. You may be offering something on your website to encourage them to sign up, they might do it without any pushing from you at all or you might hound them into it with pop ups across the screen every two minutes. Either way, the point is they manually opt into your email marketing list.

The only thing an email marketing opt in does is provide a link and a text box, so they can enter in their address and send it through the system. Your email service provider captures that information and adds the new user to your email marketing list. A basic optin email marketing service may redirect the person to a thank you page, show them a thank you or confirmation on screen or even in some cases send them a double opt-in or confirmation email.

Email Autoresponders

Autoresponders take things a step further than that. When somebody signs up for your email marketing list and you are using a full autoresponder service, your email service provider will immediately send out their first message at the time of your choosing.

Going forward from there, you can setup an entire string of emails to be sent in intervals so you can stay in contact with your new list members and quickly convert them into customers. This is a great service to have when you are providing an instructional series or eBook via email, when you provide a series of reviews or when you have planned messages that old list members already received but new ones have not.

An autoresponder does not necessarily have to be tied into your email marketing opt in either. You can set up this kind of service to kick in after somebody contacts you, or you can segment your existing list and begin attacking them with different, automatically sent campaigns.

So really, autoresponders can be put to use with a great optin email marketing strategy, but the two aren’t completely the same. Autoresponders represent a far larger picture of functionality and communication, which if used properly can do wonders for converting a prospect or email marketing lead into a paying customer. An email marketing opt in is designed purely to get people onto your list, and may or may not include any automatic responses.

The great news is that the majority of the best email marketing software providers offer free trials and demos that can help you see firsthand their strengths and their potential. This goes a long way towards helping people understand what they’re getting into.

Companies such as MailChimp, Bronto and Listrak are just a few of the popular choices and all offer flexible and powerful programs. It doesn’t come close to stopping there though, here’s a list with about 100 different email service providers. In the future, I’ll plan on reviewing many of these different providers as well as comparing their services. In the mean time, here are two of my personal favorites.

iContact Web Based Email Marketing Software

iContact is probably the most feature rich, affordably priced email service provider around. They have plans starting at just $9.95 a month, and considering what you get for that price tag, the value is extraordinary. iContact has over 300 templates that you can choose between and the service includes survey tools and blogging and RSS capabilities as well.

You’ll be able to archive your newsletters on the web, and make use of their autoresponder tools to build your company’ list. They have a strong reputation and great deliverability rates, and offer complete list management and tracking services.

Sign up for an iContact free trial here

Constant Contact Web Based Email Marketing Software

Constant Contact has plans starting at $15 per month, scaling up depending on the size of your list. You have a powerful survey tool at your disposal, although you will have to pay an additional monthly fee to use it after a free trial. One of the best things about the Constant Contact web based email marketing software is how easy the interface is to use and get accustomed it.

You’ll have hundreds of templates to choose between, broken down into easy to find categories. You’ll also have a comprehensive tracking system and full list management and segmentation abilities.

Sign up for a Constant Contact free trial here

This was by no means meant to be a comprehensive or complete guide on the best email service providers. It was meant to whet your appetite a bit and get you ready to dive in and try one of these companies out for yourself. The only way to really make a decision that you’re happy with is to learn by doing. Plus, with a free trial, it’s hard to go wrong.

If you’re new to the world of email communications and online marketing, consider one of these web based email marketing software companies to get you and your company started in the right direction.

Reasons to Segment Your List

1. Compare strategy success – If you breakdown your list into targeted email marketing groups, you’ll be able to try out different strategies and compare the success of one another. Divide your group randomly into three smaller sections. Send out different versions of the same newsletter to each group, featuring perhaps different calls to action or different designs. Keep track of the click through and conversion rates and apply the principles of the email that worked the best from now on.

2. Customize your content – The purpose behind email target marketing is that you want to be able to provide the most personalized and customized message that you can to each member on your list. Somebody on California probably doesn’t care that your store in Pennsylvania is having a blowout sale this weekend. An individual household member probably won’t care that you’re offering 25% on all weekly fulfillment orders that exceed $2,000. The name of the game is sending out your messages to people who will be receptive to them.

3. Set upfront guidelines to keep list members happy - One of the most important takeaways for this week’s email marketing tip should be this: your email list members will be happier and more satisfied if you set upfront guidelines for the content they will be receiving. Give new signups the option to select the categories of messages they want to receive, whether its promotions, new products, newsletters or anything else. List members who can select the information they are going to receive will naturally respond better to those messages. Plus, they did the hard work of segmenting your list for you!

Ways to Segment Your List

• Geographic location
• Age
• Household/business
• Type of information requested
• Previous response history
• Prospects/previous customers
• Purchasing history
• Any variable that will help you deliver more specialized and targeted email marketing messages to your list members

If you get started putting this email marketing tip to work now, your results will begin to improve immediately. A segmented list that allows you to achieve email target marketing will be vastly more successful than a generic, one size fits all list.

Top 7 reasons why you need email marketing companies

1. Deliverability: Reputable email marketing programs are going to have relationships with ISPs that ensure that the messages they send get delivered. Manually sending out emails leaves the door open to get unfairly blacklisted or blocked, or seeing long delays before your messages reach their intended audience.

2. Tracking: Email marketing companies provide detailed tracking services that allow you to follow the results of your campaigns. Without tracking the success of your emails, you’ll never know if what you’re doing is paying off and you’ll never understand how to improve.

3. Templates: An email marketing template will enable you to send out a professionally designed and visually appealing email. The best email services have hundreds of potential themes and options to choose between, in addition to allowing for customization of existing templates.

4. Autoresponders: Autoresponders allow you to signup new prospects and leads from your website. This lets you grow a permission based email marketing list of qualified prospects and interested parties.

5. List Management: Email marketing companies are going to handle all of the hard work of list management. This means allowing for and processing unsubscribe requests, segmenting your list into different groups based on a variety of factors and so on.

6. Bulk email service: Bulk email service is going to let you send out hundreds or even thousands of emails instantly. You can scale up your program to allow for a maximum quantity of emails. There is no limit to how many people you can have in your list or how many emails you can send to them.

7. Time saving: Some of the above services could not be accomplished without email marketing programs, while some could be accomplished on your own if you had hours upon hours to do nothing else except handle your email marketing campaign every week. Using a reputable service will save you loads of time and frustration.

Recommended Email Marketing Companies

There are lots of choices to think about when you’re looking at email marketing companies. Here are two of my favorites that I highly recommend for nearly any purpose. These email services are highly effective and flexible, and are extremely cheap to use and get started with.

iContact Try it FREE for 15 Days
– 15 day free trial, over 300 templates, detailed statistics and tracking, surveys, industry leading deliverability

Constant Contact Try it FREE for 60 Days
– 60 day free trial, over 300 templates, surveys, comprehensive customer support