Monday, 20 December 2010, 8:44 AM
Everyone’s always asking about buying email addresses. It’s just a couple of thousand? That’s all right, right? After all, there are plenty of companies here in Sweden, and the rest of the globe selling addresses, so what’s the problem?
Most email suppliers point out very explicitly in their user agreement, that purchased email addresses, or addresses obtained in some other creepy and obscure way, are NOT allowed on the email lists. Principally because it looks good on their part. But the point is, they’re out there, these addresses are floating around in cyberspace, and email suppliers aren’t incognizant of this. Many email suppliers solve this little mini problem by sending to these suspected email lists from lower priority IP addresses. They send from sources where they know that they, in the worst case scenario, might run into a few unsavory bumps: being blacklisted at the receiving servers. Am I saying that everybody does this? No, but it happens.
It’s irresponsible, and no one is the winner in the long run – well, except for the companies that sell the addresses.
Put your 20/20 business glasses on and work for the far sighted end. Create great, quality email lists. Doing this will give you excellent results, and more possibilities in the long run. The e-commerce world of tomorrow will without a doubt… demand this.
By Christopher Mansson
Friday, 17 December 2010, 8:33 PM
…Round and round.
Yep, we promised you lots and lots of inordinately helpful articles for getting started, and just an overall, better understanding of email. If you venture your mouse clicker thing over to the “Articles” tab, you will indeed find a new article about the differences between email marketing and email sales. An extremely interesting and helpful article, rated “E” for “Everyone”, the email wise and the the email not-so-wise.
There’s plenty more where this came from, and we’re extremely excited to deliver more of these essential baby steps in email!
The article is HERE if you’re feeling mouse tired.
The I Love Email Crew
Friday, 17 December 2010, 8:04 PM
I have to say, I’m no big fan of Christmas cards. Fours years of working at the Post Office scarred me for life. Yes, it was a long, long time ago now, but still… I can’t stand looking at them.
So if you insist on sending a greeting to me, can you please email it? Oh, and no Santas.
Here’s some inspiration for all of you out there who can’t wait to send out those jolly email Xmas cards.
Here he is, the one, the only, the fake – Santa Claus! Directly from an 8-bit eighties computer game. If you click the little bird you’ll end up in Anna Yeaman’s Twitter account. Fun idea.
Web version
And here he is again, Santa! Nice header with a simple design.
Web version
This is also looks great, in all its simplicity. I don’t think we need much more than this, do we?
Web version
I like this one. A little different, animated speech bubbles, colorful, and… I don’t have to see a single Santa.
Web version
A big thanks to Campaign Monitor for all these examples!
By Christopher Månsson
Sunday, 12 December 2010, 11:05 PM
Last Monday I had yet again the privilege of visiting Responsys in Copenhagen. I was there to learn more about how they help their customers to make their way from creating ordinary and traditional newsletters, to integrating email, social media, the web, and mobile. But, in a dialogue that is adapted to the customer. This means that you communicate with the customers, then check statistics from all channels to see what your customers think, where they are in the buying process, and how you build a good relationship.
I’m thrilled when I hear representatives from an email supplier say that it’s better to send less emails, but make them sharper and more precise. Last Monday, it was Lisa Harmon who let me hear those lovely words produced (au contraire to what you would normally expect a supplier to say). We don’t need to send one email to let the customers know that they’ve collected however so many points, another one telling them that they’ve abandoned their shopping cart, and one more to remind them about a “limited time only” sale. No, no, no, send all of this information in one email. Show them how many points they have, which products they’ve jilted in their shopping cart, and some basic customer related reminders. Simpler, easier.
I’ve said before that I really like Responsys, but that’s because they make sure that their customers are brought up to a fairly sophisticated understanding and prowess with email, and other channels of interaction. And it’s clear that they know what they’re talking about, because they have such a huge variety of examples of customers that they talked about.
Something else that I noticed. Lisa was showing us a brilliant example of how you can increase the number of signups for a newsletter by using multiple different channels. (The example used showed an 800% increase! Crazy!) I know that there are so many companies out there that want more email addresses… And they want them so badly that they are ready to go over to the ”dark side”, yes… to buy addresses. But here is where Lisa pointed out that just a little thought and a whole lot of creativity can give you some high quality email addresses. One acute listener wanted to know what the results were in sales. Lisa said that it’s difficult in such a short period of time to know exactly how much sales have increased… But, it’s an investment for the future. It’s inevitable that it will increase your sales, and most importantly… create good relationships with your customers.
Lisa flourished. She pointed out – in a much more pleasant way than I would have – that it’s all about creating good relations, not short-term sales. If you only see sales in front of you, it will increase… but only for a short time – and then decrease again. But how will you ever get these customers back? Mmhm.
Build long-term relations, and the subscribers will come streaming in.
Thanks so much Lisa and Martin! For letting me attend, and I hope to see you both very soon!
This is our dynamic email fighting duo below.
Lisa Harmon and MartinWammen from Responsys.
(Us Swedes have to learn how to turn off our cell phones and respectfully listen the whole morning, without running in and out of the room. The Danes prevail at this… but then again, it was a very captivating morning.)
Sarah@@@@@
Friday, 10 December 2010, 1:52 PM
So as we said before, we are doing a lot of work to the website right now. So what you’re going to see is slower blog posts and bunch of articles and changes being put up.
Yesterday, one very significant change happened. The “Who Are We” section was added.
Please, migrate your mouse to the tabs and click. And something equally as significant will be happening in the next few days, we’re throwing up some pictures of the team!
Much Love From Our Email Loving Hearts,
ILoveEmail.org
