Listen up all you Joomla users! Using a new Joomla extension you can now add a signup form for your GraphicMail mailing list – it’s easy and it’s quick!
The VERY BEST way for you to gather new subscribers is through a Subscription Form on your site - especially since this method supports opt-in email marketing, an approach that GraphicMail strongly advises

After you have completed the installation, you will be asked for your Login information; the next step prompts you to select the mailing list that you want your users to subscribe to and then it is only takes a few

seconds to add the extension to your site. The whole process is speedy and should take less than 5 minutes from beginning to end – and there is no file editing required…….. absolutely everything can be done via the Joomla Setting!

Keep watching this space for more open source Plug Ins from the GraphicMail Lab!

Let us know what you think about it – post a review in Joomla.

What is Joomla?

Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which gives you the ability to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Joomla has become one of the most popular website software applications mainly because of its ease of use and extensibility and, being an open source solution, it is freely available to all.

GraphicMail is again proving to be one of the innovative email marketing people! Setting our lab rats free to mingle with the social crowd has paid off; they’ve found out that email marketing and social networking are the very best of friends!
As best friends always step out together, our developers are showing their newly found relationship through our footer.

What do we have on offer? Social widgets for the footer of your email campaign!

Maybe you are a member of a social network; maybe you are not, the fact is that most of your readers very probably are. Being members of virtual social groups such as Twitter and Facebook, gives them the ability to interact with “friends” and to exchange ideas, personal notes and review products, etc. It works like this : you add social widgets to the footer of your newsletter – then, when you send it out, your readers can forward it to their friends through their social network chosen from the following:  Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, DiggIt, Delicious and Google Bookmarks. They do this by clicking on the social network link in the footer, which then takes them to that network site. They then receive a prompt to sign in to their social network account, and the newsletter link (URL) can be pasted into their news headline or status line automatically – that’s it!

It’s a simple tool that will have a massive word-of-mouth effect for your business and products. What better way to advertise than to have your own clients recommend you to all of their friends, virtual or not!

Sounds great – but how easy is it to setup in your GraphicMail account?
It’s simple! Follow this route >>> Setup and Options >>> Header/Footer settings >>> from the dropdown, select “Email Footer” >>> click on the “Add social media links on all emails” and you’re done!

The major social network platforms are there now, but we will be adding more in the future.

Social networking is doing wonders for our brand. We now announce our promotions, new features, email marketing tips and more on Facebook and Twitter .

Because we want to assist you in building your reputation in the social sphere too and help you to experience additional online success, we have added this extra feature to the list of your footer customisation choices.

So……… Tweet away, join “The Book”, and Digg your article.

Put the Ho Ho Ho into your seasonal email marketing. Our designer Santa and his helpers have whipped up some festive new templates for you

They are free and this is where we show you how to have fun with them.

So, Ho Ho How do I get them?

If you don't have a GraphicMail account, it's about time to get one and become one of the cool kids on the block. If you already are one of the cool kids, then just sign into your GraphicMail account and, once there, click on ‘Newsletters’ then >>  ‘Select Templates’.

All templates are categorised, and you’ll find the templates for Christmas peeking out of Santa’s bag at the top of our library.

To select your chosen template, tick the check box and click “add templates to my account”. When you’ve done that a green message will appear at the top of the page, to notify you that the template has been successfully uploaded. In the menu, click on ‘Newsletter’ > then > ‘Create’.  Type in a name for your newsletter and select your new template from the dropdown. 

Want different images in your Christmas templates – Here’s how !

First we need to get you into the editor!  Choose the newsletter with your Christmas template and click ‘edit’. Place your cursor in any image that then click on it, and then click on the ‘insert image’ button in the toolbar. A window will pop-up displaying the attributes and current settings of your image. Width, Height, Alignment, image border and vertical spacing are the changes that can be made to the image.

There is also a feature In the popup window that allows you to replace/insert and upload images from your hard drive into your newsletter and straight from your image folder. Just click "update" to complete the process.

I want a totally different template - can I design my own?

Although this could be seen as a bit like wrapping your own present, of course you can. If you don’t like surprises and you’re in the know, you are more than welcome to design your own template. You can create a template in HTML (if you’re an old hand use Notepad, or an HTML software like Dreamweaver if you need a little help), or you can upload your template directly from Word. To achieve this just design your entire newsletter from within a Word document and import it into your account >>  Newsletters >> import/export.  Under the "Get HTML from" section, click on the button ‘Word’ and browse for your doc. It’s a kind of magic….

Knowledge is power !

Did you know that you can choose from over 100 FREE HTML newsletter templates for a wide variety of different occasions, seasons and industries

Or………why not have a unique template designed by our in-house experts – find out how.

Our email practices have been audited and approved by Return Path.

We are part of the largest, most respected whitelist program in the industry.

As a program member, we are part of a network of trust that covers more than 1.3 billion mailboxes!

Along with concise content and good timing, choosing a good subject line for your email is one of the most crucial things to consider. Email marketing is a convenient, yet problematic way of promoting your website or product.

The email subject line must grab the reader’s attention and keep retain it - meaning it has to be catchy and interesting enough for the recipient to take time to open and read your mail. On the basis that ‘You only have one chance to make a first impression’, the subject line is very often the only impression an email makes upon a customer - so mastering the magical one-liner is essential.

Some of the important points you should consider when writing your email subject line for a marketing campaign are:

Use the Recipient’s Name
Try to observe your own reactions when you’re reading the subject lines of emails that you’ve received, the ones that are sure to grab your attention are the ones with your name in the subject line.  Adding the recipient’s name gives conveys the impression that the email was sent personally to the reader. It’s important to note, however, that appending names on every email that has nothing else personalised in it, is a little too gimmicky. So be sure to include something personalised for the customer in the body of the email, otherwise don’t use their names to personalise the subject line.

Solution-Oriented Subject
Rather than using a brand or product name on the subject line, consider writing your subject to propose a solution. For instance, a website that sells and is promoting, antivirus software could have the following subject line; “How to get your computer protected from all viruses” rather than a product oriented subject such as “Brand New Antivirus software released”.

Keep it Intriguing
Leave the customers hanging by putting ellipsis on the subject line(...). This suggests that there is a continuation on the topic, thereby arousing curiosity.
Restrict information to Top ten lists

There is something interesting and attention grabbing about a top ten list because readers tend to like to see valuable information in scannable, bite-size chunks. A concise, informative list delivers more value than endless paragraphs - even if they contain the same amount of information.

KISS – Keep it Short and Simple
The ‘KISS Principle’ is well known in the field of marketing but seems harder to achieve in email marketing. Try to get your message across in two words rather than half-a-dozen as this will allow it to stand out from the rest of the content in the customer’s inbox.

The above points are just some of the basic guidelines you need to follow to create an email marketing campaign that is effective and won’t end up on the recipient’s trash folder. Try to keep in mind that choosing and using the right combination of words is vital in creating that all important, attention-grabbing, email subject line.

Picture this - you have everything in place - a good marketing campaign, you’ve built up a subscriber list, formed the perfect subject line with irresistible content and you even have the click tracking software in place to monitor results. You’ve tested it to a small group of people and received a positive response. These efforts however, will be wasted if you don’t successfully deliver it to the recipient. Email deliverability refers to the success of actually getting your emails delivered to the right person. In the world of email marketing, ‘almost’ is just not enough. Unless your email gets to the recipient, then your job is not done.

If you’re new to the world of email marketing, then you might wonder what the problem of email deliverability might be. You make an email and enter an email address and expect it to be delivered successfully. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way in email marketing; you send to hundreds, even thousands of recipients but not everyone will get your email. In fact, 10% will most likely not.

There are various reasons why your emails are not reaching the intended destinations. The email boxes of the people you’re sending are first assessing your emails and then classifying if it will be sent to your inbox, marked as spam, or automatically deleted.

In order to ensure a high rate of email deliverability you should not try to beat spam filters but rather learn how to work with them.

If you’re hiring the services of a company to manage your email marketing solution, then they must be able to monitor the number of emails that went out and the ones that bounced back due to issues such as full inboxes or bad email addresses.

Aside from these, there are organisations that follow blocking policies and all emails from blocked IP addresses are automatically deleted. Some use blacklist software to identify emails that need to be blocked. There is nothing you can do when your emails are blocked or deleted,. However, there are methods to improve your email marketing campaign in order to reach a far greater number of targeted readers. This is where an email tracking service comes in handy.

This can tremendously help improve your email marketing campaign and can identify other issues that affect email deliverability - such as Content Filters where certain phrases must be avoided so as not to be tagged as spam - and Permission Filters where all emails that didn’t originate from an authorised source are blocked immediately.
All your hard work creating an email marketing campaign and establishing your contact list will be wasted if you don’t track and monitor the deliverability of your email.