......you've caught our eye and, because we think you’re really cute, we’ve sent you a Valentine! 

You’re reading this which makes us think that you’re serious about your email marketing – also we guess that you’ll be spoiling your many admirers with Valentine goodies.  However, if your mailing list has more entries than Don Juan’s, maybe you need a helping hand – with Graphicmail,  who needs cupid? 
 

To take advantage of our Valentine promotion simply signup to a monthly subscription account and GraphicMail will double those subscription credits allocated for your first month!  Not only will you feel twice as loved at half the price, but you’ll be able to romance those fortunate people on your mailing list with some romantic views:  Our designers have created a range of sexy Valentine’s templates – just so you can entice your readers in a really special way.

If you are one of those Casanovas who regularly visits the social sites, look out for our Valentine there too… Your treats await you on our Facebook and Twitter pages on 12 February 2010!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

The GraphicMail mobile marketing tool has now been made even more powerful by giving you the ability to receive responses from your SMS subscribers direct to your mobile phone. 

Previously your mobile campaigns were only ever sent from a default number. You can now send your campaigns from a number that YOU specify, enabling direct and personal responses from each subscriber.

We have named this new function SMS Sender ID and it can be found within the application under Setup & Options >> SMS Setup & Options. It's really easy to use, just supply us with the mobile number you wish to send from and we'll SMS you a verification code that you can then input in your account to activate it

If you do encounter any problems, it may be because your network does not support Sender ID. We have a list of these networks in the help centre which can be used for cross referencing. 

Sender ID is a fantastic new feature that will give flexibility to your mobile marketing campaigns!

Is it your responsibility to manage the job applications within your company – or are you currently seeking a job change yourself ?

Job applicants are left with a feeling  of being in limbo as with no follow-up after the interview whilst employers complain that they do not have sufficient time to respond to all of the applicants who were not successful. Although applicants do not want rejection, it is a vital part of the recruitment process to keep all of them; successful and unsuccessful, informed and the way you do this has a direct effect on your company’s reputation. So, how can you keep everyone informed in a time efficient way ?

I think we may be able to assist. GraphicMail offers an email marketing solution that gives you the ability to automate your communications using personalised emails. You can also keep a close watch on the communication flow with the free reports and analytics tool available on each account.

It works !

Just post your job advert online and add a subscription form which will capture all the vital data, such as email address, name, surname, educational degree and area of expertise. This information is then sent automatically to your GraphicMail account where it is added to your mailing list, with all the additional data collected. You can organise it so that the applicants instantly receive a thank-you note using a triggered-email setup and scheduled beforehand.

Having done that, you can screen the information according to education and area of expertise. You can set up an mail campaign for those who you are further considering, and one for those who have not been successful. In the email to the suitable candidates, you can ask them to then submit their CVs to you - which is a much more efficient and time saving way than obtaining CVs from every original applicants and then having to labour through them as attachments! You can then send an email of rejection to the rest of the candidates. To maintain a high level of respect and to keep the communications personal in spite of the automated process, you can personalise each mailer and, furthermore, send it from your own personal email address.

Why should you consider using Graphicmail in this process ?

Reputation, reputation, reputation; because, not only are today’s candidates selling themselves to you, you must also sell yourself to them in your response. Your company image is never more in the spotlight! You can never be sure that today’s rejected applicants are not going to become tomorrow’s new employees, and even if they don’t, it’s your company’s reputation that is at stake. In a time when consumers rely heavily on the testimonials and recommendations of other consumers, it is imperative to communicate timely and in a highly professional manner. Remember that we live in a world, where everything can be published in an instant - and by anyone – there are ever-growing social networks and blogger sites !

Even before the sound of those New Year Bells has subsided, people in their millions have already begun to break one or more of those resolutions that have become a familiar part of the season’s activities; the resurgent desire to improve upon the past year, be that our health, wealth or emotional standing. To be fair on ourselves, maybe some of those ‘promises’ were just too unattainable to be called ‘Resolutions’ but, at least the good intention was there. On that same theme, here is a short list of email resolutions that you may want to sustain. Hopefully, unlike the ones we’ve just talked about, you will find these easier to follow – mainly because they are more a recap of important email marketing advice

1. Wealth – cleanup your mailing list and save money

Don’t continue wasting your send credits on those recipients who don’t read your email. Some can’t be bothered to unsubscribe, others have forgotten their subscription and now consider you as spam. So now’s the time to check your Reports and Statistics and make that decision about which of those ‘offenders’ to delete. If you delete any that haven’t read your newsletter for 6-months but are truly interested, you can be sure they’ll track you down and re-subscribe
If you have become too attached to any and can’t let them go then send them a nicely worded email asking if the still want to receive your newsletter and if they don’t ask them for reasons that they don’t – you’ll probably pickup some great tips + hints – you may also retain some of them.

2. Emotional - make use of the advanced features and Save time,
Take full advantage of the powerful advanced features on the GraphicMail system - they’ll save you time and make your life a great deal easier.

Some of the advanced features are :
a)  Subscriber Segmentation: A powerful tool which allows you to profile your customers according to criteria you have set. Use the tools that allow you, for instance, to send a newsletter about animals to just subscribers who are interested in animals. You’ll need to test it to find out more!

b)  Connecting to an external datasource: This allows you to link to your database and pull out information needed for your email campaign. With this function you don’t need to upload your datasets and maintain your data in more than one place.

3. Emotional - Stay "cool" - integrate your email newsletters with social media
For those of who you do not have a social media strategy in place – now is the time to get one! You can start with the two most basic & popular websites – Twitter and  Facebook. With GraphicMail you are can easily integrate your subscription form onto your Facebook page. By Including social media links in your email marketing message you can gain subscribers through your own social media pages.  These are two free reach extenders that will yield fantastic results. The rumour is that 2010 will be the year of the application and social media, even more-so than 2009 so now is a good time to start and tweak your current campaigns.

4. Emotional - Save face, monitor your Reports & Stats, check for hard bounces and make improvements

Being marked as a spammer will get you get a bad reputation. To avoid this nasty label spend some time deleting old subscribers from your mailing lists - they could be marking you as spam. Time spent analysing your stats carefully and studying ways to improve your open rates is never wasted. Personalise your subject lines making sure you avoid using use key spam terms with words such as "free", "bonus" or "order now". The only way you could possibly get away with using these words is if you combine them with strong keywords – or maybe create an image to display to word instead of text. And NEVER, NEVER put your subject line in capital letters. I also advise that you ensure that your recipient/s know who the email is from. Do this by amending the “from” line.
Analyse the design of your email to improve click-through rates. Do your links stand out? Are they clear? Do they look like links? Do they give your reader a reason to click them – use words of encouragement, even enticement!

5.  More Emotion - Check your image, engage your subscribers

There are lots of ways to engage your subscribers – you just need to think outside the box! Focus on the content. Is it well written and funny? Or is it long and dreary? You need to grab your audience straight away – your readers will not waste time reading a newsletter that is uninteresting or boring, so use bold headings in articles and use bullet points as they’re easier on the eye and more simple to read. When using images, use strong and emotive ones; a stretched, pixilated image looks very poor and unprofessional – also ensure that you have a good balance of both text and images.

Conduct a few tests. Send out one newsletter with a quirky subject line and look at your stats. The next time you send, use a longer subject line and cross compare the two.

Think about other aspects : the time of day you send your newsletter. Are people going to open your newsletter at 5 pm on a Friday? No! The most faithful of your subscribers is probably halfway out the door by then - and come Monday morning your newsletter is lost amongst the hundreds of emails that have made their way onto his monitor screen ( probably to be deleted on the basis that “If it’s important they’ll send again” ) they won’t have the time to read a newsletter. Any later than that and they have forgotten about it!

So - spend some rewarding time working on that subject line!

6. Wealth – Make savings - use new metrics such as the ROI calculator

Use GraphicMail ROI calculator to determine the Return On your Investment from each campaign. All you need to do is fill in the fields in the calculator; and the more accurate your numbers, the more realistic and meaningful will be your result.

7. Wealth - Retain your popularity - Get more subscribers

Offer competitions, promotions and viral campaigns to draw in the masses. Promote these on your website to build your own brand awareness.  The result will be an increase in your readership !

8. Health – Save your sanity – set reminders
This is a really good idea ( which also works well for other lifestyle activities ) - Enter an aide-memoire notes within your diary– at 3-month intervals, “Re-read my email Resolutions list” – this will just give you a nudge which will make sure you at the top of your game with these ‘Resolutions’ 

Good luck - Make 2010 your year!

Bet you thought Christmas was over. Well, not for everybody ! Father Christmas has had to organise an extra round of deliveries to deliver some surprise presents from GraphicMail!
Congratulations go to…………..

Lee Chilvers, Simon Page, Linda Ellis, Kathy Knight, Luke Chisholm and The PixelZoo who have all won fantastic prizes in the GraphicMail 2009 Christmas competition which we ran on both Twitter & Facebook throughout December.

The first prize of an iPod Touch goes to Kathy Knight and the PIxelZoo

Additionally, we gave all our winners an email marketing boost this year with a free 6-months account and those who came second won a custom-made designer newsletter template.

We are looking to give away more free stuff in the future – so, for your chance to win, watch this space and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Have you seen the GraphicMail powerful eflyer creation suite ? It is going to make it so much easier for you to manage your brand image. The full suite of tools and eflyer templates is just waiting to help you to send out your announcements, product updates and promotions.

You’ll now be able to create and customize eflyer campaigns using GraphicMail's extensive template library and easy-to-use online content editor. You can pull in content from your website, you can also pull in external content that you’ve created offline, these can then be included in your email marketing campaigns.

Tracking your sends using GraphicMail could not be easier – by checking the reports you can instantly see how many were sent; how many were delivered, who opened your eflyer, which links they clicked on, including click-throughs to your website. Why not test us today ? – you can see how a GraphicMail eflyer campaign can assist you to increase revenue and sales for your business - take the no obligation, free trial.