Whether you’ve had your Paypal abused, credit details stolen, logged into Facebook only to see a few naughty statements made in your name or whether you’ve electronically been pronounced dead sixteen times - we’ve all been touched by cybercrime.

We hear about it all the time: Online retailer Play.com recently reported that some of their customers’ personal data may have been compromised, and that their users might be sent spam e-mails containing harmful links. TripAdvisor users’ email accounts have been hacked in to during March. Millions of people were at an increased risk of email phishing after a giant security breach at Epsilon, which is having an effect on some of the USA’s largest concerns, such as JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, and Walgreens.

Our lives are becoming entwined with technology. Often we are forfeiting security and placing our privacy in jeopardy, all for the sake of speed and convenience. Electronic villains have had a rampant turkey-shoot at online users, almost nearly all the way back to the days of the abacus.

As long as there is a channel and a means, there will always be a certain amount of associated illicit behaviour: more or less guaranteeing that your granny will consistently be on the back foot, shielding her life savings from a kid learning how to hack mailing lists from knitting sites out of his room in Vodka-oozing Vladivostok.

But some brave companies are standing strong. GraphicMail, a web-hosted self-service email marketing provider dedicated to helping small businesses and organizations, has tightened its security once again, after serious new breaches in the email industry. The first quarter of 2011 has seen a surge of severe electronic security breaches via email marketing, and only the best measurements possible will stave off these consumer assaults.

With an infrastructure that is designed to protect clients’ sensitive personal data, all efforts are made to ensure that no person or entity other than the owner of the data can access it.

Speaking passionately about this cringing subject, Ernie Retief, CTO at GraphicMail says: “By using SQL server security together with IP restricted access, our data is secure. What this means is even if you have all the information about our setup, with all the database passwords, you won’t have access if you’re not on the correct IP address. “

This is accomplished by their top of the range Cisco routers and firewalls. Cisco is the industry leader in network speed, security and reliability. So all the holes are covered by Cisco-certified superheroes.

CTO Ernie elaborates: “Our application is also written with malicious attacks in mind. We use external companies to conduct monthly attacks on our code to look for any loopholes. We also undergo a network audit every few months to make sure our security is in order.”

Jeff realized the hard way that he should have gone with GraphicMail

Ready to unwrap?

Grab the sensational images!

Our designer Elves have been busy again in the run up to this Festive season and have created a complementary template especially for our GraphicMail clients.  What could be better than a free template? The fact that it also comes with a range of custom images.  So, you select the template and then get to choose which of our seasonal images you’d like to insert in the image placeholders.  You can take a sneaky peek at all the available images here.
Simply copy the code or the URL of the image and insert it into the template.  How simple is that?.

If you are a new user of GraphicMail we'd like to give you a little something special this festive season, Sorry there's no virtual mince pies and sherry but how about...

Double credits this season!

GraphicMail trial users get double credits if they upgrade to a subscription account by 24 December 2010.*  So if you are considering signing up with one of the World's Leading newsletter software packages now is the time to do it! Check out our subscription options and low cost pricing.

*This offer is not valid for trial users who sign up to a Reseller or Corporate account and only valid when paid by credit card.

I recently posted a blog article about subscriber segmentation and how, using it thoughtfully can greatly benefit your email campaigns.  I have since come across this excellent case study on Marketing Sherpa. It highlights how TicketsNow.com, a US company specialising in online ticket sales, has increased their email marketing revenues by 322% -directly through segmentation!

The case study describes how the company changed their email marketing strategy to draw their customers more closely to the brand with the aim of optimising those of its subscriber/ customers with a history of being bigger spenders

They segmented their customers by spending habits and their interests, making them able to aim the newsletter in a much more focused way. 

They also introduced three customer loyalty programs:  Named ‘Preferred Customer Clubs’; customers gained automatic membership dependant on their annual spending $1,000+, $3,000+ or $8,000+.  Upon gaining membership they were sent consumer incentive offers such as free shipping or use of an exclusive customer support line. Members of these clubs received emails which were directly targeted to their membership level and even past click-throughs. In addition, they received more personalised emails reminding them of upcoming events that they had purchased tickets for, plus extra, related information, such as discounts available from restaurants close to the event. Following each event they sent out an email with reviews from other customers and offering the chance to submit their own revue, giving their customers the ability to not only engage with the brand on a more social level, but also to become part of a ‘community’ of loyal customers who interacted with each other with individual recommendations and reviews.

So, what began as a segmentation exercise resulted with enviable customer-relationships and loyal & interacting customers – plus that 322% increase in sales conversions! All achieved through their email marketing campaign and, as if that weren’t enough, their subscriber list grew by 87% and their complaint and unsubscribe rates fell too.

Mark Hodes, Senior Vice President of Customer Marketing for TicketsNow.com, said of the campaign: "I think it proves that more (targeted) email can only help keep people engaged and keep them more active as repeat customers.”

 
When it comes to the subjects of segmentation and targeted email marketing, campaign stands out as a perfect example of how to put it into practice.  Although it may sound intricate, all the tools to achieve this are sitting in your Graphicmail account just waiting to be used. Just refer to my previous article for the 1^st step – subscriber segmentation which shows you how to customise your subscription form and set the automated subscriber segmentation tool. Then, using TriggerMail you can setup event reminders such as those sent out from TicketsNow.com.

With a little thought you can combine both TriggerMail & segmentation to engage your customers within a campaign which they feel a part of and is relevant to them, making them more likely to respond to it

Remember the blog article that I posted about the power of social media?  Well maybe, as a result of that and the speed at which social media has grown in the online marketing world; you’re wondering ‘If that can be accomplished with just Facebook and Twitter, why do I need email Marketing?’

eMarketer recently reported that social media usage is on the increase and the new Marketing opportunities that are presented go a long way to explaining the attraction of Social Marketing. That said, it was less than a month ago when Marketing Sherpa’s weekly chart was indicating that marketers are still impressed by email marketing and believe it to be as rewarding as ever. Which begs the question; ‘Which is the most effective?’

Some find that it’s not the easiest question to answer, but this case study by MarketingVox, illustrates perfectly the effective differences between email and social media marketing.



Email marketing has the ability to convert twice as many sales as social media.

When all is said and done, the benefits gained from marketing a healthy brand and keeping it highly visible and well-recognised across all marketing channels, are not as useful as converting that interest into sales – that, after all, is where the money is!

How do they compare?

Mary Spio is a partner in Gen2Media, an agency in the music industry working with such big names as John Mayer and The Black Eyed Peas.  She studied two of their music artists, (she referred to them as A and B, so I’ll stay with that). She compared their different marketing approaches and how that effected their individual sales.

Artist A, got over 20 million views on the social network, YouTube - but showed no real interest in email marketing campaigns.  Artist B began by implementing an email campaign to enable direct contact with fans. Using a list of 2 million subscribers he launched a personalised email campaign over a full weekend which offered his subscribers exclusive tracks through iTunes.  In just those two days his email campaign raised $ 700,000.

When it is properly managed, Social media is a fantastic tool for attracting an audience of existing and potential customers to your brand but it is a mass-communication tool.  Yes, it’s also true that email is a mass-communication tool, but it is more personal! With email you take your communication to an individual follower, addressing them by name and through their own inbox. 

Which is the winning strategy?  As a firm believer in ‘Having your cake and eating it’, I prefer to have the best of both worlds.  The art is in knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each tool and using them so that they complement each other.

As highlighted by this case study, it’s great to broaden your reach using social media but we must never lose sight of the fact that consumers respond much better when they are treated as individuals.

With email marketing you can target your subscribers individually, creating the foundation to build your own loyal customer base.  Not to mention, converting those sales.

Whether you are a casual follower or an ardent fan, you cannot fail to be aware of the forthcoming  WORLD CUP in South Africa. That also goes for your readers and you know us, ever on the ball ( yes, that pun WAS intended ) so we asked our Design Team to join our enthusiasm and create some themed templates to help us out – see below……..

So kick-off ( ! ) your past designs and set your goal ( oops, there we go again ) to engage your readers in your own version of soccer fever.

Are you one of the many Graphicmail users who diligently follow the links to our blog that we post on Twitter and Facebook? If you are, you may have already seen the blog article about the online revolution. If not, it’s worth checking out as is this video which contains some social media statistics that you may find interesting. It’s becoming more obvious every day that email is recognized as the top performing direct and online marketing channel so, it makes sense that combining email and social media is going to have a massive impact and to help with this we have released a new way to compliment them both.

Social share

This tool lets you publish your email newsletter straight to your Twitter account.  The newsletter title together with a link to your full newsletter will then automatically appear as a tweet – with no manual intervention form you!

As Twitter each Tweet to 140 characters, you will be delighted to hear that The Graphicmail Development Team have created another helpful gadget called GMtiny which is our very own URL abbreviator – it shortens your newsletter link, reducing that overlong and unsightly URL to just a few characters. How handy is that?

Not content with that, we have already begun work to extend this feature so that you will be able to publish across even more social networks. Next one; Facebook! Keep watching, we’ll notify you when this happens.

But, if you’re not already involved, don’t wait for that, start now by using our new social share tool to enhance your brand exposure online. Expand your subscriber audience and give your sales a boost by engaging more fully with these potential customers.

And, don’t forget – Graphicmail is also on Facebook and Twitter. Go there now, be a friend and follow us. We really enjoy reading about what our followers are doing.

Whilst you’re at it, check out the Graphicmail tools which you can use to insert social widgets in your footer – then, after your newsletter goes, check the social widget statistics section in your reports.

One of the main factors in achieving a positive result from your email marketing campaigns is the quality of your mailing list. So the art is to acquire the email addresses of those people who will consider your email to be of value. This “Opt-in” list will, of course, increase your response rate which enhances your reputation and prevents you being labeled as a spammer and, having a positive reputation is a sure pathway to increased business. The alternative, buying an “Opt-out” list which is comprised of people who receive a mailshot which they have not asked for with the ‘excuse’ that if it is unwanted they can “Opt-out” meaning they unsubscribe. As users of this “Scattergun (let’s pull the trigger and see if we hit something) Approach” have discovered; the vast majority of recipients DO NOT want to receive the message, the recipient’s ISP is NOT IMPRESSED and the sender waits an indeterminate period in the misplaced hope that some of those ‘hits’ will respond by buying ‘something……… anything ! ’.

So how do you go about complying with “Best practice” ?

First - spamming should be looked upon in a similar way to theft because, if someone gets an email that they have not opted-in to receive, this amounts to their email address having been ‘stolen’. As someone who is sending marketing emails, it makes sense to have a working knowledge of international spam laws – this, together with knowledge of local legislation helps to maintain your credibility. Whilst some countries legally require ‘Affirmative Consent’, in the USA the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 demands that all recipients have given their Express Consent to receive the message. According to this act, all bulk emails are considered to be SPAM when containing material which may be offensive to the recipient, it displays no unsubscribe option, the [from] address is not visible or not correct, has a subject line which is misleading or the recipient email address has been stolen from other websites or online locations.

Second - It would be pointless to spend hours creating an email newsletter without a list to send to which makes it essential to create your own ‘houselist’. The very best and safest way to gather new subscribers is to create a signup form and direct people to it. It is very acceptable to incentivise this, which can be done very cost effectively if you offer one of your own products or services which has a much lower cost to high retail value. It is recommended that you go for the double opt-in ( DOI ) process. This means that the subscription application will generate a confirmation request email which they need to click to activate their subscription and by following this simple system you will avoid falling foul of the ISPs. Another good idea is to add a { signup to our newsletter } link in the email signature of everyone in your Company, also have it printed on the bottom of your quotes and invoices and posted to a company blog. Why not collect email addresses over the phone to add them as subscribers ? If you do this, put a column in the data specifying the date, time and who took their details,  in case you need to provide the “ OPT-IN “ proof

Third – as more than 80 percent of participants prefer to do business with organisations that use the opt-in, permission-based system to send them emails it is essential to provide a clear link to the privacy policy in your signup form. This optimization can be further enhanced by use of a ‘thankyou’ page or a pop-up displayed to new subscribers – it can also be used to welcome them and point them toward the newest release or tell them when to expect their first email / newsletter. If you are using double opt-in, this page can supply the link to click and confirm their subscription and once subscribed you can direct these confirmed subscribers to a ‘confirmed page’ to see incentives such as a promo-code, corporate gifts and vouchers.

What to avoid when gathering email addresses - 5 DON'Ts 

1 – Don't opt-in to the opt-out approach

Financial pressures can convince otherwise law abiding marketers to consider sending bulk emails to those who have not agreed to receiving emails from them. This is a big mistake as the emails are usually not relevant or valuable to the recipient. Big lists do not mean good lists. The problems that this ‘opt-out process’ causes are not immediately obvious but they can have a very long-term detrimental effect on your company’s brand and deliverability. Recipients of emails that they have not agreed to may not make their complaint directly to the sender but may make their complaint directly to their ISP or, even their social network; Facebook and Twitter are great platforms for posting such complaints.

2 - Don't buy lists of email addresses

The list you are intending to buy may have been collected from a Market Research Exercise, from financial institutions or even obtained from websites by ‘automated crawlers’. These bought-in lists most often result in SPAM complaints which damage your reputation with both the ISPs and prospective clients. Email marketing is all about building up long-term relationships not just one blast, so it’s imperative that you have the patience to build up a quality list.

3 – Don’t overlook those non-active addresses

It’s after your houselist is compiled and you have sent out your first couple of campaigns that the real fun of tracking begins! As you check your reports & statistics you will notice a number of recipients who haven’t ‘joined in’– no interaction; no purchasing, no opens, no clicks. Doing this task regularly will highlight those in your list who haven’t taken any action over a long period, so it’s important to be aware of them and to take action; it’s important that your list is maintained and kept clean as some of the older, inactive ones may lead to blocking or filtering by ISPs, so best to act before you are labeled a Spammer. In a recent survey by the Messaging Anti-abuse Working Group, 22% of users admit that emails that they once asked for but no longer want, they now treat as Spam. Your action can be to either remove them or start some retention marketing which could result in reactivating them, so send them a quality ‘special offer’, a survey or a specially targeted message. Maybe don’t email them as often and spend a bit more time personalising the content for that particular audience. The secret is to segment your database so that you can easily contact active and/or inactive addresses as required.

4 – Don't expect instant results

Your list is comprised of subscribers who have agreed that they want to hear from you but don’t expect a flood of activity from day one! Your list is not a target for a major sales drive, it will need to be tested constantly to cement your customer’s loyalty to your brand. Seek advice from experts, pay attention to what your peers have to say and check what the competition is doing. Sending a generic message could give a response of 0.3% whereas a well thought-out message sent to a highly-targeted, segmented niche list could score in the region of 50%.

5 – Don't separate your email campaign from your overall marketing strategy

When considering growing your database and online community it’s best to integrate your email campaign within your overall marketing strategy. Pull together all the alternative marketing opportunities; press releases, competitions, event sponsorship and attending trade shows.

In conclusion; it is always worth remembering that it is more costly to acquire new customers than it is to look after the existing ones. It always makes sense, and much more so in the current economic climate, to encourage your existing customers to remain loyal to your brand

As we are regularly providing you with hints, tips & features which we hope you will use to enhance your email campaigns, we thought you may be interested to see a case study from a major media company who optimised the entertainment email that they send out every week, with a series of small changes that they found showed incremental lifts in key metrics, including four tactics that were aimed at simplifying the overall template look and clarifying the calls-to-action. 

•    They reduced the number of articles in the newsletter.
•    They moved the images and the calls to action so that they displayed above the email fold.
•    They added a navigation bar so that it appeared at the top of their newsletter.
•    They applied A/B split testing so that they could test the effectiveness of differing subject lines – one against the other.

If you would like to see how they implemented these changes and the results that were yielded for their campaign click here. Once you have done that, why not try implementing some of the changes yourself using the GraphicMail tools and features? 

Here are some ideas to help and inspire you:

•    Conduct A/B split tests
•    Read the blog article on forward-thinking email design
•    Create a call to action by adding social widgets
•    Learn how to become an email marketing pro

 Click here to read the full article

Are you experiencing problems with your deliverability?  If so, the header can often shed some light on the issue. The header is basically a tracking record of all the route the email you sent took and all the stops it made along the way to get to the inbox.

Just like sending something across the country by post emails also need to stop off at various points, the headers show you this exact route and reveal these stops. They also show the details of the sender and the recipients. Headers also reveal more about the different ISP's through the information they chose to include

Every email landing in an inbox is given a header. So why haven't you seen one? This is more than likely because each email client (that's the service or program you use to read you emails - like Outlook, Hotmail, Googlemail etc) hides these headers in a different way. They are hidden from view because unless you're an email marketer trying to find out more about your email deliverability, the header is not that interesting to see. So with each email client hiding them differently and being tricky to find we thought we'd ask our own deliverability guru, Shaun Swanepoel, to assist you in the search.  True to form, he immediately pointed us in the direction of this guide to finding the headers in popular email services, clients or programs. 

If you’re still in the dark as to what deliverability is or how it works, you can watch our YouTube video.

Everyone tells us that using Graphicmail is as easy as ABC – well here’s another slant on that …… it’s called A / B testing. It’s here to help remove most of the guesswork out of “What to say, what to send “ and to get you some feedback BEFORE you send – how’s that for a great feature ??

Before A / B testing you had to send out your mailing, then check your reports & statistics in order to analyse how the opens/ click throughs compared with previous sends so you could work at improving your next mailout. After all, your newsletters are all designed using a similar template layout aren’t they? Well you now have a friend in Graphicmail = the split test feature

A/B split testing has been developed to help you to assess which strategies and techniques work best for your email marketing campaigns, which, roughly translated, means that you can now test what your subscribers like best.

It works like this; you draw up different variations of your newsletter, then you send each of these different newsletters to separate percentages of your contacts.  This allows you to see how each of those percentages reacted to the different newsletters. You can then select the one that worked the best and send that particular newsletter to the remaining subscribers in that list. 

So, A/B split testing gives you two options:  The first one allows you to select 5 newsletters to compare – maybe they have the same content, but each having a different image or subtle changes in the layout/design or content.  (You don’t need 5 different newsletters in fact, you can just do a couple if you prefer.)  You can, as an alternative, test up to 5 different subject lines for the same newsletter – using different tones or varying the length.

So, if you choose to send the test to 10 % of your mailing list and you want to compare 2 newsletters, then 5 % will receive Newsletter-A and 5 % will receive Newsletter-B.  When you’ve checked which one was most effective/successful, that’s when you send the ‘winning’ newsletter to the remaining 90% of your mailing list and, as the system keeps note of those who received which version of the test, nobody receives your newsletter twice!

Wondering how to assess which one worked the best? 

It’s really easy, and it’s also your choice!  You decide what is most important to you and to your business:  You just check how many recipients clicked to open your newsletter, or how many clicked the link to your website.  The A/B split test automatically assesses according to your settings and you receive a report showing the statistics and the status of your send.

There are no restrictions, you can use A/B split testing as often as you like, in fact, the more you use it to test and improve, the better will be the results of your campaigns, increasing the likelihood that you will stay on top of subscriber trends.  The more, the merrier!