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THE ULTIMATE EMAIL MARKETING GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS

Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing and there’s a reason for that  - it works! Using the power of email, businesses can connect with customers, build brand awareness, encourage brand loyalty, and nurture prospects to become paying customers. 

Since the coronavirus pandemic, email has become even more important to consumers as a way to keep up with brands. DMA’s Consumer Email Tracker 2021 report found that for the first time, the relevance of received messages (55 percent) became the main reason consumers like brand emails, surpassing discounts and offers (53 percent).

But while email marketing may seem like a simple channel to use, there’s an art and science to using it successfully. In this blog, we’ll look at the nuts and bolts of email marketing and give you great examples to gain inspiration for kickstarting your campaigns. 

What is email marketing?

The definition of email marketing is a form of digital marketing that uses email to promote products or services to potential or existing customers. 

Email marketing is an essential channel leveraged by B2C and B2B companies to build brand awareness, grow customer loyalty and drive conversions. 

Why is email marketing important?

Email marketing is one of the most profitable direct marketing channels, with Statista projecting global revenue from email to reach $17.9 billion by 2027. That’s a lot of companies using email successfully! 

Let’s look at three of the most important aspects of email marketing for your business. 

1) Data collection

One of the key reasons companies leverage email is for data collection. As third-party cookies are phased out, getting email subscribers is a great way to collect personal data from people who are interested in your business with consent.

With consumers wanting to protect their information, businesses need to adhere to data privacy regulations such as GDPR or CCPA. Email uses first-party data to collect information in a way that builds brand loyalty and awareness.   

2) Inbound marketing

Email can also help you to attract prospects and leads by using relevant content. So, how can email marketing fuel your overall inbound marketing strategy?   

Email is a great way to engage with prospects who have already shown an interest in your company, product, or service. They do this by opting in or signing up as a subscriber to a newsletter.  

The nature of using email for inbound marketing means that your leads are warmer as they have greater intent and interest in your business. It also means the Return on Investment is higher and costs can be lower as inbound email lists tend to have lower subscribers. 

3) Personalization

As you know who you are making contact with, content and messaging can be segmented and personalized using email. This means you can group lists in a variety of ways by people who:

• Show an interest in a particular product or service
• Have specific preferences e.g. they like cats!
• Are based in the same location
• Are a specific age and gender

The more you know about your customers or prospects the easier it will be to write a prospecting email that gets replies! It’s not about bombarding your lists however, be clever about the frequency and make sure you A/B test subject lines and content to see what resonates.

How to get email marketing lists?

With so many benefits to email, it’s no wonder that companies are looking to start or build their lists. There are several ways to do this.

• Use CTAs - Use clear and directed calls to action (CTAs) on your website or landing pages to urge people to sign up for email updates 
• Use social media - If you use any social media channels, let your users know that you have an email list for special offers or exclusives  
• Offer free downloads - People love freebies, so think about offering a free downloadable ebook or whitepaper  
• Use pop-ups or forms - Pop-ups or forms are common across websites and urge people to give their email addresses to find out more   
• Run a competition - Competitions are a great way to get people to provide personal information, just make sure the offer is enticing enough!
• Advertise a special offer - A discount or a two-for-one offer can urge people to join your email list 
• Offer a blog subscription - If you have a blog, consider setting up a subscriber list to get the latest content. Find out how to start a blog if that sounds like a fit for your business. 
• Get customers involved - You can give existing customers a referral incentive e.g get 20 percent off your next purchase if a friend signs up 
• Ask for feedback - As part of a feedback or testimonial form, ask people to opt-in to email   
• Host a webinar or podcast - These offer high value and people will provide information when signing up 
• Create a newsletter - This can be a good way to keep people up-to-date on new development, discounts or competitions    
• Just ask! - Sometimes it is simply about spreading the word and asking for an email address, you may be surprised how many people like your brand

How to do email marketing: Step-by-step guide

Now that you know the value of email and how to start and bolster your email lists, how do you create and implement an email marketing campaign?  

Collate a list

When you create an email campaign, the key metrics for success are the growth and quality of the subscriber list. You should look at creating lists that are segmented by type. That can be by audience, preference, or category but avoid putting every contact into one pot and hoping it will work! 

Look at what prospects or customers you want to engage and why. Then collate an email list using Excel or your email marketing tool. Label each list clearly so you can find them again easily and also track performance. 

Choose an email marketing tool

There are a lot of email marketing tools out there. So you need to do your research and choose the best one for your business. 

Some tools are free to start using and then charge by the number of contacts in your database. This is why keeping on top of your lists is important as you’ll be paying for each one: so be prepared to audit your lists regularly. A few tools to look into are:

• MailChimp
• HubSpot
• Marketo 
• GetResponse

Check out ‘A Practical Guide to the Top Email Marketing Automation Tools’ to find out how to choose the right one for you.

Plan an email workflow

A workflow is a series of automated emails that are put in a certain order to nurture a prospect or guide a customer to take a certain action. There are a few steps required to set one up:

• Set a goal for your workflow - For example, it could be to convert prospects to enter a free trial
• Create enrollment criteria - This decides who enters the workflow by the settings you choose. For example, it could be anyone who downloaded a specific ebook
• Decide on your email assets - This could be a CTA to drive someone to a blog or a custom landing page for a free trial sign-up
• Create your emails - Once you know your goal and have the assets in place, think about each step in the journey and the touchpoints 
• Include a time delay -  i.e. space the first and second email with a day in-between
• Run a test - Always run a test using a test email before activating any workflow to make sure everything is correct

Make your workflow live and keep an eye on it! - Check-in daily to see that your flows are working and the right people are being added to it. Make any changes or tweaks as soon as possible. 

Plan a calendar

An email calendar is like an editorial or social media calendar. It’s about planning the frequency and audience regularly to target prospects and customers. 

Decide on how often you want to communicate with certain segments or groups and set goals for each campaign. Tracking your email marketing activities by date will help you to see who you are targeting and when. 

You also need to keep times and days in mind when sending. Some will work better than others depending on your audience e.g on a commute or first thing in the morning. Test these out to see what works for your lists.

Plan your Email Campaigns

Download our FREE handy calendar template to get started right away with planning your email campaigns into 2023! It includes a list of key holidays you can plan for and a color coded key to help you organize your campaigns to the max.

Write email copy

Now to the most important bit - the content of the email. As a marketer, you should know your buyer personas or ideal customer/s and understand their pain points. If so, then you’ll be able to target messaging in a way that prompts a click on an email. 

With an email, the subject line is super important as it’s the first thing a person sees in their inbox. Think about A/B testing subject lines with certain groups to compare performance and see if it can guide your copy. 

It’s also key to keep your messaging clear and succinct and use CTAs to direct people to take an action. Use a content and copywriting checklist to keep your messaging clear and focused when writing every single marketing email.

Tip: Check out ‘The Anatomy of an Effective Marketing Email’ to find out all the elements to include to implement a successful email campaign. 

Press the send button

Now you’ve done all the hard work, it’s time to see how your email does in the real world. 

Test before you send (check copy, subject lines, images and ensure your links work), and then let it free! 

Beginner-friendly email marketing campaign examples

When you’re starting it can seem overwhelming to figure out how to set up an email campaign and what content to include. There is a range of different types of email to keep in mind (depending on your goals) when crafting your campaigns:

• Awareness building - new product, welcome, announcement
• Lead generation - downloadable asset, blog article, custom landing page
• Nurture - new offer, additional product, reminder
• Traffic generation - relevant blog article, trial or offer on the website
• Revenue generating - conversion 

Here are a few examples of good email campaigns from some interesting brands, to inspire you. 

Nike - Just In Time Email

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Nike's "Father's Day Gift Guide" direct mail piece reminds you not to forget to give your dad a nice gift for Father's Day and provides a call to action link so you can select something for dad from Nike's gift collection.  This direct mail piece is effective because it is both a promotion for that special day for dad and a branding campaign that does not leave out Nike's famous catch line "Just Do It".     

BuzzFeed - Animals Newsletter

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BuzzFeed's "The BuzzFeed Animals Newsletter" direct mail piece is targeted at animal lovers every where.  BuzzFeed also wants users to know that it offers different newsletters that are dispatched on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. This direct mail piece also includes a call to action box where users can subscribe to their newsletters by entering their email address and selecting their choice of newsletters from a list of 13 newsletters with check boxes.  It's simple and to the point and allows BuzzFeed to target users by their newsletter interests for marketing purposes. 

NerdWallet - Nurture email

Personal finance company, NerdWallet uses email to nurture prospects so they can entice people back who have shown an interest in their service. This example below leads with an enticing headline ‘New ways to get more from your money’ along with including the text ‘New and tailored to you’ to drive personalization. 

The email then uses clear and clever copy to entice people to click on clear actions - ‘Set your goals’ and ‘Start saving’ an attractive opportunity for most people. Clean and colorful imagery also helps to draw the eye with the predominant green, keeping it on brand. 

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NerdWallet's "New Ways To Get More From Your Money" direct mail piece is colorful, attention grabbing and reminds customers and prospects alike that they live up to their motto, "All Things Money, In One Place" by reminding customers and prospects alike that it is "new and tailored to you".  It offers customers tips on how to set goals and start saving with convenient call-to-action buttons. 

COMMENTARY:   This email marketing guide is for beginners, so it offers many examples of direct email pieces from other brands that should be studied so you can create successful direct mail offerings for your customers and prospects. There is no such thing as a "one-for-all" direct mail piece.  Your customers and prospects have different needs and wants.  They differ both demographically and socio-economically.  Having said this, it is important that you know who your ideal customer segments are and you should personalize your direct mail pieces for each customers segment.           

Courtesy of an article dated September 12, 2022 appearing in the Digital Marketing Institute

FACEBOOK MESSENGER FOR ANDROID HITS 1 BILLION DOWNLOADS, FB OFFERS NEW MESSENGER PLATFORM TO DEVELOPERS

Marking a major milestone for Facebook and its mobile messaging ambitions, Android users have now downloaded Messenger more than 1 billion times.

Davis Marcus, head of messaging products at Facebook, boasted in a post on Tuesday.

“Happy to make it to the very exclusive Android 1 billion+ downloads club."  

The achievement is further validation for Facebook -- and its controversial decision to separate Messenger from its core Facebook app, last year."

Indeed exclusive, only Facebook and Google have birthed apps that have broken the Google PlayStore’s billion-download barrier. The club includes Gmail, YouTube, Google Search, and Maps, along with Facebook’s flagship app and its WhatsApp messaging service.

Several months after the move, CEO Mark Zuckerberg used a “town hall” meeting to address the diversification strategy.

“On mobile, each app can really focus on doing one thing well, we think, and the primary focus of the Facebook app, today, is News Feed.”

At the time, Zuckerberg admitted that requiring more than 1 billion users to install a separate messaging app was a “big ask.”  He said.  

"Even though it was a short-term painful thing to ask people to install [another app], we knew we could never deliver the [right] quality experience as just a tab in the main Facebook app."

Despite a healthy approval rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars by Google Play users, some people still resent Facebook’s decision to break off Messenger.

One user complained in the comments sections of Marks’ post.

“U [sic] have got one billion downloads because u [sic] didn't left [sic] any option for users other then [sic] downloading this app.” 

Facebook clearly has big plans for Messenger. Earlier this year, it officially turned the service into a platform for developers to directly distribute their apps to users. Trying to upend customer relationship management, Facebook also recently announced plans to position Messenger at the center of business-to-consumer communication.

 

In addition to purchase confirmations, the Businesses on Messenger program are expected to facilitate direct conversations between businesses and consumers and provide a direct channel for various updates and notifications.

With the big Messenger changes, Facebook is following the lead of Line and other platforms, which have been redefining the definition of a messaging service. Some in the industry see Facebook’s focus on Messenger as a bit defensive.

“Messenger is Facebook’s answer to the growing concern of the younger generation abandoning Facebook, the social network, for messaging apps like Snapchat,” said Greg Ratner, director of technology at Deep Focus, recently told Social Media & Marketing Daily.

Defensive or not, Facebook has recently sought to bolster Messenger with a growing list of features. Just last week, it added a peer-to-peer -- or friend-to-friend -- money transfer service to Messenger.

COMMENTARY:    At Facebook F8 held on March 25, 2015, Mark Zuckerberg announced two major additions to Facebook Messenger:  Messenger Platform and Businesses on Messenger.

Messenger Platform

Messenger Platform enables developers to easily build apps that integrate with Messenger; so that the more than 600 million people who use Messenger can find new, fun ways to express themselves with GIFs, photos, videos, audio clips and more. With Messenger Platform, an app's content can be shared through private and group messages to spark conversations that are creative and expressive, while providing developers with growth and reengagement opportunities.

Messenger Platform apps can display the option for a person to install the app from within Messenger, or to reply using content from the app. If the person receiving the message doesn't already have an app installed, they can tap Install to be taken directly to the app store to get started using the app. This means people can discover apps recommended by their friends, naturally through their conversations.

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With Messenger Platform, developers may also see increased app engagement: If the person receiving the message already has the app installed, they'll be able to tap Reply on an image in a message. Then, instead of scrolling through pages of apps on their phone, they'll be taken directly to the app to reengage and respond with relevant content.

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Some Messenger integrations will also have the opportunity to be featured directly in Messenger via a new tab in Messenger conversations. The tab provides shortcuts to apps people have already installed, as well as new apps they might be interested in trying.

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Businesses on Messenger

In addition to Messenger Platform, Facebook also announced and previewed the first steps they've taken to bring businesses on Messenger with the goal of enhancing how people and businesses communicate. Businesses on Messenger enables things like the following: during the checkout flow on a business's site, a person can choose to start a conversation with a business, receive updates from that business on things like order confirmations and shipping status updates, and ask the business free-form questions about the order, receiving quick responses.

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Facebook's initial partners are online retailers Everlane and zulily.   Facebook is also working with Zendesk to support the live chat experience.  To learn more, please visit messenger.com/business.

Courtesy of an article dated June 10, 2015 appearing in MediaPost Social Media Daily

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THE STATE OF B2B SALES AND MARKETING DATA INCLUDING OVERALL DATA HEALTH RATINGS

Most B2B marketing/sales databases lack key information about prospects and customers, according to a recent report from NetProspex.

The report was based on an analysis of 223 million records in the databases of B2B companies. The researchers examined which commonly required fields were "missing" from each record (the report makes the assumption that each of these data points is necessary, which may not actually be the case for all companies).

Top industries represented in the research study:

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The demographics of the consumers encapsulated in this b2b research study are as follows:

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Some 84% of the records analyzed were missing revenue information and 82% were missing employee information about the lead's/customer's company, the analysis found.

Other common data points lacking from records included:

• Website domain (72% did not include).
• Industry information (71%).
• Phone number (54%).
• Title information (34%).

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The researchers also gave B2B companies overall "health ratings" in various marketing/sales data categories, including email deliverability, record completeness, phone connectivity, and record duplication.

B2B companies in general are doing a good job of dealing with duplicate leads/customers, with 90% of databases containing fewer than 10% duplicates, the analysis found.

In contrast, more than half (54%) of the records analyzed did not include a phone number, and many others were inaccurate, making "phone connectability" poor overall.

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Here's a summary of the overall health of b2b email by deliverability, record completeness, phone connectabilty and record dupication:

• Email Deliverability:  Based on the findings of the b2b research study, overall email deliverability rates continue to introduce unnecessary risk into email marketing programs. While there is an overall trend of improvement over the past three years, the average company database deliverability was still less than optimal, with a Health Scale Rating of 3.2.
• Record Completeness:  Lead scoring, lead routing, effective content personalization and web customization are all highly dependent on having actionable information about each prospect or customer. Most marketers don't have the time to wait for progressive profiling to kick in, and can't afford to compete against fake form data.
• Phone Connectability:  When it comes to improving the demand generation funnel, the ability to reach buyers by phone is fundamental to closing the loop between sales and marketing — and keeping that relationship as healthy as possible. Yet, all too often, marketing databases are filled with inaccurate telephone numbers — or no numbers at all.
• Record Duplication:  Internally, record duplication hinders effective account-based marketing strategies, marketing attribution and ROI analysis. It also increases storage and maintenance costs while decreasing the effectiveness of lead scoring.

Industries scoring the lowest health ratings were as follows:

• Email Deliverability:  Retail and Manufacturing
• Record Completeness:  Media and Software
• Phone Connectability (By Revenue Size):  $5Mil to <$25Mil and $1Bil and Above
• Record Duplication (By No of Employees):  <100

About the research: The report was based on an analysis of 223 million records in the databases of B2B companies.

Courtesy of an article dated June 1, 2015 appearing in MarketingProfs

4Q 2013 EMAIL TRENDS AND BENCHMARKS, INSURANCE CO'S HAVE HIGHEST OPEN RATES, MOBILE EMAIL REV GROWTH TRIPLED

Email volume predictably grew in 4Q13, thanks in large part to holiday mailings, according to a recent report from Yesmail Interactive.

However, volume and subscriber activity rate increases were accompanied by overall open rate and click rate declines.

Messages from insurance firms had the highest average open rate (25.7%) and total click rate (7.8%) in the quarter, Yesmail found. Emails from technology companies had the lowest bounce rate (1.1%), but also the second-lowest click rate (1.6%).

Email Benchmarks by Industry - Q4 2013 - Yesmail (Click Image To Enlarge)

In 4Q13, both desktop and mobile click-to-open rates registered a decline of 2.7% and 5.7% respectively, due to opens increasing at a much higher rate than clicks.

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Below, additional key findings from the report.

Mobile Growth

• In 4Q13, 55% of email opens and 37% of clicks happened on a mobile device, accounting for a 13% increase in mobile opens and 16% increase in mobile clicks between June and December 2013.
• Mobile revenue generated by email in 4Q13 went up by almost triple the rate of desktop revenue (52% vs. 18%), and growth in mobile conversion rate outpaced desktop conversion rate by more than two to one (23% vs. 11%).
• The number of mobile orders generated by email went up by 58% in 4Q13, and accounted for over 18% of all orders placed as a result of a marketing email, a 13% increase over 3Q13.
• 59% of all mobile orders driven by email were completed on a tablet.

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Subscriber Tenure

• Engagement for new subscribers increased 20% in 4Q13, but, unexpectedly, the overall number of newly acquired subscribers went down 11%.
• Engagement for the mature subscriber segment (opted in 3-12 months) increased 7%—and 6% for subscribers with more than a year of database tenure.
• On average, only 14% of all subscribers have been active (opened/clicked) in the last year.

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Activity by Provider

• Of the four major Web-based email service providers—Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail—Google's offering has the most active subscribers.
• 19% of Gmail subscribers have been active within the last year, compared with 10% for AOL, 12% for Hotmail, and 14% for Yahoo.
• Gmail users also accounted for 43% of all new subscribers in 4Q13—up from 39% in 3Q13.
• AOL had the largest base of subscribers in 4Q13 who have never been active (79%).

About the research: The report was based on data from 6.4 billion marketing emails sent in 4Q13.

Courtesy of an article dated February 18, 2014 appearing in MarketingProfs

 

HOW GARY LEVITT STARTED MADMIMI, AN ONLINE EMAIL MARKETING COMPANY, WITHOUT ANY VENTURE CAPITAL

Entrepreneurship isn't solely about selling things. It's also about creating something useful that people need, and executing it to its full potential.

 

That was what Gary Levitt did when he founded his startup Mad Mimi, a bootstrapped email marketing startup that he says now hauls in between $4-8 million in revenue each year.

But it was a strange, long road to get there. Born and raised in South Africa, Levitt was a pro skateboarder and musician before becoming an entrepreneur. He went to Boston when he was 19 to study bass guitar, where he would stay to play jazz for the next five years. His first foray into business reflected that background.

Levitt started a commercial music company in the late '90s, writing jingles. That was when the power of email changed his life, giving him the foundation for the multi-million dollar company he would later found.

Levitt says.

"When I was promoting my music company, I wanted to send an email out because that was sort of a cheap way to get people around you to know about you.  And me coming from an arts background, I struggled to try to create this email, and eventually I hacked it together using DreamWeaver and whatever available software there was to me."

One of those emails made its way to the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2000, and it earned him a big time gig. He would create original music for the show for the next six years.

Then, Levitt decided to switch paths. No more music. There may be something to that whole email thing, he thought, so he began to put together the first pieces of what would become Mad Mimi.

He says. 

"It took about three or four months of me messing around to spend my dev budget of around $13,000.  It really wasn't enough to get anywhere, and I started again with another budget -- cobbled together from friends and family -- of $100,000, which bought me a year of life and a bunch of debt."

Money wasn't the only struggle. Levitt had no technical experience whatsoever, and needed to find help. He bought stacks of books to help him learn everything he could about the business, tech and design of email marketing.

 

But it would take more than just books to make Mad Mimi a reality.

Levitt scoured the web for strong, visionary coders. He says.  

"I went through 86 of the most authoritative developers.  I went through each one, researched them, sent them a personal email and told them a little about the project. Between 30 and 40 of them responded, and one of these people was Dave Hoover."

Hoover, once a family therapist that got into coding to escape the profession, worked for software development firm Obtiva. He thought that Levitt's project had major potential.

Says Levitt,  

"He was really hungry for the gig and thought that it would help build up this new company he was working for.  He just gave me really good energy. So yeah, I thought, Dave is the man."

Levitt's instincts were correct, and the two of them built Mad Mimi from the ground up.

Says Levitt,  

"It was basically me handling all the design, branding and customer service, while Dave would do the whole back end side."

But as with any startup, there were struggles. Things were still rough after raising the money, starting the company and getting Hoover on board, as Levitt worked tirelessly on his new website.

Says Levitt,  

"I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with a family of four. I actually used to work from a coffee shop.  But eventually a couple people find out [about the company], and another few find out, and it just started growing."

Hoover's company happened to grow too. Obtiva was acquired by daily deals behemoth Groupon in August, and Hoover is now a senior engineer there.

As for Mad Mimi, Levitt says that the company has grown to 20 employees, and the service has around 90,000 users, sending out about 30 million emails each day. Its clients range from big brands like Air Canada and Squidoo to local mom-and-pops stores. He stresses that the business is "highly profitable," and that he hasn't accepted any VC money. His crew has been working for the past two years on a new version, which Levitt plans to finally unveil this month.

How'd it manage to be so successful? Levitt attributes it to Mad Mimi's relationship with its customers and product design.

Says Levitt,

"We've never done any marketing.  One of our main ways of growth is shocking people into evangelism. I just pumped every little bit of energy into customer service. When a customer writes in a question, we suggest improvements, redesign their theme, and do all these cool things they wouldn't expect. And they get wowed, adding this virality that spreads on Twitter and Facebook."

Pretty savvy for someone that doesn't have a business background.

Says Levitt,

"As an artist, as a musician, I try to make the best possible music.  I don't do something in order to get something back. I don't think about how I'm going to sell it -- typical starving artist strategy, huh? But I just use all that to produce an impeccably executed product."

So far, it's working.

COMMENTARY:   This is a startup story with a great ending and an excellent example of bootstrapping and raising the intitial capital through friends and relatives.  

What I like about MadMini are the email designing tools you get including some fantastic themes that will give your emails a truly finished and visually professional look.  You could use them in many different ways:  marketing emails, business tips, newsletters, invitations, announcements, and pretty much anything you want to communicate to your friends, fans and email list.

Creating and Sending Emails

MadMimi provides everything you will need under one roof:

List Management  

MadMimi also provides a comprehensive list management: customized fields, easy importing of lists, unlimited lists, automatic suppression of bounced emails and unsubscribes, confirmed opt-in, removal of duplicates, segmentation, exporting mail lists, bulk unsubscribe, manage using MadMimi's own API, and much more. 

Mad Mimi’s Web Form is customizable and oh so easy to install on your website. You can sign up your own subscribers and add them to multiple lists immediately.  Get the data you want and segment your audience for maximum targeting. Customize your welcome messages to say it your way! Schedule your emails, while linking up to your lists, to choose just who to send to at any time without even having to be there.

Email Themes

MadMimi provides a broad arrage of colorful and professional looking email themes.  Here is the theme that MadMimi uses for its monthly newsletter:

You can view some of the sample email themes MadMimi customers have designed HERE.

Reports & Tracking 

Mad Mimi starts tracking immediately. Watch your subscribers relate and react to your campaign. Mad Mimi provides data analytics tools that allow you to Dwelve deep into your campaign statistics to find out what works and track your success in real time. Mad Mimi lets you drill down to see the full activity for each subscriber. Want even more?  MadMimi provides attractive pie charts to targeted individual information, you'll know exactly how your customers interact with your gorgeous promotions in a clear, concise and easy to follow flow. Mad Mimi tracks everything in style which makes it a pleasure to sign in and watch the progress. 

Pricing Packages 

MadMini provides four pricing packages to meet the customers budget needs:

Delivery & Security

MadMini provides its customers peace of mind with secured servers to store your email lists and email content that you have created.  MadMimi partners with reputable and reliable ISPs, mail list providers and the technology to insure that your emails are sent out and results tracked reliably and accurately.

Courtesy of an article dated November 3, 2011 appearing in Business Insider

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PITNEY-BOWES RESEARCH SAYS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING'S BENEFITS RIVAL EMAIL FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Cost-effectiveness and ease of use boost adoption of email and social media

Social media has quickly moved up the ranks of top marketing tactics among small and medium-sized business (SMBs). April 2011 research from Pitney Bowes indicates that by some measures of desirability, it’s in close competition with email.

When asked why they used several marketing tactics, US SMBs were most likely to say they chose social media marketing for its cost-effectiveness (54%) and ease of use (53%).

Respondents were still more likely to rate email as cost-effective and easy to use, but the older online marketing channel was ahead by less than 10 percentage points. No format besides social media approached it in these dimensions.

SMBs also tended to feel nearly as comfortable and knowledgeable with social media as they did with email, ahead of other channels.

Social media fell behind two other marketing tactics—direct mail and advertising—in “proven effectiveness,” however.

Still, its value for money spent has helped social media adoption rise quickly among small businesses. Pitney Bowes found that social media was used more frequently than direct mail, though still behind email and advertising overall. And it was the marketing tactic most likely to have been adopted in the past year, with 20% of respondents having taken it up in that time.

Email marketing software firm Constant Contact also found in April 2011 that usage of social media marketing was more popular among small businesses than direct mail, and behind only email marketing, a company website and print advertising. Four out of five respondents to that survey said they had increased their use of social media marketing in the past year.

Within the social realm, respondents were most likely to use Facebook, and rated it most effective of any venue.

COMMENTARY:   Predictions that email was dead appear to be premature.  The most important bit of information that I guthered from Pitney-Bowes research is that only 20% of SMB's are using social media in their marketing mix. That's not good.  eMarketer research indicated that 50% of small businesses had adopted social media, mostly opening a brand page on Facebook and Twitter, but the new data says its 20%.  I wonder whose right.  

I think group buying firms like Groupon and LivingSocial have stolen social media's thunder.  Most of them use social media, although Groupon has forged a partnership with foursquare to integrate their daily deals.   So watchout Facebook Places, Gowalla and others.

Courtesy of an article dated June 6, 2011 appearing in eMarketer