‘Admail Services’ Articles

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If you’re thinking of beginning an email marketing campaign, you should remember to treat email consumers with the same respect you’d give to traditional consumers. The honesty and fairness rules that apply to traditional marketing still apply in emails.

Many companies want to use email blasts as a fast, easy way to direct traffic to their site. As a provider of corporate email services for almost 15 years we’ve seen first hand how effective this can be, however; fast and easy can also lead to laziness and sloppy advertising, something we know you want to avoid.

While it may be tempting to exaggerate claims to drive traffic to your site, email advertising does not provide a free pass for misleading and untrue statements. To write a good, and legal, email advertisement, you must be able to back up all the claims made in your email. This includes product offers, prices, and especially removal requests. Just as in any advertisement the Federal Trade Commission prohibits deceptive or unfair advertising. This includes all out lies, and any attempts to “trick” consumers. This will protect you from personal and legal ill will from the recipients for your emails. Driving traffic to your website is important, but if the customer ends up feeling deceived and violated you’ll be doing yourself more harm than good.

Another requirement is that all removal requests must be honored and all removal links and removal email addresses must function as promised. It can be difficult to manage removal requests if you have a large mailing list, that’s why at Admail.net we’ve developed Accu Trak, our premier list management service. This system will manage your removal requests to ensure that you’re keeping your recipients happy and remain within the statutes of the law.

Honesty is the best policy when it comes to email marketing. The industry is large and strictly monitored. If you try to lie, trick or abuse your customers, your campaigns will fail and you risk serious legal trouble.

At Admail.net customer service has always been number one. To maintain that quality and to provide their customers with an even higher level of support, Admail.net has hired Dan Lukens as their new Content Manager.

Aurora, Ohio

November 9, 2009 — Fueled by an ever expanding customer base as well as an immediate need for a team member to manage their online message, Admail.net has recruited a new Content Manager.

Admail.net’s new Content Manager will be responsible for a multitude of duties including but not limited to: the maintenance and development of written content for Admail.net’s website and print materials, spearheading Admail.net’s drive to publicize their services while informing potential and current customers of their area’s of service and expertise, and assisting in Admail.net’s already expedient customer service.

Dan Lukens is a graduate of the University of Dayton where he obtained his Bachelors Degree of Arts and Science. He focused his studies on writing and effective communication and graduated with a double major in Communications and English, which he achieved in four years. His experiences prior to joining the team at Admail.net are many and varied. He has experience writing in newspaper, public relations, broadcast, and most recently, at an advertising and marketing firm in Akron, Ohio. Dan’s experience allows him to communicate effectively with many different audiences, a quality that will be a great benefit to Admail.net’s clients and an invaluable asset to Admail.net’s continued growth.

“I’m very excited to be a part of such a great company. I truly believe in our product.” Dan said. “Although email has been around for a long time, many companies and individuals are still failing to use it to it’s utmost potential. I’m excited to be a crucial part of helping Admail.net clients use email appropriately, courteously, and effectively so they can attract new customers and better serve and maintain current ones.”

The public can expect to see Dan’s work in the coming months as he begins to revise and improve Admail.net’s existing website, blog and social media content.

Since its inception in 1995, Admail.net has become a premier provider and developer of email marketing and database management systems. Admail.net strives to provide its clients with the most convenient and effective email marketing available. They offer affordable, quality service, supported by experienced and motivated individuals who genuinely care about their clients. While email marketing and technology trends have changed drastically in the past 14 years, the team at Admail.net has adapted to each change, constantly improving their service and moving forward with each new evolution.

For more information about admail.net and their services, please visit http://www.admail.net or call 800-479-6233

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Contact Information:
Dan Lukens
Admail.net
Dan.Lukens@admail.net

http://www.admail.net

800-479-6233

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More than ever people are using devices other than their home computer to check their email. Since you’ve been reading this post your customers have probably done something on their mobile device, either sent a text message, surfed the Internet, or checked their email. With such a large and captive audience, a big question arises; is your business addressing the needs of your mobile customers? There are many simple things you can do to make your emails more mobile-friendly, that is, make them look better on your recipient’s mobile devices. If you have recipients who might be reading emails on their mobile devices, here are a few rules to consider when creating your emails.

1. Don’t Make them Download the Rest of Message – Your message might get truncated if it is too big. A large file size may cause your recipient to be prompted to “download the rest of the message”. Consumers are wary of downloading messages and frankly its just a hassle, so avoid large emails or you are running the risk of them not seeing your entire message or worse, deleting it.

2. Don’t Make them Scroll – You will want to avoid having your recipient do a lot of scrolling. Attention spans are limited, especially when dealing with mobile devices. Make sure your key takeaways don’t get buried at the bottom of your message.

3. Let them Know Who You Are – Make sure you include your logo at the top of email so you’re recognized immediately. If you are a trusted brand your logo will give your message a better chance of being read. At the very least, even if the customers only glaces at your message, with your logo and name at the top, you’ll have been exposed.

4. Click To View in a Browser – You’ll want to have a link for them to click to view your message in a browser, however you might think about putting it somewhere other than at the very top of your email. Many mobile devices display the beginning of the email in the inbox so your recipients can decide if they want to click to the entire email or not. Including the link to view in a browser might take up some valuable, attention grabbing, space.

5. Make Your Email Lose Weight! – Smaller devices, smaller screens, the next step to making email suitable for phones? Smaller emails. Make your emails 500-600 pixels wide.  The Admail.net Advantage Template labeled “White-Paper” is preset to 500 pixels already.

6. Let Them Call You – Include a click-to-call link if possible. The easier you make it for your recipient to contact you, the better.

7. Text Version is a Must – Make sure you have a text version of your emails in the event that your mobile recipients can only get text. Make sure you keep it short. Since emails usually have line breaks at about 60 characters and mobile devices 20 characters, you’ll want to cut back on some of your copy and direct them for more information to your website.

Reaching all of your customers is your goal and email on mobile devices is only becoming more predominate. Follow some basic mobile guidelines and your email marketing campaign will be accessible to all of your clients, no matter how they check their inbox.

Admail’s Accu Trak delivers key information to help you determine what is or isn’t working in your campaigns. Recently I attended the Marketing Sherpa Annual Conference, during one session the presenter said: While vast amounts of information and tracking that information are available, sometimes you have to ask yourself “Do I really need it?”. Clients many times want to track every minute detail to the moment of yes, Analytic Paralysis. Just because you can think of it does not always mean you can use it. Sometimes it really boils down to having a better understanding of what is in front of you.

A prime example of this is, another seminar I recently attended with an “E-mail Marketing expert” told the audience that email marketing was getting tougher because one; Open Rates where falling and two; excess junk in recipients inboxes.

Let’s cover open rates first. The fact open rates are falling isn’t that email marketing is not working it is that the technology has changed. In 2005 Microsoft began blocking Images by default and other email software makers have since followed suit. Many of you I am sure have noticed the Load Images buttons on your email browser or, the “Problems viewing this page click here” link in email header’s.

Opens historically have been tracked by an embedded 1×1 pixel image in HTML emails. What this meant was, once an email was touched upon in a preview window or opened briefly by the recipient – a message was sent back to the sender that the email had been “Opened or Viewed” – but not necessarily read. Therefore as users migrated to the new email client software opens appeared to be  dropping. Which isn’t all bad! What it does mean is that you are now seeing a truer picture, of who is actually reading your emails. Many times people view this as a delivery issue or their email program has become ineffective which isn’t the case!

Before you throw the baby out with the bath water take a look at your click through these are true readers and they moved from the body of your email to your web site for more information.

If you really want to drill down on your ROI either use the Click Through email address to match back on your transactions or upgrade to the Admail.net Custom Fields to pass a campaign Source Code to your shopping cart, you can even tie it into your Google Analytics. But, don’t forget to ask yourself do I really need it or what am I going to do with the number once I have it. Order more widgets?

Information overload can bog you down – if sales are off over analyzing it won’t fix the problem – but a fresh approach can. I have been involved in target marketing for close to thirty years and one thing is for certain what Works – Works! I repeatedly see people and businesses get myriad in statistics that some Guru recommended.  For decades Mutual Funds and Wall Street Analysts have used the disclaimer “Past performance is not a guarantee of future results”. Don’t become a victim of Analytic Paralysis!

The second point, “excessive junk mail” you have a perfect leg up with Admail.net our robust delivery system provides you the perfect options. Send your email during the day or early evening if you are marketing to consumers. If you are working across different time zones use the Interest Groups to break out your members by time zones or use Target Filters to break up your list member by State. For tips and information visit our FAQ section on Email and Spam Blockers.

When using your Admail Email Builder Templates with Images – IE 8’s default security setting will ask you “Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely” and the answer is “No”. If you say yes the unsecured Images in your Template  (photos, logos, etc) will not load and you will find yourself stuck!  See sample screen shot below.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 just say No to security warning!