E-mail Marketing 2011

Welcome to the New Year 2011
What a great year 2010 truly was for us at Viper Logic, home to Viper Mailer our email-marketing-service-provider system.

Logic wishes all a very prosperous 2011
2011 is being forecast in various directions but that should not matter to you or me. The year 2011 will shape up to be what you put into it, while you can go out and eat Chinese food at your favorite Chinese Restaurant and read the fortune cookie you receive at the end of that meal and use that as a guide to how or what direction your business will take in 2011.

Now for the major changes to look for in email-marketing for 2011
Social Networking profiles and efforts are all of the rage looking toward the New Year as we wind down the year 2010.

Do not get the following information confused with the SPAMMER’s, those people generally located outside the Untied States send out 10’s, 100’s of thousands, sometimes millions of fished email account messages knowing that they only need a few buyers to succeed and offset the expenses of sending spam messages.

The following is for the professional Opt-In on topic email marketing campaign managers.

Gone in 2011 for email campaigns
Email messages that provide no interaction or involvement
Email blasts offering up discounts with nothing else (empty)
Email campaigns that do not share information and excitement about products, places, types and services
Emails sent to masses of people that you have no relationship with

Expanding in 2011 for email campaigns
Customer involvement
Customer involvement and interaction on you, your business and your product or service, what medium you select to provide and promote this customer action is up to you, it is irrelevant which delivery medium you choose but your efforts into that medium is critical as too is your ability to have control of the content and actions of that medium.

In our case we control the mediums we offer our clients to interact in public venues, even though we do not edit or delete any legitimate posts that clients post, share or vent, but we DO have a 100% control over the tools we utilize for all interaction.

Dynamic offers
Location with time sensitive and on target relativity will take center stage. When email marketing managers data mine their list of contacts and refine each contact into a real relationship with each person (not just contacts) knowing what, when and where that customer would be interested in receiving an on target offer based on where that contact is currently located and what time of day they are most likely take advantage of the offer.

Multi path intelligent email campaigns
Whatever you do on your web site(s) resist adding those links to join us, follow us, like us and all of the other gimmicks that in our SEO/SEM experiences are something you should never do. The reason is, businesses spend a fortune in time and money getting traffic to their web sites only to have them click on a link that takes them away from your sites/efforts. Sending new and existing customers to anything that you do not own is a really bad thing, once a site visitor has left your site for one of those (out of your control) distracting sites, they are likely gone forever. 

How to nicely trick your followers
The 2011 rule for popularity gaining is this.
We all know those logos to the popular and famous social sites that are on your site, or you see on many other web sites you visit.
Here is the idea for 2011 that we like.
The popular social sites offer buttons utilize them, only the link that your site visitors click on takes them to your forum, blog or micro-blog or focused sites that your company has built and controls. This tactic, if done correctly meaning you have very important information, education and ways for others to meet up and share with others sharing the same interests, interests that drew these site visitors to your web site in the first place will gladly embrace this opportunity. Reframe from just taking site visitors to a landing page of your web site that is requiring a Call to Action (purchase).

Email-Marketing-Campaign contact refinement
There is a giant reason that most all (ESP) email service providers offer great email contact management benefits and here is what they were designed into all email client accounts.

Target specific contacts, what 2011 is all about.
If you sell coffee at a coffee shop but all you know about your contacts isd that they have bought a coffee at your coffee shop in the past at some time. 2011 requires interactive relationships with those email contacts. Email contacts are generally stored in your email marketing service account and you can separate your list of contacts into multiple groups. Say for a coffee shop you know who is buying smoothies and who is decaf or regular coffee drinkers, who eats a bagel or has a sandwich with their coffees and maybe even who drinks coffee in the shop and who gets their coffees to go.

Knowing details (beyond the contacts name and email address) about each customer is a 2011 critical requirement in the coming year, in addition, you are going to need to be a trusted sender more then ever with your customers, when it comes to the larger (mostly free MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Ymail, Facebook, Myspace, and countless other email delivery service members.

Welcome to the one way street
Unlike the major search and social engines having the ability to allow spammers to send through those free accounts messages to you, you as a business operator are not going to be able to get your messages through their severs because the email contact will first need to add you as a trusted sender. Business owners, nonprofit organizers and membership groups have their work cut out for them if they are to stay in touch and continue selling their products and services to these free email contacts.

Wishing each and all a profitable New Year 2011
While the industry of email-marketing and yes all e-Communications are clearly going to see changes, the much hyped (media promoted) items more then likely will not be the ones coming to frustration, but rather the items that we are sharing above, and that are not of the popular media coverage ones.
Yet these items that we mention, though perhaps not all of them and not exactly as we are predicting will take place, these changes none the less will force huge corrections for most all email-marketing-campaigns in 2011 and beyond.
There is always an opportunity to prevail but only for those that not only wish for it but that have a PASSION to excel at growing their businesses or organizations through e-Communications.

SPAM mail lives on

Have you even heard the term, we are our own worse enemy?

Welcome to SPAM land and learn some ways you can help SPAM be forever removed from our morning email inbox’s.

Hi this is Logic
I am your host and I am the Authority on e-communications for Viper Mailer an email marketing service provider.

First why do we all receive SPAM
The short answer is the correct answer, because some of us and you know who you are, could not resist opening and acting on that colorful and insightful email with a blue pill, an upside down hanging fruit or vegetable growing plant, a chance to make millions of dollars helping some fallen from grace queen from a country most would be unable to point out on a world map and the list goes on.

Who is sending us all of that SPAM?
SPAM messages come from people in foreign countries, and many more in America.

Anyone with around $3000.00 dollars can send a message to 100 million email addresses through a botnet (uses virus, unsecured, compromised computers to perform massive email list sending task), this low cost to large volume potential email recipients means that only a few people need to make purchases to make the whole irritating SPAM message campaign worth the SPAMMER’s while.

What is the number one sending type email address SPAMMER’s use?
Starting with the word free any of the top three major search engine email addresses are the number one senders of SPAM messages, Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, some others like AOL and Ymail should be noted.

Brand Selling Works for SPAMMER’s
What is amazing is the amount of legitimate names tied into the body of content that makes these SPAM messages look even more legitimate, household names global brands all seem to be a part of many of the messages we all receive, but a closer inspection reveals that these household names have nothing to do with the SPAM messages but rather that the message senders are using the brands as a part of their credibility to capture your eye and attention. 

Blocking SPAM is easier then you might think
Corporate servers deploy SPAM filtering systems that block SPAM messages through probability and keyword in title subject or message content that prevent them from getting through, others take the extreme measure of blocking free email accounts, you know those offered for free from the search engines though most corporate clients that we are connected with, still allow those free email accounts to send through messages, they are however sent to a folder at the employees email inbox for a quick periodic (if ever) scan from time to time to be sure there is not an important message to be read through.

Blocking SPAM senders on Business Profiles & Social Networks
This one way is the only way to prevent spam from coming to you through your favorite social network or micro-blog services, again these services are free like the search engines email accounts are so our motto is, “You Get What You Pay For” but never the less, if you begin receiving unsolicited messages from any social network, micro-blog or forum just turn off the notify me in your account settings, this means that the only time you need to be interrupted is when you login to your account and view updates, messages or any of the other latest must be in the know information being funneled and piped into us all day in and day out, we call this taking control of your life around here at Viper Logic.

I personally only receive email messgaes when I pull my emails about every 45 minutes or so, that is enough time for me to reply or take further actions and the focus in my work has greatly improved, a really very smart move.

How to create a credible email account
SPAMMER’s know that if they take this route they are sure to be blacklisted by not only their intended recipient but by their own (ISP) Internet Service Provider.

Only use a .com (TLD) Top Level Domain
The legitimate email sender that sends out email messages will utilize a domain name, one that ends with a .com or .org extension is the preferred and trusted one, one that tells us all who that sender is and generally what that sender is for example if you receive an email from us at Viper Logic the email is going to be coming from ViperLogic.com a real website and the domain name has been around since 2000.
Generally the sender’s actual name like .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is included.

When a SPAMMER tries to send large quantities of unsolicited email messages through that domain name the domain name and the ISP are going to Blacklist that address and that domain name together and while the sender can once again gain trust with the trusted email sender world only time can fix it, sometimes allowing light traffic viz email and delays through the use of cautionary Grey Listing tactics, so that is the number one cause why most email SPAM is sent through those easy to open and easy to signup for email accounts from the major search engines.

Remaining Blacklist Free
Legitimate email message senders also tend to utilize an email marketing service that requires and regulates that the list of email contacts are all Opt-In, meaning that the recipients have at one point and time agreed to receive emails on the topic of interest from that source and in most cases have agreed to this by checking a box on the email newsletter signup form, during the buying process from that corporation to allow these future emails to be legally sent from time to time.

Coming in January
Reality of applying Social Networking and Micro-Blog sites to business profiles and your email-marketing-campaign
Before acting the authority, Logic often researches these topics for some time before encouraging or discouraging our readers from taking steps with their own businesses, nonprofits or membership groups. Our goal here is about putting money in your pocket with the least amount of efforts.

Email Marketing Industry News

Hello friends my name is Logic
Logic is the authority on the subject of email-marketing and has uncovered through complaints, a rash of email service providers in the email marketing service industry are having a major issue with message deliverability that we are not going to name but we are going to make existing and future clients of these services aware of, how in a few easy steps you can check the deliverability of the service provider.

This article is to assure that new or exiting e-marketers achieve great campaign results and enjoy a great experience with their campaigns.

Bashing others is unethical and will provide nothing
We at Viper Logic including this authority, Logic make errors and at times cause hiccups at our own email marketing service, no one is perfect.

We are not writing our article to hurt our fellow email service providers but we are the strongest practitioners of new client approvals in the email marketing service provider business. We consider ourselves the strongest believers in treating each clients email contacts as if they are made of gold, and as you might be aware of gold these days are on the rise as is the quality of value placed on email contacts that our clients entrust us with. As a result, the values of GREAT email contacts are gaining value as well.

Let’s get started with our resent discovery and the explanation of what operating a 100% white listed email marketing service is all about.

White listed email marketing services
Not providing grey listed or blacklisted results for clients is the number one reason anyone would pay an email service provider and why they would entrust that Email Service Provider (ESP) with their list of gold valued email contacts.

Blacklisted Email Service Providers appear to be on the rise?
While Logic cannot for sure explain how some of the most popular or larger email service providers are getting themselves and their clients into this trouble, we can through our expertise speculate as to what the cause might be.

Economics might play a roll in the current email sending world
We think it is due to competition, looking the other way when signing up a new client. Allowing a SPAMMER through the system takes away from those that have worked hard to gather their email contacts legally and truthfully, I understand personally how running an email marketing service is, we all need sales.

An email marketing service provider not only wants new clients, we all need them to survive, however allowing marginal or outright fraudulent new clients past our internal gate keepers is really short term thinking, regardless of the ESP’s size and reputation that can and does change with the ISP’s in a short term stretch, devaluing their services and hurting their current trusted clients Inbox deliverability rates.

The goal here is to protect the clients of any email marketing service provider, and from these unethical practices.

Blacklisted Email Service Providers 
Friends you are now in the know about the role all email marketing service providers play, and while there are plenty of other great benefits offered by most all ESP’s, the bottom line is that the ESP must have the ability, relationship as a trusted sender to deliver the clients email messages (deliverability) into their customers email Inbox, free and clear of the SPAM detection of the Internet Service Providers, known as the ISP’s.

Email-Marketing-Authority test
We have signed up with each of the most popular ESP’s for trial accounts (all approved our accounts),  since they are generally a fully functional version that is only limited to the number of emails during the trial phase a client can send out, we know this would make for a great way to test many services out.

We tried many different signup scenarios and regardless we were approved in 100% of the cases.

How the Trail process works
When a client signs up for the Free Trail in short here is what the client can expect.
The ESP checks some things to confirm that the new potential client is not a SPAMMER or bought list of contacts type.
If the ESP approves the client for the Free Trail, then that client is free to upgrade their account from say 1000 to 1,000,000 million contacts and though the ESP might, during the new clients first email message blast be monitoring the content of their message checking it quickly against the business type or what the industry refers to as “On Topic” content, thus a true Opt-In email contact list, generally if a new client can signup get approved for a full account they are in to stay, unless the reports or complaint rates become to heavy from the clients customers and the Internet Service Providers (ISP’s).

All ESP’s are created equal
No Logic is not going to share the secrets of getting approved with us, our any other ESP, because while we all have our own SPAMMER detection processes for new client approvals, mostly they are nearly the same, except like with ourselves, some services apply more of the new account SPAMMER processes then others, and that in it self is where the fuel for this article came to light.

The process for getting approved at most all email marketing service providers would be the same, if they all actually checked the new client’s signups using the available software tools, but like most all things in life the tools are only as good as the person utilizing them. 

New clients at the expense of existing clients
Waiting for a complaint is the start of, and danger to all of the existing clients with that ESP regardless of the number of claimed IP addresses that ESP has. The damage has begun and the Return On Investment ROI results for other clients within the system are being compromised, thus devaluing the price of those golden contacts.

Several ESP’s have devised a clever method for all new clients and then once the new client proves to be a legitimate client, they are moved into the fold with all other clients. This is a great safety method to protect the existing and presumably happy current ESP clients. The process works with dedicated servers along with dedicated IP addresses, an upfront buffer from evil.

How to select or test an Email Service Provider
This is the easiest way to confirm you are signing up with or currently utilizing a trusted and non grey / black listed email service provider?
Simple and painless and worth the effort, this should be a part of your job as the email marketing manager to better confirm your efforts are fruitful.

Periodically you decide the frequency (depends on issues that arise), you should build a group within your email marketing campaign account of say 20 contacts, and here are the contacts you are looking for to add from your existing contacts into this group.

Two of each type should be a great way to stay on top of your email service provider’s accuracy:
2 each from a few popular cable provider email accounts
2 each from a few popular telecom provider email accounts
2 each from those free email account as example Gmail, MSN, AOL, Me, Yahoo, etc.
1 each from a few close friends regardless of their email types
4 corporate or domain name email accounts example name @ joescarservices.com

Save this group and utilize it as your periodic simple way to send out a special test message when you feel your email campaigns are not returning the fruits of your labor.

This test group approach is faster then reviewing each campaign and you can quickly run the deliverability results through your ESP’s tracking reports that are including in most email marketing services.

Email Marketing Customers
The best benefit to you as a client is you can export this same list of 20 email contacts and signup for most any other service provider at any time though the cost free no obligation trial, upload them quickly send out a sample message and see how the opens and actions compares to your current ESP.
 

Coming in December
Why SPAM exists and why it will be around for along time to come.

New Email Marketing Forum

Email Marketing Forum
First released on August 21, 2010 the email-marketing forum is for marketing persons to sort of hang out make friends and share marketing techniques.
The forum for email marketing a place to learn and shre was released as part of our blog post number 500 here at Email Marketing Forum Released

October 04, 2010 released updates
Viper Logic operates of the Email-Marketing-Forum released a graphical banner, added the sites guide Logic’s image and placed an advertisement that helps people find our email-marketing-service Viper Mailer.

See our latest work, it is now on the forum where professional marketing people discuss small business, marketing a viral campaigns
Email-Marketing-Discussion

Free to all Marketing Discussion Forum
We ultimately hope our friends, readers and members will sign up at our forum a social network devoted to marketing in general with the focused topic on the subject of email marketing. It is our dream to have this site be a place that can connect marketers to one another and a place to help businesses, nonprofit and membership organizations make money, grow their business or memberships.

We are keeping our article short and hope you will help make the new email marketing forum a great educational and profitable place to hang out.