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Happy new year. I hope you are well rested from the break and that Christmas was good to you. Welcome to 2010. A new year, a new opportunity to try new things and I can feel it in my water, it is going to be a good one.

To jump start your marketing I have put together a wonderfully simple online marketing plan for you for the year. It is put together as a checklist and it has the basics filled in with space for you to add your own twist and cross them off each month. It also includes few tips on what holidays and events you can use each month. It is based on one I have been using last year and I can tell you it helped me focused and on track.

Go ahead and download, print it off and hang it over your desk. This year you are going to be ahead with your marketing!

If you think you could do with some more information on how to get started or improve your email marketing campaigns sign up to our free email marketing course. More useful tips and tricks are found on our monthly newsletter so feel free to sign up below.

Keep us posted and let us know how the plan helped your business and let us know how we can improve it. We will showcase replies right here on the blog.

Occasionally emails do not arrive after you send them from toddle, and due to restrictive email filters in companies, they may not arrive as beautiful as they should. It is rare but it does happen.
So we have done some testing and have an alternative way for you to import your finished Toddle newsletter into your email client ready to send to your subscribers.
So far this is tested on Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail (Windows Live) and Outlook 2003. This does not work with Outlook 2007 unfortunately. We are doing further testing with the other email clients.

• After you hit the SEND button in Toddle, go to the HTML version of your newsletter. You can find the link in Advanced Sending Options in Toddle under the sent button.

• When the new page opens displaying your newsletter, click EDIT > SELECT ALL and then COPY. This copies the entire newsletter into your clipboard.

• Open your email app and start a new message. Make sure your editor is set to HTML or Rich Text. Select EDIT > PASTE.

Now your email newsletter is ready to send to your clients.
If you have any problems with this or you are using this in any other email client not mentioned above please let us know how you get on.

We have been working with the hotel and hospitality industry developing email marketing strategies and designing custom email newsletters for some time now. Over the course of working with many hotels, travel sites and hospitality services we realized that key information necessary to run successful campaigns was being missed on a regular basis. For example not getting the email addresses of both parties who book a double room or not getting contact details for a whole team not just the person who books the rooms.

In response we designed this easy monthly checklist to make sure you are harnessing the potential of your email marketing campaigns. So download, print it off and hang in your office. This way you will never wonder again how to structure your campaigns and if you are gathering emails from every possible source, client booking and referral.

If you think you could do with some more information on how to get started or improve your email marketing campaigns sign up to our free email marketing course. More useful tips and tricks are found on our monthly newsletter so feel free to sign up. We design fantastic custom newsletters for the hotel industry so give us a shout and we will be sure to help you.

Keep us posted and let us know how the checklist helped your business! We will showcase replies right here on the blog.

I was catching up on some reading this morning and the question of buying email lsits came up again. Here is what I think about it. If we are talking about ‘opt-in’ marketing I don’t believe buying lists is of benefit to your business. Firstly, where did the list originate from, are those on the list in your target market and did they give permission for their emails to be disseminated to third parties. Can you be completely sure that they have given permission at all?

In my experience bought lists can cause headaches, namely receivers hitting the spam button and not appreciating the unsolicited mail. If losts of people hit the spam button often enough your messages will not get through. It is far better and far more sustainable to grow your contact lists through opt-ins like sign up forms on your website, from connections made in your business and by simply asking in the first place.

To my mind bought lists are not worth the financial outlay and are in fact a danger to your business. Why take the chance of destroying your goodwill by sending emails to people you don’t know and have no connection with. After all email marketing is about relationships built over time, advice and support given to your user that is valued and appreciated by people who want to read about what you have to say.

It is tempting to try to fast track to thousands of connections but in reality it may turn out to be a very backward step. Makle connections honestly and help your user. Give them information they need and look forward to receiving. So instead of blacklisting you they send your insigntful content to their frienda and family thereby growing your connections organically as a trusted expert and friend!

1. Ask
Sounds simple and it is. You will be surprised how your customers, partners and friends will happily agree. Make it a part of your normal business interaction. A sales call, a first meeting, a network event, before you say goodbye tell then you have information you believe would be useful to them in your newsletter and can you add their email. Now you have promised to deliver good, useful content so make sure you deliver or your customers won’t be long unsubscribing.

2. Blog / Site
I heard recently that up to 80% of a website’s visitors do not return. People simply forget or think they have found the information they need and move on. Email is a great way to hook them in and remind them to come back when you have new news and updates. Your customers have done the hard work and found you among the millions of sites on the web. So grab them and don’t let then go too easily. VERY prominently on your blog or site put up an email subscribe box with a GREAT reason to sign up.

3. Offer a free course
Seth Godin has a great story of a wine merchant, who used free information provided to him, to create a wine appreciation course by email. By putting a single ad in his local paper users subscribed to his course. Newsletter by newsletter he explained the virtues and characteristics of the wines in his shop and along with it, gained the trust and confidence of would be purchasers. The information he gave out was free provided by the wine makers. The upshot: He became known in his locality as an authority on wine; he converted readers to purchasers and ultimately grew his business. Like our wine merchant think of the expertise you have in your field and see how you can repackage it to your subscribers. Keep it simple and relevant to the needs of your clients.

4. eBooks
Very similar to the free course above. For readers who prefer books to courses package up your information into a downloadable eBook. As part of the download process ask them to subscribe to additional information and advice from your newsletter.

5. Competition
I noticed in a local restaurant a big fish bowl by the cash register offering a years free membership to a local gym as a prize. All you had to do was drop in your business card and agree to get a healthy living newsletter monthly.
What a great idea. The restaurant gets a free prize for their customers and the gym gets a list of people who have indicated they want to get more active and healthy. You can offer a competition via your website, local newspaper or try and find out who else is sending newsletters to your target market and team up with them.

6. Free stuff
Incentivise people to sign up. Offer something free. An eBook, as above, a free 30 minute consulting session or a special offer only for subscribers. I noticed a tourist office recently offering USB drives for the first 100 people who signed up. An expensive promotion but it worked with me! Whatever it is make sure you have calculated that you will get the returns. Something else to consider, is your incentive is believable? At this years Marketing Sherpa conference in Boston, a great case study highlighted how a GUARENTEED incentive of $250 received only 12 responses. That is, a guaranteed payment of $250 dollars if a subscriber responded. However, when the same company offered the same subscriber list $7 per sign up they got over 500 responses. People simply did not believe the $250 offer.

7. Ask for referrals
Similar to point 1. Just ask. Most of us are more then happy to refer other people to services, sites or information that they will find useful. If your customers and subscribers are happy with you, then they will only be too happy to refer your newsletter to someone else. Make sure you have a nice big “Forward to a friend” link in your newsletter.

8. Give a talk / network
Events and seminars are great places to meet new people. When you are exchanging business cards ask if you can send your newsletter to them and mark their cards for adding their details later. If you are standing up in front of these people then you are already perceived as an expert in the field and someone worth listening to. So at the end of the talk, tell the audience you can send them more information on a particular point or topic, they just need to drop up their business card.

9. Make your subscribe box pop
You are going to need to test this. Play around with the location, colour and wording of your email subscribe box on your site. You will be surprised but some very minor changes can increase sign ups by up to 400%.

10. Email Signatures
You are sending out hundreds / thousands of emails every year. How many of your emails promote your email newsletter in your email signature. Look at doing the same on discussion forums and social networks.

For every point above there are a few things to keep in mind to make the process more effective:

A.  Tell people how often they should expect the newsletter (people are afraid they might get overloaded with mails daily)
B.  Where possible show them an example / link to the type of mail they will get
C.  Send them a welcome mail as soon as they sign up. A month down the line they might not remember you and unsubscribe or mark you as spam.

Got any more tips? What works for you? Let us know.

Image thanks to atomicShed

Aweber.com helps you in creating lasting customer relations though effective Email newsletters, Autoresponders, RSS to email and other email marketing tools.

Sending your Toddle newsletter through Aweber.com is fairly easy. Below I will explain all the steps invloved in the process.

• First, sign up with Awebber.com or log in to your existing account.

• Once logged in, click on Messages, then Broadcast and then on Create Broadcast Message button.

• Now, go to the HTML version of your Toddle newsletter. You can find the link in Advanced Sending Options in Toddle. Right click on the newsletter and view page source. Copy all of the code.

• Choose Basic Plain template in Templates. Enter your email Subject, and paste your HTML code in the text area for HTML message under Source tab.

• You can preview what your newsletter looks like in the Preview tab.

• Scroll down. You will find an area for text version of the newsletter. You will find the text link in Advanced Sending Options in Toddle. Copy all that text and paste it in Plain Text Message.

• Scroll down and enter additional information required for sending your newsletter. e.g. sending schedule, who to send to and so on. Then click on Save Broadcast Message. Your message will be sent immediately or saved for later according to the schedule options you chose.

• This is all there is to sending your Toddle newsletter through Aweber.com.

When you are sending an email newsletter to many people you really do not want everyone to see each others email address.
By default email clients display a TO: field and a Cc: field where you can add your email addresses. But there is also a Bcc: option where everyone will get an email addressed to just them and no other email addresses are visible to them.

Bcc is shorthand for blind carbon copy. If the Bcc box isn’t visible when you create a new message, you can add it.
In Outlook to view the Bcc address box:

1. In Outlook, on the Actions menu, click New Mail Message.
2. Do one of the following:

• If you are using Word as your e-mail editor, on the toolbar, click the drop-down arrow to the right of the Options button, and click Bcc.
• If you are not using Word as your e-mail editor, on the View menu, click Bcc Field.

All new e-mail messages now display the Bcc address box.

Other email clients should be pretty similar or have a Bcc button placed somewhere around the To: field.

A simple video guide showing how to create your email newsletter in Toddle.

Start creating your email newsletter here.

Once your email marketing newsletter is ready you have a huge number of ways to send it. Choose one that you feel most comfortable with.

You can find handy guides on sending with a range of email marketing software here.

Toddle.com is running a free four week email marketing course to show you how to get the best from it. Four emails over four weeks covering all the basics.

You can sign up here.

Image cc David Erickson

BEN is a new site from the team here showcasing beautiful email newsletter designs. Updated regularly it features email marketing from around the world. Great for when you are looking for a bit of inspiration.