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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.

Fresh from the christmas workshop, Alan has been working on this winter crisp christmas newsletter and is now available to you in your Toddle editor.

SPECIAL LAUNCH OFFER

For the next 30 minutes we are making this template free to all. Simply log into Toddle here, select the christmas design from the options at the top, add your text and send.
But hurry clock is ticking.

Afterwards the newsletter design will revert to the still great value of just $9.

We love Christmas at Toddle HQ and to celebrate we have released two Christmas email templates just in time for the holidays. Why not save a few trees this year and send your clients and subscribers a Christmas ecard with our cool designs. Sign up and try out our festive newsletters using the sign up box to the right of this post. As always,  these templates will work great with Outlook, yahoo mail, Hotmail, gmail and others.  We hope you love them as much as we do!

Christmas Wrapping                                                                 Christmas Gift

Of course you can add some Christmas cheer to any of the existing newsletter templates by adding some seasonal images from the always great iStockPhoto.com for as little as $1 an image.
Here are a few of our favorite images. Just search for ‘Christmas’ or ‘Santa’.

Log in and get started now.

You can get vastly different results from your email newsletter depending on what day and time you send it.
Guesswork, testing different times/days and carefully monitoring your email stats is normally the best way to find out but i have a great shortcut for you…Twitter!

This is how you do it.

• First, go to http://search.twitter.com and type in a few keywords related to your industry. In this example the marketing manager of a hotel wants to target people looking for ‘hotels in Dublin’. This search shows all the people on Twitter talking about and looking for Hotels in Dublin.

• Twitter very nicely gives you an RSS feed of these results in the top right hand corner. Copy the URL of this link.

• If you have not already, sign up for a Google reader account.
• Click the ADD A SUBSCRIPTION button in Google reader. Then paste in the URL of the Twitter RSS feed.

• Click SHOW DETAILS in the top right corner and you will see a blank graph. After a few days this will show some fantastic data on what day of the week, month and time that people where talking about “Hotels in Dublin”.
• This is a great time to send out an email offer about Hotels in Dublin.

Happy emailing.
Tell us how you normally find the best time to send your email?

Thanks to Chris S Penn for this great tip.

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.

Wow, I hope I have this guys love and passion in 30 years time and to still be working at something I love.
What ever niche your business or passion is in, there is a way you can make it work.

John Nese is the proprietor of Galcos Soda Pop Stop in LA which stocks over 500 soda pops sourced lovingly by John from around the world.

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!

I had a great definition of a good brand from a student tonight.

‘Everytime I get an invoice from a company called Bonkers I smile as I sign the cheque’.

Are you a bit Bonkers?

The reason why email works… is everyone has it!

I am in Navan on Nov 11th giving a 3 hour intensive workshop on using Email Marketing to sell more rooms if you run Hotel.
It will be a very practical walkthrough of the steps needed for a successful long term email campaign.

Learn how to:
Sell more rooms with email marketing
Find and grow subscribers
Engage your readers and bring them back
Design your newsletter to maximum effect
Measure and improve your campaigns for maximum sales
Keep within the law
And
Learn how to do all this with little time and at low cost.

When: Wednesday 11th November 10am – 1pm
Where: Ardboyne Hotel, Navan

Places are limited so book now at http://toddle.eventbrite.com/
Call Alan at 041 9830152 or email info@spoiltchild.com for more details.
Investment €95 per person

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Special Early Bird offer
10% off if booked before Midnight Wednesday 4th
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Book now at http://toddle.eventbrite.com/