I always get great advice from BBI, and was wondering if anyone had any insight into email newsletters.
I work for a small cosmetic healthcare company, and have been working to fix some of the problems that we had been experiencing when I came in.
One of which was that our practices didn't feel adequately supported with ideas for how to market their product.
As such, I'd like to create a bi-weekly newsletter for our practices.
I'd like this newsletter to include some branding for our company, a couple quick bulletpoints and paragraphs, and an embedded Youtube video.
I have begun to research platforms, and have found a number of solutions. However, many of them see to be geared much more towards marketing and new customer acquisition, which isn't exactly what we are trying to accomplish.
I've researched Mailchamp, Infusion Soft, Constant Contact, Movable Ink, iContact, GetResponse, StreamSend, Campaigner, AWeber, and Jango Mail.
Of all features, the one things that are at the top of my wish list are:
1) Embedded video
2) Ability to brand while still having a simple layout editor.
3) Analytics (I honestly just want to see who opened the email and clicked on the video)
4) Potential CRM integration (we use Salesforce, and I'm not really sure if the CRM integration would be useful, but the capability would be nice. Not really essential however)
5) Simple way to input contacts.
This list would be closed off and wouldn't be public, so I'm not really worried about driving more people to receive the newsletter.
Does anyone have experience foraying into this field? Any tips or a service you would recommend? Does CRM integration really help that much for the purposes of an informational newsletter?
Thanks as always for any help!
MailChimp is free up to 500 subscribers, so I'm tempted to try that one first.
Constant Contact is easy if you're familiar with 1990s software (e.g. FrontPage).
Setting up a couple meetings with MailChimp and Movable Ink to see what they can do. I'm not very familiar with the 1990s software unfortunately, as I'm fairly new to all this and was still a kid throughout the 90s. However, I think I'll be able to pick up the interface fairly quick.
As previously stated, it seems most of these platforms are geared towards straight up marketing and new customer acquisition, while we are really just trying to get a newsletter out.
Thanks for the help guys!
but i don't know if it has the features you need. you'll have to check. it's pretty easy to start a free trial.
Streamsend it's probably going to be your cheapest option - it's relatively easy to use but it's nothing like mail chimp.
I use both of these would recommend both.
The mail chimp feature that's nice is that it's about list size and you can send unlimited emails to that list. The caveat is the service is a bit harder to set up and they are very attentive to list emails and will double and triple check it for spam. In fact you may not be able to use it depending on who is on the list
Streamsend is based on a monthly quota of emails - but you can have as many lists as you want. And it's more lenient on your list imports.
I've used Campaigner for years because they do not have this opt-in requirement. I can upload a list of contacts and start sending emails to them right away.
And although all these platforms guard against having their subscribers send SPAM, Campaigner is a little more lenient, so your account won’t be flagged if a small percentage of recipients complain.
When I code for video, I screenshot it with a play button on it and link to the video, like the default YouTube look.
For small lists I'd consider Mailchimp, I believe it's still free under 1500 contacts.
as in gmail , outlook ,mac mail etc
The last thing people want to see are long email messages. They rarely read them.
Do this:
1. Create a new website, blog, or use pages on your current site and place all of the content on these webpages. (This is very easy to do)
2. Use short email messages to drive traffic to these pages.
That is it.
If you create a page they can go back to it often and it will be easier to read/view.
If you use short email messages and allow the reader to go to website pages your % of people actually reading and watching the content will skyrocket.
I use Mailchimp, Icontact, Aweber, selfhosted autoresponders, and a few others. I help a lot companies, Realtors, etc with this. I'm not a fan of Mailchimp because it's not easy to create short messages or setup a series of emails to go out to a new subscriber.
Icontact is much easier. Icontact also has better analytics. You can track opens and clicks. It has a much cleaner dashboard. You can create an email template much easier with your logo and an area for content and just use it over and over again. Very easy to make different marketing lists and import leads into it. (You can copy & paste, import excel, or use optin forms).
BTW, as part of the content for the people, companies, or practices selling the products you should help them learn how to build their own email marketing lists of customers (works for both online sales and retail).
Email marketing and list building is missed by many businesses. It's an easy and effective way to bring customers back, generate traffic, and boost sales.
Hope this helps.
It seems your list is small? If it is icontact is only $19/month. If you are building larger lists the price will jump but you can call them and they will give you a break. I pay about 60% of the price listed on the site.
I have three lists right now that I can't integrate - vertical response - which has gotten worse not better with the hallmark acquisition and no programable auto responder - Get response which has a knee-jerk reaction to list development but does have auto-responders - and automationwiz - which grabs up a list well but has a poor email programability
hey KWall - shoot me an email - michael at drop point hunter dot com
I'm going to look into iContact. Does anyone have any experience with Movable Ink? I have a call with them in a few.
I don't use movable. A quick look one the site seems they offer responsive email messages. I'm going to go back and check into it.
However, I don't see it as necessary. I get that more are using phones to open emails but I think you can just use responsive website pages for your content and continue to send short email messages with links.