How to choose the best Email Service Provider for your business?

Email is one of the most effective tools that a business can use to promote their product or service. With this in mind, it's important that your email service provider, or ESP, is fit for the job you want it to do. There are so many different providers on the Internet that it's hard to know which one is right for your business.

The biggest factor to consider is whether you choose a provider with a public or private IP address. An IP address is a unique code that identifies where data is sent from. If your ESP shares an IP address with a number of users, one of those users could send mail that's seen as spam and have the IP address 'blacklisted'.

This means that any emails you send from your shared IP address could be blocked by spam filters because of someone else's actions and not get delivered to your potential customer. Be in control of your business with a private IP address only you have access to.

Next, look how much storage space the email service provider is giving you. Some will limit the amount of messages you send out a month and the amount of data you receive in your inbox. You need to make sure you won't ever reach your limit or you won't be able to contact your customers. Even worse, you might not be able to receive an email from a customer if your inbox is full. Also think about your options if your business expands. Does the ESP you are with offer upgrades to fit your new needs?

In email marketing, it's good to know how effective your messages are in making a reader act on what they've read. Choose an ESP that offers statistics to measure the success of your emails and consider any improvements. Your ESP could gather statistics on how many people have opened your email and also how many have clicked on the hyperlinks within that email.

A good bonus feature to look out for is if your ESP allows you to use functions in their emails. Functions allow you to add data personal to your customer from your database into the email. For example, "Hey [user name], check our summer offers", could grab your user's attention as reassure them that it isn't a spam message.

Before you agree to any contract with your ESP, make sure they have a support service that can help you when you have any problems. Make sure you can always be in contact with your customers by choosing an email service provider with a number of different ways to get support. Look for online and phone support as a minimum requirement when choosing your ESP.

Finally see if your email service provider will give you a free trial. With all of these things mentioned above, it's easier to see if the service provider suits your business by giving them a try. 

10 Ways to Make the Most of Your Email Marketing

Email is a great tool for moving your prospects through the purchase decision process. Check out these great tips from Justin Palmer...

1. Diversify your Content: If your entire email focuses on one product, service, or topic, you risk alienating all but the few people who will be interested. Unless you have segmented your database based on previous behavior, do not send an email on only 1 topic. I consistently find that the click through rate increases in proportion with varied content.

2. Don't Stress about Spam Words: Many experts will tell you to avoid words like "free" or "sale". In my opinion, ISPs tend to be moving away from content based spam filtering in favor of reputation based filtering. In other words, your sending IP address and from email are more important than whether or not your email contains certain words. Personally, I've used words like "free" in the subject line without any affect on delivery rates.

3. Make it Readable with Images Disabled: Always take into account the appearance of your email with images disabled. For email clients such as Outlook, this is now the default feature. Even popular web mails like Hotmail now disable images unless the sender is in the address book of the recipient. The best tactic to create readable emails with images block is use an alt description.

4. Create an Online Version: Always provide an online version of your email for users having trouble viewing images. I've calculated from emails I've sent in the past that around 5% of users will use this feature.

5. Remove Inactive Subscribers: Inactive subscribers are the most likely to get you in trouble by clicking the spam button. Consider automatically removing a subscriber that hasn't opened an email in several months.

6. Proofreading: Always have every email proofread by at least 2 detail oriented people. There's nothing more embarrassing than a typo in an email blast.

7. Monitor Replies: When you send out thousands of emails, you're bound to get a few replies. Occasionally, you'll get some good feedback from your subscribers. In addition, some people reply with unsubscribe requests.

8. Unsubscribe at Top: I know what you're thinking, "At the TOP!?" Yes, at the top. Lazy unsubscribers have a tendency to click the spam button instead scrolling down to find the unsubscribe link. By placing the link at the top, you might increase your unsubscribe rate, but that's better than an inflated spam complaint count.

9. Don't Over or Under Mail: If you send too much, you'll get deleted or marked as spam. Oddly enough, if you send once every 3 months you may have the same problem. Keep your brand top of mind for your customers by finding the perfect balance between over and under mailing.

10. Forward to Friend Feature: Many users automatically do this, but it doesn't hurt to ask. First time potential customers can be very open to a company when it is introduced by a friend or colleague.

Justin Palmer offers expert eCommerce consulting services and Do It Yourself search engine optimization lessons. In addition, Justin is the eCommerce director for C28.com, which sells Spiritual t-shirts and Witness wear.

Quick List Building Techniques

I was recently asked how to build a strong email list for marketing purposes. There are a variety of techniques out there. Here are the top 5 that I use on a regular basis to generate a large number of potential buyers for products and services:

1. Offer a Newsletter. You definitely want to provide your newsletter subscribers with added messages such as the ones I've identified above. (If you didn't read the sidebar above, go back and read it again - it can dramatically increase your profit by setting up your newsletter as an autoresponder and doing a combination of automated and broadcast mailings.)

2. Offer a Free Course. Most people have 5-7 lessons in their email mini-courses and when a subscriber finishes the lessons, they're done. What a waste! Add extra lessons and continue adding new ones to the sequence.

3. Leverage Your Customers. Do you follow-up with your customers? Not only should you make this a practice, but you should also regulary add "unadvertised bonuses" and other special mailings for your customers to an autoresponder database to be sent to them. I cannot tell you how many new orders come in every week (too many to count!) from follow-up mailings to my existing customers.

4. Use a Partner List. Got an affiliate program? Good for you - how often do you mail to them? Add new messages to your autoresponder sequence to go to all of your affiliate partners! Offer an incentive. Provide them with additional marketing materials. Give them new training ideas and so forth.

5. Co-Registration. Do you have some affiliates or know others who have websites? Offer to provide them access to your mini-course or ebook by placing registration on their website and sharing the list.

Make sure with any of your lists that subscribers know you plan on sending them additional mailings and they have the opportunity to unsubscribe should they choose to do so. This is "standard operating procedure", but it's worth reminding you about.

The Science of Email Subject Lines

When writing your email subject lines, the key is to avoid appearing as SPAM to both mail clients as well as humans. In addition, you should always split your email lists and test, test, test. That said, I recently read an article by Jordan Ayan, the CEO of SubscriberMail (www.subscribermail.com), who identified words to avoid in your email subject lines as they will get your email messages blocked.

Top 100 words NOT to use in your subject lines:

• 100% free
• 50% off
• act now
• all words that relate to sex or pornography
• all words that related to cures or medication
• amazing
• anything that looks like you are YELLING
• apply now
• as seen
• as seen on Oprah
• as seen on TV
• Article continues below
• avoid
• be your own boss
• buy
• call now
• cash bonus
• cialis
• click here
• collect
• compare
• consolidate
• contains $$$
• contains word "ad"
• credit
• Dear Friend
• discount
• don't delete
• double your anything
• double your income
• e.x.t.r.a. Punctuation
• earn
• earn $
• earn extra cash
• easy terms
• eliminate debt
• extra income
• fast cash
• financial freedom
• for only
• for you
• FREE
• free
• free access
• free gift
• free info
• free instant
• free offer
• free samples!
• friend
• g a p p y t e x t
• get
• get out of debt
• hello
• herbal
• hidden
• home based
• hot
• information you requested
• instant
• levitra
• life insurance
• limited time
• loans
• lose
• lose weight
• lower your mortgage rate
• lowest insurance rates
• make money
• medicine
• mortgage
• multi level marketing
• notspam
• now only
• numerical digits at the end
• offer
• online degree
• online marketing
• online pharmacy
• only
• open
• opportunity
• promised you
• refinance
• removes
• reverses
• satisfaction
• search engine listings
• serious cash
• starting with a dollar amount
• stop or stops
• teen
• undisclosed recipient
• valium
• vicodin
• winner
• work from home
• xanax
• your family
• Your own
• You're a winner!

It's best to freely develop your email subject lines first, then compare to this list. If one of the words in your subject line appears, simply replace it with a synonym. Remember, your email is only "good" if it gets delivered, read, and acted upon!