What the Best Web-Based Email Marketing Solutions Offer

If anyone thinks that email marketing has gotten easier in the past few years, they couldn�t be more wrong. For starters, the majority of people get a lot of SPAM in their e-mails every day, making them more aggressive with the DELETE button (even with legitimate offers and newsletters that they’ve elected to recieved). And of course CAN-SPAM compliance issues make the entire web-based e-mail marketing process ‘asier said than done’ to say the least. That’s why choosing an e-mail marketing service should be done with a bit research and a lot of care. Here are a few things to look for while you seek out your ideal service.

1. Easy Set-up and Management. Your ideal service will be easy to use, maintain and configure, with enough options to give you what you need from the very beginning. Be sure that there’s adequate customer service and support available to you when you need it.

2. ‘Smart’ Tracking Features. This is mandatory feature, enabling you to know instantly which autoresponders and messages are pulling in the most, as in direct marketing you really need to be able to track everything you possibly can. This way, you can easily figure out which offers and messages are working the best and eliminate the ones that aren’t performing.

3. Database Access. The ability to access and manage your database of prospects is imperative to any successful e-mail marketing plan. You should be able to add subscribers, view removals, update messages, etc. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (when it’s convenient for you, not your service provider).

4. The ability to ‘get it in’ Messages from many e-mail marketing solutions will have a tough time getting through ISPs, let alone staying out of the ‘bulk’ folder. The best email campaign on the net won’t do anyone any good if it gets deleted before it can be read. Ensure that any prospective solution actually gets a high percentage of messages through to recipients.

Of course there are other features you’ll certainly want, like CAN-SPAM compliance (to keep you and your autoresponder out of legal trouble), SPAM-Check (to analyze your message and tell you how to improve it so your message gets to the recipient’s inbox, not their bulk folder), and the ability to attach files to your messages. While these special features might not seem critical to you now, one day in the future they may just be a necessity, so be sure that your e-mail service can expand to meet the needs of your growing business.

About the Author:
Stewart Hayden recommends that you visit http://www.getresponse.com/ for more information on email marketing.
Published 08/28/2006
Article Source: http://www.EzinePlug.com

Common Spam Emails

Spam comes in many forms and spammers will pull out all the stops to try to trick you into clicking on their email and hopefully making a purchase. Below are some of the most common forms that spam comes in – how many of them do you recognize?

Application Accepted – These emails are supposed to make you think that your loan or other application has been accepted. Of course, you won’t be fooled by this if you never applied for anything online.

Business Opportunity - These are the emails that claim you can make thousands with little effort. Like most anything else, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Chain Letters - Do you have a friend that relentlessly forwards you these emails? Not only do they suck up internet bandwidth and disk space, but they can potentially be a way for spammers to get your email address.

Magical Health Products - Magical diet pills and miracle cures are just hype and the products don’t usually match up to their claims.

Free Stuff - You’ve probably figured out by now that nothing in life is free. Usually these free offers require you to join a site with a monthly fee or have so many restrictions that you never actually get your “free” gift.

Loans and Credit Repair - You can apply for your own loan and repair your credit yourself. No one else will be able to work any special magic that you can’t do on your own.

About the Author:
Lee Dobbins
Visit http://www.spam-canned.com to find out more about spam and how you can protect your email address. Browse the free article database at http://www.spam-canned.com/spamarticles1.html
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Even The War Mongers Have Gotten Into Spamming

Everyone has had their fair share of junk email in their inbox. The topics are an entirely eclectic mix--from recommendations to buy stocks to sex performance-enhancing medicines to outright scams. The people behind such spam emails are usually unscrupulous marketers and entrepreneurs out to make a quick buck. But nowadays, even the war mongers have resorted to spamming as a venue to address their deceitful propaganda.

One of my most obedient friends recently forwarded an email to me with the subject line reading "Justice", all in uppercase. I consider her very obedient because the moment she sees the phrase "pass this on to all your friends" in the body of the email, she does so without question, brushing aside all dangers that may come to infect her personal computer for the sake of obedience.

Normally the emails that I receive from my obedient friend end up in the trash bin. But for some reason I decided to open this one. The email opens by describing an eight-year-old Iranian boy caught stealing bread and Islamic laws decree that he should loose (sic) the use of his arm. Then it asks "Is this a religion of peace and love?" The email even contained Arabic translations of the content. Having noticed how the author of the email misspelled a word as simple as "lose" and seeing Arabic translation, alarm bells immediately went off inside my head. I thought to myself this seems to be a well planned out email aimed at stirring up the reader's emotions.

I decided to scroll down the message and there were a series of five pictures graphically displaying how an adult probably in his mid-30's holding down the little boy's left arm while a truck slowly drives over it. I thought I had seen everything on the internet but I spent the next five minutes or so in front of my computer monitor being extremely shaken, confused at whether I was being overcome by pity or unbridled rage.

After those long five minutes which seemed like an eternity, I gathered myself and decided to head over to the Snopes website. For the uninitiated, Snopes is the preeminent website in debunking rumors, hoaxes, urban legends and the like. Using their search facility, I quickly found the page relating to the grisly images of the Iranian boy. It turns out that this email has been circulating since 2005. The email being circulated conveniently left out the last picture in the series, where the boy is resting and unhurt. The pictures were actually taken from one of those stunts that street hustlers perform to generate some easy money. The illusion that unfolds is that the young boy's arm is driven over by a truck but he escapes unhurt. It is not unlike the popular game that street hustlers play involving three inverted bowls with one hiding a ball and the onlookers are challenged to find where the ball is after the illusionist masterfully shifts the bowls around. The hustlers always win of course.

I calmed down after learning the truth but this time, I was overcome by extreme sadness. In this case, just like the hustlers that they are, the war mongering propagandists/liars have won. "How?" you ask. To answer that question, I will pose another question--how many people who receive this junk mail do you think would actually take the time to search for the truth the same way I did? At the end of the email, it says to pass it on to all for public awareness. I would go out on a limb and say that 99.9% of the recipients did just as they were told. In effect, the lie has been spread, the truth buried. The whole process of deception was indeed well planned out, well organized and well executed.

And so, here is another sad tale in a very long list of how the power of email was used and abused in order to spread harmful lies. A small positive did happen to me personally--I have not received any junk email from my friend in over a month. I am now wondering if her blind obedience in forwarding junk email has something to do with it.

About the Author:
F. Aldo
Webmaster of Virus Protection For Beginners and just happy to be of help! Come and share your computer security articles with us.
Article Submitted On: October 03, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/