One of the hottest topics around the Blue Sky Factory office in recent weeks has been the importance of growing your email list organically. Online marketing traffic continues to increase as people are catching on to the high ROI potential of email marketing and the ability to reach clients personally through this channel. Unfortunately, some people are very eager to begin new email campaigns as soon as possible and begin sending to a quick fix list that is not fully opted-in. I am proud to say that one of my newest clients, Active Junky, has not succumb to this lazy and illegal practice. Active Junky is popping onto the email marketing scene with full force, but they are doing it completely organically. Let me show you how:

• Online opt-in with a strong call to action. Not only does their homepage have a prominent, aesthetically pleasing opt-in dialog box on their website index page, but there is an opt-in present on every page of the website. Remember that when people come to your site to get more information about your company, they tend to navigate through your entire website. Make sure that you include an opt-in option for your emails on every page. The further they navigate through, the more interest that builds and will most likely intrigue them to sign up.

• Create an honest and straight forward opt-in. Active Junky also does a great job of giving a brief description of what signing up will entail. The more information the better! Be sure to follow this practice and inform your subscribers what they will be receiving. Lack of this notice will surely set you up for complaints and non-engaged subscribers down the line.

• Follow up email after opting-in. In addition to thorough opt-in coverage on their site, Active Junky sends a great follow up email to new subscribers. It gives another brief description of what they have signed up for, a reminder to whitelist their address, a link to their privacy policy and editorial policy, and a link to an easy-to-use opt-out option. Not to mention, all of this information is delivered in a timely manner from the sign up - and in a clear and concise manner. But they don’t forget to remind you of the “awesomeness” you’re about to receive through their newsletter to get you excited for what is to come!

So you see, it can be so easy to grow your lists organically; that’s the magic of the online world. Information is so easily accessible, and you can’t overlook the opportunity here! So please, please take into consideration the practices that Active Junky is using to kick off their brand new company and email marketing business.

Plus – if you want to learn even more tips on growing your lists properly, tune in to our next webinar tomorrow at 3 PM ET! Hosted by one of our Support Team rockstars, Melanie Sims, we’ll walk you through many list growing techniques that are sure to amp up your email marketing campaigns.

With the ever growing online marketing industry, there is definitely no lack of blogs and email newsletters on just about any topic. I find this especially true with email marketing, and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming to filter through the many sources of industry information.

Allow me to run through my favorite sources for email marketing news, and hopefully I can help you quickly drill down to the resources that are best for you.

BeRelevant!. A blog dedicated to email marketing best practices, author Tamara Gielen gets straight to the point. Her blogs are easy to read (who has time to read pages and pages of a blog post?), and consistently contain useful information. Tamara shares content from other blogs and newsletters, and I’d consider BeRelevant! as the go-to blog for your email marketing news - if you had to pick just one.

MarketingProf’s Get to the Po!nt: Email Marketing. This daily e-newsletter contains a short article written by an email marketing expert (usually someone from MarketingProfs or another recognizable personality in email marketing). Get to the Po!nt includes tips and best practices for email marketers, and it comes at the same time every morning in the same format. You know what to expect, when to expect it, and you can always expect valuable content.

eMarketer Daily. This daily newsletter focuses more on marketing statistics and trends. It has a broader focus (includes social media, mobile, among other online marketing tools and trends), and includes very valuable reports.

HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog. By reading this blog, email marketers can get tips on using inbound marketing efforts to complement their email marketing. Whether it’s about optimizing your website, tips on using Twitter, or how to make the most of events and conferences, HubSpot provides content that will help you maximize your inbound marketing efforts.

So go ahead, my fellow online marketers, and continue to stay at the forefront of our rapidly changing industry. You might as well make the most of that 3:27 PM snack break, and read some useful information as you down that afternoon sugar fix!

Being on the account team here at Blue Sky Factory, I spend about 45 hours each week in hundreds of different client accounts. One thing I’ve noticed is that many of our clients do not use the Subscriber Preferences tool. This always shocks me since it only takes a couple clicks of the mouse (about 48 seconds to be exact), and POOF – you can significantly increase your sending efficiency and effectiveness!

Now that I’ve got your attention, let me explain this magic tool a little further. The Subscriber Preferences page is a link that can be included in emails, and it gives subscribers access to update their own information. The data they are able to update is dependent on which fields and mailing lists they are given access to in your database, or which fields and mailing lists are set as “public.” Once the fields and mailing lists are set as public, you can then add the Subscriber Preferences link into your emails to allow subscribers to update their own information.

With this user-friendly tool, you will surely keep your subscribers happy by sending them email as much, or as little, as desired. Not only does this help you target clients more closely, but it saves you time and money from sending emails to uninterested recipients. Another plus - it keeps recipients from becoming annoyed if emails are being sent too frequently. That may result in them dropping you in a spam folder, which we all know can be deadly!

Subscribers are also able to update their email address, name, address, company information - or any other information you may have collected from them when they opted-in to receive your emails.

So ladies and gents of the email marketing world, please take a minute and add this feature in your email campaigns. In Blue Sky Factory’s application Publicaster, you only need to check off a couple of boxes in your account and drop a pre-made code snippet to get this feature rolling. Go here for detailed instructions on how to set up the Subscriber Preferences feature in your Publicaster account. And, of course, if you ever need any help with this, one of your rockstar account managers is just a quick call away. We will be happy to help you set it up!

Email marketing is thought of as spam by many people. Marketers need to understand that email marketing is not spam, but is an easy, cost effective marketing tool that produces a high ROI - as long as it’s done correctly. To read about characteristics that clearly help marketers create a highly effective and welcome email campaign, click here.

As we begin to celebrate Thanksgiving and think about all of the things we are thankful to have, I begin to wonder – do people really know about all of the features from their email service provider (ESP) that they should be thankful for? I’m sure everyone is aware of the easy list loading, HTML editor, and the ability to send your company’s message to thousands - or even millions - of people with a few clicks of your mouse, but there are so many more features available from ESPs that everyone should be thankful for. So along with our full Thanksgiving Day dinner tables, let me open your eyes to the plentiful services your ESP has to offer you:

Opt-In Forms: Most ESP’s include a simple way to build your list one prospect or customer at a time. All good email marketing begins with permission, and it starts here. Using an opt-in form means saying goodbye to adding new contacts one by one in a list file. Build your list organically by allowing people to easily sign up for your communications. You will reach a highly interested audience - with less workonder – do people really know about all of the many features their email service provider (ESP) offers that they should be thankful for? I’m sure everyone is aware of the easy list loading, and editing tools, and the ability to send your company’s message to thousands - or even millions - of people with a few clicks of your mouse, but there are so many more features available from most ESPs that all marketers should give thanks. So, along with our full Thanksgiving Day dinner tables, let me open your eyes to some of the plentiful features your ESP has to off on your end!

Segmentations: Having a strong list of contacts is an accomplishment within itself, but you can also target your message more strategically. By creating and using segmentations, you can target your contacts by a variety of global conditions (i.e. contacts added after a specific date), database conditions (i.e. contacts with the zip code 11111), or even behavioral conditions (i.e. contacts that opened email “Newsletter1” and clicked on “link #2”). Segmentations can also be used to allow subscribers to set their email preferences, either for preferred email format (HTML or text), frequency, or subject matter.

A/B Testing: A/B testing allows you to test two separate versions of your email or subject lines before sending it to the masses. This way you can find a winning version that is most likely to reach your intended inboxes and intrigue your recipients to open and take action. Publicaster 7.0 will feature an automatic A/B Split test tool built right into the Send/Schedule section!

Auto Response Campaigns: This feature allows your ESP to automatically send another email out to a specific recipient based on either a time based interval or a behavior. This presents the ultimate way to automate some of your most important marketing communications. This feature set can be invaluable for lead / prospect nurturing. Simply set up the campaign to launch at your desired frequency and most systems will take care of the rest. This is great for drip campaigns, which include emails sent in a succession based on when the person signed up.

So not only should you have a plentiful and abundant feast this Thursday, but you also have plentiful features and complimentary services from your ESP that you may not be taking advantage of today. If you have questions using these features, call your ESP’s support line. For Publicaster questions, please contact us at bsfsupport@blueskyfactory.com or 1-866-216-BLUE, and we will be happy to help. Happy Thanksgiving!