Introduction 

Email can be a very useful tool for marketing to your existing customers and new ones. Its quick and theres no delivery costs. In fact it can be one of the cheapest and easiest forms of marketing there is. There are different ways to do it, ranging from your desktop email client, like MS Outlook, to professional email marketing services or software.

So how do you go about it, and what do you need to know?

To many people its simple - just write an email in Outlook and send it to all the customers in your contacts list. If you want to buy in more contacts, simply import those into Outlook and away you go. Whats the big deal?

Well one thing that has to be explained to start with is the problem with mass emailing from your usual email client, whether its Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird or whatever.

Why not use Outlook?

 The problem isnt so much Outlook as where your email goes after Outlook. Your email going out gets sent to a computer (the Outgoing SMTP server) which relays it on. Continue Reading »

Many companies just don’t think about this and use MS Office and Sage, because one is on the PC and the other is recommended by their accountant. Stop and think!

In an ideal world you would pick one bit of software that did everything from accounts to emailing. But being tied to one software supplier and one system has many problems. It will be expensive, and there will be bits you dont like. I wouldnt do it.

If you have several systems, on the other hand you end up trying to export and information between them, or duplicate effort. For example you use a CRM System like Goldmine, an email  system like Outlook and an accounts system like Quickbooks. All 3 have contact information for the same people in them. Nightmare!

 Well here are a few things that I that have found work well (together) for me. Continue Reading »