Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind
Posted: March 19, 2009
Filed under: Pro Tips
Comments: Leave a comment
Keeping In Touch With Your Customers
There is no doubt that if we don’t bother to keep our customers interested and in communication, sooner or later, we will lose touch with them and that may jeopardize our brand recall when it is most needed, not to mention the bottom line.
However, that doesn’t mean just blasting our customers with boring information regularly. If we were to take on this challenge, we must ensure that our content are interesting, useful and relevant to our customer, offering something of value to those who read it. Take time to research and put together proper content that not only has substance, but presented professionally.
And to ensure a consistent experience, our newsletter must be regular. Decide if it will be a monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly or bi-annually and stick to that schedule of delivery.
We get frequent questions from clients and partners wanting to use HTML email (such as this newsletter) for their e-newsletter for marketing purposes or just to keep in touch with their customers. Here are a few services we are familiar with that can help streamline the process.
Online HTML Email Delivery Services:
Usually offered on a subscription basis, these online Application Service Provider (ASP) offers a full-feature suite of services that includes auto unsubscribe, campaign and database management, tracking and reporting, etc.
Regardless of which service you use, you should be comfortable working in HTML. At Moophstudios, we lay out our monthly newsletter out in Adobe Dreamweaver. The resulting raw HTML is then pasted into Direct Mail, a mailing list management and mail delivery software for Mac OS X (http://ethreesoftware.com/directmail/). More below…
In-House HTML Email Software:
Keeping with the theme of email campaigns: If you want to produce and send a home-grown email newsletter directly from your computer, take a look at the following list, which is usually less comprehensive than ASP services above and may not include comprehensive management and tracking and reporting features, but are usually easier to use and can be a great starting point if you planning for your very first mailing list campaign in-house:
The list above is by no means exhaustive and you can find more by searching either on Google or at http://www.download.com. Most services and/or applications come with free trial, so do give them a go to see which suits your needs best before deciding on one.
With this set of tools, you should be able to stay ahead of the game and keep your customers coming back interested and looking forward to getting your e-newsletter regularly.
Note: Please note that we are by no means, endorsing any of the services or software listed above but they are possible options available to us as tools of the trade for professionals and non-professionals alike. Please use at your own discretion. At MOOPHSTUDIOS, we use Direct Mail internally to send this enews to you and a couple of online ASP solutions to handle communications for our clients. For more information, please email info@mooph.com.
