While we are working on a direct import capability for ACT contacts; you can export your ACT contacts as a comma separated value (.csv) file and then import that file into GroupMail. This will only take a few minutes.
First, follow their instructions for exporting your ACT contacts.
Then, follow our instructions for importing a .csv file into GroupMail.
Voila.
Our offices will be minimally manned throughout the holidays. Here is the 2009 holiday schedule:
*** Holiday Support Hours ***
24 December 2009 - available until 1300 GMT
25 December 2009 - closed
26 December 2009 - closed
27 December 2009 - closed
28 December 2009 - email support only
29 December 2009 - email support only
30 December 2009 - email support only
31 December 2009 - email support only
1 January 2010 - closed
2 January 2010 - closed
3 January 2010 - closed
4 January 2010 - normal hours resume
Thank you, in advance, for your understanding.
We wish you all a wonderful holiday season and an especially good New Year!
In a previous post, Ryan took us through some of the things not to use when creating html for email marketing campaigns. To follow-up, he now goes through some things that work pretty well!
So, what kind of html should we use in our email campaigns Ryan?
Number 1: Do use nested tables to create your HTML email layout.
This may seem counter intuitive for modern web designers but you should look at HTML email as being several years behind the current web standards.
Sample Code:
Nested tables Code
Number 2: Also include a plain text part with your HTML email message.
If you send a HTML only message, some spam filters will block these messages, and some other recipients will only receive a blank message (those who have email clients configured not to view HTML emails). Therefore it is important to also include a text only part. GroupMail (and I’m sure other email clients) allow you to send text only and html emails together [more].
Adding Text Only Version to GroupMail:
GroupMail plain-text
Number 3: Define styling in your HTML email using standard HTML attributes
Standard HTML attributes include height and width for images, font style etc. If you use CSS it should also be defined directly within the HTML tag.
Good advice, anything else that might be useful?
Number 4: Test test and test some more.
The more testing you can do the better idea you will have as to what works for your needs.
What about images, should they be embedded or linked to?
Hmm, this is a little tricky. Personally, I use embedded images, but I ensure that the images are small and optimized to a web resolution of ideally 72ppi [That looks like another blog post to me!].
However, this is really is a personal choice and there are pro’s and cons for both, you can view some of these here.
Would you recommend any software for creating the html messages?
Well, GroupMail includes it’s own wysiwyg html editor which works pretty well, but if you want to go with something a little more robust, I’d recommend Adobe Photoshop for manipulating images, and Dreamweaver for the html.
Any final thoughts?
It’s a good idea to either create email accounts with as many of email clients as possible - create both web-based and desktop clients, or alternatively use an email analysis tool in order to test your html email across a number of popular clients (Email on Acid is really cool & free).
So there you have it .. some practical html tips for your email campaigns. If there is anything you feel we’ve missed, leave a comment!
Image by Beatrice Murch
As a marketer it is sometimes too easy to get tied up in your own little world and forget about your overall goals and objectives. Be warned though, in the context of email marketing, forget about the recipients at your peril. While you might have your targets and deadlines, forget to communicate and engage with your audience and your efforts could very well result in the opposite of what you want to achieve.
- I am not an email address on your list, I am not a potential conversion, an additional open or click-thru, I am a person, I want to be entertained, I want to see something useful and relevant to me right now, I am selfish and self centred - disappoint me - I may never take the time to open your messages again !
- If I don’t recognise a name/company/brand in the From or Subject Line there is a high chance I’ll ignore you.
- Pretty much every waking hour and most places I look I’ve brands stuck in my face and I’m bombarded with ads, they’re usually bundled with things I consume - TV, newspapers, web sites … even so most of the time I actively ignore the ads - so you sending another one to my inbox, and worse, if there is nothing to accompany it for me to consume - what do you think your chances are ?
- If I don’t know or remember you - in my world you’re a nobody - if your a nobody I probably won’t listen to or trust you - no trust - no sale
- Tell me “do not reply”, I may be petty about it, if you won’t read my replies - I won’t read yours.
- If the message content is pretty much the same as the last 100 messages you’ve sent me maybe just worded a little different, I stopped reading them a long time ago.
- My definition of spam is I don’t want to see your emails in my inbox any more, as such I’m just as likely to click This is Spam as opposed to using your Opt-Out link, regardless of how I came to be on your list !
Bugging or boring your target audience doesn’t make for good marketing, simply avoiding this pitfall could in fact put you head and shoulders above most of those you’re competing with for attention !
Oh yeah and there is no such thing at the typical recipient !
GroupMail rated 8.3 Excellent
Happy to see Service & support getting a high score, it’s something we put a lot of time and effort into.
There were a number of areas in GroupMail they highlighted as “could do better” (a favourite teacher comment on my school report cards from the past) - in summary
GroupMail isn’t the prettiest Windows application, but the interface is clean and uncluttered …
The user interface has not had a facelift since the release of Windows XP so I guess it does look a bit dated, it’s not in our immediate plans to update this, making the interface even cleaner, less cluttered and more useable is probably a higher priority from the feedback we’re getting.
GroupMail Business Edition provides 20 HTML templates. They’re basic …
Email templates are something we are working on, all going well we should have a fresh batch of new design templates available with the next release - here is a sneak preview to the fruits of Ryan’s work to date (he was also good enough to make some of his own photos available for use)
GroupMail Email Templates
The only niggle was that GroupMail introduced redundant column data that wasn’t in our Outlook database; it also renamed column fields — for instance, ‘Web site’ in Outlook was renamed to ‘Business home page’ in GroupMail, and ‘Mobile phone’ was Americanised to ‘Cellphone’.
Microsoft Outlook is good enough to not show those ID columns to the user, GroupMail should do the same, we are planning to do some further address book integration work with GroupMail in the next couple of weeks, should be able to make those unsightly columns disappear too.
On the Americanised terms -or is it Americanized ? despite GroupMail being born and brought up in Ireland, historically we have tended to go with US English by default (as its our biggest market). Now that GroupMail is available in a variety of languages, it would be pretty straight forward to offer both US and UK English options - would it be ironic if one of our 2 American team members offered to do the translation ? Go on Tom or Ryan you know you want to 
Anyhow, ZDNet UK editor’s overall verdict:
GroupMail is good value for businesses of all sizes. The software isn’t exactly pretty, but its interface is clean and, above all, presents all the essential features. GroupMail allows you to create newsletters, while its impressive list handling handles issues like subscribe/unsubscribe, removals, bounced email address deletion and so on.
Cheers guys for taking the time to check out our product, it’s always interesting for us to see it from a fresh/non-biased perspective, check out the full review here.
GroupMail support for Windows 7
Well tomorrow is the official launch date for Microsoft Windows 7 and from playing around with beta versions since April and more recent releases it appears to be a much less troublesome animal that its infamous predecessor that shall remain nameless (don’t mention the war).
We have a new release of GroupMail (version 5.2.0.80) that supports Windows 7, for people using GroupMail Personal/Business Editions or Marketing Pack the new version is available for download from the customer system.
The GroupMail :: Free Edition is available for download here.
Any problems you come across using it with Windows 7 or otherwise, as always let us know.
Aside from the new OS support not an awful lot to shout about in the new version, a few bug fixes including an update that resolves a number of problems when deleting recipients / processing opt-outs when your mailing list is stored in an external database (e.g. SQL Server/MySQL etc).
So unless your upgrading to Windows 7, not too many reasons to upgrade your version of GroupMail. We’re aiming to have a more substantial release out in the next few weeks with a number of exciting additions/improvements - I’ll post more details on these separately.
I was talking to a customer today who asked if he could add more than one Reply To address in his sender identity so that when someone replies to a message, the reply would be sent to more than one address.
This is possible by adding multiple addresses, separated by commas, in the Reply To: field in the User Information screen of GroupMail’s Account Properties.
Note: When a recipient replies to your message, they will see all of the addresses you have listed in the Reply To field in their reply.
We talk to Ryan Doe our guru in creating html for email campaigns (and all round nice guy), about the issues marketers face in creating html for email marketing campaigns.
In this first post, Ryan will look at some of the things to avoid when creating html emails. (In a follow-up post, Ryan will also take us through some good practices).
So, why are we having this conversation in the first place Ryan?
When creating a HTML email there are a number of points to consider. Not only must you contend with spam filters that are becoming tighter by the day, you also need to contend with the lack of standards with regard to support for HTML across 100’s of different email clients.
That sucks, what email clients are we talking about here?
Fortunately most people use only a few email clients whether they be desktop email clients such as Outlook or Thunderbird, or web based clients such as Gmail, YahooMail and AOL. The site, http://fingerprintapp.com/email-client-stats, provides statistics on email client usage both on a business user level and a consumer usage level and as you can see, there are only a few major clients that feature.
Ok, so what do we need to avoid?
We start here with what we need to avoid, as these are pretty important and can be the most frustrating part about designing HTML email.
Number 1 - Don’t use background images in your email.
With the introduction of Outlook 2007 as well as a number of web based clients, support for background images has been removed. If you know that your contacts are only using clients that can render background images then go for it, but as a general rule don’t use background images (using CSS to call background images won’t work either.)
In this example - how the email and background image should look like:
This is how the same email looks in Outlook 2007 (Oops!):
Number 2 - Don’t use externally linked CSS.
Again some clients will be able to render the external CSS, however most web based clients will either strip out the external CSS link or ignore it.
Here is an example of how the externally linked CSS should display normally:
However, this is how the same message appears in Outlook 2007:
And how it appears in Gmail (Araghhh!)
On a similar note it is generally not a good idea to use CSS defined in the header of your HTML either, as this can also be stripped out or ignored by web based email clients.
Ok, so what else can’t we do?
Number 3 - Don’t use a single image for your entire message.
Spam filters are wise to this trick and on top of that, your message size could end up quite large.
Number 4 - Don’t design your HTML email like it’s a web page.
Web browsers are much more sophisticated than email clients when it comes to rendering HTML. If you use DIV tags to define the layout of your HTML email message don’t be surprised if the layout is completely broken when received.
So there you have it - all good practices when designing for the web, but provide major issues for email.
In a follow-up post, Ryan will take us through some good practices, when designing your html emails.
Email Marketing Report Grid
GroupMetrics 2.0 is now alive and kicking, here we take a quick look at some of the new features:
Redesigned User Interface
The GroupMetrics User Interface has been redesigned from scratch. We’ve listened to all you had to say on the old system and tried to come up with a new interface which is both simple and powerful.
Email Marketing Report
Client Access
Your clients can now be granted read-only access to their email marketing reports from the Accounts page.
Flash Reports
We’ve replaced our reports with a new set of flash based reports which can be zoomed, scrolled and interacted with. They allow for far more dynamic reporting than the old GroupMetrics. It also allows us to show some new reports, such as the Map report and interactive campaign timeline.
Email Marketing Report - Map View
Safety/Security
The new system is far more robust…if any gremlins should appear, your links still redirect to your url and your stats will be updated after the system plays catch-up.
Overrages / Credit Protection
We’re introducing an overrage system which will track additional opens, even after your credits have elapsed.
Custom Currencies
Custom currencies can now be set within your account page for the goal and PDF reports.
Group Export
It is now possible to export a list of all the unique email addresses who have clicked on a link or opened an email. This feature allows you to create custom lists of recipients who are more likely to click links or open emails. These lists can be directly imported into groups within GroupMail.
We’re already working on some pretty cool new features, but if there’s anything you hate/love, or would like included, let us know here.
Hardware and Software Reviews
E-mail marketing has proven very successful for those who do it right, but you need the right tools to do it. GroupMail is one such program.
Even though he thought having 4 different editions of GroupMail was over the top (and I tend to agree to a large extent), he did do a good job summarizing the breakdown in functionality in each and suitability for varying requirements.
Whether you are a small, medium or large business and you want to run an e-mail marketing campaign, GroupMail would be an ideal choice. The software looks nice, is easy to use, and has all the essential features.
In concluding he pointed out some of the pros and cons of GroupMail versus going with a web based solution, but overall a pretty fair assessment of GroupMail and its capabilities, but don’t take my word for it go over and read his review.
