Hi Group Mailers!

I was reading an article on About.com Email today and noticed a call to nominate my favorite Windows Email Program for the 2012 About.com Email Readers Choice Awards.

I immediately started to daydream about how cool it would be if all GroupMail customers rallied and nominated our GroupMail Email Newsletter software as their favorite Windows email program for 2012.

GroupMail has won a many awards over the years, but the thought of it beating Outlook or Outlook Express as the favorite Windows Email Program was fodder for a pretty awesome dream.

“I remember being lifted onto the shoulders of thousands of people in the crowd, accepting the award and addressing the massive crowd; thanking everyone who voted, and especially all of our customers who make GroupMail as great as it is…”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful?

As dreamy as it all might seem, it actually is possible. I mean, statistically, it’s a heck of a lot more probable than any of us winning the lottery. If (and that’s a big If) everyone (or even a motivated percentage, representing everyone) who loves GroupMail just took a few minutes to…

Nominate GroupMail as your favorite Windows Email Program for 2012.

Wake me up when it’s over…

(by the way, from what I remember about my daydream; my speech was pretty awesome!)

If you didn’t notice, then you need to start reading our blog more.

To summarize the disappeared posts, they included incredible tips, novel insights, original Christmas poetry and best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year.

If you were dependent upon, moved or even somewhat entertained by any of the content that vanished in thin air from this space recently, I most humbly apologize on behalf of the web server whereupon this blog resides.

Oh, I almost forgot. We also had two rather significant GroupMail updates during this time.

GroupMail v. 5.3.108 was released on December 6th and included an awesome new feature that makes it easier than ever before to track who opens your email and clicks on the links in your message.
[release notes]

GroupMail v. 5.3.110 was just released a few days ago and includes a much requested new feature. GroupMail will now automatically store the date someone is added to your group. From feedback we get, this is very important for maintaining and segmenting contact lists for many of our customers.
[release notes]

What else?

Well, as our friend Garrison Keillor would say: That’s it from GroupMail, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

Only several days after the king of Black Friday, Wal*Mart, announced that they would be manning their cash registers at 10pm on Thanksgiving Day to kick off their Black Friday deals; Toys ‘R Us decided to one up them by promoting their 9pm opening on the same turkey day.

Traditionally, many retailers open their doors at midnight on Thanksgiving night to signify the start of the holiday shopping season.

Perhaps one day, the term Christmas in July will be a literal reference.

Over $648 Million dollars were spent on Black Friday in 2010, up 9 percent from 2009.

The National Retail Federation predicts that 152 million Americans will work off their Thanksgiving Day dinner by shopping on Black Friday 2011. That’s 14 million more than last year.

Even more promising for American retailers is that 33% of consumers surveyed in 2011 say that they will “definitely” shop on Black Friday, up from 27% last year.

“32 percent of consumers will specifically keep track of email coupons that they receive from their favorite retailers.”

“Though many retailers are already touting select Black Friday ads, there’s no doubt we’ll all be blown away by what retailers still have in their bag of tricks for shoppers,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. “We fully expect to see excited shoppers as early as midnight at stores around the country, as many holiday shoppers would rather stay up all night to take advantage of retailers’ Black Friday deals rather than set their alarm to wake up the next morning.”  continue reading

What will Americans be shopping for on Black Friday 2011?

From the National Retail Federation Black Friday 2011 Press Release:

NRF will release the results of its Black Friday weekend survey by 1:30 p.m. EST on Sunday, November 28 and will hold a special media briefing at 2 p.m. EST. Information will include what time people started shopping on Black Friday, where they shopped, how much they spent, and what they purchased. NRF will also be releasing findings from a new survey on the number of people expected to shop on Cyber Monday.

NRF’s offices will be closed on Black Friday and throughout the weekend, so please use the communications team’s direct lines to set up print and broadcast interviews with NRF spokespeople. (This is the only way to contact the PR team over the holiday weekend):

- Kathy Grannis: (202) 626-8189 or cell (202) 821-7513 or grannisk@nrf.com
- Ellen Davis: (202) 626-8127 or cell (703) 474-3446 davise@nrf.com
- Kara Goehring (202) 661-3055 or cell (318) 918-8830 or goehringk@nrf.com

Have you sent your own Black Friday email promotions yet?

Get them out this week with our award-winning newsletter and email marketing software.

Why ?

As part of a recent war on graymail, Hotmail has established some new hurdles for getting email delivered to the inbox, even if that email is sent as fulfillment to an opt-in newsletter or email marketing subscription. One of the new criteria for Hotmail inbox delivery is that all newsletter and email marketing messages must include a list-unsubscribe email header in their messages, even if there is already an unsubscribe link somewhere else in the message.

…Newsletter and email marketing messages WITHOUT a list-unsubscribe email header will be permanently sent to the Hotmail spam folder…”

For more information about these changes, and for instructions on how to add a list-unsubscribe email header to your next newsletter or email marketing message, read How do I add a list-unsubscribe email header in GroupMail?

Interested? Add your own, custom list-unsubscribe email header using our newsletter and email marketing software, GroupMail.

I received a twitter Direct Message notification from a friend of ours via an email in our helpdesk tonight. According to the DM, our friend was warning that there was a “bad blog going around about you, seen it yet?”

Being the spam savvy guy that I am, I was suspicious of the “bad blog going around about you, seen it yet?” warning, but followed the link to see where it would take me.

I quickly confirmed that it was, indeed, a phishing scam. The URL wasn’t masked at all and rather than being displayed as twitter.com, showed twittelr.com/..

So, beware out there; and if you do get one of these suspicious DMs from someone you know, do them a solid, let them know that you received it and advise them to change their Twitter password.

You can find more information about this type of phishing attack and related security (and password) advice at Naked Security.

Here are a few of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” – Commencement Address at Stanford University, June 12th, 2005

“The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people––as remarkable as the telephone.”

“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

“Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

”Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

“The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people — as remarkable as the telephone.”

“It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing, and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices.”

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

“I want to put a ding in the universe.”

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like, design is how it works.”

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”

Here are a few more Steve Jobs quotes:

“I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”

“Apple’s goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products. We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence, we’ll make some money. But we’re really clear about what our goals are.”

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. “

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

“The products suck! There’s no sex in them anymore!”

Finally, here are a couple Steve Jobs quotes especially meaningful to October 5th, 2011:

“Life is brief, and then you die, you know?”

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

</steve jobs quotes>

</steve jobs>

*sigh*

This new HTML form builder helps you create contact forms, manage newsletter sign-ups and even handle event registrations, without writing a single line of code.

GroupMail Forms is perfect if you need:

– An opt-in or opt-out email subscription form to collect and manage the contacts on your email list

– To add a contact form to your website but don’t know anything about HTML

– Make it easy for your email contacts to opt-in or opt-out from your email lists

– Allow contacts to sign up for your next event or just get in touch for more information

Use our simple, drag and drop form wizard to create stylish opt-in, opt-out and other forms in seconds.

Sounds great, how do I get started?
GroupMail Forms is available Free to all GroupMail customers with valid upgrade protection. Purchase Upgrade Protection

Login to GroupMail Forms Here (using your existing GroupMail account username and password)

This Tutorial will help get you started: How to create opt-in email subscription and other forms with GroupMail Forms

What type of packages are available?

The amount of forms and monthly subscribers available are based your current GroupMail license.

– GroupMail Personal Edition: 3 Forms + 10,000 subscribers/contacts per month

– GroupMail Business Edition: 10 Forms + 100,000 subscribers/contacts per month

– GroupMail Marketing Pack: Unlimited Forms + Unlimited subscribers/contacts per month

If you don’t already have a GroupMail license, get started with GroupMail today.

According to a 2010 ComScore report analyzing Internet trends, web-based email use declined 6% from 2009 to 2010 as mobile use increases, predominantly among younger Internet users.

Source: ComScore Report: Email Evolution: Web-based email shows signs of decline in the U.S. while mobile email usage on the rise

But one demographic showed dramatic increases in web-based email use over the past year. Internet users, aged 55-64 and Internet users over 65 showed 22% and 28% increases in web-based email use respectively. Boomers and Geezers are using web-based email more and more as years go by — and, as Tom Peters reminds us, Boomers and Geezers Rule!

What is a bit misleading is the fact that although teens have dramatically decreased their use of web-based email, they still use email as a tool to communicate with each other. They are just logging into Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo less to do it as they are spending more and more time with a mobile phone in their hand rather than sitting in front of a 17″ Desktop monitor.

Update: GroupMail CEO Robert Martin says “We can now confirm that Google has signed a deal to acquire GroupMail, but have no further comment at this time.”

Google has acquired email marketing software GroupMail, for around $75 million. We first reported on the discussions between the two companies in December. We can now report that those discussions have now turned into a signed deal, and will be announced today or tomorrow.

For more information read Google Acquires Email Marketing Software, GroupMail, for $75 Million