'Net Features : aweber

Email Service Providers Become Social-Ready

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:00:00 GMT

One of the benefits of using an email service provider is that the best vendors help support your subscriber acquisition efforts.

ESP’s typically do this by providing Web forms. Content submitted through this forms is then piped from the website collecting the information into the database being stored at the ESP. With the influx of attention around social media however, email service providers are increasingly offering their clients a means to do at least some of this necessary acquisition legwork on popular social media sites – namely Facebook.

To date, most of the work done with “social” on the part of email service providers has revolved around SWYN (Share With Your Network) features which give the ability to post a notice on Facebook and Twitter about the most recent newsletter/email sent, and hope that it gets shared by users. That’s useful but there are other ways to use social media for the sake of email – again, in terms of recipient acquisition.

Email marketing software provider AWeber has been the most recent entrant in the cause to leverage social for the good of email. Users of the service can now enable the Facebook registration feature which automatically prefills a prospective subscriber’s information (name and email) into a Web form, as long as they are logged into the social network.

While the Aweber feature could lower the barriers to acquisition marketers should consider the trust and privacy implications for users who may question the rather aggressive approach.

Website Magazine looked into what other email marketing software and service vendors are doing to support the increasing interest in using social to drive acquisition with email. iContact offers an integrated set of social media tools, including customizable, Facebook-ready sign-up forms, a means to add sharing buttons to emails and Facebook and Twitter publishing. ConstantContact is another that obviously recognizes the role social is playing in email success. It’s Join My Mailing List application, which was launched in late 2009, enables marketers to collect email addresses on their Facebook brand pages. Another of my recommended ESP’s, GetResponse, doesn't offer a Facebook form for subscriptions but does provide an import tool dubbed List Booster which enables email marketers to upload email lists from mail clients or other services, including LinkedIn.

There are of course many others email marketing service providers which offer social sharing features – too many to mention. Collecting subscribers through is only one benefit from being at the intersection of email and social. With the rich data that comes from social interaction, email marketers are also now empowered with an ability to approach those most influential to their success.

One of the problems email marketers have encountered is in understanding who their most influential subscribers are – something which could prove very useful. A new solution from email marketing provider BlueHortnet Networks, dubbed Social Influencers Strategy Blueprint, could be the answer. The solution offers marketers the ability to identify members of their subscriber email list who actively share email content across their personal social networks, segment those subscriber based on their social sharing behavior, and send them targeted email to further motivate social sharing activity. By being able to connect with “influencers”, marketers also have an ability to attract more loyal users, buyers, and subscribers.

What other innovations as an email marketers are you seeing today? And what social media features does your email service provider offer? Share your comments below with other Website Magazine readers!

Email-Social Segmentation Simplified

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:51:00 GMT

Kudos to email and social media mavens for realizing that two great mediums work perfectly well together and that one will not (or should not) entirely replace the other.

There seems to be lots of evidence to support this. GetResponse.com's "Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Report" showed that e-mail marketing messages with a social sharing option generate 30 percent higher click-through rates. According to an aWeber survey (also released this week) a majority (77%) of small businesses indicate that integrating email marketing and social media is either "very important" or "somewhat important".

There is clearly a lot of activity happening in the space and you would be wise to jump on the bandwagon. Fortunately, some very savvy ESPs are providing resources and tools to make the leap less scary and more beneficial.

Email marketing service provider iContact announced a partnership with social marketing platform FlowTown today. The integration will allow iContact users to segment their subscribers based on their social web use. iContact users can now segment any subscriber list by age group, gender, location and social network.

“In the past, sending targeted email was very expensive and only available to the Fortune 500,” commented Ethan Bloch, co-founder of Flowtown. “The Flowtown and iContact integration will enable anyone to segment their lists more effectively and increase open and click rates by sending more targeted email.”

AWeber Affiliate Program Improvements

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:30:00 GMT

Email marketing software provider AWeber made some important changes to their affiliate program.

AWeber has been around for a while (as long as I've been in the business). If you're an affiliate marketer marketing to other marketers, you'll be interested in the modifications as the new policies have been influenced by actual aWeber affiliates - a nice touch. AWeber surveyed its affiliates for feedback on several key issues, including commissions and cookie length, and made some adjustments to the program based on the responses.

Changes to the AWeber affiliate program now include:

Commission are increasing to 30%
Second-tier commissions are being phased out
Affiliate cookies will be one year
Minimum check payout will be $30 for US affiliates and $50 for non-US affiliates.

All of these changes will be effective on April 8, 2009. The only exception will be the PayPal payment option, which will be available in the near future.

Email Marketing Doing Well

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:36:00 GMT

Despite many Internet companies entering the deadpool at an increasingly feverish rate, there remain some wonderful bright spots.

Email marketing software provider AWeber Communications (a long-time contender in the competitive email space) announced its active customer base surpassed 50,000 businesses worldwide - a 65% increase. Thanks to the Philadelphia-based company's success, it is moving into a new office and increasing its roster of employees by 54%.

"With small businesses stretching every available dollar for maximum return, utilizing email marketing to keep in touch with customers and prospects makes a lot of sense in this economy," said Tom Kulzer, CEO and founder of AWeber.