'Net Features : email, constant contact

Engagement Marketing & Education for Associations from Constant Contact

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 04:30:00 GMT

Engagement marketing provider Constant Contact, best known for its email and event marketing features, has launched a new program for associations.

Organizations that join the program will receive discounts to the company’s suite of engagement tools – email, social, deals, events, etc. – as well as direct access to educational resources to teach best practices, marketing coaches to put those best practices in action, Constant Contact marketing tools, and perhaps most notable is an “association console” which can be used to track and manage the program.

While associations could likely get these offerings from anywhere, Constant Contact’s industry experience is what is noteworthy. Anyone looking to keep their association’s members, donors and even volunteers active and engaged might want to check it out – if only to use as a comparison to the systems they currently have in place.

“Constant Contact has long been committed to supporting associations, and we're very excited to offer this new program to help them attract new members, foster communication with existing members, and support members' marketing efforts,” said Alec Stern, vice president, strategic market development at Constant Contact. “Understanding how to market effectively is a critical to being successful, which is why we have made education a core component of the Association Program.”

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!

Constant Contact Gets Even More Event Friendly

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:00:00 GMT

Email service provider Constant Contact has released several new features which aim to firm up its position in the event marketing landscape with additional payment options, registration sharing, donations and a partnership with ePromos.com.

Event organizers are now able to process payments online through Google Checkout. When users store their credit card information within their Google account, they will be able to make ticket purchases or donations thanks to the integration with Constant Contact. This applies also to the new donations feature

Constant Contact also now provides its customers the ability to share the names of registrants on the event landing page (although little information on that is available), and, through a partnership with ePromos, Constant Contact customers will be able to purchase promotional items.

ESP's Flowing into FlowTown

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:00:00 GMT

How much do you know about your email subscribers? Could you be more profitable if you had deeper insights into customer demographics and social network reach?

Email service provider Constant Contact has partnered with social media marketing platform Flowtown to provider users of its toolset with insights into their subscirbers social profiles including demographics (age, gender) social networkmembership and social influenec (as measured by the Klout score, which quantifies reach by measuring the level of audience engagement). The integration is available immediately to users who have accounts with both companies.

“Constant Contact makes social media simple; Flowtown makes social media profitable. Together, we’re making it easier than ever for small businesses to identify, directly communicate, and engage with their most influential email subscribers,” said Ethan Bloch, Flowtown co-founder. “Flowtown is easy to use and affordable; it’s the perfect tool for helping small businesses increase the firepower of their email campaigns.”

Email’s Growing Influence on Social

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:38:00 GMT

Constant Contact announced new features today that enable email marketers to promote social sharing of their content and messaging.

The new features work with the company's existing social share functions (which have been used to share more than 40,000 unique emails this month alone). While Contstant Contact may not be the first ESP (email service provider) to realize the potential of social sharing, they are now making it even more prominent and accessible to their users

New features include Share Buttons, the Facebook "Like" Button, a Tweet Button, and a Share this Email /Survey/Event.

These sharing features make it possible for users to gain a network effect, generate more buzz, and increase exposure to broaden the reach of customer campaigns, increasing their ROI, and proving that email marketing and social media is a highly effective combo.

Email Marketing Gets Social With NutShellMail Acquisition

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:16:00 GMT

Email marketing powerhouse Constant Contact (whose client numbers now exceed 350,000) has acquired NutshellMail, a free service that enables marketers to monitor, manage and interact with customers through social media. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

NutshellMail's service works by collecting and organizing (aggregating) the latest messages and activity from social networks — including Twitter™, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace® — into a snapshot that is delivered to marketers via email. Users of Constant Contact's service will soon be able to customize the content they want to track from social media, add search terms, and choose how frequently they want to receive updates.

Integrating this social media tool into email management service makes a lot of sense for Constant Contact, and the benefit of being able to reply to social media updates from within the interface is going to be very appealing to SMBs.

"We started NutshellMail to help solve the problem of social network overload. As part of the Constant Contact family, we're going to help some of the busiest people on the planet, small business owners, turn what might seem like social media chaos into a smart marketing tool for growing their business. It's like a DVR for your social networking activity," said Mark Schmulen, co-founder of NutshellMail.

Constant Contact QuickView for the iPhone

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Constant Contact released a mobile email marketing application dubbed QuickView for the iPhone.

QuickView (which is the first commercial product developed by Constant Contact Labs) provides contact management capabilities, giving CC customers the ability to add new contacts to any existing account list, view, edit and search through their contact lists, create new contact lists, and segment existing contact lists based on special interest categories.

“As the business world becomes increasingly reliant on mobile communication, we want to meet our customers’ need to stay connected to our services, from wherever they are,” said Len Bruskiewitz, senior director, partner programs, Constant Contact. “Constant Contact QuickView for the iPhone empowers our small business customers to manage their contacts and campaigns remotely and make the most of their valuable time.”

Constant Contact QuickView for the iPhone is available free of charge to Constant Contact’s userbase.

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Online Event Marketing With Constant Contact Tool (Email)

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:18:00 GMT

Most email service providers whose clients need assistance with event marketing often integrate with a third-party system such as Eventbrite.

That's not the case for Constant Contact, who today announced an onlne event marketing service designed to help their customers promote and manage registrations/RSVPs for meetings, seminars and other events.

The solution enables users to create a homepage for the event, send email invitations, set up an online calendar and provide an event link that can be distributed on any website, blog or social network. Reminders, updates, and thank you confirmations can also be sent to registrations. Perhaps most impressive is the ability of the system to process credit cards (via PayPal).

“Small businesses and organizations thrive on their ability to continually strengthen customer relationships, and hosting events is a great way to do so,” said Gail Goodman, CEO, Constant Contact.

”Event Marketing offers our customers a professional, affordable, and efficient solution for managing and promoting an event from start to finish. As with our other product offerings, Event Marketing addresses the unique needs of the small business owner or nonprofit organization manager and turns an important, but often overwhelming marketing and management task into a simple and effective process.”

The solution is priced at $15/mo (for up to five open events, unlimited invitations) but a free 60-day trial is available (no credit card required) so you can check it out.

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