If you haven’t yet added email marketing to your marketing mix please consider it soon. Email marketing – when done effectively and legally – is still the best thing you can do for your business as it enjoys the highest rate of return on investment.

One of the first things to consider is a suitable Email Service Provider (ESP) to provide you with the online system to manage your email marketing campaigns, to send personalized emails to your list, manage subscriptions, bounces, unsubscribes, etc.

When choosing an ESP, ask yourself these two questions:

1. Do I need to handle multiple opt-in lists?
2. Do I need a sequential auto-responder?

This will narrow down your choices significantly. If you’d like to have people sign up on your website/blog/facebook to different lists and offer them different automated sequential messages (also know as auto-responders) then my choice would be iContact.

For the ultimate in ease of use, try MadMimi.com, I recommend them to those who would like to create and send their email newsletters by themselves.

MadMimi has the most easy-to-use interface of all the ESPs I’ve tried over the years. They even offer a fully-featured free account for those just starting out. Read this article MadMimi Brings the Fun Back to Sending Email “Blasts” to learn more.

Boris Mahovac R.G.D.
Web Developer and eMarketing Mentor

P.S.
To see how one of our members, Jason Stevens, uses MadMimi, arrange a visit to his Oakville studio, and while he’s explaining to you how easy it is to use MadMimi to stay in touch with clients and prospects, get a professional business portrait done to complement your business card on this blog.