By now, you should have an idea what you want to do with your email marketing campaign. The next step is to create the artwork or design your email marketing campaign. You can either do it manually using design software (e.g. Adobe Photoshop) then convert it to html format or you can do it by using the templates provided by Constant Contact.

In this tutorial, we will do the later. We will learn how to select a ready-made newsletter template from Constant Contact and go through the step-by-step process of filling up the content for the newsletter template.

You can watch the below video on how to create your first email marketing campaign now. In the video, you can see there are about 400 over email marketing templates available in Constant Contact. The templates are categorized by different events and industries; see below for the full list of categories.

At the end of the video tutorial, you should be able to create a newsletter easily using Constant Contact templates and you can customize the template as much as to your heart’s content. Click on the play button and watch the video now.

You can also view the high definition of this video tutorial on YouTube, click here to view.

If you like this email marketing video tutorial, please share it with your friends, co-workers or teams. You are also welcome to leave any comments below.

How to Prepare Mailing List
You can prepare your mailing list in 2 methods - Using Excel Spreadsheet or Extract Directly from CRM or related Database software.  

1. Using Excel Spreadsheet
   The mailing list can be prepared and saved in .txt, .csv, .xls, .xlsx format using Excel spreadsheet or notepad editor. You can create fields like Name, Email Address, Address, Company Name, Tel & Country. But for this tutorial, we shall focus on 2 fields first - Name and Email Address. If you want personalization for your email, you can break the Name further into First Name and Last Name.
2. Extract Directly from CRM or related Database Software
   If you already have some form of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or other database software available, you can easily extract the data from such software. It will save you great amount of times preparing the mailing list manually.Constant Contact has made it easy to integrate its email marketing system with other CRM or database software by providing a list of import tools as below.
   1. Microsoft Outlook
   2. Microsoft Outlook Express
   3. ACT! By Sage
   4. Salesforce
   5. Intuit QuickBooks
   6. Contact Capture Tool

You can download all the above tools free from Constant Contact.

Import Mailing List into Constant Contact
There are four options where you can import your mailing list (or database) into Constant Contact.

1. Copy and Paste Contact in CC manually
2. Add Individual email address into CC manually
3. Import Contacts from a file on your computer
4. Import Contacts from Gmail or Google Contacts

 
You can find out the details in the below email marketing video tutorial. It will not only show you step by step on how to import a mailing list in excel spreadsheet format but also how to  enter the contacts directly into Constant Contact.

However, there may be times where you need to use more than one email address, see reasons here. To add in a new address and get it verify, follow the steps below. Alternatively, you can watch the video tutorials “How to Verify New Email Address” at the bottom of the post.

1. Go to Constant Contact dashboard.
2. Click on “My Settings” and “Verify Address”.
3. Under “Email Addresses to Verify”, add in new email address in the box.
   (You can add in more new addresses at one time but remember to hit <ENTER> after each new email address.)
4. Then click on the “Send Verification Email” button.
5. You should see your new email address is added to the list and the next step is to verify your new email.
6. Go to your inbox and look for email sent by Constant Contact.
7. Open up the email and click on the link in the email to verify.
8. Go back to Constant Contact and click on the Refresh button under “Verification Status” to update your latest verification status
9. You have now successfully verified your new email address.

If you are wondering why do you need to get at least two email addresses for your email marketing campaign? The reason is very simple - to help you to save time and organize your replying of emails to your marketing campaign more effectively.

If you are sending the email marketing campaign for the first time, you may not aware that your inbox will have a high tendency being overwhelmed with “Out of Office” messages from your recipients. This is especially so when you are sending email marketing campaign to a large mailing list (aka customer database). Just imagine, a 10% of your 10,000 mailing list when they were out of office, you would receive 1000 such “Out of Office” message in your inbox. You definitely will not want to waste your precious time and effort sorting such messages with your other valid email messages.

So in order to prevent your inbox being flooded with such messages, it is advisable to get another email address for your email marketing campaign. For example if you are using emailblast@xyz.com to send out your email marketing campaign. Then give an alternative email address for your recipients to reply when enquiries arise. For example, give a personal address that your customers can recognize you, such as jane.walker@xyz.com. Your customers will then be rest assured that their enquiries will be sent to a valid email address and not to  some self-automated answering machine.

Doing so will provide dual benefits. First,  your inbox will be free from unwanted emails. Second, you can focus your core attention to those enquiries sent by your recipients. The first 48 hours after sending out your email marketing campaign is extremely critical because if your recipients get response from you with these hours, your email marketing campaign will have a higher chance of success. You can see your “Call to Action” to your recipients within these hours is the most effective, anything pass these hours will get less response from them.  (Note: Your “Call to Action” can be asking customers to sign up an event, purchase a product, reserve a seat and etc.)

So do keep this tip in mind so you know how to streamline your email marketing campaign in future. If you have any comments, you are welcome to leave it at the comment box below.

1. Click on this link and it will bring you to Constant Contact website. 
2. Click on the green tab “Email Marketing” and then the “Try it Free for 60 days” button.
   (Constant Contact allows you to try its system with full functionality for 60 days for free. After the trial period, you must enter your credit card details to keep the account open).
3. On the next screen, when it asked for your details, fill up your particular and click “Start my Trial“.
4. You must remember the User Name and Password that you have entered otherwise you will have problem logging in the next time.
5. Constant Contact will immediately process your account and if it is successfully, you will be shown to its dashboard directly.
6. As a new user, you are required to complete two steps before it is finish.
7. First, fill in your physical address. You can fill in later if you want to.
8. Next, go to your inbox and verify your email address.
9. Open up the email that Constant Contact has sent you and link on the link to verify.
10. You should see a “Thank you message” after clicking the link. This shows that you have successfully created an account with Constant Contact.

This series of email marketing video tutorials is created for the benefits for those of you who are new to using Constant Contact.

Many of our new customers have feedback that it is kind of overwhelming when first started using Constant Contact. It could be due to the rich features available inside the Constant Contact email marketing system. Many new users were lost at where and how to start.

Therefore, to make things easier for new users, we have created a series of Constant Contact Video Tutorials. It shows you the basics of Constant Contact email marketing features and how to go about it in step by step process. Most importantly, it is to get you started quickly and focus on your marketing campaign than on the learning curve.

Video #1: How to Set Up Account in Constant Contact

Video #2: Why Do You Need to Verify Your Email Address

Video #3: How to Prepare & Import Your Mailing List

Video #4: How to Create Email Marketing Campaign using Constant Contact Templates

Video #5: How to Create Customized Email Marketing Campaign Using Your Own Design

Video #6: How to Send Your First Newsletter

Video #7: How to Check Your Delivery Report Online

Video #8: How to Remove and Restore Email Campaign

Video #9: How to Export Mailing List

Video #10: How to Add in an Opt-in Form to Your Website

We will be adding more video tutorials in future so please come back again for more new tutorials.

Hopefully, these video tutorials will help you achieve success for your email marketing campaign. If you have any feedback and comments, you are welcome to leave it at the comment box below.

How do you do that?
So instead of waiting the customers to go to you, you can be more proactive by reaching out to them. One effective ways is to invest on an eNewsletter - an electronic newsletter where you can connect with your repeat customers as well as attract new customers. Basically the eNewsletter can help in many ways, such as the following:

1. To inform the customers what is the latest happenings in the restaurant as well as the latest menu promotion and special offer.
2. Email them mouth-watering menu to entice them to visit your restaurant more.
3. Offer incentive for their visits, for example, a free drinks or appetizers.
4. You can also reward your loyal customers by giving them exclusive membership rate and be the first to try out your restaurant new menu.
5. Inform your customers of special events like holding of wine-and-food tasting, invitation of celebrity chef, authors or entertainer to your restaurant.
6. Restaurant customers are eager to try out new menu so make sure they are the first to be informed and offer them early-bird specials.

The content of the eNewsletter must be compelling enough in order to be effective, you must craft your eNewsletter in such a way that your customers know there is value when they open your eNewsletter. So indirectly, the eNewsletter also help you to build up your brand. Once you established trust and rapport with your customers, it is easier to market to them in future.

Using Email Marketing to send out Your eNewsletter
In the age of instant gratification, everything has to be done in a flash. However, your eNewsletter cannot be sent out using your normal email client as your email clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Lotus, Gmail, Yahoo are not built to handle in sending bulk email addresses or messages. Using such email clients to send out eNewsletter will cause more problems than help. Moreover, there is no way to track your delivery of your eNewsletter.

The correct way of sending out a eNewsletter is using Email Marketing System because it can not only send out bulk email addresses but also able to track the performance of your eNewsletter. You can then be immediately informed how many customers have received and responded. The email marketing system can show you the statistics online which customers have received, open and clicked on it. In addition, it will show you which customers’ email addresses are invalid, who are on vacation or whether their mailboxes are full. The statistics helps you to take corrective action immediately by sending out another email for the new changes.

There are many email marketing systems around but there is one who specially caters to restaurant owners and it has been a pioneer in email marketing industry - Constant Contact. It is based in USA and started in 1998, since then it has helped many restaurant owners achieved success through email marketing. The beauty of Constant Contact’s monthly email marketing plan is it allows you to send unlimited times of eNewsletter or email messages to your customers. In other words, you can email promotional discount coupon to your customers not only monthly but weekly or even daily.

Also, to make life easier for busy restaurant owner like you, Constant Contact has made ready-made eNewsletter template such as the following to help you get started.

Email Blast Template for Restaurant

Emal Blast Template for Cafe

Email Blast Template for Wine & Dine Restaurant

The cost for sending out eNewsletter is very affordable compared to traditional Newsletter. If you are interested to try out the eNewsletter template, you can sign up a free account with Constant Contact by clicking here. The free account allows you to try out the email marketing functionality for 60 days and allow you to send out to a maximum number of 100 customers unlimited times.

Give it a try today and see how it can to attract more customers to your restaurant.

This is second part of the article series; you can read the first part here. In this post, we will continue to look at the remaining email marketing mistakes one could have made but without realizing it while sending out their email messages or campaign.

6. Send Images-Only Email
Many of you might have made the mistakes of sending your email marketing messages in one big piece of image rather than breaking them up into several and smaller pieces. A big piece of un-optimized image will usually cause slow downloading of email which will result in end users’ frustration. The best way is to optimize the image as much as possible and make the image size less than 25KB.

If possible, try to use as few images as possible as some recipients have their email system set to block out emails that contain big images. Hence, your stunningly-looking email message may unfortunately end up in your recipients’ trash folder without them even seeing it. In addition, do not embed images in your email as they will add more weight to the email. Save the images in your server and link them in your email and provide your recipients an alternative version if they have problem viewing your email. 

7. Sending Too Many/Too Few Emails
Be consistent with the number of emails you send to your recipients. No recipients will be happy if their inbox are flooded with large amount of your emails daily or weekly. Give your recipients prior notice when and how many emails will they expect to hear from you so that they are mentally prepared and will not view you as a spammer.

In contrast to sending too many emails, sending too few emails may break the connection between you and your recipients. Your recipients may have forgotten they have subscribed to your email list or totally forgotten who you are. In order to keep your visibility in their minds, sending enough emails to keep their awareness is important. So be sure you send your email messages on schedule and in the right frequency. 

8. Avoid Hard Selling
Do not be too pushy and hard sell in your email marketing otherwise your recipients will easily get annoyed and may eventually unsubscribe from your list. Offer something in values in your email for example tips, solution to their problems, what products they are looking to alleviate their pains and some practical advices from the experts.

Take time to craft a compelling and useful email copy and occasionally reward them for your subscribers’ loyalty. Your subscribers will reciprocate by being more responsive with your offer in future because you have now gained their trust and appreciation. 

9. Be Creative in Your Subject Title and Email Copy
Many of you must have experienced this - once you see a boring subject title, you will ruthlessly delete it without a second thought. Similarly, an email with a boring or lengthy copy will end in the trash folder immediately and mercilessly.

Therefore, it is important to be creative in your subject title and email copy. Do not just put “Promotion” in your subject title when you can say “Exclusive Offer to Save You 30%”. In addition, avoid lengthy email copy, in this age of instant gratification; nobody has the patience to go through long email. This is especially so when the recipient has many emails flooding in his/her inbox. Be short and precise and, don’t forget to check your spelling and grammar as they can affect your opening and click through rate of your future email.

10. Utilize Auto-Responder Feature
What do you do when your visitors sign up your mailing list? Do you welcome them or just leave them alone until the next email message is scheduled? This is a common mistake when there is not enough follow-up when your new visitors sign up for your mailing list.

Nowadays, there are many email marketing systems offering Autoresponder feature where you can set up a series of email messages to welcome your new visitors when they signed up. This automatic feature will not only reduce the manual task but increase the retention of your subscribers. The series of messages will make them feel welcome and give them assurance that the company is making effort to following up with them. At the same time, you can inform them of your email marketing schedule ahead so that they can add you to their legitimate mailing list. This will help to reduce the risk of ending up in their trash folder.  

There might be more email marketing mistakes that were made that are not covered here. But the most important thing is once you realized you have made such mistakes, you should take corrective actions immediately so that you can reap the real benefits of email marketing. 

Did you make any email marketing mistakes before? If yes, how did you overcome it? Please share your experience in the comment box. Thank you.

One such email service providers is Constant Contact who provides a wide and variety of email marketing templates for your free selection. Their email marketing templates are categorized according to different industries and events, see below category. Such categorization makes choosing of template easily and quickly. The number besides each category show the number of email marketing templates available in their system.

“ Newsletters (73) “ Basic Pack (10) “ Promotions (20) “ Events & Invitation (27) “ Business Letters (3) “ Press Announcements (4) “ Seasonal (13) “ Holiday (99) “ Cards (25) “ Association Pack (18) “ Education Pack (12) “ Real Estate Pack (10) “ Religious Pack (19) “ Restaurant Pack (38) “ Retail Pack (22) “ Spanish Pack (23) “ Travel & Tourism Pack (16)

In each category, you can easily add in your company logo, change the background or text color to fit your company brand and style. They offer additional images to select if you want more variety or add in your own images to offer personal touch. See some examples as follow.

Antique Email Marketing Template

Construction Email Marketing Template

Green Email Marketing Template

Sport Email Marketing Template

It does not require any technical knowledge to make changes as the interface looks similar to Microsoft editor. Hence people like Marketer, PR or Sales personnel can instantly create a professional looking email newsletter without spending too much time on it. Most importantly, it allows you to send a draft copy to your manager for approval before blasting out. This will help to minimize errors and mistakes. You can continue tweaking the draft to your satisfaction or create different email marketing templates to suit your different market segments.

If you want to see more on the email marketing templates, you can sign up their 60-days trial version to find out more.

Email Marketing is an excellent tool to connect, promote and update with your customers. You might be using it frequently to communicate with your customers but are you doing it correctly? Email Marketing can make or break your sales and brand depending on how you use it. Below are top 10 email marketing mistakes that are commonly made by business, are you one of them?

1. Purchase Database from External Sources
Many businesses prefer the easy way out by purchasing customers’ database or mailing list from external sources instead of building their own in-house list. The result of doing so is poor response and great damage to their company’s reputation. Today, recipients are more prudent over what they will receive in their in-box so any unsolicited emails will be straightaway labeled as spam.

In addition, the messages sent might not be targeted to their needs so it would be a waste of time and money purchasing customers’ database and setting up email campaign. The recommended solution is if you do not have your own customers’ database then start building one now.

2. No Clear Email Marketing Strategy
I’ve seen many clients who sent their email marketing without any planning or strategy. They send only when they have something to send or they feel when it is necessary, which in a way defeat the whole purpose of email marketing. The main purpose of email marketing is to frequently connect with your customers with updates and build a long-term relationship. It is highly recommended that you align your email marketing campaigns with your business marketing plan and plan it one year ahead. Determine what you want to achieve for your marketing goals and then plan the content, design and delivery schedule of your email marketing accordingly.

Once you have established a consistent plan and schedule for your email marketing campaigns, you will see more positive and consistent results for your efforts.

3. Unsure What to Send to Customers
Due to lack of clear email marketing strategy as mentioned above, many businesses sent email messages haphazardly. The email messages are either too long, lack of focus, boring or not effective. Many of my clients are also not sure what exactly to send to their customers besides products announcement and occasionally special offers. Some run out of ideas and content for their monthly newsletter and eventually abandon the whole email marketing campaigns as they couldn’t see the benefits coming.

If you one of them, the more you have to have an email marketing strategy. Once you know your overall marketing objective, it will set the roadmap for your email marketing campaigns. The roadmap will provide you a direction and help to determine the type of emails send to your customers. In addition, it helps to generate ideas and content for your email campaigns.

4. Send to Customers Only
If you think that email marketing is only for connecting with your customers then you are wrong! Email marketing is an excellent tool to connect with other stakeholders as well. For example, your suppliers, contractors, sponsors, advertisers and other vendors, these groups of people are often neglected by most businesses. They are as important as your customers; they do not just help complement your business but sometimes add more values or revenues to your business. So remember to connect with them frequently, let them know the update of your business and what you have in your pipeline. Keep them in the loop and you will find it will be easier if you need their co-operation and assistance in future.

5. Sent on the Wrong Date and Time
Did you check the appropriate date and time before you send to your customers especially when they are overseas customers? Are they having holidays or any special occasions at their countries? If your email messages are business-related, most probably they will not in their offices to read them. If you are however, sending holiday-related emails, will it be too late? Did you check the time zone of your demographics?

It is recommended you segment your customers’ database or mailing list to achieve optimum results. Remember not every customer is the same.

If you are making the above email marketing mistakes, try to resolve them soonest or avoid them at all costs. Make it a habit to adhere to good email marketing practice and you will soon see positive results for your efforts.

We can help you to manage it from A to Z but the package is limited to first 20 customers only. This is to ensure the highest quality service is rendered to our targetted customers only.