Email Marketing Q&A

I may be biased, but I really like Constant Contact more. It's not just because it's free for 60 days, either. It's just because it tends to have a lot more. Here's what you need to understand about the CampaignMonitor vs Constant Contact battle:

• Constant Contact has better analytics, better market segmentation, as well as Gmail/Outlook contacts uploading. 
• CampaignMonitor is known for being rather basic, and asking for an affordable fee straight off the bat. 
• More people use Constant Contact than CampaignMonitor, so if you need to hire an email marketing manager, it'll be eassier with CC. 
• While Constant Contact does have image storage limitations, the truth is that it's still an improvement over CampaignMonitor. CM doesn't even allow image storage right now. 
• Most people tend to like the email templates in Constant Contact more, anyway. 
• Constant Contact offers a slew of features CampaignMonitoring doesn't, including SMS marketing, lead scoring, social media marketing, bulk social media posting, and heavier analytics. 

So, let's start by talking about what "opt in" versus "opt out" means. The key difference between opt-in and opt-out email marketing is all in the signup. From there, we can talk about the pros and cons of each. 

Opt-in means that the default option is that you are not opted in. So, you have to check a box or submit an email address to get signed onto the mailing list. Opt-out means you have to uncheck a box that appears pre-checked to avoid getting on a mailing list. 

Now that we've gotten that underway, let's talk about the main bullet points...

• Opt-out will get you more email signups because people often won't look to see what they're signing in for. However, you'll also have more unsubscribers as a result. 
• Opt-in involves actively signing up for the mailing list, so you will get better results as far as conversion rates. People are clearly more engaged. 
• Some people view opt-out marketing as sketchy. They may lose trust in your company.

I think the main benefit is that the social media feeds cannot ensure that your target clients have seen your message. Even if they have liked your page or followed you on twitter they simply may not get shown your items in the feed or may miss them. Well timed and useful emails will be opened, and you can often use services that will track reciept and opening, so you have a better sense if they have got your message.

Any insight @Maria Bellissimo-Magrin @Gloria Kopp @Bek Drayton @Kevin Nelson @Lauren Clemett @Jason Sew Hoy @Wendy Huang ?

Introductory email is fine. But I need to understand more about your product or services/  source of email ( i.e. have you generated via website lead form or secondary research)

So, I've worked as a freelance copywriter and have also seen how different email copywriting firms can be. Here's what I can say as someone who has worked in it and also seen how much the upcharge can be:
 

• If you want to hire a freelancer for email marketing copywriting, you might be able to get five emails for as little as $250 to $300. In some rare cases, you may be able to hire a "fresh out of college" writer for $15 per hour to keep churning out content.
  • However this does not guarantee any quality and you may be the one stuck holding the bag for conversion.
  • Each freelancer has their own rates.
• If you hire a professional copywriter, then you should expect to pay between $300 to $600 for five emails. This may get you some better results. 
• People who have a serious track record of success and those who offer extra marketing abilities will do your email copywriting service for anywhere from $1000 to $2000 for a batch. Some even charge higher. 
  • I've personally heard of A-list copywriters who were able to charge as much as $2000 PER EMAIL. They often had the best track records in the industry. 
  • Hourly, you should expect to pay at least $50 per hour for a top-of-the-line writer. 

If you know that the customer is King, then the content must be Queen?

If you want to turn your email subscribers into long term customers, then you need to feed them what they want. Why not ask them first?