First, let me tell you that I, as a writer, help businesses with their e-mail marketing.

Now, let me tell you how I, as a business owner, handle my e-mail marketing:  I turn to The Blue Penguin and to Constant Contact. The former helps me figure out what to say, and the latter helps me deliver the message.

Blue Penguin helps me focus on the message

I found Blue Penguin Development serendipitously (Internet surfing pays off!) and immediately subscribed to Michael Katz’s bi-monthly “E-Newsletter On E-Newsletters.” Sign up for this newsletter if you want success with your newsletter. No issue disappoints.

Michael uses stories from everyday life to make his point: Your message must engage your audience. Don’t be boring, don’t even be safe! It’s not that I agree with everything he writes-he recommends spontaneity, I recommend planning-but his articles always make me think. They also always make me laugh; he’s a funny guy.

(While you’re at his site, tally up the Penguin Score of your current email marketing efforts.)

Guess what e-mail marketing service Michael uses to send out his e-newsletter? Go ahead, guess! Hey, good guess.

Constant Contact is constantly helpful

I started using Constant Contact simply to get my message into my recipients’ inboxes. Then I started learning more. “Learning more” could be Constant Contact’s middle names.

They’ve got webinars, they’ve got recorded tutorials, they’ve got printed guides to read on your own and classes to attend with other e-mailers. Constant Contact will teach you more than just how to make pretty emails-they’ll help you avoid breaking the law. Seriously, there are laws.

Knowledge is power. Now, I’m putting energy into:

• Managing my List and Contacts, using what Constant Contact has taught me about building targeted and permission-based mailing lists.
• Reviewing reports, so I can bask in the glow of my own pride, when I see that my company’s last news brief had a 48% open rate.
• Immediately reviewing bounced emails, so I can trim or correct my Contacts-and resend to clients so they don’t miss another action-packed issue from Blue Ribbon Writing.

As with any project, the best tools yield the best results. If your project is delivering quality e-messages, you’ll find that Constant Contact, The Blue Penguin-and my company, Blue Ribbon Writing– offer you superior tools to help you determine how to say it and how to send it!