Manage Your iContact Account with Android App

This week iContact announced the email marketing industry’s first app for the Google Android Smartphone. The email marketing software now allows small business owners and marketing professionals the ability to perform critical email campaign tasks on the Google Android operating system.

“iContact customers are tech savvy, resourceful and always on the go. We are excited to be the first in our market to respond to customer demand with the new Android Email Marketing app,” says  iContact CEO Ryan Allis. “This app will help our customers manage their professional email marketing on the go.”

The new iContact for Android offers these new features:

• Search and add new contacts
• Take contacts from your Android address book and add them directly to your email marketing contact lists
• Preview and send your email drafts right away or schedule all of your prepped email campaigns
• Track your messages with ease
• View your clicks, opens, and message bounces in real-time
• Forward your email marketing tracking data to anyone
• Have quick access to full iContact Customer Support inside the application

iContact for Android is the second of mobile applications from iContact. The first, iContact for iPhone, was launched in May 2010.

To learn more about iContact and other email marketing services, please visit www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.

Vertical Response Launches New Email Marketing Features

Last week Vertical Response unleashed new features and enhancements to their email marketing software.

Improvements include:

1. Save your email as a PDF. During the “preview” step of the email creation process, you are now able to download a copy of the email into a PDF for any non-electronic communication needs, such as faxing.
2. Spellchecker in the new email wizard. Proofing your spelling when creating your email is easy with Vertical Response’s new email wizard editor.
3. View your lists of lists. Now you are able to see a subscriber breakdown more specific than total count. You can view all your lists on the launch page.
4. Other new features:
   1. Upgraded the open source engine that powers the Vertical Response email canvas
   2. Created and improved API methods the play within the new email editor
   3. Solved usability issues, such as list loading and email formatting

To learn more about Vertical Response and to check out reviews of other popular email marketing services, please visit www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.

MailChimp Incorporates Social Integration and New Features

This week email marketing software provider MailChimp announced the launch of version 5.2. The latest version of its email marketing service will include some new social features and enhancements to existing features.

MailChimp is adding the option to integrate the Facebook Like button directly into your email campaigns, along with the ability to track your total Likes in your MailChimp stats. This function will tell you who’s clicking on Likes, how many people clicked it, and how many users were referred from the Like button. In addition, MailChimp has created a Facebook app that allows you to collect email subscribers directly from your Facebook Wall.

The Social Pro add-on syncs your email list with MailChimp’s social graph. This will show you what social networks your subscribers are on, who’s following you on Twitter, and their influence.

MailChimp is also launching a Raplet for the Rapportive Gmail plugin in, which lets you see if a contact has opened or clicked any of your recent MailChimp campaigns.

Another addition is the AutoConnect Templates. If you have an Etsy, Yelp, iTunes, eBay, or Amazon profile page, MailChimp can automatically design an email template based on those pages for you to send your followers.

Other new features and refinements include:

• User-agent tracking: MailChimp will show you what email apps your subscribers are using.
• Gravatar integration: If a Gravatar exists for your subscribers, their photo will appear in their member profile.
• More autosave options built into the campaign building process
• Larger campaign content editor window
• Pre-built fields for your signup forms

To learn more about MailChimp and other email marketing services, visit www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.

Segment Your Email Marketing List by Social Networking Site

iContact, a popular email marketing service for small businesses, and Flowtown, the fastest growing social marketing platform on the web, announced an integration last week that will allow iContact users to segment their subscribers based on their social networking use.

Flowtown has integrated its platform with iContact’s email marketing software, and now iContact users can now easily segment any subscriber list by age group, gender, location, occupation, and social network at a low cost.

“In the past, sending targeted email was very expensive and only available to the Fortune 500,” commented Ethan Bloch, co-founder of Flowtown. “The Flowtown and iContact integration will enable anyone to segment their lists more effectively and increase open and click rates by sending more targeted email.”

With this new feature, the user is able to find out which social networks each of their contacts are on, send them a targeted email offering a specific promotion or sale, and then encourage customers to visit them on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

“This integration brings email marketing to the social web,” added Keith Moore, Chief Marketing Officer for iContact. “To be able to segment customers based on not only their age and location, but by social network, is powerful. Email has never been more social!”

Learn more by checking out the short introduction video.

To learn more about iContact and other email marketing software, please visit www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.

MailChimp’s Template Throwdown Winners Available for Use

A couple of months ago, MailChimp announced an Email Template Throwdown in which web designers could compete for best template created with their email marketing service. The victors would win a sweet Championship Wrestling Belt along with their victory and $600. More than 70 designers entered the contest, and a couple of weeks ago Mailchimp declared three Template Throwdown winners and three honorable mentions.

The winners included Melanie Wilke and her “Good Manners” template, Scott Hardigree and his “Indiemark” template, and Dominique Elkind with her “Public Banana” template. Runners up were the “Slick Simian,” “Mad Cow,” and “Scrapbook” templates. Check out all the winning templates.

The winners’ templates are now available for users to utilize within MailChimp. You have the capabilities to tweak each template just as you would with any MailChimp template. With powerful tools, such as a/b testing and segementation, MailChimp is an easy email marketing software for small business owners who need to send out eNewsletters without the fuss of designing their own email campaign.

To learn more about MailChimp and read reviews of popular email marketing services, check out www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.

Campaigner Unleashed Newest Version of Email Marketing Software

Last month Campaigner released its newest version of its email marketing software. The latest update introduces several new features and capabilities to help businesses effectively build customer relationships through email campaigns.

“Small business owners often start a business because they’re good at something or have a passion for it,” said Steve Adams, vice president of marketing for Protus, the provider of Campaigner. “When they try to market that business, though, they may find the tools that are available assume a level of experience or expertise they don’t have. We asked our customers how we could make it easier for them to create effective sales-generating and loyalty-building campaigns. We then designed the new Campaigner to address those needs.”

New customer-driven product features include:

• A new user interface that allows easier creation of new email campaigns and sign-up forms that help small businesses build their opt-in mailing lists;
• A redesigned email editor that resembles the interface of Microsoft Word, making it quick to learn and use;
• The ability to import contacts directly from Microsoft Excel;
• A full-screen email editing mode that makes it easier to see the overall look of the campaign;
• An integrated image library that allows users to drag and drop graphics into the email or contacts merge fields;
• A spell check that quickly identifies potential misspellings and alternative spellings;
• New formatting tools, including the ability to paste directly from Microsoft Word without issues;
• Additional online help, with a searchable help system and easy-to-follow “how-to” tutorials built right into the product.

Other smaller upgrades include increasing maximum subject line length, notification of faulted campaigns, and an improved text color and text background color tool.

Campaigner offers a 30-day free trial, making it easy to test out the email marketing software. To learn more about Campaigner and read reviews of other popular email marketing services, visit www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.

iPhone App Released by iContact

Last week, email marketing software iContact announced the release of its mobile applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. iContact’s 63,000 customers can now search contacts, access real-time analytics about their email campaigns, and send email from the palm of their hand with this app.

“iContact for iPhone lets users tap into our powerful email marketing system on the go,” says Keith Moore, iContact’s chief marketing officer. “This is just one example of what is possible with iContact’s new API [application programming interface] v.2 environment. We are excited about the many customer-focused changes coming from iContact this year.”

With the new iContact app you can:

• Search contacts, add a contact from your iPhone address book or add contacts to any of your email marketing lists.
• Preview your email drafts before you send them.
• Send or schedule a send for all of your prepared email marketing campaigns.
• Track message bounces, clicks, opens, and much more with clear graphics.
• Forward your email marketing tracking reports to anyone.
• Access full customer support—either by calling or emailing iContact’s support team.

Learn more about iContact’s iPhone and iPod apps at the iTunes store, and read more about iContact’s email marketing services, as well as read reviews of other popular providers at www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.

“Put America Back to Work” Initiative Launched by Campaigner

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there were 2.7 million job openings on the last business day of February 2010. Protus, the provider of communications tools such as Campaigner email marketing, MyFax email fax and my1voice virtual phone services, wants to help.

These business communication services approved by “Guerrilla Job Search” and provided by Protus support the “Put America Back to Work” initiative. They are designed to help bring people together and focus on adopting “Best-Practices” when it comes to job hunting.

Read more about this initiative at the ChooseWhat.com Blog.

Benchmark Email Releases New Feature for Easier Branding

On Benchmark Email, users already had the option to create just one master account and several sub-accounts in order to run different email campaigns and utilize list segmentation. Before, each sub-account had different contact lists and its own HTML template. Now, the email marketing software has announced a new feature that would create a single template that represents your company’s brand and “push” it to each of the sub-accounts.

This new feature gives a company’s email marketing campaigns a more cohesive vibe while giving the master account more control over the email marketing plan as a whole.

In order to use this new feature, go to the Templates Page in the Email Builder and select My Email Layouts. You can choose to Share with Sub-Accounts at the bottom of each template in this category. A box will pop up, and you can select which account you would like to share the template with.

Now it will be easier than ever to give your most complex email marketing campaigns an integrated feel. This will help you build your branding and increase company recognition.

To learn more about the features that Benchmark offers and read reviews of top email marketing solutions at www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.

iPhone App Available from MailChimp

Fresh off the news last week that MailChimp was working on a prototype for an iPad app, the email marketing software provider announced this week that they have finally completed an application for the iPhone.

No date has been set on when the MailChimp iPad app, called Chimpadeedoo, will be released. But the idea is that you have an iPad placed in your store running this app so that customers can quickly subscribe to your list. Because the iPad is so new and fun to play with right now, this is a pretty neat little app, enabling you to easily gain subscribers without them having to remember to sign up at home.

Watch MailChimp’s demo video for the app.

Meanwhile, the eNewsletter site released it iPhone app this week, which includes features like subscriber services, list management and detailed reporting. With the iPhone app, users can add subscribers to a list, edit list members, view campaign statistics and reports, get campaign updates and more.

“Mobile technology is finally moving beyond simple SMS texting,” says MailChimp CEO Ben Chestnut. “There are so many cool ways companies can engage with their customers now, and it’s exciting that MailChimp is in the middle of it, helping make those connections.”

For more information on MailChimp’s online email marketing tools and to read reviews of other providers, please visit www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.