How can you use email to increase your brand presence on social networking sites?

If you already have your own social networking groups and are looking to promote them or want to spread your marketing messages across these sites, read on for some top tips. 

Email remains the preferred mode of contact for marketing messages. This is the conclusion of a report recently commissioned by G2 Data Dynamics (the customer insight people).

Is this because email communications recipients have the choice as to when they will want to read your messages? Or because they can choose what type of messages they actually want to receive from you. That is, if your opt-in strategy gives them the choice to do so. Or because with email they are given a very clear and easy path to stop the flow of communications if they'd want to.

In any case when it comes to marketing communications...email's the winner. See below for the details.

Reading through my ever increasing and busy Twitter stream this morning, I picked up on a tweet from online music magazine drownedinsound.com.

It simply said 'Sign of the recession: insane (like 2000!) "i've been made redundant" and "no longer works here" out of office replies to our mailout.'

It got me thinking. How can we analyse our email marketing bounces to improve our results and understand more about our market area?

The Institute of Sales Promotion reports that the use of competitions as an online promotion tool has grown by a massive 650% over the past 12 months. New Media Age, too, talks about the huge increase in usage. So are you looking at a sure fire winner for your internet marketing strategy?

Not necessarily. The Institute of Sales Promotion also found out that in the past year the number of consumer complaints about competitions rose by an alarming 750% even faster than the channel itself! Prizes weren't being delivered, information was unclear and some competitions were still being shown as 'live' after the official closing date. All were reported as reasons for customer discontent with online promotions.

Why do you think a considerable body of statistical evidence demonstrates retention email communication works a lot better than acquisition email marketing?

In retention email communication, we are already connected to the particular customers we want to address. They may have signed up for our newsletter, requested premium content of some kind or bought something from our online shop.

In the not too distant past, footers were seen as the dreary domain of permission based email marketing. Full of dull clauses, legal statements, obligatory copyright markers and contact information.

With a new breed of information-hungry designers emerging to the forefront of web design, the footer has begun to evolve into a hotbed of information. A prime example of this on the web is the recently redesigned BBC web portal.

Thanks to an increase in their international client base email marketing company, Pure, has rolled out its software in a multi-lingual platform, with more languages set to become available later this year.

Managing Director Stuart Hobbs explains how the flexibility offered by multi-lingual email software is benefiting Pure and its clients.

Reports continue to suggest that email is still the most cost effective instrument and communication channel around.

From a B2C perspective,'View From The Inbox 2008', an excellent study of US consumers' usage and attitude towards email highlights the following:

Writing winning sales copy is easy when you know how. For a start, you're writing about your own business. You know your products or services better than anyone. You know why customers should buy from you and you alone. You also know what makes your customers tick.

Now you just need to take this information and turn it into a powerful mail-out. Follow the 10 Steps below and your sales message should virtually write itself!

Many web 2.0 business applications seem like a good idea, but it's far too easy to get carried away with cool features rather than actually getting the job done.

If the first thing you have to do every day is tidy up your inboxes, task lists, workflows, IMs, forecasts and reminders, and reports before you actually do any work then you’re trapped in a smiling, happy administrative hell. Goodbye, lost soul.