GraphicMail is currently in the last phase of rounding off the integration of a new email newsletter Beta editor that will let you create studio-quality email campaigns more easily and efficiently than ever. This all without any HTML or design skills; you can simply knock away those newsletter-making hassles with the powerful new editing package. 

Marketers know that building stylish, branded emails can be a laborious task, even when using a tailored email software suite. “Online” doesn’t necessarily always mean that job at hand can be done faster. Getting your email newsletter from concept to send-ready is a subjective process and some online email packages are painfully slow and tedious, even when using pre-set templates.

On top of that, consumers expect quality and professionalism in the marketing communications that they receive. First impressions count, and before anyone will delve into the details penned in your email newsletter, they will consciously discriminate - based largely on its appearance qualities - whether it would be worth their while to do so. It’s common-sense that the majority of readers will ditch your email, unless you are instantly able to project the allure of real value - and that’s regardless of whether you have written the most mesmerising sales copy conceivable. With this editor; images, structure and coloring all work in visually irresistible ensemble to help you win readers over during those crucial first-look moments.

We give you over 300 email marketing templates to create customized campaigns that reflect your business or brand profile – just pick yours from a list of industry categories. Some templates are drag-and-drop enabled, making it even easier for those of you who aren’t quite tech-savvy to design newsletters easily. For example; the on-board photo editor lets you edit images simply and ensures that these are perfectly placed in each template. It even gives you the ability to work in layers; allowing you to change the text within images - which is especially useful when working to produce newsletters for multiple languages. Another gem in its array of features is the color picker tool, which plucks precise colors from your logo or website and records them to the theme manager, where you can blend your own color-scheme or select from pre-existing sets.

This new editor will become GraphicMail’s premium editor and we project that in the long term our client-base will progressively be migrating to the new system as they become more familiar with its benefits . Together with our core functionality and social integration features, users’ campaign management will be enhanced with tried & trusted smart publishing tools as well as response monitoring through tracking and analytics.

"The new Editor will enable our users to seamlessly create, edit and manage their newsletters and email correspondences. We have focussed on user experience and deliver this through simplicity and flexibility. From simple, yet striking emails to more complex socially integrated newsletters, users can be sure that their newsletters will hit the spot with their target audience." - Paul Hobden, GraphicMail Product Manager

The potentially epic hostilities that have been smoldering over the past few years between Gmail and Facebook have flared up recently, with Facebook now having integrated their new email service into their standard messaging platform. The social titan continues to conquer cyber turf one feature at a time, challenging major ESPs for its slice of email marketing revenue.

Facebook has grown into a monumental platform for advertising and communication, which has provided huge opportunities for business. Users can now have their own (FB username)@facebook.com email address to which emails or email newsletters can be sent. On top of that, emails sent to this inbox from your Facebook friends will appear under messages as per usual, while everything else will be displayed in a separate category, named “other.

Although still juvenile by mainstream email client standards, this is a shrewd gambit by Facebook, which currently has over 500 million active users clocking over 700 billion minutes per month on its platform. And with the average user connected to over 80 community pages, the viral and integration potential of email newsletter marketing via Facebook is vast. It seems almost common sense that the email service will be used to weave all of Facebook’s services and its over 550,000 active applications together, to create a unified communications and promotional system. Of course, much of where Facebook is ultimately going with their email client is pure speculation due to the tight-lipped development status quo of the company.  

Interestingly, 33% of Facebook users access their profiles via mobile devices. So the evolution of display quality and functionality of email newsletters through Facebook applications will also be something brands will want to keep a close eye on. 

Back to more immediate concerns though, GraphicMail has sent a test newsletter to a Facebook email address to see if our templates render well inside the service’s narrow message window. The message delivered stated that HTML is not supported by the email program, and that readers have to follow a link in order to view an online version of the newsletter. So yes, all of the GraphicMail email templates will render well!

Facebook is on a roll, having already taken a major share in social search. Even so, clearly it’s still early days for Facebook’s email integration. There’s no telling what tricks their so-called “Gmail killer” will have up its sleeves, and it still remains to be seen how many users will decide to receive all or most of their mail via their Facebook email address rather than their current email address(es), be it a web-based email client like Yahoo, or a business domain address. Intergration is definitely a technological trend, though not necessarily a cultural supported, largely since people will always have practical uses for segmenting their information - above and beyond following the age-old adage of not placing all one's eggs (emails?) into one basket. 

Lists, mailing list, contact list, contacts, dataset, database, datalist…

I bet somewhere along the way you’ve lost track of
a) what it all means,
b) what the difference is and
c) where to find it in your GraphicMail account. 

We thought it was time to simplify the whole thing – so, we’ve improved on our Address Book.

Basically, we’ve combined the ‘Mailing Lists’ section and the ‘Address Book’ section of your account, so that it’s all in one place.  This new section is called “Lists and Contacts” and you’ll be able to easily manage ALL your subscriber contact information and mailing lists from within this section.

We’ve also set up a default dataset that’s really easy to use (with sections like site, job, company, etc.).  If you’re an advance user you’ll also still be able to create more than one dataset tailor-made to your specific needs.

All in all, you should find it to be a lot easier to navigate all your subscriber contacts and mailing lists!

So, just to wrap up:
Mailing Lists + Address Book = “Lists and Contacts”

Easy!

Hello everyone! Just a quick blog entry to let you know we have updated our case study section, which can be found under the resources tab in the top navigation. There is so much misinformation on the web today, that it makes it difficult to know which company to trust. When I travel I want to read reviews about specific areas and I want a personal account of where to go; and what to avoid. Reviews, case studies and honest accounts from users always help us make a more informed decision.   

With this in mind, the team at GraphicMail decided to send out a comprehensive questionnaire to a range of clients across a variety of industries. The case studies section was designed in an effort to convey the many ways in which GraphicMail has helped companies across a variety of industries increase their online exposure. And it provides readers honest reviews from our reputable clients.  Many of our clients went into detail about which functionality they found most useful; and how email marketing increases their overall return on investment. The GraphicMail case studies prove that you don't have to be confined to a specific industry to benefit from an email marketing campaign. Read our case studies to find out how a company within YOUR industry has benefitted from the GraphicMail product.

Thus far, we have case studies in the following industry:

• Email marketing for financial insitutions
• Email marketing for the tourism industry
• Email marketing for the advertising and pubishing industry

If you hold an account with GraphicMail and would like to partake in the case study questionairre, then please contact us.