I’m so excited to have been given the Constant Contact, 2009 All-Star Award.

Check out the Press Release!

Terri Brooks, owner of Tasting The Internet Receives 2009 Constant Contact All-Star…

April, 2010 @ 1888PressRelease.com

If you would like more information on beginning an email marketing campaign for your business, Email me.

First it was the PC, then the laptop and now with iPhones and Blackberries, it seems we all can’t live without emails. What began as a way to send digital messages across computers has now become something much more – it is a way anyone can reach out to their friends and loved ones from across the globe, just to say “hello.” Email is cheap and easy. Almost everyone has an email address, from Uncle Leo in Ohio to Grandma Joan in Alaska. Thus, email has become a target for many marketers as well, in order to reach out to as many people in a click of a button through the art of email marketing.

Creating email campaigns can be easy and inexpensive, especially for those on a tight budget. This is a powerful medium, because it can reach thousands of people in an instant. There are a few simple guidelines when creating any email marketing campaign. Follow them and your efforts are sure to be a success.

The right message

There are many ways to go about creating an email campaign and what you say is just as important. After you decide who your target market is, make sure your message is appropriate and tailored to their needs.

Brand it!

With any marketing effort, branding is important. It will help your audience recognize you with a single look (at your logo or colors) and, eventually, keeps your company at the top of mind.

Organize your list

Next, you’ll have to compile a mailing list of people you’ll be sending your message to. The best type of list to make is one that is “opt-in” or permission-based, meaning that the people you are contacting have agreed to be contacted. This can be time-consuming but well worth it; after all, it will be the basis of your campaign! There are many ways of (legitimately) collecting email addresses. First, have a sign-up form on your website, where people can easily see it. If you do social networking (and if you haven’t, you really should!), promote your mailing list via your facebook account, fan page, twitter account, etc. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, encourage your customers to fill out a form or guest book to opt in. Aside from adding to your list, make sure you continually update old email addresses, deleting those that don’t work and removing people from your list who have asked to be removed.

Keep track of results

Sending out emails blindly (even if your list is targeted) can be like sending out messages in a bottle – you never know who reads them and who just tosses them into the trash. Invest in some software which will let you know who opens your messages in real time! Aside from this, you can find out how many people and who clicks on your email, when they go to your website and other important information like bounce rate, traffic statistics and even if they forwarded your email to their friends.

With a lot of work, you can successfully put on your email marketing campaign. But, there’s no need to do all of the work yourself. All of these steps can be done with some help from professionals. Here are two services I like and use for my email marketing.

Constant Contact has been helping all types of businesses and organizations reach out to their audience through email and online marketing for over 12 years. Why not drop them a line and ask them how they can help you?

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As most online business owners, I produce my newsletters through email. I specifically use Constant Contact to produce my newsletters and manage my contacts, open and bounce rates and now for all my events.

As a business partner with Constant Contact, I am privy to early information and I just learned that Constant Contact has an iPhone app called QuickView.

It’s the iPhone app built specifically for Constant Contact® Email Marketing. QuickView lets you:

• Check the status of your email campaigns
• See who clicked, opened, forwarded, bounced, and unsubscribed
• Create a new email list on the go — you’ll see it when you’re back at your computer
• Add a new contact while you’re out networking — your account updates automatically
• Search your contact database
• Update any contact’s individual record — your changes will save to your account

All you need is an iPhone or iPod Touch and your Constant Contact username and password. It couldn’t be easier or more convenient. I just downloaded the app to my iPhone and have added some new contacts and checked the status of my most recent email open-rate. I love it!

Email Marketing by Constant Contact® is the easy, effective, and highly affordable way to get your message out to your customers, clients, or members—and build strong, successful, and lasting relationships with them. You’ll create high-impact email newsletters and promotions in minutes, no technical expertise necessary. With more than 300 easily-customized templates, a simple point-and-click tool, and award-winning free customer support, you can create professional, compelling messages your audience will act on. And it’s easy for you to manage your contact lists, sign up website visitors, track your clicks and open rates, and send automated communications to new subscribers. You can even try it Free for 60 days! Click this link Free 60 Day Trial to get started.

That is an autoresponder I received from a friend of mine when I recently sent out my ezine Gifts. At first glance, I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever read. I thought, how clever she is. She has decided to retire early from her job and has left a comical message for her co-workers and friends.

Well, unfortunately, that was not the case. She happened to call me that same week and after laughing hysterically about the autoresponder, she told me that she had been laid off from her job because of what else? Downsizing due to a lost contract (she works for a governmental agency). She had been with this company for 18 1/2 years! She was devastated, but I told her to stay positive, that God was in control of this situation.

As more and more people are “downsized” and asked to take early retirement, home-based businesses will become increasingly popular and almost the norm. When I decided to start a home-based business more than a year ago, I had no idea if it would work, if I can handle the stress of running my own business and taking care of my family from the same space and if the services I provide would be needed. But I’m happy to report that all is good in my virtual world! My business is growing day by day. I am providing a very beneficial service to other business owners, freeing them up to manage their business. And my plans are to utilize the services of other virtual professionals to assist and support my business as part of my virtual team.

If you have been thinking of starting a home-based business, I would highly recommend it and there are many great resources out there to guide you along the path. If your background is in administration, like me, check out

or visit our website at www.avirtualbiz.com for other links and resources to help with your online success. Take charge of your career, and always be In The Office and In Control of your future.

I work for several clients that produce an email newsletter, or better known as an Ezine. I have helped them to set up the layout and design, and input content and images for publication. But…I had never done one for myself and my business.

Oh my gosh, can I just tell you how much fun I had? Of course I gave myself a deadline, which was yesterday, to have the first one out and that became a little stressful at 11 pm last night when I still hadn’t hit the Send button. But I met my goal and it was out of my inbox and into the outbox of more than 300 contacts in just a matter of minutes!

I searched for the best techology to use for my Ezine and I selected Constant Contact. They have more than 300 templates to choose from, great reporting features to see who opens your email, how many bounced because of bad addresses and who just didn’t want to hear from you. (That was a little tough, but I’m trying not to take it personally)

In addition to the excitement of fulfilling a goal and utilizing a great tool, I have received many compliments, one much appreciated critique and several inquiries for my services. BINGO! Feedback, just what I was hoping for.

I know the next one will be much easier and I won’t put so much pressure on myself to make it perfect (which it wasn’t). But it was easy, fun and fast, three things we need more of. If you need to boost your business, consider Constant Contact it’s a great tool to market your business and services and if you don’t want to do it yourself or don’t have the time to do it, check with a Virtual Assistant to take care of it for you.

Don’t you love those long weekends? Just looking forward to some time off, relaxation with the family or friends, going to the beach, lake or mountains?

Don’t you just hate coming back to the office to find a foot of mail in your mailbox; 500 emails, 450 of them spam and of course the weekly meeting that takes longer than usual because of the long weekend stories?

I’m with you, except it’s my business to go through the mountains of mail, the never-ending emails and I have several meetings throughout the day with various clients. I have one client that has re-routed her informational email account to me to monitor and moderate. This alone had 150 spam emails in it when I came back into the office today. And I Love it!

The good thing is that I’m caught-up. Not only with my personal emails, but with my client’s emails as well. This is just one more way a Virtual Assistant can help busy people stay caught up. By giving the task of email and calendar management to an off-site, virtual professional you don’t get bogged down with email messages that really don’t contribute to your bottom line. Although email is very important in our society now (and I couldn’t personally live without it) it is a time consumer and before you realize it, you have spent 2-3 hours working on responding and sending emails.

Before the next holiday (July 4th, is just around the corner), think about outsourcing this task to a Virtual Professional. We can help you stay caught-up and make coming back from those long weekends or vacations as pleasurable as the time-off.