Once you have a website up and running, one of the next things you’ll want to get setup is an e-newsletter system.

These days, there’s a lot of e-mail marketing systems to choose from, and there’s three I typically recommend.  This blog post is going to be about one of those three:  Constant Contact.

E-Newsletters Drive Traffic to Your Website

Think about it… you sometimes don’t think about visiting a website until you receive an e-mail from the company or organization in your inbox.  For example, I like Bath & Body Works.  But I’m not really thinking about visiting their website until I receive a nice e-newsletter from them promoting a product, a coupon, or other information that grabs my attention.  So e-newsletters are a great way to drive traffic to your website.  People click the links inside of your e-newsletter and instantly they are on your website.  What’s really cool is that many systems like Constant Contact track the number of subscribers who open/read your e-mail and also the number of persons who click links in your e-newsletters & even which links they click the most.  Very valuable information.

Infiltrate Your Subscriber’s Social Network

E-newsletters are an opportunity to send out press releases and other news to make sure people see it since they are probably not checking your website each day to see what’s new.  Most your subscribers joined your mailing list because they care about what you have to say and want to stay posted.  And these days, e-newsletter systems like Constant Contact provide the ability for your subscribers to easily “share” your newsletters in their social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIN), and you can even get statistics as to who clicked those links shared on social networks.

Check out the below video.

Promote Events & Conduct Surveys With This Do-It-All E-Marketing Tool

Most people these days that send e-newsletters also have a need to promote events.  New this year, Constant Contact has teamed up with ePromos to provide the ultimate event promotion.  Your subscribers can view your upcoming events and register for them online.  Youc an easily embed a map and other features with the click of a button, choosing from dozens of templates that match your brand, or you can even create your own custom template.  It’s so easy, and best of all, it comes included in your e-newsletter system! A one stop shop.

There’s a whole survey component too that is easily incorporated into your outgoing e-newseltters which allows you to easily survey or poll your subscribers.  It gives Survey Monkey a run for its money, another survey tool that I often recommend to clients.  So, no need to consider a third-party solution for surveys or event marketing if you’re using Constant Contact as your e-newseltter tool.  Pretty cool.

Phone Apps and Website Plug-Ins

Staying on the cutting edge, Constant Contact has an app for the iPhone that lets you send newsletters right from your iPhone.  There are also website plug-ins available, for example, if your website uses WordPress (an extremely affordable, easy-to-use CMS), there are a few plug-ins for Constant Contact, including one that helps you to integrate constant contact sign-up forms into your website very easily (this is easy to do even if you don’t have a WordPress website, as you just “cop the code” from your Constant Contact account).

Sign Up for FREE

If you want to try Constant Contact, they offer a FREE 60-day trial. That’s three (3) whole months to decide if you like it or not, and you can cancel at any time.  If you do signup as a result of this article, I ask that you sign up using my special referral  link so that I earn referral credit!  My special link is:  http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp?pn=jdwebdesign.  I’ll be reviewing other e-newsletter systems in a future articles, so stay tuned.  Constant Contact is definitely among the top systems that I let my friends and clients know about who have e-newsletter needs.

Already Using Another E-newsletter System?

No problem.  Constant Contact actually has an instructional PDF that guides you through the steps of switching.  Click here to read/download that PDF.  If you have any questions about the big switch, please let me know.