The success of your email marketing campaign will depend on a number of things, from how you grow your list, the times and days you send them, to the type of content you send.
To ensure your email marketing campaigns aren’t a waste of time and money make sure you read the tips in this infographic from Vertical Response.
If you are having problem to see/ read the infographic "Download it Here" and check it.
The success of your email marketing campaign will depend on a number of things, from how you grow your list, the times and days you send them, to the type of content you send.
To ensure your email marketing campaigns aren’t a waste of time and money make sure you read the tips in this infographic from Vertical Response.
If you are having problem to see/ read the infographic "Download it Here" and check it.

Recruiting talent is just like a game of dating. You do your best to woo your candidate and pique their interest up to the point they are willing to get involved in a new relationship and reach full commitment. It’s all a great mix of good looks, fast attraction and savvy communication. Next time you are crafting recruiting emails for attracting new hires remember these 4 rules of dating.

This is your ice breaker – the spark of engagement. Translating into email marketing best practices, you need to impress your hires with a magnetic subject line. Prior to creating a dialogue you want them to open your email.

How do you achieve that? Be direct, clear, exciting and personal. Avoid over-hyped subject lines that mislead the recipient into opening your email. You’ll only end up losing their trust. Secondly, instead of sending generic emails to all your candidate database, try segmentation. This marketing tool will help you send emails only to selected recipients – candidates that match your job offer and that are more likely to be interested in what you have to communicate.
By doing so, you show genuine interest and you’ve got their full attention.

• Clearly state your name
• Include a call-to-action
• Reference job location
• Convey a sense of urgency

Now that you’ve lured your candidates into further conversation, they’ll wish to get to know you better. No matter how smart or promising you are, don’t forget for a second about visual attraction. The physiology of visual appeal works in both instances – in the dating world and in the marketing jungle.

Reflected in email marketing, visual attraction is the equivalent of high-quality design and a friendly user experience. A modern, clean and simple layout will do the trick. If you’re hiring for a big name company with a powerful brand identity, make sure your emails include the brand trademarks. Thus, your company name will stand out and your hires will find it easier to recognize your brand.

Another crucial aspect of efficient email campaigns is mobile friendliness. As studies show, more than 50% of people open emails on their mobile devices. Your “love letter” could be one. Don’t jeopardize your chances of going on a ‘second date’ with your candidate because of poor mobile optimization. Use responsive design and remember to always test your emails before sending them out.
TO DO:

• Use large - readable fonts
• Structure content in a single – column layout for ease of scrolling
• Include easy to find and click buttons

You’ve made a first good impression – now it’s time to create a real connection and earn your candidates’ trust. Remember they’ve already agreed to this and they’re actually waiting for the same thing – the spark that ignites their interest towards your job offer. Secretly, they wish to “fall in love”. You need to tell them what they want to hear with compelling content.

Keep your recruiting emails short, attractive and to the point. Don’t create monster emails that no candidate will ever take time to read. Include basic job information and avoid over-stuffing the email with boring details.
Show your personality and promote the uniqueness of the company you are pitching for. Are you young, fun and engaging? Put that in writing!
TO DO:

• Create engaging headlines
• Personalize content
• Include calls-to-action

You’ve worked so hard to set the mood right – attractive visuals, engaging content and luring pick-up lines. Don’t lose it all because of spam filters. Even though recruiting emails are less likely to contain spammy content like “free” or “buy now” – seldom encountered in marketing emails - you still need to pay attention to common spam triggers that you might not know about.
DO NOT:

• Use excessive exclamation points
• Use all caps text
• Add to many URLs
• Include too many images
• Work with sloppy coding

Following all the above mentioned steps will ensure you’ll get yourself a ‘second date’ with your candidate. Your first tries might not always bring you “the One”. But that’s just the way the recruiting and dating world works: you got to keep trying and going on numerous dates until you find the perfect match.

When you’ll find it, you know it was worth it all along. 

10 Reasons why you should use Outlook.com free email

Microsoft’s has awesome free email service on the web is on Outlook.com . The saga of email from Hotmail to Outlook is really interesting as the two email service from the same company are following different norms and patterns of usage. Where Hotmail has been seen as ads embossed and cluttered in design, Outlook is on the opposite side exhibiting sheer beauty, simplicity and speed. Here in this post, let me tell you ten compelling reasons why you should start using Outlook.com as your main email service provider :

1. Integration and single account/sign in experience : If you have windows mobile, start using outlook.com email as this will enable the single sign in experience, synchronization across various platforms, easy management and improved integration. The earlier you adopt, easy it would be. Outlook’s email service is aimed at easy transition/switching from another email service provider including gmail. Microsoft is also launching Microsoft Surface which is a tablet based on windows 8 os. Xbox new console which is yet to be launched will also rely on integration channel.
2. Outlook’s email service is fast, realtime. Yeah, from what I have observed, it is relatively faster than gmail.
3. It is simple, user friendly, optimized for touchscreen devices. It is more content focused. The ads are unobtrusive. Even a newbie can start using it without any assistance.
4. You’re getting virtually unlimited storage for your email so you need not worry about your old mails and archiving purposes. You need not free up your inbox to make space for new mails. In addition to this, you’ll get free complimentary 7 GB of cloud storage from Microsoft Skydrive.
5. You can send attachments of larger file size : a single file can be of upto 300 mb (100 mb directly from your computer and 300 mb from your skydrive). Even gmail doesn’t provide this large file size attachment options.
6. You can connect facebook and twitter accounts so that you can check your friends’ updates, like, comment an/or retweet their tweets.
7. You can create multiple email alias : Email alias are like normal email address except that you don’t need to create another account. Emails to your email alias will be saved in a folder in your account by default. For example, if my main account is onlineusa @ outlook.com for all my mails, I may create email alias to receive sales/advertising related queries in separate folder in my inbox by creating email alias-  onlineliving @ outlook.com .. So, with one account, you get several email addresses with email alias feature.
8. If you love Microsoft and their products/services, just use it.
9. If you use outlook software and love it, why not use outlook email service. Outlook 2016 will have fantastic experience with outlook.com’s email.
10. Outlook.com is new, so just try it if you are among those who are so-called early adopters and always looking for something new to have your hands on.

So, Are you switching to outlook’s email ? If already switched, share with us your valuable experience in comments below.

10 Reasons why you shouldn't use Outlook.com free email

Did you ever try to explain to a friend why he or she shouldn’t use Hotmail? There are many good reasons to avoid Microsoft’s services, but these reasons are not so easy to explain in a clear and unambiguous way.
This article details 10 technical and ethical reasons about why Hotmail is not a good choice. If you find it useful, please share it!

1. Hotmail limits the attachment size

Hotmail’s attachment size limit has been 10 MB for years. Meanwhile, many webmail providers offer between 20 and 100 MB – for free! Even the paying version Hotmail Plus allows only 20 MB, while Gmail and Yahoo provide 25 MB.


Q. Why would I need more that 10 MB attachments?
A. 10 MB is not only the largest size for one attachment, but also the maximal size for all attachments together (for each e-mail)! If you have a recent digital camera, you won’t be able to send more than 3 full-size pictures. And forget about sending even a small video taken with the same camera through Hotmail. It won’t work. (Anyway, e-mails are not suited for bigger attachments. Use a service like Dropbox.)

2. Hotmail spams outgoing e-mails

Before sending them, Hotmail injects ads (with active links) inside your outgoing e-mails. As a Hotmail user, you’re de facto advertising Hotmail and other Windows Live services to your contacts – mostly without realizing it!

Yahoo Mail has stopped this dishonest practice long ago, and Gmail doesn’t insert ads to outgoing messages. If you don’t want to spam your correspondent’s inbox anymore, leave Hotmail!

3. Hotmail doesn’t support IMAP

The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is one of the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval (the other being POP).
Hotmail does not support IMAP. According to Wikipedia, following free webmail services do support IMAP: Gmail, AOL Mail, the Russian provider Mail.ru.

Q. Why would I need IMAP?
A. IMAP probably is the best solution to sync your existing email account with mobile devices: Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm webOS, Symbian or even – open standards achieve miracles – Windows Mobile 5 or 6 devices. You could also use IMAP in Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird – but not with an Hotmail account.
As it does not support IMAP, syncing Hotmail to an iPhone will need money and patience.

4. “Hotmail” doesn’t sound serious

The name “Hotmail” itself does not sound like anything serious. If you use it only for private correspondence, you’ll be fine. Only your geekiest contacts may tastelessly roll in the aisles when they see your e-mail address, but they won’t stop loving you for so little.
However, please do forget about using a Hotmail address for business purposes, or worse, send job applications from a Hotmail address, especially in the IT field. It could promote your application on its direct way to the shredder.

If you personally don’t mind about your e-mail address ending with @hotmail.com, you should know that some people do – not to speak of human resources managements.

5. Hotmail can’t forward e-mails

Hotmail does automatically forward e-mails, but only to other Windows Live Hotmail accounts – else you have to pay!

On the other side, Gmail, Mail.ru, the German GMX as well as the Czech provider Seznam.cz provide automatic e-mail forwarding for free..

Q. Why would I need e-mail forwarding?
A. Let’s take two basic scenarios as examples:
1. Suppose you have a private (Hotmail), as well as one or more other (professional, academic, internet-provider-based, …) accounts. With e-mail forwarding, you could automatically forward e-mails from one account to another, so that you wouldn’t have to check so many inboxes. Impossible with Hotmail.
2. Suppose that you have had a Hotmail account for years, but it doesn’t satisfy you anymore – be it for technical or moral reasons. When moving to a new e-mail provider, you’ll want to configure Hotmail to forward incoming e-mails to your new address. Hotmail won’t. You’re trapped!

6. Hotmail deletes your e-mails

Hotmail has a long history of not delivering e-mails, blacklisting entire domains, silently deleting attachments and filtering spam too aggressively, which marks as junk or erases important e-mails.

7. Moral issues concerning Microsoft

In November 2007, Microsoft has been caught bribing the Nigerian organization TSC, which wanted to deploy 17,000 Intel Classmate PCs (rugged laptops aimed for educational use in developing countries) with a pre-installed Mandriva Linux system. Amount of the bribe: $400,000.

8. Microsoft wants your money

Microsoft has been condemned several times by the European Union, for blocking its competitors out of the market through anti-competitive practices and abuse of its dominant position in the market. In 2008, the EU fined Microsoft €899 million (US$1.44 billion), the largest penalty ever imposed in 50 years of EU competition policy.
Q. Am I concerned by this?
A. Yes, almost directly! As in the similar case EU vs Intel, anti-competitive practices result in companies earning monopoly profits, causing higher prices on the consumer market. Concretely, if you acquired a PC in the past years, it was overpriced because Microsoft made monopoly profits on the bundled software. Too much of your money ended up in Microsoft’s pocket.

9. Microsoft is NOT green

Greenpeace regularly publishes a guide to green electronics, in which Microsoft scores disastrously:

Well, I know, this “guide to greener electronics” is about electronics, not about software and webmails. However, if you care about toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change, you should know that Microsoft does not.

10. More reasons not to use Hotmail

Do you miss a good reason for not using Hotmail? Please add a comment, and I’ll be glad to update this article. I’m particularly interested in informations on:
– Microsoft’s direct involvement in the irregularities of the standardization of Office Open XML process
– Microsoft’s support to anti-ecological lobbies
– More good reasons to avoid Hotmail
– Free and independent e-mail providers.

 Final thoughts

There are plenty e-mail providers here around, Wikipedia provides a comparison of webmail providers. To me, Gmail is clearly the winner, both from a technical and an ethical point of view. A migration from Hotmail to Gmail is fast and painless, as Gmail will import e-mails and contacts for you.

So let's go through the process of turning your next blog post (or next few blog posts) into an informative, marketable ebook that can provide One way and you might be able to turn your blog into an income stream is to convert your existing posts into an e-book.  



Turn your amazing content into a completely new product – an eBook! It is much easier to turn blog posts into an eBook than you might imagine.

How To Turn Blog Posts Into An eBook

Don’t be daunted by the thought of turning your blog posts into a book. I’m going to walk you step by step through the process I used to create my first eBook.

How to find content for your eBook – inside your blog!

First, browse the posts in your WordPress dashboard.
In your body of work (namely, your blog!), you’ll notice recurring themes. Perhaps you write frequently about…

• parenting challenging children
• tips for new photographers
• getting deals while traveling

These would all make great eBook beginnings. To find these recurring themes:

• Filter posts by category to see how many you have filed under certain categories.
• Or use the search feature to look for keywords (toddler activities, for me), and see which posts appear.

When I searched my posts, I saw I’d written over 130 posts on natural or tech-free play for kids. An obvious “recurring theme” for me!
Next, find your most popular posts.

• Google Analytics identifies which posts get the most traffic over a period of time.
• Or, sort posts by number of comments to see which have high reader interaction.

I discovered my most popular posts – always in the top ten – are my series on toddler activities, which lines up with the high volume of posts I’ve written on the topic. So I chose to create an eBook detailing 101 Tech-Free Toddler Activities.
Find a collection of 5-12 posts on a theme you’re passionate about, and you have the beginnings of your eBook.

How do I turn these blog posts into an eBook?

There’s many routes to creating eBooks, from expensive software, to hiring someone to handle the creation and design of your book. But it’s easy (and free!) to create your own eBook and have full creative control.
1. Collect your post content.
Copy and paste text from the selected posts to a document in Microsoft Word or a Google Docs. You’ll need to reinsert images later, so remember to right-click and save images into a folder as you go.
2. Create a table of contents.
Use post titles to create your table of contents, then organize these “chapters” for easy reading flow. Creating a table of contents first will show you if you covered all the points necessary for the book. You may discover you need to write an extra chapter or section to fill in details or cover all the ground in your topic.
3. Add content to your eBook.
Content you will need will probably include:

• Cover / Title Page
• Table of Contents with page numbers
• Purpose
• How to use this book
• What you’ll find in this book
• About the Author
• Resources & links
• Contact information
• Copyright information
• Disclosures (if needed)
• Footnotes/sources (if needed)

4. Revise and edit for readability and accuracy.
It’s the part of writing we love to hate. But think of it like putting the finishing touches on a delicious cake. Carefully read each section start to finish. Because the content was originally written as blog posts over time, you may need to tweak wording so it makes sense.
Here are some revisions I had to make in my eBook:

• Removing time references such as “yesterday,” “last year,” and “stay tuned for tomorrow’s post on…”
• Removing rambling phrases or irrelevant information – usually fine in a blog post it will be distracting in a book
• Transitions from one section to the next (I used famous quotation callouts)
• Updating outbound links that are broken or out-of-date
• Formatting text – numbering, spacing, headings and subheadings
• Adding bonus materials like recipes, tips, and printables
• Adding design elements like borders, images, section breaks, or quotation call outs

Don’t forget spelling and grammar check. Have a friend read a copy to help find those pesky typographical errors.

How do I design my eBook?

I used Microsoft Word to add images, quotation call outs, colored headings, and footer text. For more elaborate details, transfer text and images to Microsoft Publisher or PowerPoint, which will give you more freedom over design elements.
To design a cover, I created a cover graphic in PicMonkey. All you really need is a striking image, your title, tagline, and author name. If design is not your domain, an inexpensive route is to hire out to a VA or a place like fiverr.com.

How do I format my eBook?

I prefer to create PDF files of my eBook, to make it easier to read, share, and discourage copying of material. Here are three ways to convert a file to a PDF:

• Adobe Acrobat software converts files from most programs. Get a free trial of Adobe Acrobat XI.
• Free PDF creators like PrimoPDF will also convert files, but have more limited options, and may not leave hyperlinks intact.
• Upload your file to Google Docs. Then download the file as a PDF. The hyperlinks should remain clickable.

How do I publish my eBook?

Congratulations! You just turned your blog posts into an eBook! Now let’s deliver that hot-off-the-press book into the hands of your eager readers!
There are four major ways to deliver your eBook.

• Self-hosted on your website – upload the PDF file into your WordPress media section; copy the permalink on the right hand side. Upload your cover graphic separately. Insert your graphic into a blog post, page, or sidebar, and link it to the permalink for your eBook file. Readers will click and the PDF file will instantly open up in your site.
• Stored on Google Drive – upload the PDF file to Google Docs. Gather the share link, and connect the link to a graphic, text, blog post, or pin it! Readers will be directed to this document when they click.
• Emailed directly to readers – create an opt-in form and let readers know how they can get your eBook for joining your mailing list. Opt-in offers are a fantastic way to reward your readers for subscribing, and the book is sent directly to their email.
• Published for sale – Sell your book via your site with PayPal, a shopping cart or online store, or through Amazon Kindle Publishing.

I chose to offer my first eBook to email subscribers. So I created a landing page with all the eBook information and the opt-in form to sign up for my email list. I also placed a graphic in my sidebar pointing people to me eBook offer.

From choosing and collecting content, to revising, designing, and formatting, I went from blog to book in less than ten work hours. You CAN easily self-publish your work and turn blog posts into an eBook!

Now, I encourage you, look through your blog to find content for your up-and-coming eBook! Leave a note in the comments about your topic choices!

Email addresses are not permanent. In fact, a historically active email address may suddenly croak—without warning or a farewell note—much to an email marketer's dismay.

Such email addresses that vanish into the ether do come with a somewhat bland obituary, though, in the form of a non-delivery report (NDR). The NDR generally indicates a useful yet enduring error, such as: "no such user";  "mailbox not found"; "the mailbox has been deactivated"; "the recipient has moved on so please stop mailing". (OK, I may have made up the last one.) These are what are known as hard bounces.
 
Hard bounces indicate an invalid email address or an address that is no longer in use. For this post, we'll focus on the latter case as it applies to webmail accounts: Why do some email addresses at popular webmail providers, such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo!, suddenly become undeliverable?

Here are the most common reasons why a once-valid email address might be deactivated. 

1. The user has chosen to close the account. It's easy to open a webmail account, and it is just as easy to close one. Users who decide to ditch their existing email address usually have an online, self-service option to permanently deactivate their mailbox with any of the top webmail providers.
2. The account has been deactivated for abuse. Webmail accounts are governed by the provider's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) or Terms of Service (TOS). If a particular account has been investigated and verified by the webmail provider to violate their AUP or TOS, that account may be terminated immediately if the violation warrants it.
3. The email account has turned dormant. Webmail accounts are free to register for, but they do come with storage and other costs to their providers. As such, most providers periodically deactivate accounts that are no longer used. Specifically, if an email account has not been logged in to for a certain period of time (more info on specific timeframes below), then that account will be deemed dormant and will be a candidate for automatic deactivation. The routine purging of inactive accounts from the system helps providers maximize their resources. 

As one of the tenets of list hygiene is to stop emailing an address that results in a permanent error (aka hard bounce), this information can help senders understand why there is constant attrition within their mailing lists. Furthermore, here's specific guidelines on when popular providers deem an account as dormant and, therefore, eligible for deactivation:
AOL = 90 days of inactivity

• "Your username and account may be terminated if you do not sign on a Service with your username at least once every 90 days."
• Via http://legal.aol.com/terms-of-service/full-terms/

Gmail = 9 months of inactivity

• "Google may terminate your account in accordance with the terms of service if you fail to login to your account for a period of nine months."
• Via https://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/program_policies.html

Hotmail = 270 days of inactivity

• "Your Outlook.com or Hotmail account will become inactive if you don't sign in for more than 270 days or within the first 10 days after signing up for your account."
• Via http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/account-close-account

Yahoo! Mail = 6 months (or more) of inactivity

• "Yahoo! Mail accounts are deactivated and removed after six months of not being used, plus an additional two months for each year you held the account."
• Via http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?locale=en_US&y=PROD_ACCT&page=content&id=SLN3057
• BT Yahoo! Mail, the Yahoo-powered email service for customers of BT (a UK ISP) has recently stated that their inactivity period is set to 150 days.

Want high-level tips on maximizing your email list through mobile email design? Comment Below!