Who thought that a bunch of South Africans could teach the French a thing or two about enticing, wooing and romancing? Alas, a mighty ingenious bunch. GraphicMail has just tied the knot with a French partner to help more people in this world send out their love letters to the right person at the right time. And also business newsletters, product promotions, event eflyers, well, entire email marketing campaigns!

The French connection joins GraphicMail’s European support offices in Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Germany which, combined, covers more than three quarters of the European market. GraphicMail France is committed to assisting their European partners in promoting (double) opt-in email marketing, in combating spam and in providing drill-down statistics and send reports to their clients.

Says Anne-Catherine Schaub-Jones, director of GraphicMail France: “Email marketing has already lured thousands of companies throughout the world, and continues to develop. GraphicMail is a revolutionary solution in the world of email marketing. The solution has been designed to meet the needs of professionals, SMME or large companies, but also takes into consideration non-profit organizations by offering them a free service. I particularly like... read more in our PRWeb press release .

We’ve finally developed a feature that bridges the gap between social media and email marketing. This is the first time the development lab have released a feature that allows your subscribers connect to their social media networks via your email newsletter.

It's simple. All we have done is added an extra field to the customize footer option which allows you to add social widgets at the bottom of your newsletters. When your subscribers read your newsletter, they can share it throughout their social communities opening you up to a world of new clients.  The ever changing landscape of the internet sees a rise in internet users wanting relevant information that is conversational rather than formal. Internet users want recommendations from people "just like them".

To encourage your subscribers to share your newsletters, all you need to do is navigate your way into Advance Mode >> Settings >> Header/Footer Settings.  Click on the Email Footer heading and select "add social media links on all emails". Let your subscribers share your newsletter, and benefit from the exposure to new audiences! Don't forget to start your own social platform - it will do wonders for your brand. It’ll give you an opportunity to announce promotions, specials and inform people of new developments within your company. 

For now, we’ve only added the major social network platforms (Digg, Myspace, delicious, Google share, Twitter and Facebook), but we will be adding more in the future.

Do you Digg it? I do!

Almost 60% of South Africans prefer to connect with colleagues, friends and family via email instead of voice calls and text messages - as shown in a recent Nokia SA study. The "Email Responsiveness Research – Global Overview" study was conducted by ICM among 7,826 people in seven countries during July 2009. Countries where research was conducted: UK, Russia, Spain, South Africa, UAE, Singapore and Italy.

And would you believe it! South Africa is the quickest nation with 24% responding to most mails within five minutes, as opposed to Brits who are the slowest with 13% taking up to two hours and a further 11% admitting to taking over a day to respond. Interestingly, 60% of people from the United Arabian Emirates (UAE) believe it is best to reply to important emails quickly rather than spending time making sure it reads perfectly before hitting send.

Half of the South Africans polled said that they only read emails if they know the sender. So when you send your next newsletter with GraphicMail, remember to clearly state the From address and to consider including your company name in the subject line. Remember that most preview panes only show the first 40 characters of a subject line!

The Nokia SA study also found some interesting provincial differences, which however don't come as such a surprise. Gautengelers spend between one and two hours a day responding to emails, while people in the Eastern Cape take an average of 24 hours before they hit "reply"! The study doesn't reveal if the participants liked receiving newsletters and promotions via email, but we can make a safe assumption that they do, since it is their preferred mode of communication. The average open rate among our South African clients' newsletter sends remained at a steady figure of about 16% in 2009, with industry-specific newsletter open rates of 20 - 25%.

Some interesting provincial differences

The Nokia study has found some interesting differences between provinces. Consider some of these preferences when sending your next email campaign to your South African subscribers. Remember to spell-check, keep it short and only check your send reports 24 hours after a send for an accurate campaign success feedback.

In the Eastern Cape the onus is on flowing prose (52%) and perfect spelling (43%) - so if your target market is mainly in the Eastern Cape, make sure that you cross all your Ts and dot all your Is.

One in ten people in the Western Cape (11%) state that they make their emails short and succinct in order to prove how busy and efficient they are! (If you send to this segment, remember to keep your news short and to the point!)

One in ten people in Mpumalanga (11%) take a ‘more haste, less speed’ approach to email responsiveness by taking up to 24 hours to reply to emails. Best you only check your reports and stats at least 24 hours after a send.


Email marketing will still remain the reliable marketing workhorse. At its core, email marketing helps with customer relationship management: It builds relationships with existing and potential customers. Quirk states that although spam mail has done a great deal to discredit the email marketing industry, the benefits are still apparent and substantiated by the fact that in 2006, JupiterResearch predicted global spending on email marketing to rise from USD 885 to USD 1.1 billion in 2010. But hang on - we're only slowly recovering from an economical world crisis, so these predictions are probably out of line, we can hear you say. No matter what industry your organization is in, chances are your total marketing budget decreased substantially in 2009. MarketingSherpa however found that a much larger percentage of organizations increased their email marketing budgets than decreased them. Most marketers focus on two marketing tactics, email and social media.


And what does the future hold? Forrester Research Inc. predicts spending on email marketing in the US to balloon to USD 2 billion by 2014 - a nearly 11 % compound annual growth rate. Forrester also agrees that a high return on investment, high measurability and the growing use of social email accounts will fuel the use of email. Did you know that you can calculate your return on investment with our ROI calculator? Also, our drill-down stats that we offer in your GraphicMail reports offer you all the detailed information that you need to be able to measure your email campaigns accurately.

Santa Claus delivers, and so does GraphicMail!
The GraphicMail  Santa is giving away some great prizes to a random selection of our Twitter followers and Facebook fans. Stand a chance of winning an iPod touch, free accounts and custom-made templates with the GraphicMail Santa: simply follow us on Facebook or Twitter before 24 December 2009.

Good Luck!
The fine print ...

Our designer Santa has whipped up some festive new templates for you – they are free and we show you how to have fun with them.

I want these pressies - How do I get them?

If you don't have a GraphicMail account, it's about time you get one and become one of our email marketing chommies. If you're already hooked, simply sign into your GraphicMail account and click on Newsletters > Select Templates. The templates are categorized, and you’ll find the xmas templates right at the top of our library. To choose your unique template, tick the check box provided and click on “add templates to my account”. A green message will appear at the top of the page, notifying you that the template has been uploaded. In the menu, click on Newsletter > Create.  Give your newsletter a name and select your new template from the dropdown. 

I want to use my own images in my xmas templates!

Sure. You will need to go into the editor for this. Choose the newsletter with your xmas template and click on “edit”. Select an image by clicking on it, and then click the image button in the toolbar. A popup window will appear; displaying the attributes and current settings of your image. Height, width, alignment, image border and vertical spacing are the changes that can be made to the image.
In the popup window there is also a feature that allows you to replace/insert and upload images from your hard drive into your newsletter and straight from your image folder. You will need to click "update" to complete the process.

Ag, you see,  I want a whole different template - can I design my own?

Well, this is a bit like wrapping your own present, but sure, you are more than welcome to design your own template. You can create a template in HTML (use Notepad if you’re an old guru, and an HTML software like Dreamweaver if you need a little help), or you can upload your template directly from Word. You can design your entire newsletter in a Word document and import it into your account. How do you do that? Go into “import/export” under Newsletters > Editing.  Under the "Get HTML from" section, click on the button "Word". It’s a kind of magic….

By the way...

Choose from over 100 FREE HTML newsletter templates for different occasions, seasons and industries
Have a unique template designed by our inhouse experts – find out how.

Who are the subscribers? Well, they’re you, and your friends, and your family, and pretty much anybody with an inbox for email or text messages. Even if you see yourself as an email marketer who sends newsletters and RSS feeds to subscribers, you are also on the receiving end. All of us guard our inboxes like the personal assets that they are, and ultimately, we’re the ones who decide who gains and retains admission (at least we all think we’re in charge).

If you get spam emails, what do you do? You punish those who sent it! You hit the delete or report spam buttons with great gusto. However, you also appreciate those who honour your permission and deliver you content that’s timely and relevant to your interests.
At GraphicMail, we are dedicated to helping you deliver permission-based email and SMS to your subscribers. We hate spam as much as you do. We encourage you to collect your contacts through an opt-in process, for instance by displaying your subscription form on your website, your blog or your social network. We believe that as a marketer, you must show your clients respect in order to gain their trust. Your subscribers must always be able to unsubscribe from your lists or to edit their profile.

You may start off with a small list of individual contacts for your email newsletter, but this list will be built on solid grounds. If your content is relevant, up to date and inspiring, your subscribers are highly likely to recommend you to your friends. Also, if you customise your footer, you can gain maximum profit from viral marketing. What are you waiting for? Start collecting your contacts for this Christmas, and for 2010.

Stop treating email marketing like direct mail, and subscribers like lists instead of individuals!

Voldemort's Inbox by Mark Brownlow

GraphicMail's new FeedMail (RSS to Email) application is one of the most progressive and easy to use features. It combines RSS feeds, blogs and email; which are all vital elements of online and email marketing. So, what exactly is FeedMail? FeedMail allows you to publish any feed, like your blog, to email. It is sent in the format of a stylish email newsletter on a scheduled basis. To simplify, FeedMail will go and "fetch" the content of your blog and deliver it to a subscriber's inbox. You can set your own custom XML if you are not happy with the choice of 5 feed templates we have supplied you with. All you need to do is supply GraphicMail with your feed URL, choose a template and tell us how frequently you want us to fetch and send it. We do the rest !