It seems like every time I turn on the teevee or radio, I don’t have to wait long to see or hear a commercial from Constant Contact. Every time I do, my teeth grind.

First off, let me say that they’re good commercials. Really good commercials. If I were working for Constant Contact, they’d be exactly the kinds of commercials I’d want to see on the air.

But as someone who has personally pulled the “send” trigger on around 2,000 email campaigns (give or take), I find that these spots do exactly what so many lesser commercials do: promise ease and riches when the reality is much different.

Sure, Constant Contact — and other programs like Campaigner, Newsberry, Campaign Monitor, AWeber, Emma, MailChimp, etc. etc. — enables someone to create and deliver email messaging for their business. But it’s not as simple as all that.

As a company, what’s your strategy for capturing email addresses? Are you integrating your brand messaging, both visually and textually, into your email campaigns? Do you have a strategy for how often you’ll reach out to your list? Are you segmenting that list? Are you A/B testing subject lines? Are you being conversational or hard-sell? Are you aware of which terms in your subject line will get your mail caught by spam filters? Are you observing best practices for email copywriting? Are you using email to facilitate feedback from your customers, and do you have a system in place to address any feedback? Are you properly leveraging administrative list messages? Are you aware of CAN-SPAM legislation that may affect your email marketing?

For starters.

I have to add, too, that the email I get from companies using Constant Contact pretty much all looks the same: They’re using basic content templates, and there’s that big honkin’ Constant Contact logo at the bottom — which always annoys me. After all, why let Constant Contact’s branding get in the way of yours?

And if you can’t navigate the Constant Contact system to remove their logo from your email, do you really think you’re properly addressing all the other important questions that surround email marketing?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 17th, 2011 at 11:45 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Rants 'n' Such.