Most email marketing vendors (i.e.: Constant Contact) offer a message archival service, but for an additional fee. To avoid the additional fee, there are two ways you can manually “archive” that content, making it available to a larger audience.

Manual Archive Options

1. Use the “View Online” link:
   Some vendors offer a link your subscribers can click to view the message in a web browser. (Look for something like “Having trouble viewing this email? Click here.” at the top or bottom of your campaign messages.) You can simply create a link to this location on your web site or blog so visitors can read old messages.
2. Re-purpose the message content:
   Rather then linking to the content, you can publish it to your web site using any old content management system, or even easier, your blog software.

Getting the Message Content into your Blog

1. Using your email campaign software, send yourself a copy of the message you’ll be “archiving.”
2. In your email program, get the HTML source code for this message.
   • In Outlook 2007, double click the message title to open it in a new window.
   • In the ribbon tool bar, select Other Actions > View Source. This will open the code powering the message in a new Notepad window.
   • In the new Notepad window, select everything (press ctrl-A), and copy it to your clipboard (ctrl-C).
3. Open your blog admin software and create a new post.
   • In WordPress, click the “HTML” tab to the right side of the post’s content area. (This will change the content editor from “Visual” to code view.)
4. Paste the code into the post content area (ctrl-V).
5. Use the blog software’s “Visual” or “HTML” editor to make any needed changes.
6. Make any additional post setting selections and publish the message as a normal blog post.

Notes:
- You might consider adding a blog category called “Newsletters” or something similar, to best organize these types of posts.

1. How many direct sales (or actions) did the campaign generate?
2. How many opens and bounces were reported for the message?
3. Which links were clicked on and what traffic was generated on the web site?

The amount of sales and responses should be pretty easy to track. Any web server statistics or analytics program can help you determine resulting web site traffic. The message statistics however are a little more tricky to analyze. This statistics, while pretty accurate, are not exact. The deffinition of “success” will vary from campaign to campaign, but here’s a bit of information to help you make sense of it all.

Please note: You cannot properly track the success of an email campaign without a proper email marketing program. (Microsoft Outlook, for example, is not meant to be a mass email tool and won’t provide you with the trackable statistics noted below.)

Campaign Statistics Definitions

Open rate: The percentage of recipients actually opened the email. Not all email readers allow for open tracking however and some text-only readers cannot track at all. As with many Internet technology statistics, an open rate is an approximate value.

Bounce rate: The percentage of recipients that could not receive the message. There are a number of reasons a message could not be delivered. Some include: non-existent addresses (once active addresses that have been deactivated), incorrect addresses (typos, misspellings), undeliverable addresses (the receiving server was temporarily unavailable, overloaded, or could not be found), full mailboxes, or blocked addresses.

Click-through rate: The percentage of people who opened the message and clicked on at least one link.

Industry Averages

Constant Contact, a popular small business email marketing program, reports the following average industry rates for emails sent in 2009.

Please add the netdrafter.com domain to your email safe senders list or whitelist.

Outlook Instructions

To add an address or domain to Safe Senders in Outlook:

• Open Microsoft Outlook, in the Tools menu, select Options
• In the Options dialog box, click the Preferences tab and select Junk Email
• In the Safe Senders dialog box, click Add
• Type the email address or domain name you want to add to safe senders list.
• To add a single address, type “news@netdrafter.com”, for example.
• To add a complete domain, type “netdrafter.com”, for example.
• Click OK and click OK again.

OR

• Open a message from the address to add to Safe Senders list
• In the Actions toolbar, click Junk Email and select Add Sender to Safe Senders List or Add Sender’s Domain (@netdrafter.com) to Safe Senders List.

OR

• Open a message from the address to add to Safe Senders list
• Right click on any missing image
• Select “Add Sender to Safe Senders List.”
• Note: To view images in a single message, right click on any missing image and select “Download Pictures.”

Webmail Instructions
To add an address or domain to Safe Senders in Webmail:

• In the Options area, above the message, click the “Whitelist Sender” link.
• From there, you can either add additional addresses or domains to your whitelist, or click the Inbox link to return to your email.
• Note: To access your whitelist settings later, click Options, and then click SpamAssassin Configuration.
• Note: To view images in a single message, click “View Unsafe Images” at the bottom of an email.

Safe Sender Email View Examples

An email where sender is not on safe senders list:

The same email, when sender is on safe sender list:

1. In Outlook, click File > Import and Export
2. Highlight “Export to a file” and click “Next”
3. Highlight “Personal Folder File (.pst)” and click “Next”
4. Click the “Inbox” of the account you want to backup
   Check the “Include Subfolders” box and click “Next”



5. Chose the location (ex: desktop, backup folder) to save the backup file to and click “Finish”
6. If desired, compress or password protect the backup file

In the event of data loss, you can import the contents of your backup file by using the “Import from another program or file” option in the File > Import and Export menu.

Notes

• A .pst file is an archive of your current message and file structure and therefore can only be opened by the program it was created in: Microsoft Outlook.
• You can save single messages by opening the message, and clicking File > Save As. A message saved in .txt format can be opened by any word processing program. To save many messages in .txt format, see the ‘MessageSave’ additional option below.
• Have a really important email message? Why not print it out and save it as a hard copy file? (There’s no such thing as too many backups!)
• Also try separately backing up your Contacts and Calendar using the “Export to a file > Microsoft Excel” option in the File > Import and Export menu.

Other Options

There are a multitude of Outlook add on programs that can make backups more manageable. We’ve had success with the following:

Add-in: Personal Folders Backup (Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007)

Description: Personal Folders Backup creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up.
By: Microsoft
Cost: Free

MessageSave for Microsoft Outlook (Outlook 97, 98, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007)
Description: Save multiple Outlook email messages as individual .msg or .txt files.
By: TechHit
Cost: $29.95 (trial version available)

The tip:

“To protect your online privacy, consider creating one email address for your trusted contacts, and a separate one for online use (filling out forms, posting comments, etc.) Then, if your “extra” account is getting too much spam, you can easily close it, without having to notify your trusted contacts of an address change. Also consider a separate credit card just for online use as well. If you have a fraud issue, you can quickly close the account, without having to reroute automatic or slow to clear payments. It will also help pinpoint how the fraud might have occurred.”

http://www.netdrafter.com

Netdrafter is also listed in the directory as one of the referred women-owned resources. Netdrafter, LLC – a licensed, insured, and certified woman owned business.