Campaigner, a provider of email marketing solutions, has announced general availability of its free 2009 Holiday in a Bag tool kit for small online businesses and retailers.

Campaigner’s downloadable holiday bags are filled with everything required to plan, create, and launch a sales-generating holiday email program. As a gift for the holiday season, Campaigner is also offering a chance to win free marketing consultant services to start the New Year.

The National Retail Federation expects this year’s holiday sales to reach $437.6 billion. Retailers are anxious to draw in customers and tap into this holiday spend but many are unsure where to start.

“Email marketing has proven itself to be a fast, easy and cost-effective method for reaching customers and driving sales for the holiday season and year round,” said Steve Adams, vice president of marketing for Protus, the provider of Campaigner. “Campaigner’s email marketing holiday tools are designed to help retailers fast track their holiday marketing push to create successful, results-driven campaigns.”

In a recent State of Small Business Online Marketing Survey conducted by Hurwitz & Associates and sponsored by Campaigner, 46% of small businesses interviewed indicated that they rely on email marketing to reach new customers and communicate with existing clients. The survey also revealed that 36% of the small business respondents plan to start using email marketing in the coming year.

Campaigner’s “Holiday in a Bag” is designed to help small online businesses and retailers drive customers to their physical or online stores, with email marketing tools that promote their products and services. Campaigner’s holiday season bag of tools include:

• Holiday promotion email templates with ready-to-use content
• 100 tips for holiday marketing
• Happy holidays e-card
• Tips for growing your contact list
• Instructions on how to optimize email for deliverability
• Holiday graphics, and much more.

Online small businesses and retailers looking to drive store and online traffic are invited to sign-up online for the chance to win marketing consultation services with Campaigners email marketing expert. The contest closes January 5, 2010. The winner will be notified by email after January 7, 2010.

For more information about Campaigner’s ‘Holiday in a Bag’, visit
www.campaigner.com/lp/holidayinabag.aspx

About Campaigner:
Campaigner email marketing enables small, medium and large businesses to strengthen customer relationships and drive sales by connecting to their customers quickly, simply and affordably.  Features include professional-looking email campaign creation, multiple ways to grow and manage lists, integration with CRM and the utilization of campaign metrics and reports to increase results. Campaigner is part of a total Software as a Service (SaaS) business communications offered by Protus that also includes MyFax, the fastest-growing Internet fax service; and my1voice, the cost-effective, feature-rich virtual business phone service. Additional information is available at www.campaigner.com.

With direct mail often delivering a 1-3% response rate or even less, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that you’re using a targeted mailing list and have a well-written, attractive letter.

Without these things, you’re in for a disappointing campaign and maybe even losses rather than profits.

There are other steps you can take, however, to increase the rate at which your envelopes are opened and read therefore increasing the number of people who will respond. With direct mail, your first impression is the appearance of the envelope. When an envelope looks unusual and is personalized, the recipient is more likely to take a second look. Also, you want to make sure that it stands out – consumers have seen it all before from the pre-approved credit card applications to bland postcards.

From my experience, working with clients from many different industries, there are five tried and true rules that I follow with each campaign.

Use a Live Stamp
Postage meters may be the easiest way to prepare your mail for delivery, but it is not going to get you the best response. Spending a little extra time to actually stamp each and every envelope will make it look like you aren’t mass-producing direct mailers or ‘junk mail’. It will seem as though you drove all the way to the post office to pick up the stamps and then spent a while focusing on each envelope and the impression you were making.

Never use an inkjet printer
Many high volume mailers use high-speed inkjet printers to spit out their direct mail quickly and reliably. But the key problem here is that many high volume mailers use it! People have seen it before and can tell the difference when you use a nice quality printer that may take a little more time.

Personalized Return Address Labels
Again, it may take time or a few extra cents to stick these on each envelope, but the recipient will appreciate it. Taking time for each customer makes it appear as though you are thankful for their business. Also – think about it – how many direct mail pieces you have received lately that had a personalized return address label? Not many. Most have their name printed in the upper left hand corner, a Pitney Bowes stamp in the upper right hand corner, and a little clear hole in the middle where your address is. They couldn’t even take the time to print your address on the envelope! If you are using your business return address, try putting an individual name instead of the business name. This really makes the piece look more personal.

Use an outrageous, individualized design on the envelope
The days of the plain white envelopes are over as are the days of a little logo in the corner. You have got to go crazy, be outrageously creative, get someone to notice your envelope. Make your envelope the first thing the recipient notices when they open the mailbox. How do you do it? Use a wild color, draw some ‘unplanned’ doodles on the outside, and make it known that you’re not the average company and this is not the average piece of direct mail. Check out the product Doodleopes(TM) for some examples of what I’m talking about.

Use a handwriting font to write the recipient’s address
How many times do I have to say it? Personalize the envelope! Make it look like you spent a lot of time! Find a believable (not fake-looking) hand-written font so it appears as though you handwrote their address on the front of the envelope. This way, your direct mail piece will look like it came from a friend. If you’ve followed the rest of my tips, the recipient will be so curious as to which company spent so much time personalizing the letter for them that they’ll be excited to open it. And if they don’t need the service right now, you’ll have made such an impact that they may just save your direct mail piece on their refrigerator for next time.

About the Author:
Andrea Ratajczak is co-founder of PDA Marketing and developer of Doodleopes™, hand-drawn doodles and outrageous envelopes that are sure to increase your response rates. Visit us at http://www.pdamarketing.net.