Our TameBay eBay account hasn’t been used for buying for a couple of years but eBay haven’t given up on us – they’ve just sent us a 10% off voucher for anything between a £40 and £100 purchase on eBay.

Rather annoyingly I just purchased a USB 1 Terabyte Hard Drive for £64.99 from the weekly deals yesterday – if the voucher had been 12 hours earlier TameBay could have saved me £6.50 (grrr ).

It is good to know that eBay are tapping up dormant accounts to get them spending though. The UK is one of the most highly penetrated eBay markets in the world and there are only so many new buyers that they can bring to the site. Getting dormant buyers returning to the site and spending again is almost more important (and probably cheaper!) than recruiting a brand new buyer.

Did anyone else get a voucher? If so what did you spend yours on?

All you have to do to enter is “Like” the Linnworks Facebook page and add a comment telling them why you’d like to win the prize.

If you’re looking at expanding after Christmas and want multichannel management software to help grow your business then winning this prize would be a fantastic start to the New Year.

Full details of the Christmas contest are on the Linn Systems website.

Jonny’s winning entry in our email marketing competition was selected by iContact’s judges for its good use of a free and customizable email design template, uncluttered use of text and messaging that established the recipient as a valued customer and reconfirmed Home Discount Store’s value proposition – huge savings on home and garden products.

We’d like to congratulate Jonny on his winning entry. His use of a pre-designed template shows that even small businesses with limited design resources can produce professional looking email campaigns that yield fantastic results.
John Hayes, iContact UK

Jonny was also kind enough to share the initial results from his email marketing campaign with us. With an open rate of 16.5% and a click through rate of 2.0% his first campaign was not too far off industry averages for the retail sector and could easily be improved with a little tweaking to the subject line and additional focus on segmenting his list and targeting with appropriate offers.

Andrew Penchuck, iContact’s marketing guru told us “We picked Discount Home Store as the winner because the results from their first campaign were so encouraging. With a little development, Discount Home Store could easily be exceeding industry averages in the online retail sector whilst significantly boosting their brand awareness and driving additional revenues. This could be improved further with the addition of iContact’s new social media tools helping spread the message to potentially much wider audience.”

Ten Golden Rules for Email Marketing

Email marketing is a long-term, low cost investment and should constantly be assessed and developed to ensure greater penetration and return on investment.

Together with iContact competition judges we have compiled a 10 point checklist to help you maximise the return from your email marketing campaigns:

Sender Info
1. Is the “from” name the business name or a person the recipient would recognize?

Pre-header
2. Is there a call-to-action pre-header?

Subject Line
3. Is it compelling?
4. Is there a sense of urgency?

Message Body
5. Is there a call-to-action?
6. Is there a link to landing page?
7. Is there a clear offer?
8. Is there incentive?
9. Is there a sense of urgency in the call-to-action?

Testing
10. What is being tested? – Subject line, length of copy, use of images and how will you use these test results in future campaigns.

To snag a copy you’ll have to sign up to The Wholesale Forums, but it’s free and as a bonus you’ll get access to a whole load of insider knowledge on the best and most reliable wholesale suppliers around. Then just add a comment to the thread on The Wholesale Forums telling them why you’d like a copy and which part of your business you’d like to simply. Free membership and maybe if you’re lucky a free copy of TameBay’s guide – can’t be bad!

If you’ve already got a copy of the guide then it’s still worth signing up to The Wholesale Forums as a great source of supplier information, and look out in January for the updated and expanded 2012 edition of the guide.

Terapeak allows you to determine the value of your products before you even buy them. Giving access to completed listings you can research what price similar items have actually sold for to ensure when you purchase it’s at a price you know will sell at a profit. You can also research your competitors to find out what’s working for them and what’s not.

The promotional pricing is £159.60 giving access to Terapeak data for eBay UK, or Terapeak International for £259.60 giving access to International eBay data from the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, UK, Italy and eBay.com Motors Parts & Accessories.

Via eBay SellerSphere

John Hayes from iContact reminded us that many online sellers already use Twitter and Facebook to drive traffic to their websites, but there is often very little strategy behind this approach. It is also time consuming and can be disruptive as sellers get absorbed into their social life and distracted from their work life.

iContact now allows users to be more organised in the planning and execution of your social media campaigns, ensuring tweets and posts are lined up with promotions, events and other campaigns without the need to be glued to your laptop or mobile device.

Scheduling your tweets and Facebook posts will be particularly useful to sellers hoping to attract buyers in different time zones or simply people who choose to burn the midnight oil at more unsociable hours.
Of course you don’t want to automate all of your tweets – you’ll still want to proactively respond to your followers and post as hoc tweets as you probably already do. Marketing tweets need to be interspersed with more casual posts.

An equally important part of iContact’s new social media tools is the ability to track the value of your marketing efforts and, perhaps for the first time, truly understand the reach of your social campaigns.
iContact’s Social Tools are currently rolling out (over the next few days) to all existing clients and are available now to all new registrations.

Don’t forget TameBay are running a competition with iContact, and if you’ve not entered there are still a few days left to be in with a chance of winning an iPad. All you need do is sign up for a free 30 day iContact account and send your first email! Full details on TameBay.

Unless you work for Royal Mail Group Ltd (in which case sorry you can’t enter) then you’ve a chance of winning and all you need to do is fill out the entry form telling ParcelForce a little about your business and how many parcels you send a day. You don’t even need to currently use ParcelForce to be eligible to enter.

The draw will take place on 31st October 2011, just in time for the Arthur Christmas film premier on 6th November 2011. You’ll also need to take the Lapland holiday by the 14th December 2011 if you’re the winner.

There will also be a second prize draw running from 1st to 30th November 2011 with prizes of 5 x £100 Toysrus vouchers, 10 x £50 One4all gift cards and 1 x Private Screening of the film Arthur Christmas.

photo credit: Rego – d4u.hu

If you have not already entered our win an iPad competition time is getting short. The closing date for entries is November 5th – so before you think about letting any fireworks off, light marketing’s equivalent of the blue touch paper and open an account with iContact today.

Full details of the completion can be found here.

Email’s Vital Statistics

One of the things I love about email marketing (and online marketing in general) is the speed of reporting. Literally, within minutes of sending a campaign you are able to see if it has been a success or not.

iContact provides most of the reporting tools a small business will need. For larger senders the company recently rolled out an integration to Google Analytics.

On the reporting dashboard you will see, updated in real time, reports on the number of opens, the number of clicks, the number of bounces (i.e. the number of emails that were not delivered) and the number of spam complaints (with an opt-in list this should be VERY low).

The dashboard also displays how your campaign has fared via the social networks (iContact provides a number of tools to socialize you email content free of charge).

It is then possible to drill down into the stats and see exactly who has opened campaigns, how many times they have opened them and perhaps more importantly who has clicked on what links. This data is incredibly important if you want to segment your lists or perhaps want to arm a sales team with some actionable insight.

For a great example of how one iContact client used this data to get to know his clients a little better check out What Kind of Fisherman Are You?

So what makes for a successful email marketing campaign?

A 20% open rate is good. A 30% open rate is even better. But if your campaigns are properly targeted and carefully crafted an open rate in excess of 50% is very achievable. The real beauty of email is the cost. For small business (with lists of 500 or below) the cost of managing your campaigns can be free and therefore the only investment required is the time spent to build your campaigns. At this price the worst that can happen is that your business actually sells more.

Give it a try.

We’ll be announcing the winning entry TameBay on November 20th, 2011.

Good luck.

Amazon Webstore ecommerce sites are an all-in-one multichannel eCommerce platform, built on proven technology which powers over a billion secure transactions around the world each year. It gives you all the tools you need to successfully set up and run all aspects of your online business, including checkout processing and delivery. To get your business online with Webstore, all you really need is a computer and an internet connection. Start small, and grow fast.

If you take an Amazon Webstore in conjunction with Selling on Amazon and FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) then you can simply have your stock shipped to Amazon, sell on all Amazon EU sites and Amazon will do all the work. All you need to do is notify Amazon of any orders sold on eBay or off-line and they’ll pick, pack and fulfil those orders for you too.

This is also an ideal solution for retailers in the US who want to get a foothold in the UK and European marketplace. Ship your stock to Amazon in the UK and they will handle all warehousing and logistics on your behalf. Even if you are based in Europe Amazon’s solutions can assist you exporting across the whole of the EU increasing your cross border trade.

Amazon have three offers running at the moment to get you up and started including a free Amazon Webstore for up to two years:

Amazon Webstore Offers

1) Free Amazon Webstore for 1 month
Sign up for Amazon Webstore and get a free 1 month trial worth £16.99. Service Referral Fees for items sold via your Webstore are 4.5%.

2) Free Amazon Webstore for 2 years with Selling on Amazon
Sign up for Amazon Webstore plus Selling on Amazon and get your Webstore free for 2 years (normally £9.99/month), plus your £25.00 Selling on Amazon fee free for three months plus reduced fees for items sold on your Webstore of just 3.5%.

3) Free Amazon Webstore for 2 years with Selling on Amazon and FBA
This is Amazon’s best value deal. Get your Webstore free for 2 years (normally £6.99/month), plus your £25.00 Selling on Amazon fee free for three months, plus reduced fees for items sold on your Webstore of just 3.2%.

These offers are valid until 21st December 2011.

If you have already followed steps one and two you should already have signed up to your free trail account and uploaded you list. Now it’s time to build your campaign and hit send.

Don’t worry if you have not registered to enter yet – there is still plenty of time. Full details of the competition have already been published on TameBay.

Building a winning email campaign

iContact provide a number of tools to help you build your first email marketing campaign including MessageBuilder which allows you to customise iContact’s library of email marketing templates with easy to use drag and drop tools. It is also possible to design your own creative using MessageCoder which allows you to use your own HTML in a fully featured WYSIWYG editor.

As well as HTML emails you should also give thought to how you want to display your campaign in plain text. This is particularly important for people accessing their emails through mobile devices and some online email browsers.

5 Tips to build a successful first campaign

Tip #1 – Be relevant
A monthly email to your entire list is not a strategy – it’s an afterthought. You need to build a strategy based on relevancy to your target market and the quality of your message. If you’ve got nothing to say, don’t say it.

Tip #2 – Less is more
Select just one offer per email and segment your list accordingly. If you have a range of complementary products, choose a hero product to focus on and add simple links to promote the additional items. Think of your email like a menu in a restaurant – too many dishes to choose from and nothing looks appetizing.

Tip #3 – Headline news (subject lines)
Your subject line should scream benefits. Think of it in the same way a newspaper editor writes a headline. It should tell the full story and entice the subscriber to read more. Give your subject line as much thought as your body text. Your subject line is your first line of defence between your subscribers and the delete button.

Tip #4 – Take time for text
Make good use of real text (not graphics) at the top of your email. A graphic-heavy email will appear blank until the subscriber has selected to download the graphics. Real text in the message will remain visible even in HTML emails and entice subscribers to open the complete email.

Tip #5 – Check twice, send once
Wherever possible get a colleague or friend to look over your text, check links, spelling etc. Simple mistakes can damage your reputation and encourage unsubscribes, spam complaints and may prevent people from opening future email campaigns.

For more great tips check out A Crash Course in Email Marketing on the iContact Blog.

Throughout September we’ll be running a four-step program to help you create “winning” email marketing campaigns. Step 1 was to open an iContact account and today we’ll be talking about uploading your list. If you’ve not already opened a free iContact account you’ll need to do this first but it’ll only take a couple of minutes.

Quality and Opt In Lists

The success of any email marketing campaign relies 100% on the quality of your list.

iContact operates a zero-tolerance approach towards Spam and as such your list should only contain contacts who have opted-in to receive email marketing messages from you.

Opt-in emails may have been collected via a newsletter sign-up form on your website, a check box on your checkout page or at the point of sale in a bricks and mortar environment (for example a gold fish bowl on the bar or reception desk of a restaurant). Your subscribers must know what they are registering for and be allowed to opt-out at any time. Every email sent via the iContact system allows for recipients to unsubscribe quickly and easily.

Do not add old emails contacts to your list. If you suddenly start emailing a customer who has not heard from you in years, you are likely to receive spam complaints and this could compromise your reputation with the email service provider (ESP) or your ISP’s. If switching between ESP’s (particularly if there has been a break since your last marketing message was sent), it is good practice to allow the subscriber to reconfirm their subscription.

Tools for uploading your list

iContact provides a selection of tools and integrations for building and maintaining your list including customizable HTML forms, WordPress and Drupal plugins as well as iPhone and Android Apps which can help you manage your lists and campaigns on the move. It is also possible to upload via a spreadsheet or entering details one by one.

For more information about building and maintaining a successful list check out iContact’s Email Marketing Best Practices.

Once you’ve uploaded your email list come back next Friday to find out how to create a winning email creative.

For those of you who are new to email marketing, the thought of setting up an initial campaign might be a little daunting. With this in mind we’ve broken the process down into four easy to follow steps and will be blogging the process every Friday throughout the competition to ensure you can complete your entry before the 5th November 2011 closing date.

The four steps to creating a winning email marketing campaign

1. Register for iContact’s FREE 30 day trial
2. Upload your list
3. Create a winning email creative
4. Send and track your success

Each of these bite-sized steps shouldn’t eat more than an hour out of your day (with initial steps taking literally minutes).

Week 1) Register for iContact’s FREE 30 day trial

This week the first step in the process is to register for iContact’s FREE 30 day trial. You simply need to enter to select the 30 day trial option and enter your name and email address.

You will then receive an email confirmation with details about completing your account. You will not be asked for any credit card details during this process.

Once registered with iContact you’re done for this week and you’re on schedule, so check back next Friday for step two when we’ll show you how to upload your email subscriber list…

The iContact “Lucky” Seven Email Marketing Tips

1) Subject lines that scream “Open Me!”

Make no mistake, your subject line will be the number one factor in deciding whether you win or lose this competition. It is a one-time only opportunity to grab the judges’ attention and make them want to open your email. Your subject line should scream benefits and build desire. Creating a sense of urgency with a time limited offer is also a great idea. If you struggle to fit everything into a tweet, you’ll find this particularly challenging. An email subject line shouldn’t be any longer than 70 characters.

2) Friend or Foe?

Your email should always come from an entity your subscribers recognise. Ideally this should be your company name. Unless you are personally well known to your customers, avoid sending from your own name. This looks unprofessional and when displayed with a commercial offer might appear spammy to the recipient. You can easily set the sender’s name in the campaign section of the iContact App.

3) Quality over Quantity

The money is undoubtedly in your list but it is the quality that counts, not just the size. iContact has a zero tolerance approach to spam and as such your list should only contain contacts who have opted in to receive your emails. Contact lists stuffed with generic sales@ or info@ addresses will damage your reputation and may hamper the chances of your emails reaching your subscribers inbox. For advice on building a clean list visit here (http://www.icontact.com/guide/contacts/).

4) Real Text – A Design Classic

Keep your design clean and simple. Most email clients (such as Outlook) will not automatically display graphics, so a large graphic at the top of an email will appear as an ugly empty box. With this in mind your email should make sense with only the text showing. iContact offers a number free customizable design templates. Don’t worry if your design skills are lacking, we encourage creative use of these templates and competition entrants who use them will NOT be disadvantaged.

5) Get Social

iContact provides social media tools designed to help you extend the reach of your campaigns and build a better list. Drag and drop Facebook and Twitter buttons allow your subscribers to easily re-publish your emails via their social networks and enabling your campaigns to go viral.

6) If you’ve got nothing to say -

- don’t say it. Keep your emails relevant and to the point. Try not to include too much detail as this will confuse the message. Have fun, but remember unless you run a dog grooming salon, nobody wants to read about your dog (seriously I’ve seen this). Remember, the purpose of your email campaign or newsletter is to keep subscribers informed about your businesses and ultimately drive repeat business.

7) Measure twice, cut once

I’ve been involved with email marketing, in one shape or another for more than 10-years now, and still get nervous before I hit the send button. Check everything twice before you send. If at all possible send the campaign to a colleague or a friend to double check spelling, formatting, links, etc. Remember, once it’s gone, it’s gone and you won’t get a second chance to impress

For more great email marketing tips and best practices check out the iContact Blog. Closing date for entries to win an iPad 2 is November 5th, 2011 – Good luck.

photo credit: Rego – d4u.hu

Do you want to win an Apple iPad 2? iContact, the email and social media marketing company for small businesses, have teamed up with TameBay to offer our readers the chance to win an Apple iPad 2 just for sending an email. Best of all it’s totally free to enter and entering the competition should also help you to grow your business.

To enter the competition, participants need to register for a FREE 30 Day Trial of iContact’s Email Marketing Software via this link, upload a minimum of 25 contacts (including the email address ipadcompetition@icontact.com) and send an email marketing campaign or newsletter to their list before November 5th, 2011.

Entries will be judged on the quality of email creative (subject line, design and body text), landing page experience and the creative use of social tools.

Don’t worry, if you are new to email marketing, iContact provides a whole range of easy to follow video tutorials and email marketing best practices free of charge.

John Hayes, iContact’s EMEA Business development Executive, told TameBay, “This is a great opportunity to get your teeth into email and social media marketing and receive constructive feedback from a panel of experts on your initial campaigns.”

The winning entry will be announced on TameBay on November 20th, 2011.

For your chance to win register today and don’t forget to include the “seed” email address ipadcompetition@icontact.com in your uploaded list of contacts.

We’ll break the steps you need to take to enter the competition down over the next four weeks.
Step 1 of 4: Register for iContact’s FREE 30 day trial

The legal small print

Competition Rules
The Promotion is sponsored by iContact Corporation, with offices at 5221 Perimeter Parkway, Ste. 200, Morrisville, NC 27560 USA (“iContact”) and Tamebay, with offices at 23 Mount Road Thatcham, Berkshire RG18 4LD. The Apple iPad 2 are provided by iContact. Prizes will be fulfilled on or about November 21st 2011 by mail to the billing address in your iContact account. All recipients of the prizes must comply with the iContact website (http://www.icontact.com/permission-email-marketing) and the Tamebay website (http://www.tamebay.com) Terms and Conditions as well as these terms. THE APPLE IPAD 2 IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, AND ICONTACT AND TAMEBAY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WITH RESPECT THERETO. iContact reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to modify, suspend or cancel the Promotion at any time. All decisions by iContact in regard to this Promotion are final and binding in all respects.

Email entries will be judged on the quality of subject line, design and content. The winner is selected by a panel of iContact experts. All decisions by iContact in regard to this Promotion are final and binding in all respects. iContact and Tamebay reserve the right to publish the winning email and feature winner details on www.tamebay.com and www.iContact.com.

To be in with a chance of winning you simply need to complete the survey by midnight on the 21st August. The survey only takes a few minutes to complete and I can think of plenty of uses for £50 to spend on Amazon.

All you need do to refer a friend is fill in a simple form on the Terapeak website and they’ll receive a one-off email letting them know about Terapeak, and how it can help them.

New customers that you refer will need to remain with Terapeak for at least 30 days (and preferably longer) but after that your PayPal balance will be $25 richer.

The program is of course intended for current Terapeak users to refer their friends, so if you’re not a Terapeak subscriber and would like to use the premier eBay research tool feel free to let me know and I’ll be happy to refer you myself (and being completely shameless I’ll be even happier to invest the $25 referral fee in alcoholic beverages and raise a toast wishing you success in your eBay research ).

If you are already a Terapeak user then stop just telling your colleagues how good it is, send them a referral email and let them find out for themselves.

The promotion is open to sellers who haven’t previously registered on Amazon and to qualify you need to open your account by the 10th May 2011. You’ll still pay all referral and transaction fees and other costs, but if you’re paying fees for the first month then you’ll have made sales on Amazon.

With the number of bank holidays in the UK over the next few weeks if your business is closed for shipping setting up a seller account on Amazon and starting to get products listed will be an ideal bank holiday project.

All you need do is to watch a short video reminding you to keep your PayPal account details up to date (your address, bank account information, credit card expiry dates and email address). At the end of the video enter your PayPal registered email address and PayPal will mail you a hat in 4-6 weeks time.

Sadly, if like me, you’re based outside the US or if you’re not a PayPal advantage customer you won’t get a hat, but you can still watch the video.

PayPal research shows the average salary for a full time employee is £25,800, but they’ve massively rounded that up to a generous £40,000.

Every week from 21st October until 5th December 2010, PayPal are giving away £40,000 and when you shop with PayPal you’ll automatically be entered into the weekly draw. Full details are available at paypal.co.uk/win

This year, ECMOD takes over the West Brompton side Earls Court Exhibition Centre – directly opposite West Brompton station on the 6th & 7th October.

On ECMOD’s comprehensive exhibition floor visitors will find a wide array of expert service and solution providers. These include specialist IT systems providers, digital marketing agencies, email marketing services, media specialist, web and catalogue photographers and designers, international service providers, mail and parcel carriers, and, of course, payment service providers, including Paypal. There are also some seriously good free seminars which all visitors can take part in as well as lots of useful meeting areas including a chill out zone equipped with PCs to enable visitors to check their emails & stay in touch with their businesses whilst at the show.

In addition to activities taking place on the Exhibition Floor, the ECMOD event also offers a conference programme with the opportunity to hear from some of the most successful names in the direct and online retailing business. These include Johnnie Boden who will talk about his phenomenally successful business, Boden, and knowledgeable speakers from businesses including Cotswold Company, Direct Wines, House of Bath, Lands’ End, Monsoon, Scotts & Co, Screwfix, Toast, Widget, Wiggly Wigglers & more. Tickets for the conference are £295+vat per person per day & include entry to the sessions of most interest, refreshments, delegate wallet & session notes/presentations.

TameBay readers can win one of four one day tickets follow @ECMODSHOW on Twitter between now and midnight on 28th September and then register to attend ECMOD inserting (Tamebay) after your company name on the registration form. Winners may choose which day they wish to attend the conference on – the full programme can be viewed on the website or a brochure obtained by calling 01271-866112.

All those attending ECMOD can also enter a range of competitions at the show for prizes including an iPad and £7000 worth of catalogue design work.

Once you know which day you’re attending the show let us know in comments below and we can meet up for drinks afterward. I’m intending to be there on the first day (Wednesday 6th October). Don’t forget the exhibition itself is free to attend, it’s only if you want to attend the conference in addition that there’s a charge.

Unsurprisingly the goods on offer are from eBay Outlets, but if you’re in the market for any of those products you might as well take advantage of the discounts. The promotion runs until 14th September and there are over 1300 products to choose from.

The pricing is competitive with Royal Mail prices for recorded delivery items over 250gm for VAT registered companies and over 500gm for those who are not VAT registered.

An advantage of myHermes is that they’ll collect from you eliminating trips to the Post Office and once you get to know your local agent they’re very flexible at collecting at a time suitable for you. At the other end they’ll also deliver to your buyer and again if your customer isn’t at home they’ll try again at a different time of day – even in the evening.

If you want to take advantage of the new £2.75 pricing you can book parcels online at myHermes.co.uk.

Disclosure: myHermes advertise with TameBay

The business ideas can be old, new or even just imagined, they won’t ask for the money back if your idea doesn’t become a reality, but £100 might be all that you need to get your business idea off the ground.

Ideas 101 is sponsored by PayPal and winners will be paid into their PayPal accounts with 20 winners each month, starting in July. Then in November at the Enterprise Nation Conference they will name one idea the 2010 Home Business Idea of the Year.

myHermes operate a 0-15kg, 3-5 day door to door courier service. Their 7,500 ‘lifestyle’ couriers are very flexible and can deliver at convenient times such as in evenings and weekends when others can’t. This can eliminate the days of receiving drop cards and queuing in sorting offices on a weekend.

Closing time for entries will be Sunday evening at 10pm (UK residents only). All entrant’s names will be put in to a draw and we’ll notify the two winners early next week. Please make sure that you comment using your real name and the email address you’d like us to contact you on if you’re one of the lucky winners!

Disclosure: myHermes advertise with TameBay

The TV, on today’s Daily Deal from ebuyerexpress, is offered at £579.99 but if you buy this or any other qualifying Toshiba TV or Laptop make sure you register your purchase on the Toshiba Football Promotion Registration Website by the 10th of June for a chance to win your money back.