Thanks to the growth throughout 2011 we are preparing to migrate Nouri.sh to new, more powerful servers. We wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you to all our customers who submitted new features/ functionality ideas. We appreciate your feedback!

As always we remain open to new ideas. Our Q1 2012 development plan is now being reviewed. We welcome any suggestions from all customers until December 11th 2011.

So step up and help us shape Nourish and make it even better! We promise to review all ideas and take the best into development. Please post your comments here or email: my [at] nouri.sh

You are welcome to join us and share with us:
Nourish on Facebook | Nourish on LinkedIn | Nourish on Twitter

Thank you for using Nourish. Please invite all your friends and connections. Nourish is Free and Fun for them as well!

Nourish is great for your Social Media strategy

Our customers know it, but we thought you may also want to know just how powerful Nourish really is when it comes to engaging an audience.

You know your business best, however one thing we wanted to make sure you have is a great eNewsletter. We have been developing Nourish as the eNewsletter solution that will empower you to differentiate in your Social Media strategy. Your ‘unfair advantage’.

Here is how…

Nearly all news sources on the web use RSS. How many of your readers familiar with RSS? Who knows?… But the good thing is that almost all of them are familiar with email. So this is where comes Nourish helping you to share your content in the format familiar to your readers.

Unlike other tools Nourish only lets you generate emails from an RSS feed. You can use a single or a combination of RSS feeds to streamline valuable and engaging content to your readers. Different feeds can be used for different campaigns, and even different template can be used for each of your newsletters. For example you can communicate with your clients using a different tone to how you communicate with your suppliers.

Nourish is easy to set up and intuitive. It makes managing a large list of subscribers effortless. The opt-out process, as well as subscribing/unsubscribing to individual campaigns is completely automated. Nourish can take the hassle of you managing any number of subscribers, starting from a personal blog to a large company newsletter.

Only those who have run multiple campaigns know how overwhelming that can be. If you aim to target multiple audiences or promote different products, Nourish has a great deal to offer you. It allows you to run multiple campaigns for segmenting your subscribers. Delivering the most relevant content to each group of your readers can boost your open and click through rates and reduce unsubscribers. Plus you have subscribers’ statistics at hand any time to validate the relevancy in the course of your campaigns to their audience.

Nourish allows you to manage multiple campaigns in one single account. Each campaign you create represents a different newsletter. Nice and simple! Unlike any other service Nourish does not limit the number of campaigns you can have.

We know how important it is for B2B organizations for example to segment their subscribers by industry sector. Your campaigns, and the content you deliver with each may vary on (for example) customer demographics, or by set products or services. Or perhaps you may need to have a more ‘independent’ newsletter featuring content from multiple sources.

It’s also easy to create a form for your website to add subscribers to one or more of your campaigns. We have developed a WordPress plugin called Nouri.sh Newsletter that makes this a simple 2 step process.

With the automated scheduling you are sure that your email campaigns go out at regular intervals, without logging in or any manual intervention from your side. Just set and forget!

And my favourite one: your readers like cool custom templates. Your Nourish emails can have your unique branding for a professional look of your campaigns. We can help with that too, just send your brand ideas to: my [at] nouri.sh

Unlike other similar services, Nourish will not force you to upgrade after a trial. Come join us for free today and keep it free as long as you wish!

Plus one: make sure you invite all your friends and contacts too. We’ll make sure they will also get it for free!

• Our standard discount to new customers is giving you 1 month free if you pay for 11 months.
• If you have signed up in 2010 we give you the option to prepay for 10 months and use Nourish for free for 2 more months.
• Either if you are new or existing customers you can receive a free newsletter template (worth $99) completely customized to your business’ unique look by prepaying for 22 months. On top of the free template you will get 2 more months for free.

To give you even more means for awesome year start we decided to extent our offering by introducing our personalized discounts. What do we mean by that? We will be happy to discuss your unique business requirements and prepare a custom proposal especially for you! Did I say at no obligation, just as a special gift from us!?

Just use the comments form below or email me directly at my @ nouri.sh to express your interest and I will be in touch promptly.

Don’t miss this out. We at Nourish look forward to helping you make 2011 your best year yet!

Thank you for all your feedback and help with making Nourish better. Keep sharing with us!

A joyous and prosperous 2011 from all at Nourish!

* Already have a Nourish account? – Prepay for 10 months and get 2 free (offer is available for all clients)

* Pay for 22 months and get 2 free + a free template + support with website form integration – Sign up now and receive a template completely customised for your business. Choose your own colour scheme, logo and design for a completely unique look to your newsletter!

Express your interest using the comments form below or emailing me at
my @ nouri.sh

I will be glad to answer any questions you may have or assist you with choosing the best plan for your business.

Offers only available to the end of the month. Don’t miss out – sign up now for your Nourish early Christmas gift!

The internet search giant has come up with the priority system to help users cope with the amount of emails they receive in a day.

Users can switch on the feature in a click, instead of setting filters and creating multiple folders as they had to with previous services. Gmail will then adapt the way it treats incoming emails based on the account owner’s pattern of usage.

This will mean that email marketers will have to alter their approach to current marketing by following best practice to ensure their email reaches the priority inbox. Sending email based on data such as previous purchases will increase their relevance, meaning better inbox positioning with less competition.

So how do you ensure that you are a ‘priority’?

Well Google will prioritize emails according to whether the account holder will reply to a message. Marketing emails – especially those sent from “do not reply” email accounts – will be at a disadvantage. It will also deprioritise emails that are routinely deleted without being read.

This means that emails should be as engaging as possible i.e. segregating your lists, following design and HTML best practice and cutting out irrelevant ‘blanket blasts’ to everyone. It might mean emailing less. Make the content interesting and avoid spam words to ensure that your email hits the ‘pinbox’.

So preparing for Gmail’s priority inbox is actually an exercise in being a better email marketer. Smarter inboxes like this are becoming more common, and most of the major webmail players have made noises about this recently, so you need to ensure that you adapt your marketing strategy accordingly.

Not all email is equally important to a recipient and so there is often a gap between email a recipient is happy receiving and email a recipient both wants and is expecting enough to complain about not receiving.

To ensure that your email deliverability is the best it can be follow these 7 steps

1. Verification

The number one step in the battle for deliverability is confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list. You can do this by using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the subscriber. They must click that unique link verifying that they own the email address and did actually request to subscribe.

2. Email Addresses

When asking visitors to subscribe, you should be asking for their “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Google or Hotmail. Free email accounts tend to be used far less.

3. Bounce Backs

Always remove undeliverable addresses as soon as possible. An address that consistently  bounces should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

4. Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and the difference between the two can be hard to distinguish. Always consider plain text emails too as deliverability failure is around 1.2% compare to 2.5% with HTML.

5. Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

• Advertising

Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

• Language

Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography.

• Images

Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

• Attachments

Avoid attachments where possible by including a web link instead- where complete avoidance is not feasible. Many people are still afraid of the spread of viruses through opening of attachments.

6. Relationships

Where possible contact the ISP and let them know about your email service. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

7. Legal Practice

There are a number of laws relating to email deliverability. It’s important to keep up to date with current legal practice and you must make sure you periodically review your current practice to ensure legal compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link to remove the subscriber from future messages (which must be swiftly tasked).

We intend to award a feature every month and there is no deadline for this contest but why wait!? This is a great chance to get showcased and gain more subscribers. Send me your newsletter now at my[at]nouri.sh so that we generate awareness and exposure for you from our blog!

Join us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to follow our discussions and share any comments and statistics you may be willing to share with us and other followers.

And remember if you still need a little help getting your newsletter as smart and powerful as you want it, just drop me a line, I’ll be happy to help

If you're going to offer a prize make it something good!

They say a picture is worth 1000 words… We say a good prize is worth 10,000 subscribers.

Build your list of subscribers by bribing your community with a prize each month. For example, you could offer a prize for:

• the best comment
• the nicest testimonial 
• forwarding the newsletter to the most people
• proving you read the newsletter by answering a simple quiz
• just being on the list (random selection)
• any of the above

This will increase your subscribers and keep them subscribed for longer in hope that they win, it also helps to build your user community. Run the prize regularly and make a point of asking the winner to send in a photo showing them enjoying the prize, this will help to reinforce the message to other community members.

Make sure the prize is something good like case (not a bottle) of champagne and offer an alternative prize, in case the user doesn’t drink, for example an iPod Nano. 

Publicise the prize everywhere, on your Facebook profile, Linked In, Twitter as well as on your website and blog. Use a nice graphic, here are some inexpensive champagne images you could use:

• http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-2135310-champagne-bottle.php
• http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-video-4926563-champagne-celebration.php (video)

Use your blog to promote the prize each month naming the winner of the last prize, ideally with a photo of them and the prize.

Here is a reliable supplier of champagne in the UK,  at $80 / €70 / £60 + postage:

• http://www.virginwines.com/product/prod_case_details.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442987071&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374303106973&bmUID=1270663845528
• Any suggestions for a US / EU supplier anyone?

Disclaimer: You may want to have a terms and conditions page for the prize, so you don’t get in to trouble sending a case of champagne to someone under the legal age limit.

Look out for our prize-post to see how you can win a case of champagne!