I get emails all the time that have the company's newsletter as the body of the email. I want to know HOW to do this. It should be really simple, but I am having a Major Brain Fart about it. Any help will be appreciated.

I think what you may be referring to is an e-newsletter where the email is actually the newsletter. This is generally done using an email service provider (ESP)which is a service you sign up for and pay for in order to send out mass emails to a group of emails. Typically an ESP will have templates or provide you with the ability to create your newsletter and then send it out to your email database. Some of the more popular service providers are Aweber, Constant Contact, Vertical Response and iContact.

It is pretty simple, but does require taking some time to study how the platform works and then to learn how to format the newsletters.

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Kimberly
Facebook Marketing Magic!

For a free option, use Mailchimp. It works great, has analytics tracking and is easy to work with.

http://mailchimp.com

~C

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~Christina|BD Mag|VOSTeam

I second mailchimp. Great program that will grow with your needs but in the meantime the free portion has everything you could want.

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Lee Drozak
My Office Assistant

I use Aweber for a client. After you get familiar with how everything works, it is easy to put the newslettters together.

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Amy
www.porterofficesolutions.com

I've used Mail Chimp and Constant Contact. Both are excellent tools for e-newsletters.

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Carol Aldridge
www.ProgressiveBusinessSolutions.net

I love MailChimp, but if you don't really have an e-mail list yet that folks have opted into, you can send a newsletter in the body of an e-mail using Word & Outlook.
You can create the newsletter in Word and then use the 'Send to Mail Recipient' option. You don't want to do this with a large list, as you may get flagged with your ISP as a possible spammer or your ISP might not allow you to send to a large list, but it does work well if you only have a few people to send to .

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~Tina Marie Hilton of Clerical Advantage
& founder of VA Survival School

That's a great suggestion to use Word for the newsletter to mail it out. I think it might work emailing through Publisher also.

So, how does one go about building up an email list when you are new to the business and have no contacts?

To build a list, the best way is the slow way. Gather business details within your target market and research them. Build you list with names, addresses, websites (and emails if applicable to those listings).

I started out with a direct mail campaign and got some subscribers for those that had no emails and those that did, I emailed directly and so far have had no problems.

Buying lists is totally hit and miss and not desirable in most places. Mailchimp and the like may still mark some as spam if they have not 'opted' in for your newsletter.

Fiona

I've built my list with sign-up forms on my website for the most part. Offering a free download of some sort when someone signs up is a great incentive to get folks to sign up as well. Just be sure you're clear that they are signing up for your mailing list.

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~Tina Marie Hilton of Clerical Advantage
& founder of VA Survival School