Increase Repeat Visitors

[user 26]

the difference is that 'morticia' is an innkeeper ... who happens to use constant contact
bertieq is not an innkeeper - but someone pretending to be a business person who uses keep in touch - and who used that pretence in order to promote it.
a person who joins this forum and says ... 'this is my business, i hope you will try it' and is up front about it ... is directed to the appropriate place to post.
by the way freemarket, are you also bertieq? swirt will know.

 

[gillumhouse]

It's clear this forum is controlled by a few.
It's appaling that Morticia is using this forum to promote Costant Contact while destroying a fledgling new business, keepintouchmail.com.
First, keepintouchmail.com is built on the echomail technology which has been around since 1994.
Second, who said that google yahoo and bing control the future of new businesses. Just because a business is not listed there does that mean they don't exist?
Third, who are the three of you on this site controlling the future of American business? Have any of you every built a company?!
Fourth, do you think your behavior is fair and just to the whole hospitality community to only promote one e-mail marketing supplier?
Fifth, given internet forums are supposed to be fair and transparent, why is Morticia so rappidly promoting Costant Contact? What is her business relationship with them? Has she ever used both of these products?
I find the three of you behavior appaling and frankly facist to promote one sigle vendor. I'm asure that if another vendor like bnbfastmail.com tried to promote itself through that forum you also destroy them as you did with keepintouchmail.
Clearly new suppliers have no opportunity with the three of you destroying reputations in seconds!
I encourage all bnbowners who are interested in email marketing to make their own judgements by testing all the tools mentioned in this forum!.

It is only three so far - some of us have been busy with other persuits. You prove the weakness of your argument and the weakness of your premise but going defensive and name calling. IF the product is so good, one would be much better off citing the features and giving a reason why, other than childish "he stuck his tongue out at me" type answer.
We are wise enough here to do research before stepping into the manure pile. One can check things out without going someplace and leavig cookies behind.
So the count is now 4.

 

[Innkeeper To Go]

Um, Freemarket Dude? Whoa.
You come onto our forum and trash our members? That is almost as rude as pretending to be an innkeeper to scam us.
Here's the thing. There are a lot of different innkeepers from all over the place who come here. None of them controls anything.
We are all thankful for all of them, even those we don't always agree with. Morticia happens to be among the most sensible here so don't count on any knives coming out to help you.
You, on the other hand, are not even an innkeeper from all appearances.
If you hoped to garner any innkeeper support here, guess what? You blew it.
You blew it here before you insulted Morticia. You blew it here by pretending to be something that you're not.
But trashing your competition and trashing one of us?
Just not cool. It's really time for you to take your ball and go home.
Whatever you hoped to gain here is simply not going to happen.

 

[YellowSocks]

It's clear this forum is controlled by a few.
It's appaling that Morticia is using this forum to promote Costant Contact while destroying a fledgling new business, keepintouchmail.com.
First, keepintouchmail.com is built on the echomail technology which has been around since 1994.
Second, who said that google yahoo and bing control the future of new businesses. Just because a business is not listed there does that mean they don't exist?
Third, who are the three of you on this site controlling the future of American business? Have any of you every built a company?!
Fourth, do you think your behavior is fair and just to the whole hospitality community to only promote one e-mail marketing supplier?
Fifth, given internet forums are supposed to be fair and transparent, why is Morticia so rappidly promoting Costant Contact? What is her business relationship with them? Has she ever used both of these products?
I find the three of you behavior appaling and frankly facist to promote one sigle vendor. I'm asure that if another vendor like bnbfastmail.com tried to promote itself through that forum you also destroy them as you did with keepintouchmail.
Clearly new suppliers have no opportunity with the three of you destroying reputations in seconds!
I encourage all bnbowners who are interested in email marketing to make their own judgements by testing all the tools mentioned in this forum!.

I encourage all bnbowners who are interested in email marketing to make their own judgements by testing all the tools mentioned in this forum!

It's clear this forum is controlled by a few. Wrong. You haven't read any other threads but this one so you wouldn't really know that would you.
It's appaling that Morticia is using this forum to promote Costant Contact while destroying a fledgling new business, keepintouchmail.com. Fledgling business? I thought BertieQ said it had been around for years.
First, keepintouchmail.com is built on the echomail technology which has been around since 1994. Terrif. Why not flog that company?
Second, who said that google yahoo and bing control the future of new businesses. Just because a business is not listed there does that mean they don't exist? Google, Yahoo & Bing say so. Try to have a website-based business they don't recognize.
Third, who are the three of you on this site controlling the future of American business? Have any of you every built a company?! Yes, we have all built companies. Which one did you build?
Fourth, do you think your behavior is fair and just to the whole hospitality community to only promote one e-mail marketing supplier? I believe I said I was putting the company I use out there. Everyone else is welcome to do the same.
Fifth, given internet forums are supposed to be fair and transparent, why is Morticia so rappidly promoting Costant Contact? What is her business relationship with them? Has she ever used both of these products?Who says internet forums are fair and transparent? Morticia has promoted CC before because she uses them and they work. So if BertieQ and you like your email program, use it. Don't complain because Morticia likes someone else's.
I find the three of you behavior appaling and frankly facist to promote one sigle vendor. I'm asure that if another vendor like bnbfastmail.com tried to promote itself through that forum you also destroy them as you did with keepintouchmail. Oh goody, 'fascist'. Name-calling isn't allowed here, you need to read the terms below.
Clearly new suppliers have no opportunity with the three of you destroying reputations in seconds! This little group destroyed a business in seconds? One that has been in business since 1994? We tried bringing down TripAdvisor but had no luck and they haven't been in business all that long.
I encourage all bnbowners who are interested in email marketing to make their own judgements by testing all the tools mentioned in this forum! And we all agree.
If you read all of the comments and followed the logic, you will realize that we don't trash new businesses who are honest. Present a product by saying you are a happy user of a product that is 15 years old by flogging a website that went up a month ago and you'll get called on it. BertieQ signed on to flog the company by using their script. Pretty much word for word off their homepage. Why not say what his real experince was in his own words? If you use a product you can do that.
If anyone wants to offer their opinions on a product, they're welcome to do so. But they should use their own words and not the company's press release. Or they should state they are a member of the company and play by the rules listed below.
And if you read the comments you'll see that the product info was left so people COULD check the veracity of the product. If this group really didn't want the product to show up here, it would have been gone immediately as numerous people flagged it immediately as spam.
But it's still here, isn't it?
What we do here is to try to protect innkeepers from being spammed by showing them how to look at a product and determine if it's just another bottomless pit into which they are expected to drop their money.
So let's hope my post stays up for awhile so people can see your questions have been answered.
.

Clearly new suppliers have no opportunity with the three of you destroying reputations in seconds! This little group destroyed a business in seconds? One that has been in business since 1994? We tried bringing down TripAdvisor but had no luck and they haven't been in business all that long.

Did we try that? If we have that kind of power, let's try harder!
I've been too busy to post a lot lately, but count me, too! If there's one thing that can be said about this forum, it's clean, it's honest, and it doesn't put up with BS. OK, that's three... so what? Don't be calling any of us names, especially not a member who is as well respected (nigh revered) as Morticia!
=)
Kk.

 

[swirt]

Good responses everyone. So I'll just leave it as, FreeMarket has gotten himself banned for namecalling and generally being over the top in response to what was a fair assessment of just poorly thought out and executed spam. Who comes on a B&B forum and asks if any of us have ever started a business??

 

[YellowSocks]

Were he and BertieQ one and the same?
=)
Kk.

 

[Innkeeper To Go]

Swirt, is it possible to block his IP address?

 

[wendydk]

i think they are saying the technology has been around ... but not keep in touch mail ... and interactive dot com has been around a while. the two are affiliates. nothing wrong with that.

The exact wording on their website is "Keep In Touch Mail is a total E-Mail Marketing solution for all your two-way email communication - Inbound and Outbound. It will handle everything saving you time and money and that's what we have been doing since 1994."
Their many google ads read :"Keepintouchmail.com Trusted Email Marketing for the Hospitality Sector. Since 1994".

**********************************************************
That it NOT saying that the technology has been around, but that they themselves have been around since 1994. Not cool and not honest either.

 

[user 26]

'Clearly new suppliers have no opportunity with the three of you destroying reputations in seconds! This little group destroyed a business in seconds? One that has been in business since 1994? We tried bringing down TripAdvisor but had no luck and they haven't been in business all that long.'
what a great answer

 

[user 26]

changed my post so i don't help promote
such fun on a cold, February night![/h3]

 

[user 26]

i think they are saying the technology has been around ... but not keep in touch mail ... and interactive dot com has been around a while. the two are affiliates. nothing wrong with that.

The exact wording on their website is "Keep In Touch Mail is a total E-Mail Marketing solution for all your two-way email communication - Inbound and Outbound. It will handle everything saving you time and money and that's what we have been doing since 1994."
Their many google ads read :"Keepintouchmail.com Trusted Email Marketing for the Hospitality Sector. Since 1994".

**********************************************************
That it NOT saying that the technology has been around, but that they themselves have been around since 1994. Not cool and not honest either..

ah ... good sleuthing little blue.
changed my post so i don't help promote.

 

[egoodell]

'Clearly new suppliers have no opportunity with the three of you destroying reputations in seconds! This little group destroyed a business in seconds? One that has been in business since 1994? We tried bringing down TripAdvisor but had no luck and they haven't been in business all that long.'
what a great answer

.

Oh please someone tell this individual to go take a hike. They obviously have no clue that we have built our businesses carefully and research anything we use. This guy is the typical one who thinks all he has to do is put something out on the web, no matter how, no matter what the quality and somewhere within the dumb masses it will sell.
Riki

 

[swirt]

Swirt, is it possible to block his IP address?.

Swirt, is it possible to block his IP address?
That's been done.

 

[swirt]

Were he and BertieQ one and the same?
=)
Kk..

Were he and BertieQ one and the same?
Same location, slightly different ip address.

 

[Forfeng]

Umm guys, please don't shoot me, wrote a post on the other one about blogging ideas and didn't realize I was supposed to clarify that I was technically a (gasp) vendor. I wasn't on here to promote only to follow my clickthroughs from my blog post.
It was suggested by Morticia that I scan the topics for some other blogging ideas that might help innkeepers and happened to click through to this one. OOps.
If I could put my two cents in while I am here and if I am violating anything please let me know ASAP and I will bow to the innkeeping gods.
When I first was approached about doing email marketing for some of the inns I worked with several years ago, I ended up evaulating more then 25 different services. The top two that came out were constant contact and vertical response. Both offer templates which are extremely easy for an innkeeper to set up and manage themselves. Disclosure: many of the innkeepers I work with do their own email marketing and are happy with the two services and no I don't get referal fees or any of that baloney for promoting them.
The major difference between the two is constant contact is a monthly fee and vertical response offers the option of a regular fee or a pay as you go version, which if you are just starting out or have an irregular emailing schedule works well. I prefer VR myself only because CC has a tendancy to boot me out of the system if you are imputing a lot of visual graphics. Apparently this is not a common problem so don't let it sway you yay or nay.
The subject of day mailing is a tough one. I usually mail on the dreaded Tuesdays midday, not first thing in the morning because mail boxes are cluttered. But Wednesdays work well and Thursdays for last minute specials have some great open rates. I've experimented with this as well to try to find that "optimal" mailing time but it seems to really depend on your clientale. Inns with a great percentage of retirees on their mailing lists or lots of overseas addresses seem to get better opens when mailed on the weekends for instance.
I think the only way a inn will find that perfect "niche" for themselves is to experiment. I do have one thing I have found to definitely be a factor though, if you mail to your list more often then every 3 weeks you will have a higher number of unsubscribes.

 

[Morticia]

Umm guys, please don't shoot me, wrote a post on the other one about blogging ideas and didn't realize I was supposed to clarify that I was technically a (gasp) vendor. I wasn't on here to promote only to follow my clickthroughs from my blog post.
It was suggested by Morticia that I scan the topics for some other blogging ideas that might help innkeepers and happened to click through to this one. OOps.
If I could put my two cents in while I am here and if I am violating anything please let me know ASAP and I will bow to the innkeeping gods.
When I first was approached about doing email marketing for some of the inns I worked with several years ago, I ended up evaulating more then 25 different services. The top two that came out were constant contact and vertical response. Both offer templates which are extremely easy for an innkeeper to set up and manage themselves. Disclosure: many of the innkeepers I work with do their own email marketing and are happy with the two services and no I don't get referal fees or any of that baloney for promoting them.
The major difference between the two is constant contact is a monthly fee and vertical response offers the option of a regular fee or a pay as you go version, which if you are just starting out or have an irregular emailing schedule works well. I prefer VR myself only because CC has a tendancy to boot me out of the system if you are imputing a lot of visual graphics. Apparently this is not a common problem so don't let it sway you yay or nay.
The subject of day mailing is a tough one. I usually mail on the dreaded Tuesdays midday, not first thing in the morning because mail boxes are cluttered. But Wednesdays work well and Thursdays for last minute specials have some great open rates. I've experimented with this as well to try to find that "optimal" mailing time but it seems to really depend on your clientale. Inns with a great percentage of retirees on their mailing lists or lots of overseas addresses seem to get better opens when mailed on the weekends for instance.
I think the only way a inn will find that perfect "niche" for themselves is to experiment. I do have one thing I have found to definitely be a factor though, if you mail to your list more often then every 3 weeks you will have a higher number of unsubscribes..

If you do decide to promote yourself, say so in the post. Swirt does this when someone asks where they can find something pertinent to running a B&B and he wrote the article. ("Full disclosure here, I wrote the article," is usually what he says.)
The problem arose here in this thread because the people posting had a vested interest in the product and didn't say so right up front. And it has come up in the past where someone was constantly linking to articles she 'wrote' that were helpful but she was stealing the info from someone else and not giving credit. That sort of stuff is bad around here. We like to keep things honest.
Did you blog about the research? Posting a link to that would be fine. Actually, if you want to do a 'Hi, I'm Heather' sort of thread and tell who you are and what you do, you could put a link in there to your info.
In re CC...do you use Firefox as your browser? If so, use IE for CC as they have problems with FF as I found out the other day. (And if all those acronyms don't send you running...)

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Umm guys, please don't shoot me, wrote a post on the other one about blogging ideas and didn't realize I was supposed to clarify that I was technically a (gasp) vendor. I wasn't on here to promote only to follow my clickthroughs from my blog post.
It was suggested by Morticia that I scan the topics for some other blogging ideas that might help innkeepers and happened to click through to this one. OOps.
If I could put my two cents in while I am here and if I am violating anything please let me know ASAP and I will bow to the innkeeping gods.
When I first was approached about doing email marketing for some of the inns I worked with several years ago, I ended up evaulating more then 25 different services. The top two that came out were constant contact and vertical response. Both offer templates which are extremely easy for an innkeeper to set up and manage themselves. Disclosure: many of the innkeepers I work with do their own email marketing and are happy with the two services and no I don't get referal fees or any of that baloney for promoting them.
The major difference between the two is constant contact is a monthly fee and vertical response offers the option of a regular fee or a pay as you go version, which if you are just starting out or have an irregular emailing schedule works well. I prefer VR myself only because CC has a tendancy to boot me out of the system if you are imputing a lot of visual graphics. Apparently this is not a common problem so don't let it sway you yay or nay.
The subject of day mailing is a tough one. I usually mail on the dreaded Tuesdays midday, not first thing in the morning because mail boxes are cluttered. But Wednesdays work well and Thursdays for last minute specials have some great open rates. I've experimented with this as well to try to find that "optimal" mailing time but it seems to really depend on your clientale. Inns with a great percentage of retirees on their mailing lists or lots of overseas addresses seem to get better opens when mailed on the weekends for instance.
I think the only way a inn will find that perfect "niche" for themselves is to experiment. I do have one thing I have found to definitely be a factor though, if you mail to your list more often then every 3 weeks you will have a higher number of unsubscribes..

Another good and inexpensive e-mail service is Your Mailing List Provider. There are templets you can use or make your own. It's cheapers than the others mentioned and easy to use with a wysiwyg editor.

 

[swirt]

Umm guys, please don't shoot me, wrote a post on the other one about blogging ideas and didn't realize I was supposed to clarify that I was technically a (gasp) vendor. I wasn't on here to promote only to follow my clickthroughs from my blog post.
It was suggested by Morticia that I scan the topics for some other blogging ideas that might help innkeepers and happened to click through to this one. OOps.
If I could put my two cents in while I am here and if I am violating anything please let me know ASAP and I will bow to the innkeeping gods.
When I first was approached about doing email marketing for some of the inns I worked with several years ago, I ended up evaulating more then 25 different services. The top two that came out were constant contact and vertical response. Both offer templates which are extremely easy for an innkeeper to set up and manage themselves. Disclosure: many of the innkeepers I work with do their own email marketing and are happy with the two services and no I don't get referal fees or any of that baloney for promoting them.
The major difference between the two is constant contact is a monthly fee and vertical response offers the option of a regular fee or a pay as you go version, which if you are just starting out or have an irregular emailing schedule works well. I prefer VR myself only because CC has a tendancy to boot me out of the system if you are imputing a lot of visual graphics. Apparently this is not a common problem so don't let it sway you yay or nay.
The subject of day mailing is a tough one. I usually mail on the dreaded Tuesdays midday, not first thing in the morning because mail boxes are cluttered. But Wednesdays work well and Thursdays for last minute specials have some great open rates. I've experimented with this as well to try to find that "optimal" mailing time but it seems to really depend on your clientale. Inns with a great percentage of retirees on their mailing lists or lots of overseas addresses seem to get better opens when mailed on the weekends for instance.
I think the only way a inn will find that perfect "niche" for themselves is to experiment. I do have one thing I have found to definitely be a factor though, if you mail to your list more often then every 3 weeks you will have a higher number of unsubscribes..

Another good and inexpensive e-mail service is Your Mailing List Provider. There are templets you can use or make your own. It's cheapers than the others mentioned and easy to use with a wysiwyg editor.
.

Another good and inexpensive e-mail service is Your Mailing List Provider.
I'm assuming the company name actually is "Your Mailing List Provider"? Sorry the coffee hasn't kicked in yet this morning. I have a little Abott and Costello skit playing out in my head

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Umm guys, please don't shoot me, wrote a post on the other one about blogging ideas and didn't realize I was supposed to clarify that I was technically a (gasp) vendor. I wasn't on here to promote only to follow my clickthroughs from my blog post.
It was suggested by Morticia that I scan the topics for some other blogging ideas that might help innkeepers and happened to click through to this one. OOps.
If I could put my two cents in while I am here and if I am violating anything please let me know ASAP and I will bow to the innkeeping gods.
When I first was approached about doing email marketing for some of the inns I worked with several years ago, I ended up evaulating more then 25 different services. The top two that came out were constant contact and vertical response. Both offer templates which are extremely easy for an innkeeper to set up and manage themselves. Disclosure: many of the innkeepers I work with do their own email marketing and are happy with the two services and no I don't get referal fees or any of that baloney for promoting them.
The major difference between the two is constant contact is a monthly fee and vertical response offers the option of a regular fee or a pay as you go version, which if you are just starting out or have an irregular emailing schedule works well. I prefer VR myself only because CC has a tendancy to boot me out of the system if you are imputing a lot of visual graphics. Apparently this is not a common problem so don't let it sway you yay or nay.
The subject of day mailing is a tough one. I usually mail on the dreaded Tuesdays midday, not first thing in the morning because mail boxes are cluttered. But Wednesdays work well and Thursdays for last minute specials have some great open rates. I've experimented with this as well to try to find that "optimal" mailing time but it seems to really depend on your clientale. Inns with a great percentage of retirees on their mailing lists or lots of overseas addresses seem to get better opens when mailed on the weekends for instance.
I think the only way a inn will find that perfect "niche" for themselves is to experiment. I do have one thing I have found to definitely be a factor though, if you mail to your list more often then every 3 weeks you will have a higher number of unsubscribes..

Another good and inexpensive e-mail service is Your Mailing List Provider. There are templets you can use or make your own. It's cheapers than the others mentioned and easy to use with a wysiwyg editor.
.

Another good and inexpensive e-mail service is Your Mailing List Provider.
I'm assuming the company name actually is "Your Mailing List Provider"? Sorry the coffee hasn't kicked in yet this morning. I have a little Abott and Costello skit playing out in my head
.

Yup......y m l p dot com
You can actually have a free basic account with them if you don't have more than 1,000 e-mail addresses. You don't get all the perks though. I have the "professional" account which is only $3.75 per month. I've used it for about 4 years. With this level I can't see which newsletters have been opened though. The next level up is only $5.00 a month. It's a bargain!

 

[swirt]

Umm guys, please don't shoot me, wrote a post on the other one about blogging ideas and didn't realize I was supposed to clarify that I was technically a (gasp) vendor. I wasn't on here to promote only to follow my clickthroughs from my blog post.
It was suggested by Morticia that I scan the topics for some other blogging ideas that might help innkeepers and happened to click through to this one. OOps.
If I could put my two cents in while I am here and if I am violating anything please let me know ASAP and I will bow to the innkeeping gods.
When I first was approached about doing email marketing for some of the inns I worked with several years ago, I ended up evaulating more then 25 different services. The top two that came out were constant contact and vertical response. Both offer templates which are extremely easy for an innkeeper to set up and manage themselves. Disclosure: many of the innkeepers I work with do their own email marketing and are happy with the two services and no I don't get referal fees or any of that baloney for promoting them.
The major difference between the two is constant contact is a monthly fee and vertical response offers the option of a regular fee or a pay as you go version, which if you are just starting out or have an irregular emailing schedule works well. I prefer VR myself only because CC has a tendancy to boot me out of the system if you are imputing a lot of visual graphics. Apparently this is not a common problem so don't let it sway you yay or nay.
The subject of day mailing is a tough one. I usually mail on the dreaded Tuesdays midday, not first thing in the morning because mail boxes are cluttered. But Wednesdays work well and Thursdays for last minute specials have some great open rates. I've experimented with this as well to try to find that "optimal" mailing time but it seems to really depend on your clientale. Inns with a great percentage of retirees on their mailing lists or lots of overseas addresses seem to get better opens when mailed on the weekends for instance.
I think the only way a inn will find that perfect "niche" for themselves is to experiment. I do have one thing I have found to definitely be a factor though, if you mail to your list more often then every 3 weeks you will have a higher number of unsubscribes..

Another good and inexpensive e-mail service is Your Mailing List Provider. There are templets you can use or make your own. It's cheapers than the others mentioned and easy to use with a wysiwyg editor.
.

Another good and inexpensive e-mail service is Your Mailing List Provider.
I'm assuming the company name actually is "Your Mailing List Provider"? Sorry the coffee hasn't kicked in yet this morning. I have a little Abott and Costello skit playing out in my head
.

Yup......y m l p dot com
You can actually have a free basic account with them if you don't have more than 1,000 e-mail addresses. You don't get all the perks though. I have the "professional" account which is only $3.75 per month. I've used it for about 4 years. With this level I can't see which newsletters have been opened though. The next level up is only $5.00 a month. It's a bargain!
.

Yup......y m l p dot com
LOL have I tarred and feathered that many spammers that you all are afraid to post links?

www.yourmailinglistprovider.com
Active (trusted) members are welcome and enouraged to post links and recommend anything they think is worthwhile for other innkeepers.