Archive for the 'Hints and Tips' Category

“Speak Up” with Constant Contact and GoldMail…

Published October 21, 2009 Events , Hints and Tips , Product Updates Leave a Comment
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Your email marketing just got more powerful.

The GoldMail team are delighted to announce our partnership with email marketing leader Constant Contact. Just click on the player below for a 2 minute message.

ConstantContactLaunch303

With Constant Contact email marketing for GoldMail you’ll benefit from:

  • Significantly above average (97%) Inbox delivery.
  • 400+ email marketing templates.
  • Email open rate & click through tracking.
  • List management & autoresponders.
  • Email coaching and support.

ccfreetrial_mo

This latest GoldMail release is out now. To increase your click-through rate and speak to your audience with impact just look for the automatic update when you next login, it’s that simple.

What do you think? leave us a comment, or add a suggestion on Our Uservoice Forum and don’t forget you can always keep up to date with the latest from GoldMail by following us on twitter-16x16 Twitter and facebookf Facebook.

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Repurposing your content, multimedia messages in minutes.

Published August 4, 2009 Hints and Tips Leave a Comment
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Perhaps the most efficient way of creating professional looking audio slideshow messages is to remember how simply you can recycle the digital assets you already have available to you.

There are numerous advantages to this approach, not least that it will save you even more time, expense and effort.

You may already have a library of powerpoint slides you can leverage of course, but lets think beyond powerpoint. If you have a website, or do any other kind of promotions, then the chances are you already have the essential ingredients to make a GoldMail in minutes.

Here are two examples of very effective GoldMails that have simply repurposed existing content.

1. The launch of the Lee Westwood Golf Acadamy. This GoldMail, which is embedded over at LeeWestwood.com simply married audio from the press release radio interview, with a couple of photos, and screenshots taken from the Lee Westwood Golf Acadamy Website.

LeeWestwood

2. The DEMO ‘08 Global Tour. This GoldMail was recorded as a podcast style interview with the DEMO technology conference founder Chris Shipley, it used photos already taken on their trip, and was included in their email newsletter “the DEMOletter”.

Demo08

Remember, with GoldMail all you need to get your message out are:

Images…

-  Your website is the first place to look. Most likely you already have a great library of images that you can use in your messages. If you can’t find the original, then it really is a simple job to just grab a screenshot from your site and crop it to size (click here to see how).

Think how easy it is to tell your story with a picture of you and your team, a couple of product shots, a page highlighting the monthly special, and perhaps a screenshot of your website. Presto, a quick voiceover and you have a GoldMail ready to share.

Beyond your website you may have other assets for offline marketing purposes, but these too are often available to you digitally. So think how you can get creative with those publicity shots you’ve had taken, or the PDF’s and .JPGs of the brochures and flyers you’ve had printed.

…and Audio

If your business either advertises on the radio, or produces podcasts then you have a feast of audio snips just waiting to be used. Perhaps someone at your company has been interviewed, and you have a copy of the audio, or how about simply including some music and letting your images tell the story (for music licenced for commercial purposes Search Creative Commons).

So,what are you waiting for?

Was this blog article useful to you? How are you recycling your content? Leave us a comment above.

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Leverage your messaging, GoldMail Beta is here…

Published June 16, 2009 Hints and Tips , Product Updates 1 Comment

GoldMail Beta Logo

Add that personal touch everytime with GoldMail Beta

Over the past year one of our most requested features has been the ability to Edit Audio Slide by Slide.

Do you want to: reuse a GoldMail you’ve recorded and saved, just changing your first slide greeting for a different client or prospect?

Have you ever: played your message back, then wished you could change the audio on a slide without re-recording the rest of the message?

…well now you can.

As a reader of The GoldMail Blog we’re giving you exclusive access to GoldMail Release 200906Beta – Edit Audio “Slide by Slide” which, we are excited to announce,  is available NOW for download.

So, if you want to see how it feels to truly leverage your messages click the button below and watch a 3 minute GoldMail overview, see what this powerful beta release can do for you, then take it for a test drive.

Download GoldMail Beta

We’re looking forward to hearing what you think.

Don’t forget, you can always get the very latest from The GoldMail Blog sendviae-mail1 Delivered by EMail, and by following us on twitter-16x16 Twitter and facebookf Facebook.

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Great Sources of Free Content for your Audio Slideshow Messages

Published June 9, 2009 Hints and Tips Leave a Comment
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We are often asked where is the best place to get creative content for GoldMails, so I thought it about time to compile a definitive list. There are some tremendous sources of free photos, images, illustrations, and clip art avaliable if you know where to look. Of course (quite rightly) in most cases “free” comes with the caveat that you should attribute the content to the photographer or creator of the work. So, whether you use GoldMail for Sales, Marketing, Training or Internal Communications read on to discover where to find great content in seconds.

Search Creative Commons My first port of call when looking for free content is always to Search Creative Commons, the nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright. They provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

Searching Creative Commons enables you to find images and photos from Google, Yahoo! and Flikr, and you quickly find authors whose work is marked as free to use with only “some rights reserved.” If you respect the rights they have reserved (which will be clearly marked, as you’ll see) then you can use the work without having to contact them and ask. In some cases, you may even find work in the public domain — that is, free for any use with “no rights reserved.” To learn more about Creative Commons licensing click HERE

Creative Commons also hosts an enormous CCIcon Content Directory which lists all the organizations and projects powered by Creative Commons. This really is a treasure trove, and lists not only free images, but text, audio and video too.

PhotoExpress LogoPhotoXpress.com a Free stock photography and premier-quality image bank (with more than 350,000 images ready for download for personal or professional use) has just been launched by its parent compant Fotolia.com.  Signup and you can download up to 10 images a day from 22 catagories, including a great selection of business images. Proper attribution is required.

StockXchngStock.xchange is a Hungarian site with close to 400,000 images to choose from. Join their community and you may use images free of charge in multimedia presentations, don’t forget to read their terms of use.

Other great sources of FREE images include:

MorgueFile.com Free images for your inspiration, reference and use in your creative work, be it commercial or not!

ImageAfter.com is a large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image or texture.

FreeDigitalPhotos.net is a good quality site that carries thousands of royalty free photos for corporate and personal use in presentations. You must attribute their website.

Paid for photo sites: – with access to even a small budget you can get hold of superb stock photos in seconds at:

Stockxpert.com – over 3,300,000 images for download

Fotolia.com – has nearly 6,000,000 photos and illustrations

istockphoto.com – over 4,000,000 royalty photos and images

bigstockphoto.com – over 3,000,000 stock photos as low as 1$ each

dreamstime.com – nearly 6,000,000 images as low as $0.20 each

Snapvillage.com - High quality images from $1

gettyimages.com - The leading provider of digital media worldwide, but watch out, these are pricy.

Have we missed anything? where do you get your images from? leave us a comment, or better still, leave us a GoldMail. 

Need a free soundtrack for your GoldMail Audio Slideshow? We’ll let you know where to get one next time. Don’t forget to Subscribe to this blog to keep up to date with all the latest hints and tips about how to use GoldMail for your business.

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Recording a GoldMail Audio Slideshow just got even easier…

Published May 12, 2009 Hints and Tips , Product Updates Leave a Comment
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Whether you use GoldMail for Sales, Marketing, or Training, we’re always looking at how any feature enhancements we make can help save you time and money. In the last few months we’ve had our heads down working on some great new features for you, here’s a 2 minute update on what’s new…

2 Minute Update

http://play.goldmail.com/l1cvxymkf6oy

  • Slide Notes: now you can record GoldMail messages while reading from or referring to slide notes. This simple feature allows you to record quickly and confidently, reducing pauses or stumbles, and enhance your message flow. It is also a huge time saver, you can really personalise those sales or marketing messages, and then record them quickly and easily time and time again.
  •  Post to Twitter: social media marketing is not only a great way to build brand recognition for your business, but also an opportunity to show off a more personal side to your communications. Together with the ability to share GoldMails quickly on Facebook, we’ve now added a Post to Twitter link to really help kickstart your marketing efforts. What better way to use that 140 character limit than sending a GoldMail. If you’ve not come across Twitter before then this quick start guide should help.   
  • Player Branding: GoldMail is all about your brand, so now you can configure and tweak your branding directly from within GoldMail, in just seconds.
  • Send a picture link: in case you missed it in the last release, see below, emailing your picture linked to your GoldMail is a great way to reassure recipients and increase clickthrough rates.

and remember, you don’t have to do anything new to access all these features, just look out for an automatic update next time you login to GoldMail.

   What do you think of these new features? We would love to hear from you over at our feedback forum, and don’t forget to Subscribe to our blog to keep up to date with all the latest hints and tips about how to use GoldMail for your business.

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3 Ways GoldMail Makes Network Marketing and Direct Selling Easier

Published April 27, 2009 Hints and Tips 1 Comment
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(contributed by: Tom Holownia)

In a recent post on NBC13 News “People turn to ‘network marketing’ in a slow economy”, 3-month Arbonne consultant, Jennifer Grissom observed, “It’s not easy [network marketing], but it is simple…You just have to be able to understand it, and be enthusiastic, without being annoying.”

GoldMail helps new network marketers and direct sellers with all 3 challenges:

Challenge #1: Our innate fear of rejection makes it hard to get started
GoldMail lets you touch your prospective customer or recruit with an email rather than a cold phone call out of the blue. They open your email and click on your GoldMail link. Your message plays in a browser window where they see your visuals and hear your voice – just the way you recorded it (“It’s like you were sitting right next to me!” customers report after playing a GoldMail message).

Challenge #2: Be (and stay) enthusiastic
Record the perfect enthusiastic GoldMail message, just the way you want it and share it with as many people as you like using your own email or by posting it online. Make it once but use it again and again and again!

Challenge #3: Don’t be annoying yet what’s more annoying than answering the phone and being pitched by a friend on their new business? (no wonder there’s Challenge #1!)
Because GoldMail messages arrive as a link in an email, your recipient can view it when it’s convenient for her and respond in kind with an email, which is a lot easier to do than live on the phone if the answer is, “No thanks.”

Here’s how Direct Sellers and Network Markters use GoldMail to help them sell more, save time, and jumpstart new consultants and distributors:

  • Follow up after meeting a new customer or team recruit
  • Welcome a new team member
  • Introduce new products and promotions
  • Renewal and reorder reminders
  • Invitations to parties and shows
  • Inform and motivate their team

Hear what Nicki Keohohou, CEO of the Direct Selling Women’s Alliance (DSWA), says about GoldMail.

See examples of real-world GoldMail messages used by Arbonne, Cookie Lee and other consultants and distributors.

A Cure for the Sometimes Elusive NEXT SLIDE Button

Published April 3, 2009 Hints and Tips Leave a Comment
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(contributor: Tom Holownia, VP Marketing, GoldMail)

When I first started using GoldMail, I found myself scrambling to find and click on the NEXT SLIDE button when I was ready to move from slide 1 to slide 2! I swear the button could have filled the screen and I’d still have managed to miss it and mess up the beginning of the recording.

Here’s the simply obvious solution that wasn’t so obvious to me at first.

After clicking the RECORD button in the RECORD step, take a moment before you begin speaking to casually position your cursor right on the NEXT SLIDE button that is now live during recording.

mouseover_nextslide

Cursor at the ready

This actually accomplishes 2 things:

It provides some room “at the top” of your recording to ensure the very beginning of your message isn’t snipped off (this can happen because either (a) you actually started speaking a split second before you actually clicked RECORD or (b) your computer needed a split second to stop whatever it was doing and pay attention to the fact you want to start recording – or maybe that’s just a quirk of my PC)

AND

You can now simply rest your hand on your mouse (without moving it!), while you record and calmly left click when you need to without having to break your train of thought to hunt around, <click>, and then remember where you left off, which keeps your recording from sounding stressed

What’s your simply obvious tip that might not be so obvious to others?

7 Tips for making great GoldMail messages

Published February 1, 2009 Hints and Tips Leave a Comment
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One of the great things about GoldMail is its versatility.

Yes, you can create a polished presentation, importing PowerPoint slides and using your 10 minutes of recording time. However, GoldMail is even more powerful as an ad hoc messaging system. Just follow these tips, and you’ll be quickly on your way to making personal and powerful GoldMail messages in minutes.

1. Shorter is Better - We’ve found that shorter GoldMail messages tend to be more powerful messages. So, while you can record for up to 10 minutes, we recommend you try and keep it to 2 minutes or less.

2. Face First - Use your business card as your first slide. As the first slide they see, even before they click PLAY, it reassures the viewer it’s from you and helps them connect / re-connect your face, name and voice.

3. Rule of 7 - Studies have shown that our minds begin to wander after about 7 seconds of looking at an image, so try and change slides every 7 seconds or so OR redirect their attention to something else on the same slide, e.g. “And as you see in point #3 …”

4. No Reading – One of the Death by PowerPoint DON’Ts is to read your slides to the audience, in this case the viewer of your GoldMail message. Don’t do it. We can read something faster than someone can say it and you want them focused on what you’re saying and not be engrossed in reading the slides.

5. Less is More – Also known as “white space is our friend,” means don’t pack your slides full of text and other content. It won’t engage the viewer, actually just the opposite, and in the GoldMail player it may be illegible.

6. Don’t Be Perfect – Even professional speakers aren’t perfect. They call it “wrecking the speech.” They actually perfect their speech and then put BACK “ums” “uhs” and other imperfections that make them and their talk more approachable and human. Just be yourself and speak the way you normally would – no news reporter voices please!

7. Face Last – Thank the viewer for listening and give them specific direction on what to do at the end of the message if you’ve defined a button on the Final Slide that you want them to click, e.g. “Thanks for listening. Click the button at the end of this message to…”

of course, not following these tips won’t mean your message is bad – there are many ways of making effective GoldMail messages.

We’d love to hear what’s working for you – leave us a comment, or send us your feedback to gmsuggestions@goldmail.com

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