Frustrated with Newsletter? What About myemma.com?

[Chef Kearns]

I was struggling on my newsletter since Linda quit (doing the newsletters). I thought I would give Constant contact a try, but am utterly frustrated!! I have been trying to do one stinking email for the past week! Talk about ego blow!! Anyway...then I did a search for newletters and came across myemma.com This place sounds great, but it is sooo expensive. The guy I'm working with said that they do have accounts with other Pampered Chef people.

So does anyone here do myemma? If so how do you like it? Is your response or ease of use enough to justify the cost? The set up is $250 with a monthly fee of $30 and 10% off if you sign up for a year. They have a tracking system so you can see who opened the newsletter and what they clicked on while it was open. I like that feature. They will also keep trying bounce backs and give you an accurate account of how many emails actually went through.

I want to. I know I won't because of the price, but I like the services they provide. What do you guys think?

 

[pamperedlinda]

I think that is very expensive!

 

[Jennie4PC]

thats is way expensive I would never be able to justify spending that kind of money

 

[cmdtrgd]

Honey, what problems are you coming into with Constant Contact? I use it and LOVE it! I do get my newsletter from tastytidbits.net and basically copy and paste into the template, upload pictures and I'm there! Maybe I can help you - the service you are looking at is WAY too expensive...unless you have about 1000 contacts! Even so, I wouldn't pay that!

 

[Chef Kearns]

In constant contact I wanted to copy the Going going gone flyer with the pictures, but it won't copy. The words come through, but not the pictures. I cannot save the pictures in a way that constanct contact will let me upload them and I can only have 5 images in my library (I'm still in the 60 day trial). The pictures is the main thing. I cannot figure out how to copy and paste from the PDF flyers (our host and guest specials). I know how to copy, but the the copy won't paste into my constant contact field. URGH!!

 

[cmdtrgd]

That is a difficult one. I did purchase the $5 option for pictures because I hated having to continually take pictures off the manager and upload new ones. As for copying and pasting the pdf, I've never tried. You might want to get on the online help and see if there is a way to do it. Email me at [email protected] and I'll send you the August newsletter I sent out - I did put a list of the products on the going going gone flyer, but not all the pictures.

 

[mpkegley]

I got the online help with Constant Contact and they were able to help me with the pictures. I am not good with explaining things or I would try to explain it to you. (I am not that computer savvy, so I needed help with that too.) I really like Constant Contact and when the free trial is over, I will probably just stick with it.

 

[finley1991]

LOVE Constant Contact and have been using them for about a year now! They're the BEST!

 

[momoftwins]

What is Constant Contact and how much does it cost???

Kate - I would love to see your August newsletter!!

 

[Addie4TLC]

I use "What's Cooking in the Kitchen" newsletter by Erika Soelberg. It's $5 a month, no tracking though... My contacts are in a group so I just add to the group and type it out every month and send it out to past hosts and guests that have given me their e-mail addys. I have gotten cooking and catalog shows from that, I love it and it's not expensive at all. You can feature your best host on there too to entice others to host.

 

[Chef Kearns]

I spent about 30-40 minutes yesterday chatting with the the Help at Constant Contact. I finally figured some thing out. I'm still having issues though, but it is not quite as frustrating. The product pictures I use come from the list of pictures on our PWS (you know where you can change the image based on what you are talking about). I cannot enlarge those pictures without losing quality; they become blurry and indistingushable.

I also cannot put in a clipping from our PDF flyers. You know if I wanted to just use the company's beautiful graphics and listing of savings. The lady said I would have to copy it and save it as a gif or jpg, but I don't have that option when I copy from a PDF. I didn't download the software I only have the reader.

NOW...I cannot figure out how to import my contacts. I spoke with the Help person about this yesterday, but it didn't work last night. So I'll have to call or email again today. Hopefully, next month will go more smoothly.

 

[sfdavis918]

Here is what I had to do. I copied a picture and pasted it to another folder. Then I opened up that file in Paint (under accessories in your start menu) and saved it from there as a .jpg file. Then it uploaded fine. Hope that helps!

 

[sfdavis918]

NOW...I cannot figure out how to import my contacts. I spoke with the Help person about this yesterday, but it didn't work last night. So I'll have to call or email again today. Hopefully, next month will go more smoothly.

I exported my contacts from PP+. Then I opened the file and saved it as an Excel file. I had a column for "Organization" that I deleted too. Then in Constant Contact I followed the instructions on importing an excel file and it worked great!

 

[heat123]

I use "What's Cooking in the Kitchen" newsletter by Erika Soelberg. It's $5 a month, no tracking though... My contacts are in a group so I just add to the group and type it out every month and send it out to past hosts and guests that have given me their e-mail addys. I have gotten cooking and catalog shows from that, I love it and it's not expensive at all. You can feature your best host on there too to entice others to host.

Can you post a link to their website to see samples? TIA!

 

[Jewel]

I use Vertical Response for my newsletters. I copy the pictures from the online catalog, they don't seem to distort when I blow them up. Just right click and save as...whatever description you want into a file for PC photos. Then upload them to the newsletter site when needed. Hope that might help.

 

[Addie4TLC]

Can you post a link to their website to see samples? TIA!

I just e-mailed Erika asking her if she has a link so that I can post it. I got a e-mail invitation from another consultant and that had a sample. Just in case I don't have time to get back on here with the information this is her e-mail address. I'm sure she wont mind sending you a sample. They are very nice complete with smileys and cute graphics.

[email protected] -Erika Soelberg

 

[Chef Kearns]

I exported my contacts from PP+. Then I opened the file and saved it as an Excel file. I had a column for "Organization" that I deleted too. Then in Constant Contact I followed the instructions on importing an excel file and it worked great!

Thanks! The problem is that all of my email contacts are not in PP. I don't use P3 yet (too leery ). I had all of my contacts in a Word doc in paragraph form like this..."Shannon Smith" <[email protected]>, "John Murphy" <[email protected]>, and so on. I did it like this because Yahoo would only let me send out 20 or so emails at a time. When I got the error back that it was too many emails I just copy and pasted them all into a Word doc. The Help person at Constant Contact told me that it was fine and that I didn't have to have it in an Excel sheet I just had to have them listed like this:

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

and they would be able to accept it. I think I'm going to have to give in and buy someone else's newsletter.

I do enjoy doing them myself or just altering one that was well done. I really liked Rita's, but she's gone a little too short for me. I really really liked Linda's, but I can understand why she can't do them any longer. I just need to figure out how to duplicate it on my own. I like to think of myself as a fast learner, but this is beyond me I guess ! This is definitely not an IPA (Income Producing Activity)!!:yuck: