Spa-Addicts.com
will take 50% off (or $25) of the set-up fee for
any
bronze ($99),
silver ($169) or
gold ($219) annual spa listing for any DSA
spa partner.
Call Spa-Addicts to receive the savings at
1.866.HAV.2.SPA (for new listings
only).
Dermasthetic
We are able to offer, during
the next 3 issues of Dermasthetic (Jun/Jul,
Aug/Sep, Oct/Nov) a 50% discount taking a Full Page
Ad (either in the Spanish or English
editions).
Allied Members will also receive the following
additional benefits:
- Rotating banner with logo and link at
www.dermasthetic.com
- Rotating banner at
www.estheticnet.com
- A place to publish a Press Release in the
"News" section of Dermasthetic (magazine &
website)
- "+ info" direct contact System
Lic.
Damian Moccagatta
CEO AER-Group
dm@aer-group.com
www.aer-group.com
Dermasthetic digital magazine:
www.dermasthetic.com
Agsee search engine:
www.agsee.com
Estheticnet webportal:
www.estheticnet.com
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Membership Renewal Each year your renewal
brings
you one complimentary survey report from the DSA -
this year we are including
The Marketing
Demographics of a Day Spa Goer 2005 compiled by
Skip
Williams of Resources and Development in your
renewal kit - a $95.00 value, so be sure you take
care of this in order to get receive this newest DSA
report!
TidBits
DREAM,
DREAM, DREAM -- writes
Evelyn from
Toronto, Canada --
We've just learned about
Trans-Exec Air
Service, a private jet carrier that offers
in-flight spa services such as massages, facials,
masques, and more. Travelling with kiddies? They can
set-up a play area in the rear of the plane -- a
flight attendant will stay with the children and
keep them happy, fed and entertained while mom
relaxes or eats a gourmet dinner up front.
Admittedly, this charter carrier is only for people
with some wealth, as it is not inexpensive. Still
it's nice to know that this female-friendly service
does actually exist. Website:
www.transexec.com
Ed. note: You can continue dreaming by reading this
JW archived article:
www.journeywoman.com/msbiz/womenair1.html
www.journeywoman.com
www.HERmail.net
BRITISH AIRWAYS
The best service anticipates your
needs - to help you arrive feeling ready for
business, the Arrivals Lounge at
London Heathrow
has the services of a spa. You can step off the
plane and straight into a shower, a robe, even a
facial - all while your suit is being pressed.
INTERNET & EMAIL NEWS
"Pharming" has overtaken
"phishing" as
the most dangerous Internet scam tactic, according
to the latest
Internet Security Intelligence
Briefing published on Tuesday by
VeriSign, an Internet and telecommunications
security firm.
The report, which covers Internet usage, e-commerce
and fraud trends in the first quarter of 2005, noted
that on March 16, 2005, there was a 300% surge in
probes of Domain Name System servers, which
coincided with Internet users being redirected to a
site distributing spyware and adware.
"Pharming" is a tactic whereby a scam artist
hacks into a DNS server to make it recognize
messages from an intruder as
"trusted." This
enables the scam artist to redirect users on an
official site to a false site without the user's
browser recognizing the difference. Users who enter
financial information into these false sites may
have these details stolen.
Better known is the practice of
"phishing,"
in which scam artists send out e-mails asking
for personal financial information and claiming to
be from established organizations. Users who follow
the links in the e-mail are directed to fake
websites designed to look like the original but
which serve to steal the user's information.
"Phishing" is "more personalized and takes
place on an individual basis," said a Verisign
spokesman, while
"pharming" plays out on a
larger scale, because "it is accomplished by
poisoning an entire DNS cache," he said.
To prevent such scams, the report recommended a few
measures. For example, businesses should have
written agreements with the service providers to
ensure that no one else can access and change their
accounts, or can guard electronic forms through a
process called
Secure Socket Layers, that
tags a webpage with a security certificate.
As even these techniques may be evaded by skilful
scam artists, the report said that software vendors
should adopt the DNS Security specification or the
Secure Internet Letterhead, the latest standards to
guarantee the authenticity of a website.
The report also noted that 84.9% of attempted
fraudulent transactions worldwide in the first
quarter of 2005 originated from computers in the US,
followed by 5.1% from Canada and 1.1% from Great
Britain. In addition, from tracking some 135,000
online merchant customers, the report estimated the
average e-commerce transaction to have increased by
4%, from $144 in Q4 2004 to $150 in Q1 2005, and the
number of e-commerce transactions to have grown by
31%.
Inc. online Newsletter 6/21/05
Spam
Anyone who
uses email is overly acquainted with spam. These
unsolicited emails, filled with strange misspellings
and dubious offers for pharmaceuticals and mortgage
financing, clog inboxes everywhere. Recently, one
small business decided to do something about it.
After junk emails repeatedly crashed their servers
and left their 5,000 customers without email access,
CIS Internet Services fought back by filing a
lawsuit against three spamming companies. A federal
judge, citing an Iowa anti-spamming law and the
federal
Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt
Organizations (RICO) Act, decided the case in
CIS's favor and awarded them $1.08 billion.
The settlement, industry insiders say, has sent
notice to spammers that their days of unrestricted
operation are over.
Business News and Trends
Email Marketing
"71% of US online advertisers used email
marketing in 2004. And another 12% plan to start
using it." Jupiter Research sponsored by
Kanoodle, February 2005
45% of US email users see email as
"a great way
for companies to stay in touch with
customers."Quris and Executive Summary
Consulting, November 2004
But, most email marketers have seen a decline in
open rates over the last year or so.
The open rate tells you how many people opened your
email. It is most commonly calculated by taking the
number of emails opened in a given email campaign as
a percentage of the total number of emails delivered
("delivered" meaning not blocked).
According to
DoubleClick's Q4 2004 Email
Trend Report, the average open rate (32.6%) has
declined 11.4% from Q4 2003 (36.8%).
"So, if recipients like email so much, why are
opens down?" You might ask. Well, part of the
reason why opens may be a bit lower than before is
due to the sheer volume of email in recipients'
inboxes. Another reason is due to the effect on open
tracking of image blocking techniques used by ISPs
and corporate domains to thwart spammers.
What do images have to do with opens? Email
marketers, and email marketing services like
Constant Contact, calculate the open rates of
HTML emails by using an open tracking image or web
beacon - a transparent, one-pixel GIF that, when
displayed in the recipients email client, indicates
the email has been opened.
The problem is that default anti-spam settings in
AOL 9,
Outlook 2003 and many other
email programs automatically block images in an
effort to protect recipients from potential viruses
and unwanted or offensive visual images. This means
images in emails are not visible and cannot be
tracked unless the email is from a known sender
(i.e. the sender's email address is in the
recipient's inbox).
How do you solve a problem like image blocking? Here
are the tips:
1. Become a Trusted Sender
This best practice has never been more important.
Encourage the recipient to put your From Address in
their address book, trusted sender list or approved
sender list (whatever the name may be in their email
client).
- Ask at every possible touch point including at the
time you collect the address (e.g. on your opt-in
form), in the permission reminder at the top of your
email (see the permission reminder at the top of
this newsletter), in the body of your email and on
your new subscriber thank you/welcome page. (If you
use an email marketing service all of these should
be easy to edit and customize).
- Make it easy for recipients to add your From
Address to their trusted sender or contact list by
keeping it short, easy-to-remember and easy-to-
type.
- Be consistent with your From line and, for better
sender recognition, make sure you use a From Name
and Address that includes your name, company,
product or service name - whichever the recipient
will know best. Your brand in the From line assures
the recipient that the email is coming from a
reliable and trusted source and builds familiarity
and credibility - especially when repeated over
time. (For 9 more important From line tips, go to
"Your From line: benefit or barrier?").
As a trusted sender or known sender, your email is
more likely to be delivered and remain exempt from
anti-spam measures including filters, challenge-
response systems or image blockers.
2. Pay attention to any challenge-response emails
coming through to your reply inbox and answer them
in a timely manner (most require a response within
24 hours).
- A challenge-response message is an automated
message triggered by the receipt of an email for the
purpose of identifying the sender as a trusted
source. The "challenge" is a message to the
sender of the email with instructions on how to
validate themselves. If the sender provides a valid
"response," his email address is added to the
recipient's list of trusted senders and his message
is passed along to the recipient.
Only about 10% of recipients use these systems. As
annoying as some people find challenge-response, the
method has been adopted as a means of spam
prevention and can be effective in getting your
email delivered and getting your address effectively
"whitelisted" by the recipient.
3. Test the day of week and time of day you send
your emails.
Tuesday through Thursday have been considered the
best performing days for quite some time, however,
new surveys indicate Monday may be the new favorite.
As far as time of day goes, some studies now show
that, because the volume of email sent is highest
between 10am and 2pm, your emails may have a greater
chance of being seen from 8am - 10am or 4pm - 6pm.
The bottom line? Keep tracking your open rates, but
keep them in context. While open rates have become a
somewhat less reliable indicator of email success -
you shouldn't abandon the open rate as a measure of
overall responsiveness. Just be sure to look at the
open rate in conjunction with other metrics -
especially click-throughs.
In contrast to open rates, average click- through
rates have held steady or even increased. (According
to DoubleClick, click-throughs have remained
in the 8% range). This indicates that, though we
often cannot count opens due to image blocking, more
recipients than you think are actually seeing your
email and clicking on your links just like always.
So, include some call-to-action links in text, then
keep watching those click-throughs.
Finally, don't forget about other important metrics
including email replies, email forwards, new
subscribes, unsubscribes, spam complaints and other
direct customer feedback.
To learn more, go to "6 Tips to Get Your Email
Opened and Read."
Michelle Keegan is the Email Marketing Diva
for Constant Contact the leading
Do-It-Yourself Email Marketing provider for small
and medium-sized businesses.
ConstantContact one of DSA's benefit
providers - do you get this newsletter? Sign-up at
tips@constantcontact.com
Congratulations to Bonnie Hagen and
Sherrie Eskow for having been chosen The
Distinguished Day Spa of the Year 2005.
