Web Words, which began as a six-month experiment, is six years old with this issue.

As I quipped in the March issue, if this newsletter were a person, it would be in first grade. That's silly, of course, but it does give you a good idea of how long six years is. All the way from an infant to learning to read.

In the very first issue, I aspired to a lofty goal:  "to entertain, demonstrate and inspire, all at the same time." From the feedback I get and the fact that you're reading this right now, I figure I've succeeded in some measure.

Learnings

Anniversaries are always times for reflection, so what do I know now that I didn't know six years ago?

Keep Track. With 73 issues and more than 350 articles, I don't always remember what I said when. Three tools help with mining back copy and referencing previous comments: 

• An archive of all back issues on my Web site with a link in every issue
• An Excel spreadsheet with a listing of every article and hot links to the archive
• A large three-ring binder with printed copies of each issue.

With these three tools, I have good access to my body of work. I can steal ideas from myself, send relevant articles to prospective clients and avoid repeating myself too often in these pages. I would like to have an online subject reference as well. If you know of a software product that would help with this, please let me know.

Be Consistent. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. I have published each issue on time since the very first one. It's a discipline that is at times easy and at others not, but it pays dividends.

My husband Will committed to a schedule for his blogs some months ago. He's been consistent too--publishing his Joyful Diabetic entries on Wednesday and Sunday. 

Good Subject Lines. My recent experimentation over the past months has reinforced my belief in the power of subject lines. The last issue with the subject line of "Attacked!" reached the highest opens rate in a year. It was up from two months previously by 5.5% or a total of over 50 readers. The month in between did well also with "I'm still confused."

Keep Clean Lists. I work really hard to keep my bounced email addresses as low as possible, bearing in mind that zero is an impossible goal. I'd been lazy for a few months,so the bounced list was bloated. I set out on another of my hunts to find or remove addresses. This time I downloaded the data to a spreadsheet, which is now my recommended strategy.

I called people (most had left their jobs), emailed people who know the missing persons and used social media to connect with others. I restored nearly 25% of the addresses. I also removed about half of the list. The rest is on hold.

Reminder: If you change your email address, tell people. They want to stay in touch with you!

Bottom line, I continue to be invigorated by producing this newsletter every month. I have a lot of loyal readers. And I really enjoy helping others with their Constant Contact mailings, so when you're ready to launch your own publication, be in touch. 

In the computer world, "bleeding edge" means you're a very early adapter of a new technology.

I spent a lot of time there in the 1980's with groupware products, and I'm there again. And you can be too, if you sign up for Constant Contact's Social Campaigns product. Not only will you be pushing the envelope, but it won't even cost anything. And you'll get a lot of support.

What Is It?

The new product is designed to increase your fan page "likes" on Facebook. So having a Facebook fan page is a prerequisite. We're not even going to talk about whether there's value in having these followers. That's another whole discussion--one we began in August, 2011.

With Social Campaigns, you create a landing page and an offer page. Of course, I had to try it in order to write this article and tell you about it. Here's the Shawenon Communications Social Campaign.

To be brutally candid, I put the project off to the last possible minute. Maybe a little after that. So it's not as polished as it might be. My offer is to continue the discussion of effectively using Facebook and Social Campaigns on my Facebook page. More true confessions. I set up the Facebook page over a year ago and haven't done much with it. But I promise I'll be putting interesting information there in the future. Hold me to it and please join in the conversation.

The Clincher

OK so here's the real incentive and why you should sign up right now for your free 30-day trial of Social Campaigns. Constant Contact is betting the store on the future of social media. And Constant Contact has great customer service. So in order to promote this product, they established a special support team--available 7 days a week (new for Constant Contact) from 9 AM to 7:30 PM Eastern time. And they will help you with Facebook when no one else will. Facebook, this infant behemoth, doesn't have support, as you probably already know.

So click on Social Campaigns and sign up for your free trial. They'll take it from there. But be prepared to spend some time--1 to 2 hours. And before you call, give some serious thought to your offer. That's the really, really hard part. We'll be talking more about that on the Facebook page or you can be in touch with me to brainstorm your ideas.

• Communicate regularly
• Have high opens rates & low bounce rates
• Use Constant Contact tools effectively.  

As a Constant Contact business partner, I received this award for the effectiveness of my clients' accounts as well as my own.

If you want to get started with email marketing, be in touch.  I'd love to talk about how you can use Constant Contact to boost your business with very little effort.