Fax sent to email, email sent to fax

Fax broadcasting could not have achieved the popularity and success it has without the support of other technology and facilities. Some of these are old while others are state-of-the-art tools and have revolutionized the way people advertise.

The Old Tools

1. HTML E-mails: No matter how strong the content of a fax is, if it is not customized with HTML tags, it is missing something. Using HTML technology a fax message can be made more attractive and eye-catching. The technology helps in adding graphics, interactive links, color and Flash objects to the out-going fax. One can also add customized headers, footers and notes to their fax messages using HTML and Microsoft Word.

2. Online Reports: Although, websites have been in place on World Wide Web for a long time now but its importance is realized when it comes to fax broadcasting. Vendors compete with each other to provide easy-to-access, fast and secure online accounts to their customers. Using these accounts, businesses can view online reports on how many faxes were successfully delivered, how many bounced back and how much of the target was reached. When integrated with a database, these online accounts can also help the individuals and businesses to schedule their faxes and also run them at the click of a mouse.

3. Emails and Reminders: Using simple emails, people can set reminders to notify them whenever a fax schedule is approaching. This helps them in following up with their fax schedule.

The New Gears

1. Importing and Exporting: This feature helps customers to import and export the mailing list in a format of their choice. Now, technology is available to use data present in customer’s Excel, TXT, Access Database File or CSV format and also to provide with him with a recipient list in the similar formats. This has given a lot of comfort to the customers who now do not need to worry about the format their data is in.

2. Document Converters: There are tools available that can convert a document one form to another. Documents written in Word or published in PDF can easily be converted to other widely used and accepted formats.

3. Mail Merge: This technology is used to personalize the outgoing fax message with the recipient details. Recipient name, phone number, company name etc. can be added to the fax message there by adding a personal touch to the message.

4. Fax Server: This is the part which decides how quickly and effectively fax messages will be sent. It is the fax server that determines how many messages can be advertised in a minute. Parallel processing and consumption of messages can send up to hundreds or hundreds of thousands of fax numbers within minutes.

With the use such advanced technology and increased amount of money and time being devoted into research, fax broadcasting is a technology to look forward for, not only for businesses but also for individuals.

For more information on this topic visit Fax Broadcasting - All the general information and resources for everything Fax Broacasting. Visit http://www.fax-center.com for more articles and info on Fax.

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In spite of the advent of email, a lot of people still rely on fax machines, whether for home or office use, because these are essential for instantaneous sharing of documents such as contracts or proofs through the use of telephone lines. However, with the many options available for fax machines nowadays, choosing the right type of fax machine for your home or business can be a tedious task. That is why it makes sense to read fax machine reviews of the models you are considering before you buy one.

How to get the most out of fax machine reviews?

In order to get the most out of fax machine reviews, first you have to make sure that the review describes the functions of the machine in detail. Fax machines vary in usage; there are machines that are only capable of handling 10 pages per day while there are some that can handle up to 100 pages. If your business depends on fax machines for important documents, then you have to check reviews on business-grade fax equipment.

Second, you have to look for reviews that touch not only the strong points of a particular type of machine but also its weak points. In buying a fax machine, it is very important that you know the type of machine that you wish to get for your home or office. Once you know the type, be it an inkjet fax machine or a laser fax model, you can look at corresponding reviews to address speed concerns and reliability.

And lastly, you have to decide what your priorities are when buying a fax machine. Is it the price, speed, or quality? Most fax machine reviews fairly discuss in detail all the important tradeoffs that you’ll be dealing with when it comes to certain fax machines. You just have to take your time in reading these reviews in order to get the best deal that will suit your requirements.

Buying a fax machine is not a tedious task if you find time to search and read fax machine reviews to help you in your decision. The Internet provides a lot of reviews on fax machines. So you better do your homework before you head to your local store or place your order online.

Fax Machines provides detailed information on Fax Machines, Laser Fax Machines, Fax Machine Reviews, Business Fax Machines and more. Fax Machines is affiliated with Internet Fax Servers.

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When my daughter complained recently about the prohibitive cost of news media advertising, we had a discussion about the ways in which she could sell her range of body products (hand creams, lip balms etc). I explained to her that huge firms like K Mart wouldn’t spend millions of dollars annually for advertising if it wasn’t necessary. But every week, a K Mart catalogue arrives in our mail box. Every week, like clockwork, ads appear on television for K Mart specials … there are always specials.

All of us in business, whatever our size, need to have an effective, efficient advertising strategy. If you can afford an all bells and whistles television advert and run it in prime time like K Mart, that’s great. Most of us however, can’t afford that type of advertising and have to find alternatives that are cheap, but still bring home the bacon.

A few years ago email looked like being a cure-all for those of us without huge budgets. Unfortunately, spammers killed the golden goose; it is now only effective for selling to those who have agreed to receive our messages. And even then, there’s no guarantee that the messages we send will not be deleted by overactive spam filters long before they reach their intended destination. Adding to our misery is the anti-spam legislation in the US, AUS and various other countries that makes the task of legitimate marketers unnecessarily difficult when it comes to email marketing.

Fortunately, the “Spam Act 2003″, at least in Australia doesn’t outlaw sending commercial fax messages*. So suddenly, the fax has fallen back into favour because it has several additional advantages:

1. It’s cheap. Not as cheap as email and some pay-for-click advertising, but much cheaper than advertising in news media.
2. You can target specific markets
3. You can send as many pages as you like (but don’t irritate recipients)
4. It’s quick and simple
5. You don’t need a fax machine
6. While it’s true recipients can discard faxes, most arrive and at least have a chance of being read
7. You don’t have brochures left over when a product or price changes

There are many service providers out there in cyberspace who provide a comprehensive faxing service. I pay my provider up front and can do a broadcast message to as many fax numbers as I please by clicking one button … Send! When the broadcast has finished I receive an email message telling me how many were successful and unsuccessful and the cost for the transmissions. It beats hell out of doing it manually. The last
transmission I sent involved 58 destinations that cost me $10.44 AU or $0.18 per A4 page. Of the 58 sent, all arrived.

Here’s how I run my campaigns.

First I decide on a strategy eg, the first part of my current strategy targets real estate agents across the Australian continent to whom I’m selling a marketing package. I look up real estate firms using the Google search engine and almost without exception, each agency is listed with phone and fax numbers. I use a great little program called Web Data Extractor to extract the fax numbers from each of the addresses. It takes a couple of minutes to collect them and save them in a data file. When I import the data file into the list management section of my fax service provider, I’m ready to broadcast.

Automatically extracting fax numbers in Australia, unlike extracting URLs is not illegal.

After the broadcast, sales and queries flow in up to a week or so later. So far, sales have far exceeded the expense for faxing and I’ve just completed faxing to real estate agencies in one Australian State. There are still thousands more to go in the remaining five States and two Territories.

My sales message consists of a standard A4 page that I created and saved as an Adobe PDF file.

It is worth noting that many target markets do not have their fax numbers displayed on the Internet. This being the case, do a little research as you design your strategy to determine whether getting fax numbers will be problematical. If so, find another target market. Once you’ve found one with fax numbers, the rest is fairly easy, provided your products or services fit their range of needs.

Another benefit I receive from the fax provider I use is a free fax number whereby people can fax me and the fax arrives as an email. This suits me perfectly as I only print those faxes for which I need a hardcopy. The rest I file in a relevant folder on my hard drive.

You should now be thinking about some opportunities to use broadcast faxing in your business. If you’re in doubt, spend a few bucks to give faxing a test run. If it works as well for you as it does me, I’m sure you’ll take to it like a duck to
water.

Here’s to many successful fax campaigns.

* - You need to check out the spam laws in your own country before embarking on a fax advertising campaign

Published June 2005. Copyright Robin Henry 2005.

Robin Henry is an educator, human resources specialist and Internet marketer whose firm, Desert Wave Enterprises, helps individuals and businesses improve their performance by using smart processes, smart technology and personal development. He has a number of tertiary qualifications including a Master of Education degree majoring in education technology and online learning. He lives at Alice Springs In Central Australia. Visit Desert Wave Enterprises

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