SubscriberMail Email Marketing Best Practices

SubscriberMail Email Marketing Best Practices http://www.subscribermail.com Email Marketing Best Practices from SubscriberMail http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 120 en-us Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:13:05 CDT SubscriberMail RSS Generator - http://www.subscribermail.com 4 shady list-building tactics to avoid In these times, when every email signup counts, it might be tempting to take shortcuts to build your list.

In fact, you may have already engaged in so-called "gray hat" tactics—practices that aren't illegal, but certainly won't win you any fans or new customers, and may even affect your deliverability. Here are four shady list-building approaches that Dave McCue, marketing manager for email marketing service provider SubscriberMail, and Loren T. McDonald, VP-industry relations for Silverpop, said could seriously harm your marketing program.

1) Prechecking an opt-in box. Your potential customer clicks through to an e-mail preference center to sign up for your messaging and what do they see: lots of little prechecked boxes. Or maybe they signed up for a white paper download and you, via small print at the bottom of the form, signed them up to receive marketing e-mails. Both strategies, McCue said, take the decision-making process out of the recipient's hands, potentially angering him or her. "Never make assumptions for someone," he said. "Let them choose which communications they want rather than strong-arming them into getting more e-mails than they actually may want or need."

Read the full article at BtoBOnline.com ]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:13:05 CDT d61fccb2ebcf40718668f53c33025f7a It's Time to Ignore The Law
I'm convinced that this article may raise more questions than provide answers, but hopefully it will stimulate thought and discussion around how your organization addresses this important question.

Read the rest of the article at MediaPost.com ]]> Wed, 13 May 2009 12:12:48 CDT 7e916e3282004e30b81ee5ce4695fe78 Geo Segmentation: Add ZIP To Your Email
Geo segmentation is an advanced email segmentation tool that enables you to segment your opt-in list on a geographic basis using ZIP codes. Using a filter, you can target all subscribers who fall within a specified ZIP code range. For example, a 10-mile radius from ZIP code 12345 will include subscribers from all ZIP codes that even partially fall within that 10-mile range.

Combining geo segmentation with dynamic content functionality to automatically customize each email to the customer's profile creates highly relevant and personal emails. A national radio talk show host segmented his list to notify his listeners when he was traveling around the country and making local appearances. This information was of high interest to listeners who lived in the cities he was visiting. Similarly, book retailers, concert promoters, and other venues can geo segment lists to promote appearances, performances and events pertinent to that geography. Businesses can geo segment to promote traveling seminars. Restaurants and retailers can geo segment to include retail locations in emails.

View the full Email Insider article at MediaPost.com ]]> Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:12:02 CDT 4fc3b981cb94474d8a89f53c33025f7a Are You RAMming Your Customers? While many of us cooked a Thanksgiving turkey last week there are signs that many retailers have already started cooking the golden goose-the email goose.

If these retailers are savvy, they have done some testing and have determined that they are driving incremental orders with these messages. However, my guess is that they are not thinking about the collateral damage these messages may be causing.

First, there is the damage to their brand. Every company that sends out a message is communicating with someone who has a perception of their brand. When you RAM, every message that the recipient views as an intrusion rather than a welcome communication negatively tears at that brand perception.

Second, many people you want to communicate with in the future tune you out now. While you may get an additional $22 sale now from one recipient, the mailing was a failure if three potential $500 orders in March were lost because purchasers tuned out your future messages -- either mentally or using email filters -- because of your email RAM qualities.

Read the full article at MediaPost.com ]]> Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:11:01 CDT dbe5be5fe669497192d2e5ce4695fe78 How to Build a Test Plan to Improve Your Email Program's Effectiveness "The Practical Guide to E-mail Marketing" on email testing. Use this checklist next time you go into a meeting to discuss how to improve your e-mail marketing performance.

Step 1: Ask a Question

Start the testing process by asking a question. What are you hoping for? Determine a specific goal to accomplish rather than attempt multiple goals with one blanket approach. A series of small steps can be easy to test and analyze:

I'd like to have more people open my messages.

I'd like to have more people click through to my Web site.

I'd like to reengage with historically inactive people.

I'd like to have people click on a specific area, topic, or action.

Step 2: Form a Theory

Use your marketing experience and best practice knowledge to determine what aspects may make a difference in achieving the goal you've defined.

I think people may be bored with my current subject lines.

I think that the placement of the specific content may drive more people to action.

I think that people may not understand this is from my organization and therefore will not interact.

I think my calls to action need to be stronger.

Read the original posting at b2bemailmarketing.com ]]> Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:07:12 CDT 61b130e6227a4eb18eb4e5ce4695fe78 Election '08: The candidates' e-mail errors
1) The mistake: Signup snafus.
"Both candidates' Web sites have issues with signup," Ayan said. "Obama takes you to a landing page where you can make a donation. If you don't make a donation, you're stuck on the page. McCain's signup has a lot of things you can do, but so many that it's easy to get lost."

Your lesson: E-mail signup links should be prominent and included on every page of your Web site—not just the home page—because many of your prospects are probably coming in via search. Once visitors sign up, they should be taken to a landing page that shows a sample of what they'll get as a subscriber as well as significant company links, contact information and a clear opt-out link, Ayan said.

2) The mistake: No virtual welcome mat.
If you sign up for either McCain's or Obama's list, you may end up waiting several days before you hear from either candidate, Ayan said.

Your lesson: As soon as someone enters his or her e-mail address into your form, take advantage of that opportunity. You should send a message within minutes of the initial signup with a description of what recipients can expect, how they can white list your e-mails and something of added value to thank them for signing up.

"You want to give someone a good feeling for signing up for your list," he said. "[Offer] a white paper, a free sample, a free download. It should be something that is not offered elsewhere on your Web site—a lagniappe, which is a New Orleans French word for a little something extra."

3) The mistake: Irrelevant messages.
The candidates' marketing gurus might think they are doing something right by collecting only a small amount of data at signup, but they actually aren't doing enough, Ayan said. This means they can't do any personalization, and messages are too generic. "Candidates are dealing with issues that could create a lot of relevance in e-mail messages, but both are just blasting messages out to people," he said.

View the entire article at BtoB Online ]]> Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:05:46 CDT 77ae638b2578419f9596e5ce4695fe78 Do You Really Only Want to Be Average?
Perhaps it is because we are in a newer industry and few people know what to expect, but the desire to know what average is can wreak havoc on what may be a great email program. A quick search on the Web shows reports of average open rates being reported in the 20s, 30s and 40 percents. The bottom line is, while there may be a mathematical average, there is no "average." If anyone ever truly calculated the average open rate, for example, it would be made up of numbers in such a large range as to be virtually useless. So, does it really matter where that number falls in evaluating your email program's success?

View the full article at MediaPost.com ]]> Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:58:26 CDT c810696023074f4cb194f53c33025f7a Speaking the Language of Your Subscribers Rather than dictating the conversation yourself, try to identify how each segment of your audience prefers to be communicated with-then deliver.

Are you inadvertently alienating subscribers? Conquering the gauntlet leading to your subscribers' inboxes is a victory in and of itself, but becomes a wasted opportunity if the message is not effectively communicated. While it is understandably important to marketers that their messages be delivered in a specific manner, the goal should always be to make sure that manner coincides with the desires of the audience.

Your Audience May Not Be Just Like You

Unless you are sending to a list of experts, a message full of industry-centric terminology runs the risk of scaring off less experienced readers. This terminology may have become second nature around your workplace, but to the uninitiated it can be confusing and/or intimidating.

This is especially true in the case of abbreviations and acronyms, some of which are not as well known as others. In these instances, it's a good idea to write out the entire word or phrase the first time it appears in your copy, followed by the shortened version in parentheses. From that point, you can use the abbreviations/acronyms with the knowledge that none of your readers will be left scratching their heads.

If your subscribers possess a wide range of experience levels, it's advisable to communicate on an intermediate level. One way to gauge if your messages are overly technical in their delivery is to have someone from a different department in your company—or a third-party proofreading service, preferably—review the copy.

If you've reached the desired middle ground between expert and novice in your communication, someone removed from the industry and/or creation of the message should still be able to recognize its main points.

Another option is to segment your list and tailor different versions of your message accordingly. This way, subscribers whose profile information indicates a greater level of expertise could receive a more advanced version of the message, and so on. Your email volume will remain the same; it will just be targeted to communicate more effectively.

The Not-So-Shocking Cost of Shock Value

Your subscribers most likely opted-in to your mailing list expecting a certain level of professionalism in your email communications. But for some marketers, the answer to the question of how to boost their email metrics often comes through the use of shocking or unexpected content.

By its nature, this content is bound to stir up additional interest from certain members of your audience, but the risk of alienating others can be high. Part of the opt-in process for many subscribers is viewing archived newsletters available on your site and looking for indications of when and what they can expect to receive. Once those expectations have been set, straying too far from the expected formula can not only be jarring to your subscribers, but can deal a damaging blow to your credibility as a sender in their eyes.

This can consequently lead to increased SPAM complaints against your messages; remember, many email recipients will incorrectly label messages as SPAM just because they don't like or weren't expecting the content, regardless of whether or not they voluntarily opted to receive the messages.

A Reflection of Your Business

As blogs, text messages and online chats have grown in popularity, the styles of writing used in these mediums have found their way into internal office emails. However, using these styles in your outbound email marketing should only be done if your audience is likely to identify with them. Otherwise, you run the risk of appearing amateurish or trying too hard to be "hip"-neither of which is likely to impress your audience.

Though they may be less personal than a phone call, the emails you send are no less a reflection of your business, and the style of communication used in your emails can make some subscribers question how reputable your messages are and whether or not they want to continue receiving them.

Consistency Is Key

No matter what approach you take when presenting your message to subscribers, the best course of action is to maintain consistency. Whether your audience expects a steady stream of off-color humor, or a guide to effective strategies used by business professionals, be sure to deliver.

If you decide to offer a different style of content, try offering it as a separate, optional mailing. This way, creative muscles can be flexed without unnecessarily jeopardizing subscriber retention.

Remember, while you ultimately control the messages contained within your emails, your audience controls whether or not those messages will be read.
]]> Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:40:07 CDT 9e898759a9854e808560e5ce4695fe78 E-mail marketing – a bright star in a dim economy One question has dominated my conversations with clients and in online forums over the past several weeks: "Is my e-mail marketing plan recession-proof?"

The answer is that it certainly should be. E-mail marketing is something that companies turned to initially because it was an inexpensive way to reach large numbers of customers. Over time it has evolved and today has one of the highest ROIs of any marketing expenditure.

As the economy slows and businesses evaluate ways to conserve resources, marketing is often one of the first line items to be reviewed and sometimes cut. Despite its cost-effective nature, e-mail marketing is still a potential target. The key to successful e-mail marketing is to make sure your house is in order. Marketers can start by putting in place processes to provide tangible, bottom-line results.

View the full article at DMNews. ]]> Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:34:04 CDT 19b6a30badbb467c9e43f53c33025f7a Running With the Wrong Crowd? Your Email Service Provider's clientele can directly impact your email deliverability.

You might follow all the rules in your email marketing efforts, but have you ever wondered how the behavior of your Email Service Provider's other clients can adversely affect the deliverability of your emails?

Receiving junk mail from disreputable sources is an unfortunate yet expected hazard of owning an email account. However, sometimes even legitimate businesses show errors in operational procedure or a lapse in judgment by sending to email addresses they acquire through methods other than the traditional opt-in. In this case, the sender falls below the standards of behavior expected of a reputable source, and may have to accept the consequence of having its messages marked as SPAM.

Unfortunately, you might be sharing an IP address with this sender-therefore having your own delivery rates affected.

Your Brand, Your Reputation

Shared IP addresses are used by Email Service Providers (ESPs) to send email on behalf of many different clients. For senders who are new to email marketing, sharing an IP address with an established, respected sender lends credibility to their messages in the eyes of SPAM filters.

Also, because the proportion of SPAM complaints to total recipients is a factor in determining an IP address' reputation, senders with smaller lists are hurt much less by SPAM complaints if they send from a shared IP address. However, sharing an IP address with a reputable sender who receives an inordinately high number of SPAM complaints can outweigh the inherent benefits.

For every message sent from a particular IP address that is labeled as SPAM by a recipient, the probability of future emails from that IP address being designated as junk mail by email clients rises. To protect your brand's reputation, take the time to research the clientele of your current/prospective ESP to make sure you aren't being associated with other senders considered undesirable, such as those who use rented email lists or pre-checked email subscription fields on web site forms.

The Reputation of Your ESP

The thought of having your business' reputation tarnished by running with the wrong crowd on a shared IP is an unsettling one, but remember that most ESPs value their own reputations just as dearly.

Every time email recipients click their email client's variation of a "Mark as SPAM" button, a domino effect is set in motion. Not only does being classified as SPAM put junk mail filters on alert for future communications from the sender, but if the message was sent through an ESP, the negative impact affects all messages being sent from that particular IP address being used by the ESP. If sending from the IP address in question, the deliverability of your outgoing messages, through no fault of your own, would then be compromised.

For this reason, it is absolutely essential that you understand your ESP's position on clients whom they suspect may be sending unsolicited email through their system. If enough messages from the same ESP are marked as SPAM, popular email clients such as Yahoo! or Gmail may block messages from that IP address altogether until the Email Service Provider can prove that the offending client(s) will no longer be sending junk mail through its system.

Protect Yourself Through Research

When discussing your company with an ESP, make special note of their policies regarding acceptable vs. unacceptable practices. If their clients are allowed to use rented lists, for example, it's a safe bet that any of those rented lists are going to result in higher volumes of SPAM complaints. Subscribe to the ESP's email newsletter or those of its clients, which will be sent from one of their IP addresses, and see if your email client's SPAM filters take any action when the message arrives.

It's also a good idea to utilize online tools such as ReturnPath's SenderScore, which allows for more advanced research by analyzing IP addresses to indicate the expected deliverability and amount of SPAM risk associated with messages from those IP addresses. For senders who want to analyze an IP address they already own, Microsoft's Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) can be used to analyze your IP address to make sure your email reputation is where it needs to be.

Using an Email Service Provider can take your email marketing efforts to the next level by offering advanced features and in-depth reporting tools, but don't let the company you keep throw a monkey wrench into those efforts.

You've only got one reputation-don't jeopardize it by sharing an IP address with a sender that doesn't value its own. ]]> Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:59:11 CDT ccb42d872ed04d9c84e9f53c33025f7a The Catch-22 of Email List Building The boss may not like it, or understand it, but the best way to improve email performance could be as simple as (gasp!) decreasing the size of your email list.

Subscribing to an email list is easy–so easy in fact, it leads some subscribers to request emails in which they have only a passing interest. As the weeks and months go by, that once half-hearted interest can dwindle and become non-existent. Meanwhile, your emails keep pouring in, putting a dent in your metrics with each new delivery.

The Impact of "Dead Weight Subscribers" on Your Email Performance

It's the email version of the classic Catch-22; marketers work hard to build larger mailing lists, but by doing so they can adversely affect the very data used to reflect campaign success. SubscriberMail research has shown Conversion Rate, Open Rate and Click-through Rate to be the metrics most valued by marketers when assessing email performance. "Dead weight subscribers" who receive, but rarely or never engage with your emails, have a negative impact on these key metrics simply by remaining on your recipient list. They also make it more difficult to accurately test the success of different email strategies (e.g. subject line testing), as these types of subscribers can skew your results.

Even more damaging, these subscribers can eventually tire of deleting your emails without opening them, and may inaccurately mark your message as SPAM even though they opted-in to your list. The easily-accessible "Report as SPAM" tools on popular email clients can be viewed as more convenient than the unsubscribe process, and uninterested recipients are more likely than anyone to take this path of least resistance-which can harm your reputation as a sender.

In light of this, it stands to reason that dead weight subscribers do more harm than good when counted amongst the ranks of your subscribers. Still, marketers who make the argument in favor of a smaller mailing list are often met with resistance for a number of reasons: large lists are more attractive to advertisers; every subscriber is a possible conversion; large lists equal a greater opportunity for brand awareness, etc. Whatever their reasons for opting-in, a line of communication has been opened with every subscriber on your email list, and the idea of voluntarily severing those important ties is contrary to the principles of most CRM strategies.

A smaller list made up of actively engaged subscribers should deliver improved email metrics, and can be attained without taking the ultimate step of deleting addresses.

Steps to Take Before Deleting

Another approach to dead weight subscribers is reaching out via email to discover what can be done to make your emails more appealing to them. Send an open-ended survey to your subscribers who have not opened and/or clicked a link within an email in the past six months, asking for feedback as to what content they would like to see in future emails. Make sure the subject line (e.g., "Help Improve Our Newsletter") makes it clear this is not just another typical email communication to these subscribers; this will help produce greater feedback. Not only will this feedback provide valuable insight into areas where your emails may be lacking, but being spoken to directly can re-engage these subscribers with your email. If certain subscribers continue to show no response to your emails even after special effort has been made to target them, it is likely they have no interest in receiving further communications, and they can be removed with no regrets.

Understandably, many email administrators are hesitant to delete any addresses from their database unless an explicit unsubscribe request has been made. With this in mind, a less permanent approach would be to filter the email addresses of all dead weight subscribers into a separate list. This way, the overall number of subscribers stays the same and the same content can be delivered to all subscribers, but the segmented list of dead weight subscribers will have its metrics reported separately from the main list. You can also leverage this separation to test various tactics to increase engagement with these subscribers, such as differing subject lines and offers.

Avoid Sending to Subscribers You Don't Want

In order to avoid the extra time and resources involved in cleansing your list of dead weight subscribers, consider the methods being used to build up your email list(s). Adding addresses from a list that was purchased from a third party will not only result in increased SPAM complaints, it is a surefire way to add subscribers who have limited or no interest in the content of your emails.

Another mistake often made in the name of list building is including a pre-checked email opt-in box on web site forms being used to access other site content. Giving site users the option to register for emails at the same time they are registering to download a white paper is fine, but making the opt-in decision for them is not.

By identifying and removing dead weight subscribers from your email list and making sure all subscribers meet the true definition of an opt-in subscriber, you can ensure only the recipients most likely to engage with your emails are receiving them.

The boss might not like the idea of sending to a smaller list, but will enjoy the improved results. ]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:41:20 CDT 498c39ced301419bbc3bf53c33025f7a Blocked images on incoming e-mails present problems for marketers With many consumers blocking images on incoming e-mail, marketers must be prepared to use other means to engage their audiences, according to a new study from SubscriberMail.

A 2007 study by the Email Experience Council found that 21% of reviewed e-mails appeared blank when images were turned off. But a recent study by e-mail services provider SubscriberMail showed that responses improved when an e-mail message was optimized to have an impact even when images are not displayed.

In the SubscriberMail study, an e-mail message not optimized for image suppressions was sent to a test panel of about 50,000 subscribers, while a version of the same message optimized for non-graphical display was sent to another panel. The optimized version saw an 87% increase in clicks, according to SubscriberMail.

SubscriberMail suggests five ways to create a compelling e-mail message even when images are disabled:

Design e-mails to have key messages displayed as text above the fold, or in the top half of the message as seen by the recipient. Also consider placing key messaging in text form near the upper left hand corner where readers are most likely to look first.

Use HTML to code colors into your e-mail to make it more attractive to recipients not displaying images. An HTML color field hidden behind an image will be displayed, allowing the response link to stand out, if a graphical response button is blocked.

Use the "Alt Text" attribute to display a message that otherwise would not be visible if using generic alt-text descriptions such as "image 1."

Include a link at the top of the e-mail message that leads to a web-based version of the marketing message. This opens the message in a browser so that all graphics are intact, and adds convenience for recipients by not requiring changes to their e-mail preferences.

Incorporate optimization techniques in e-mail service provider templates to address image suppression.

SubscriberMail discusses image suppression issues in a white paper "The Great Suppression: 5 Strategies to Engage Audience Members with Image-Suppressing Mail Clients."

View the full article at InternetRetailer.com ]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:37:20 CDT ee3b6b7fc1d248d782bdf53c33025f7a Triggered Email: A Personal Touch for the Digital Age Maintain relationships you've worked so hard to cultivate

"Do you want fries with that?" The concept of up-selling a customer is a tried and true marketing method when someone buys a product or service. When you use email as part of your marketing mix, you can take advantage of this process by using triggered messaging. The concept is simple. An email message is "triggered" to suggest other items the customer may appreciate. This is only one of several approaches today's email marketers take when using triggered messaging. Triggered email messages can be used to:

* Express thanks for a recent purchase and/or call attention to related or complementary offers
* Automate stay-in-touch greetings, such as birthday or anniversary messages
* Remind customers of scheduled service dates
* Trigger automated order reminders
* And much more...

Rules-based triggered email messaging is an inexpensive, automated way to deliver highly relevant content to your audience at specific time intervals. The concept takes a best marketing practice-personal communications based on known customer or prospect preferences, needs or other triggers-and replicates it in your email communications process, providing a timely digital version of the labor-intensive direct personal contact. When used properly, it can yield high customer satisfaction dividends with a minimal investment in both time and money.

With the right tools in place, creating and launching a triggered email program is easy. You define the criteria that will determine which individuals will receive automated follow-up email messages. Then, once appropriate and relevant messaging has been created, recipient lists are created on the fly, and the automated triggered process begins. SubscriberMail clients who use triggered email programs have had tremendous success using this aspect of our service in a broad variety of ways.

Triggered messages deliver with impact because unlike a traditional campaign, the communication says to the recipient, "This is not just a message-this is a message about you." ]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:31:02 CDT 1f216d202564463083cbf53c33025f7a Your Email Marketing Recession Survival Guide Read the full article at Email Insider ]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:29:47 CDT 62ddbd63025148ffb886f53c33025f7a Nurturing relationships after the opt-in You've acquired the email marketing golden ticket: permission to mail a new subscriber. How will you nurture the permission-based relationship you have established?

You've acquired the email marketing golden ticket: permission to mail a new subscriber. You've taken them through the opt-in process following all the best practices that we've identified in previous newsletters and in our white paper, The Opt-in Process: 10 Steps to Success. You've sent them a few newsletters and can track their responses in your reports. You're feeling good about the new relationship and believe by their response that they are too. As time goes on, however, their needs as an email recipient will change. Will you handle those changes in a way that continues to nurture the permission-based relationship you have established?

Convenience and control

Initially, opt-in email marketing meant simply getting permission to send email. Today, opt-in email marketing means much more. Your subscribers increasingly demand that your communications be delivered on their terms, not yours. They expect convenience and control.

First step

Each year, many of your subscribers change jobs. Others are persuaded to switch ISPs. You can strengthen your relationships with these individuals by providing a convenient and quick way to update their accounts. Consider providing a link in every email that accesses a location where the subscriber can quickly update his or her email address without having to unsubscribe and then opt-in again. If you do provide the opportunity to change email addresses without re-subscribing, make sure that this email address is updated with your email service provider and also in your in-house customer database as well. This decreases the potential for accidentally overwriting the new email address with the old, incorrect email address.

Tailoring the relationship

We have seen a trend toward increased mailing frequency. You may be considering this to support your business objectives. Some subscribers will appreciate hearing from you more frequently. Others will not. The same holds true with content. Some subscribers may like to receive information about every product and/or service your offer, others want narrowly focused content. In all of these situations, providing an easy method for subscribers to tailor their subscription profiles gives you an opportunity to increase subscriber satisfaction and strengthen the brand relationship.

Connecting with readers on the go

In addition to considering how often readers want to hear from you and what kind of content they want to receive, you now need to also consider how they will receive the message. Readers aren't necessarily sitting in front of their computer screens when your email comes in. It is very likely that a percentage of your readers will receive your message on a mobile device. If you are in the B-to-B space, this likelihood is even greater as many corporate users will forward messages to mobile devices from their corporate mail servers.

We encourage email marketers to start learning who these mobile users are, and test different messaging strategies with this group. Our experience is that mobile users have a very different reader profile than someone sitting at a desk. They may be using their Blackberry to edit and delete what they don't want to read later on at their main machine. If you don't deliver a message with mobile power, you are likely to get deleted even quicker than you might expect. Consider doing a survey of your readers and adding an opt-in component that asks, "Are you likely to receive messages on a mobile device?" and "If so, which kind of device?"

Final take away

If you are looking for ways to increase subscriber satisfaction and loyalty, consider ways to let subscribers tailor what they receive and how often they hear from you. To increase retention, consider allowing subscribers to change their email addresses without having to fully re-subscribe. Finally, to ensure that you don't lose a portion of your readers due to emails not being formatted for mobile devices, check with readers to see if they will be receiving messages on mobile devices and design accordingly. These steps will clearly illustrate you care about your subscribers and their needs.
]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:28:30 CDT 35de691a7a9842d181e6f53c33025f7a Don't be a turkey: What not to do so you don't annoy recipients and they'll be thankful This Thanksgiving, rather than just telling your loyal email readers that you're thankful for them, try examining ways that you can show them that you appreciate them and their valuable time.

More specifically, think about what you're doing now that may be annoying readers rather than making them thankful for your messages. In our experience, here are a few things that we've seen marketers do that may make some recipients think of them as turkeys.

No one likes the unexpected, uninvited guest

Marketers often expect that because someone makes a purchase from their company that the person attached to the new email address they just gained will gobble up additional information about the company and other products they sell. In some cases, this can make sense. If the email is sent with the primary purpose of thanking them for their purchase and subtly offering information about complementary items, it may be welcome. However, future blatant sales attempts or even a simple newsletter can often garner resentment and even spam complaints if the recipient never expected to receive email from your company. In many cases, this person may have been happy to opt in, but since they were not allowed that option, they are annoyed that permission was assumed. You have to clearly set expectations about email communications at the time you establish the relationship. The obvious downfalls to not doing this are the negative impact on delivery due to complaints, potential damage to your brand based on the negative backlash, and possible lost revenue from these now annoyed customers.

Serving ham instead of turkey

If your recipients signed up for email from your company with specific expectations of the kind of email they would receive from you, be sure that's what you send them and nothing else. If they signed up for a monthly best practices newsletter, don't intersperse those with weekly product information emails. Readers usually remember what they opted in to, and they definitely remember what they did not opt in to. Sending anything other than what was requested will again garner complaints and unsubscribes. If you've got a great product information email that you think they might be interested in - great! Include information about the product email in the message they signed up for and invite them to opt in. If they don't, respect their wishes and don't send them these additional emails.

Where's the stuffing?

Don't hide an exciting email behind an elusive subject line. "Great sale from Company Name" doesn't tell the recipient anything about why the sale is great. Are you offering 50 percent off, or a two-for-one sale perhaps? What is the sale on? How long will it last? Fit as many specifics, clearly stated, in your subject line as you can. Emails with subject lines that require the reader to try to guess what the email is about often go unread. Respect your recipients' time with a telling subject line that includes the benefit they will receive if they read the message.

Looks good enough to eat

Make sure you've attended to how your email looks so that it does everything you need it to and nothing that it shouldn't. You know that all calls-to-action should be clearly stated and designed to be easily clickable. Conversely, be careful not to format any text that is not clickable in a way that makes it look like a link. For example, only use underlined text for links. Also, watch your use of colored text within a paragraph. This use of colored text could be confused by readers as a link. They are then disappointed when they try to click and find that they cannot.

What, no pie?

Like that slice of pumpkin pie you're thinking about before you even sit down to dinner, landing that conversion from the click-through is your ultimate goal. Make sure the page you are linking to from your email is set up to accomplish this goal. It starts with linking as far into your Web site as possible, instead of to the homepage or general category page if possible. Make sure the landing page is branded similarly to your email so it's an easy transition for the reader. Finally, just like you want to make sure your email is designed to easily allow readers to click through, your landing page should be designed so it's easy for visitors to complete the transaction. You don't want to risk losing conversions because visitors become confused or frustrated with your landing page, especially when they've made it so far.

Following these guidelines can help keep your email readers happy and thankful they decided to sign up for your email. ]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:27:40 CDT 9dda60bbdfda4a3792a8f53c33025f7a 7 Steps to Win Back Unresponsive Email Contacts Read the full article at TheWiseMarketer.com.

]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:25:50 CDT e86a7cea7f614388bdaff53c33025f7a E-mail: Time for a Makeover Read the entire article at ClickZ.com.

]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:24:46 CDT a79416fe4279479891c2f53c33025f7a 6 eNewsletter Reminders A good eNewsletter best practices article by Jordan Ayan, the chairman of Create-It! Inc., a technology consulting firm, as well as the CEO of SubscriberMail (www.subscribermail.com), an e-mail marketing company that provides permission-based marketers with services and tools to develop and deliver e-mail. This appeared in Chief Marketer magazine.

LISLE, Ill. (September 28, 2007) A new subscriber "opts in" to receive your newsletter. Great!
So you respond with a simple "Thank You" — right?
Not exactly. The right welcome message can—and should—do a whole lot more.
A recent study reported that 40 percent of Americans who use the Internet changed their opinions of brands as a result of information they gathered online. This underscores the importance of making sure the image you project online, especially the one you communicate in your email campaigns, accurately reflects your core brand values. Often, it all starts with something as basic as your welcome message.

Here are some tips that will enable your organization to succeed in creating and maintaining an email dialog with valued customers and subscribers in the moments after they click on the "subscribe" button.

1. Remember to say thank you. As Bogart put it in Casablanca "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." We all hope that the initial email message is the start of a long-term conversation with a subscriber, customer or prospect. Remember the old adage, 'you never get a second chance to make a first impression'? Make sure you welcome
subscribers to your mailings with open arms using a concise welcome message that confirms who you are, their interests and preferences, assures their right to privacy, and reassures them that they can unsubscribe at any time. Briefly highlight the content they can expect to receive over the coming weeks and set expectations regarding how often they'll receive it. This is also a good time to build trust with your subscribers. Reassure them that you will not share their personal information and provide a link to your corporate privacy policy. Don't forget to use the welcome letter to both reconfirm the value of the email they just signed up for.

2. Dress your welcome letter for success. Get your subscribers used to the look and feel of your email newsletters. Borrow the same or similar graphics used in your current newsletter, literature, or logo. With minimal effort, your welcome message can build brand identity and ensure that future emails will be read.

You've taken the time and trouble to design and develop a beautiful email newsletter that reinforces your brand image, so why send a plain text email to welcome subscribers to that newsletter? Get your readers excited to receive the first issue, and give them a visual preview of what the email newsletter they signed up for will look like. With the flood of email these days, anything you can do to build awareness helps get your email read.

3. How to avoid spam filters and bulk mail folders. Subscribers won't read your newsletter if it never gets delivered or if it gets lost in a bulk mail folder. Make sure your email gets delivered to their inbox where it's easily accessible. At the location where subscribers sign-up, provide the address that the emails will be coming from, and invite them to add it to
their address book or white list to ensure delivery (some mailers who know they have problems ending up in the junk folder even actively encourage recipients to check there for the message). Encourage subscribers to add the email address your newsletter will be sent from to their address book. Of course, make sure that you're in compliance with the latest CAN-SPAM legislation and that your email service provider is using the most up-to-date email authentication systems.

4. Give them something special. Everyone likes to get something special, and when you are new to something, it makes you feel even better about your decision. Try to offer subscribers something unique. Maybe it is a special article or white paper they can download, perhaps it is an extra 'newcomers' coupon. Whatever you choose, let the subscriber know that, in your eyes, they are special for having taken the time to give you their email address.

5. Make it easy for them to contact you. Don't bury the 'Contact Us' or 'Unsubscribe me' links in tiny type at the end of the email. This will just annoy someone who needs to contact you. The needs and interests of your readers are always changing, so reassure them that they can easily contact you, update their email preferences or unsubscribe at any time,
and provide an easy-to-find link where they can do so.

With a little extra care, you can make your welcome message a dynamic platform for action that makes subscribers feel connected and respected but also communicates a lot about your brand. If your email newsletter is easy to work with, your organization may be easy to work with too.

6. Design basics. Always choose a subject line that is simple and accurately reflects your message, whether it's "Welcome to XYZ newsletter" or "Thank you for subscribing to XYZ news."

Have a mechanism in place that sends your welcome message automatically and immediately after a subscriber signs up. (SubscriberMail and most major email service providers do this automatically).

Keep the message brief, with as much important content "above the fold" as possible.

Remember, first impressions count. And while the medium may change, the quality must stay the same - whether in person, online, on paper, or in your welcome message.

]]> Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:03:28 CDT deb4c6ae8aa342c6be2ff53c33025f7a Strategies to improve open rates
A short preface on open rates

Open rates have been falling in the email industry recently. This trend is not necessarily reflective of fewer people actually opening emails. The general decline is due to the fact that many of the new email clients that people are using have images turned off as the default, and also because some users prefer to have images turned off. In order for an "open" to be accurately tabulated by an email marketing service provider, an image - usually one pixel and transparent - needs to be displayed. The calling of this image from the service provider's web server indicates that the email has been opened. If the image is not downloaded from the server, it will not be counted as an "open," even though the recipient can still see and read all of the text-based content.

This being said, it is still important that email marketers take steps to optimize their open rates. Counted or not, opens are what drive your program's overall success.

Optimizing the From Name

With spam and phishing scams ever more prevalent in the inbox, making sure your recipients can clearly identify the sender of your email is increasingly important. Don't try to personalize the from name with a salesperson's name that your recipients may not recognize. Don't use a product brand name that someone outside of your company may not be familiar with. State your organization's name simply: ABC Company. Recipients should be able to clearly and quickly identify and recognize your company from your from name.

Testing subject lines

Never underestimate the importance of a compelling, well-constructed and effective subject line. If you can increase your open rate from 17 percent to 20 percent with a simple subject line test, that's an almost 18 percent improvement (not 3 percent!). If your list isn't big enough or you don't have the resources to do a true random split test (those of you using SubscriberMail can do this with our built-in split list feature), recurring A/B split tests will show patterns that will dictate what makes a subject line successful for you. (For more information on email testing, see our white paper. For help on creating winning subject lines, see our previous article.)

Maximizing the preview pane

While a passing glance through the preview pane may technically be counted as an "open" in your email reports, if your recipients never look any further, that glance isn't going to lead to a click-through. Optimize this area with text that compels readers to open the email to read more. Better yet, place your key call to action in this area to drive immediate click-throughs. As always, be aware of how your email will render in the preview pane if images are disabled, and design accordingly. (For more information on how to maximize email design, see our white paper.)

Checking content for Spam triggers

It goes without saying that if your email is delivered to a junk mail folder due to triggers that flag your message as Spam, it's much less likely to be opened than a message delivered to the inbox. While spam filters have customizable settings that are beyond an email marketer's control, making sure your message falls within the default values of popular Spam filters will be effective in the majority of instances. (For help on how to avoid being labeled "Spam," see our previous article.)

Keeping a squeaky clean list

A list in need of cleansing can not only drag your open rates down, it can also in worst-case scenarios hurt your delivery. An email sender's reputation is a critical factor in whether your email is delivered to the inbox, bulked, or bounced. Repeatedly sending to dead email addresses will negatively impact your sender reputation. We recommend removing hard bounced addresses from your list immediately after the first hard bounce and monitoring soft bounces that continue to be undeliverable for removal as well. (For more information on sender reputation, visit SenderScore.org)

Periodically cleansing your list of recipients who no longer take action on your messages is also a good idea. You may wish to employ a win-back strategy to first try to save these addresses or try to reach them in a different way, such as direct mail.

We are frequently asked what industry averages are but we don't like to quote these because open rates will vary among organizations. It's important not to focus on reaching "industry average" open rates, but rather to evaluate your own open rates in the context of your own email initiatives. Employing these strategies in your email marketing efforts can help drive your open rates, whatever they are currently, and more important by extension improve your other metrics as well. ]]> Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:41:31 CDT fc80e6ba2d094f7ebe6b9e100c75da22 How to create high impact subject lines
Separating "good" from "bad"

Creating a successful subject line is critical in a world filled with marketers competing for attention. Without a good one, even the best offer from the most trusted brand can be deleted in one quick click. Remember that past the open, subject lines are a major driver of click-through rates. They direct recipients to pay attention to specific articles, products, and information.

Establish objectives first

You know how important research is-whether it's understanding target audiences, testing different offers and creative approaches, or including subject line testing in the mix. Many factors can help isolate effective subject lines. It starts by determining your objectives, such as:

* Increasing open rates
* Improving conversion rates
* Acquiring new customers
* Building awareness for a new product or service

By defining your goals early on, you help set the tone for subject line testing.

Be consistent

While subject lines should obviously be unique for each message, they should also become instantly trusted and recognized by recipients. After testing and learning what style works best, maintain it-whether humorous, straight, provocative, incentive-based, tip oriented, etc. Be sure to avoid the generic and boring. Along the way, send lines with different subjects to yourself. What kind of response do they elicit? Gotta open? Ignore? Read it later?

"Listen" - monitor your own inbox for ideas

What piques your interest? What motivates you to open?

Less is more

Testing proves that shorter subject lines provide more credibility. Keep it short and simple--less than five words whenever possible.

Avoid problem words

Certain words and phrases almost guarantee instant deletion. If it sounds too good to be true, (even if it is), it will never work.

Here is a list of the words and phrases to avoid:
cialis
levitra
valium
vicodin
xanax
For Only
FREE
Life Insurance
Your own
Free access
Free Samples!
Dear Friend
your family
As seen

Also, don't start your subject line with any of these words:
Free
Hello
Buy
Buying

Some email services (SubscriberMail has some powerful and handy tools) offer SPAM content scoring. These tools will help define where you may have issues with these problem words.

Branding in subject lines

People tend to accept and open messages from brands they know and trust. If you have an established brand or product, reference it in both the subject line and the "from" address. However, beware of reckless subject lines that mislead or over promise. They also open the door to serious legal trouble, not to mention damaging your brand, destroying trust, and driving customers away.

Segment/personalize

This does not mean using the recipient's name in the subject line. Rather, try messages that are targeted, contextual, and relevant to the recipient's needs and wants. Your job is to figure out what offers, topics, and products are of most interest to varying segments-then deliver that information regularly. As such, your subject line should be as narrow as possible for each segment.

Track what works

Track and analyze the best open and click-through rates. Categorize and assess them by various approaches, such as long vs. short, use of certain words (dollars off versus percentage off, tips vs. steps).

Test, test, test. Subject lines are easy to test. Split your list three or more ways and try variations. The key is to try different ones and learn what works. Also, test more than once to verify results.

More tips when writing

* Make the first word important and information-carrying. For example, start with the name of your company, brand, or product the message reflects.

* Empathize. Your message may go to millions, but it's still received by individuals. Think "what's in it for me (the recipient)".... Translate features into benefits for them.

* Be witty, but avoid "cute" or clever headlines.

* Do not use leading articles like "a" and "the" in the subject.

* Be daring, more aggressive, more creative. Try new styles and test them via split tests.
]]> Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:55:38 CDT de9ac278757f4cb5823d87e96237120b Opt for more productivity: How the right opt-in technique can increase list quality and quantity
Fact is, the language you use, the support graphics, and the staging techniques you employ can make a huge difference-between being totally ignored and creating an evolving, dynamic relationship that can enhance database precision, enrich dialogue, and help you showcase a larger scope of services.

Here are some simple tools and ideas to do just that:

"What's in it for me?"

Sounds like it's not too much to ask. But your audience still wants to know. So, which of these opt-in techniques would you more likely to respond to?

1. Get news and updates
2. Get FREE timely market insights delivered to your computer weekly.

Obvious, eh?

The point is, opt-in techniques that first "frame up" the benefit to the reader will always have the advantage. So enhance your response by always putting the value of your communication in reader terms. When that's taken care of, then request the action.

Clarify your privacy and protect yourself

As you know, laws are now rigidly controlling information sharing. Enhance reader comfort level by keeping your privacy policy up-to-date and always making it readily accessible to readers. Strive to make your policies on privacy up-front and clear. You can learn about constructing privacy policies by visiting the Direct Marketing Association's site.

In fact, the DMA provides a privacy policy generator: learn more here.

Help readers opt-in to more

You may offer a wide variety of information that's of interest to many different segments. Providing more opt-in "options" helps fine-tune your database, while helping people align with individual interests.

Here's an example:

Tell us what interests you. (Choose all that apply)
* New products
* Special promotions
* Local seminars
* Special events

Choose your questions wisely

Does your opt-in process scare people away? How much information do you really need to know NOW to move forward? In our opinion, the less data you need to initiate a response, the better. So be economical.

At the outset, do you really need a physical address and postal code? This can usually be relegated to a second page, after sign-up has been accomplished up front, via email submission.

When you do create questions, make them relevant to both your audience and your offerings. One of the most common mistakes we see is organizations making their opt-in pages marketing research projects. Only ask questions you have a use for in your segmentation strategy.

Sequence for Success

Surely you'd agree that the savvy email marketer treats information gathering as an evolutionary process, not a one-shot deal. That's why the "tiered" opt-in process - that is, setting it up over multiple pages or multiple emails - makes so much sense.

For example...

1. Lead with just an email address solicitation on the home page
2. That leads the user to the next page for basic information
3. Follow that with additional, and optional, questions on the thank you page or confirmation email.
4. Periodically send additional information-gathering emails to gain further segmentation insight.

The benefit: you gain your reader's trust, and you reduce his or her anxiety and fear.

Always present a totally professional appearance

As you know, people are wary of scam artists with bogus offers that make it harder for honest businesses to succeed. One potential red flag is an opt-in page depicting bland, all-HTML text that scammers sometimes use.

A good way to help separate your business and protect your brands is to make sure your opt-in page showcases high-quality graphics and clean design. Doing so adds credibility, elevates reader comfort level, and smoothes the way for continued communication. ]]> Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:49:50 CDT 6a62a84347884375beff87e96237120b Strategies for Email Marketing Success list segmentation, testing subject lines, creating a winning welcome message, and more. This month we'll look at identifying and determining these and other areas to form a comprehensive strategy that will help your email campaigns succeed today and into the future.

BRAND AFFINITY
More than ever, your brand is important to your audiences. In this age of information overload, people create perceptions of organizations in a split second, and expectations are driven higher with each touch-point. Every aspect of your email marketing campaigns needs to be audited against your brand personality.

Message design: Are your messages accurately reflecting your brand? The design and appearance of your email messages create a lasting impression to your audience.

Relevant content: Does the content you communicate through your email campaigns complement and strengthen your core brand messages?

Landing pages: Do you control the branding of your landing pages and the destinations you are sending responders? These pages should reflect your brand as much as the email message itself.

SEGMENTATION
Breaking an audience into distinct, more manageable segments that are likely to behave in a similar manner has long been a fundamental principle of marketing. Email enables some incredible segmentation power, as well as the ability to truly take advantage of small audience segments that might otherwise be financially difficult to communicate with.

Variable content: Are you providing different segments with different content? Variable content will provide more relevancy and stronger actionable items.

Gathering additional information: Do you have strategies for gathering more data? After you gain credibility, try asking for a few small bits of information within your email messages.

COMPLIANCE
Regulations are changing every day in the email world. With so many different areas of technical and marketing compliance, you need to revisit your email initiatives and audit them for compliance.

Can Spam: Are you aware of CAN SPAM regulation and confident you have all of the pieces in place?

Privacy policy: Have you reviewed your privacy policy for accuracy? Are you confident it is up to date? Has it been audited by legal counsel?

METRICS
Email marketing creates many specific data points that can be used to gain insight. Understanding what you are capturing and putting that data to it's best use can result in continuous success and provide knowledge about your audiences.

Conversions: Are you looking "beyond the click" at conversions within your Web site? Conversions could be actual purchases, contact forms, or anything that is a "valuable action" for your organization.

Long-term trends: Are you looking at message "cycles" over longer periods of time? Often, looking at longer-term trends can give you a different perspective than specific and individual message results.

TESTING
Because of the immediacy of email data, testing should become an intregal part of your email efforts. Knowing what to test, how to test it and what to glean from the results will make your email initiatives perform to their fullest.

Creative: Do you test different styles of messages with various offers and graphic treatments?

Content: Do you test messages with different content and content types to gain insight on what your recipients are responding to?

Landing pages: Do you create and direct your audience to different landing pages and review what destinations performed the best? Creatively testing where the click takes them and what that looks and acts like can give you considerable insight.

Use this checklist as the cornerstone of your email efforts. If you can address each of these areas with detail and certainty, you're well ahead of the curve. If not, you could see dramatic improvements by addressing items in the checklist that are not currently a part of your email initiatives. You can download our corresponding white paper, The Strategic Checklist for Email Success, as a guide. ]]> Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:38:26 CDT bdc7277d55874e5bbf14b19ce2d9ad9c Does your "welcome" send the right message?
A recent study reported that 40 percent of American Internet users changed their opinions of brands as a result of information they gathered online. This underscores the importance of making sure the image you portray online, especially in your email marketing, accurately reflects your brand. Often, it all starts with something as basic - but still as important - as your welcome message.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT
When it comes to true brand building, there are no minor details. Use your welcome message to begin making an emotional connection with your subscribers. Beyond thanking them, be sure to do the following:

* Reconfirm the value of the email they just signed up for.
* Briefly highlight the content they can expect to receive and how often they'll receive it. Connect benefits where possible.
* Build trust. Reassure them that you will not share their info. Provide a link to your privacy policy.

DRESS YOUR WELCOME MESSAGE FOR SUCCESS
You've already designed and created a beautiful email newsletter that accurately reflects your brand. Why send a plain text email to welcome subscribers to that newsletter? Get your readers excited to receive the first issue, and give them a visual cue of what the email they signed up for will look like. With the flood of email these days, anything you can do to build awareness helps get your email read.

Borrow the same or similar graphics used in your current newsletter, literature, and/or logo. Consider adding a graphic of what your most recent newsletter looked like. With minimal effort your welcome message can build brand identity and ensure that future emails will be read.

AVOID SPAM FILTERS AND BULK MAIL FOLDERS
Subscribers won't read your newsletter if it never gets delivered or if it gets lost in a bulk mail folder. Make sure your email gets delivered to their inbox where it's easily accessible. Encourage subscribers to add the email address your newsletter will be sent from to their address book.

BE EASY TO COMMUNICATE WITH. ALWAYS.
The special needs and interests of your readers are always changing. Reassure them that they can easily update their email preferences or unsubscribe at any time, and provide a link where they can do so. Now your welcome message has become an evolving platform for action that makes subscribers feel connected and respected. Your readers infer that the easier your email is to work with, the easier your organization will be to work with.

MORE HELPFUL GUIDELINES
* As always, choose a subject line that is simple and accurately reflects your message, whether it's "Welcome to XYZ newsletter" or "Thank you for subscribing to XYZ news."
* Have a mechanism in place that sends your welcome message automatically and immediately after a subscriber signs up. (SubscriberMail does this. Contact us to learn how.)
* Keep the message brief, as much "above the fold" as possible.
* Include full contact information and invite feedback.

Remember, first impressions count. And while the medium may change, the quality must stay the same - whether in person, online, on paper, or in your welcome message. ]]> Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:31:46 CDT 3733a8a432974bf4b87087e96237120b How to create content that generates results
Unfortunately it's not as easy as creating an editorial calendar and sticking to it. This month we'll cover ideas on how to develop content that drives readership and engagement, and keeps the recipient's mouse off the "This is Spam" button.

Passing the WIIFM test

It's easy to get caught up in your organization and expect that everyone would be as happy as you to learn about your products or services. But that's not necessarily the case. Communicating the content you're sending to recipients may be very valuable to your company, but that content may not hold value in the eyes of your recipients. To put it frankly, you have to be certain your content passes the "What's in it for me?" test. What's the value of your content to your recipients? If you're struggling to identify the value, your recipients certainly are too.

Make them feel special

An easy campaign to run is sending an email to recipients during the month of their birthday with a special birthday offer. For example, include a coupon for 20% off or a small free giveaway. The keys to success for a birthday offer are 1) it's highly relevant to the recipient so he or she is far more likely to read the message and 2) it shows your company has a personal interest in the recipient, not just a financial interest. To accomplish this campaign, you only need to collect the birth month of subscribers at opt-in.

Other timely and personally relevant campaigns that could make sense depending on your organization might include: a recipient's wedding anniversary, a spouse or child's birthday, a customer's anniversary with your company, etc.

It's still okay to sell your products and services

Analysis of email reading habits and click-through rates proves that users are interested in and willing to accept advertising, self-promoting news, and coupons that introduce them to new products and save money. Moreover, high-quality content can boost the results of these promotional efforts. Well-received content might include a mix of some of these items:

* Profiles and success stories from your customers
* Tips and tricks of your trade
* News updates
* Analysis of trends in your field
* Educational material
* Event announcements of interest to your customers
* Coupons offering discounts or special purchases

Don't just talk at them - Engage them!

Don't just tell recipients about a new product. Let them know where they can get more information by providing a highly visible, clear call to action that prompts them to click for more information. This link should go directly to the page with more detailed information about your new product, not to your home page or to a product category page.

When your content is useful and informative, recipients may want to share with co-workers, friends or family. Provide recipients with an easy method to send this valuable content to others. Include a "forward to friend" or "forward to colleague" button or text link in every message, toward the top, and always in the same location.

Finding compelling imagery

To generate additional interest in content, intersperse relevant images within articles. A great place to find artwork for messages is on www.istockphoto.com. iStockphoto offers a large collection of royalty-free stock photography and vector illustrations. You can purchase a stock image for as little as $1. Higher-resolution images are available for more money, but since email only requires low resolution, this is usually more than adequate.

Other places to find content

If you're short-staffed, some other places you could look to for content include:

* Syndicated content
* Freelance writers
* Trade associations

Be sure that this content meets the above guidelines and edit if needed to ensure relevancy to your audience.

Following these guidelines while focusing on content development can help ensure that your email campaigns are a success for both your readers and your organization. ]]> Thu, 05 Jul 2007 01:56:04 CDT c71d773d5ca940fbaa6487e96237120b Time for a Summer Tuneup
GROWING YOUR LIST AND WEEDING OUT DEAD WEIGHT
Are you securing email addresses from customers at every opportunity? Do you have a signup box on your Web site? Does your sales staff ask for an email address when they're on the phone with a customer or prospect?

What information are you asking for when you secure an email address? Are you asking too much, and possibly losing signups? Or are you not asking enough to be able to send targeted mailings? Do you have a strong privacy policy that states you never share customer information, and do your customers know about it?

Have you been sending to the same list for some time now and seeing declining open rates? Try sending a message to those who aren't opening your messages and ask if they still want to receive emails from you. Perhaps they're interested in receiving different content from you, or maybe you can remove them and cut down your list size.

KEEPING YOUR CONTENT FRESH AND RELEVANT
Does your content meet the "What's In It For Me?" test? Do readers feel they are receiving emails with information that is of value to them, not just advertising or marketing messages? Do you offer customers a choice of which emails they receive from you? Don't just guess - Let subscribers tell you what they want to get from you!

Are you sending the same mesage to everyone on your list? Try customizing your content and templates to target specific segments of your audience to increase open rates and activity. The more relevant the content is to your subscriber, the more interested he will be.

BEYOND THE CLICK - TRACKING YOUR ROI
So you're monitoring open and click-through rates for a sudden change, but do you know what happens after a reader clicks on one of your links? Without a mechanism in place to further track that reader, he or she is lost! Using a web analytics tool, like ClickTracks Pro, lets you see where your reader went after she clicked, and if she made a purchase. Now you can track revenue, not just clicks, and get an even better understanding of your email marketing ROI.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
Many of our clients are driving business by developing unique aspects to their email marketing. Here are just a few examples of how our clients are using email campaigns in interesting and innovative ways.

Changing purchasing cycles
An auto dealer sends emails to clients when someone requests a specific used vehicle. He offers them an enticing trade-in offer as well as a great value for a new purchase.

Supporting enthusiasts
A professional sports team sends emails to fans giving them the latest scoop and an "inside look" at the team and season.

Driving people to events
A major radio station sends messages to subscribers to let them know about upcoming promotions and help stimulate buzz around events they are sponsoring. Several associations use email to announce webinars and drive people to register online.

Consolidating news
A chemical organization consolidates headlines from all of the best industry journals and resources, and emails to their constituents. Recipients can quickly see what's happening in their industry and the sender reinforces it is an expert in the industry.

Promoting best practices
Several organizations in retail, real estate, and food and beverage use internal email newsletters to ensure dissemination of best practices, important announcements, and encourage sales growth. Many highlight offices or employees with outstanding sales figures.

Ensure consistent corporate branding
Corporations with multiple divisions who send business-to-consumer messages want to ensure a consistent look and feel to safeguard their brand. An email marketing platform that allows content and templates to be shared across several accounts means separate branches can send to their own lists while maintaining a professional, branded image.

If you have an email review scheduled in the coming months, we recommend asking some of these questions to see what you may already be doing well and what areas you could improve upon. If you don't have a review planned, why not schedule an email marketing tuneup now? Need a fresh perspective? Don't hesitate to contact us at 866-622-2600. ]]> Thu, 05 Jul 2007 01:38:44 CDT b6772b7f980e424fbcf687e96237120b Email Authentication Update
If the concept of authentication is new to you, download our white paper Email Authentication: 10 Things You Need to Know to learn the basics so that the details from the summit will have greater meaning.

Email authentication has reached critical mass

Over 8 million domains are now Sender ID compliant, and Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) adoption is growing quickly. Today, it's estimated that over 50 percent of all legitimate email is authenticated. This adoption has led to increased deliverability, stronger brand protection, and the introduction of enhanced reputation solutions. Bottom line: if your email is not being authenticated, it needs to be.

Authentication is still not the silver bullet for email delivery

Although email authentication sets the stage for improved delivery and defines who can send email for a specific domain, it's not the silver bullet that will instantly increase your email campaign success. A holistic approach combining authentication, reputation, relevancy and marketing strategy is more important than ever to ensure positive results. While authentication is a key ingredient in the mix, you must be sending targeted messages with content that relates to your audience in a consistent and responsible manner.

Focus on your "from" name and subject line

As email clients like Outlook and Yahoo! continue to increase in sophistication, they are making it easier for users to manage messages without opening them. This makes your "from" name and subject line extremely important. A recent Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC) study showed that 80 percent of respondents decide whether to click on the "Report Spam" or "Junk" button without opening the actual message, and that 73 percent based that decision on the "From" name while 69 percent based the decision on the subject line.

Email Authentication Help Center

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) announced this week the launch of its Email Authentication Help Center, which is designed to help email marketers authenticate all outbound email. For more information, visit http://www.the-dma.org/emailauthentication.

Working with your email service provider

If your ESP is not talking to you about email authentication, you need to ask them about their practices and policies. SubscriberMail remains at the forefront of emerging email technologies, as we continually strive to give our clients the best possible services and technology to enable the highest delivery of email messages.

To learn more about email authentication, download our whitepaper Email Authentication: 10 Things You Need to Know or call SubscriberMail at 630-303-5000 today. ]]> Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:21:20 CDT fadffa2274ca4907967487e96237120b Designing for Outlook 2007, Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail
Keeping up with changes in the email marketing industry is usually no small task. There have been several announcements from major organizations that will affect how your emails are displayed in recipients' inboxes. While we've always advocated following best practices for email creative, these changes will add a couple of more steps you'll want to include when designing your emails.

Microsoft Outlook 2007

The changes in recently released Microsoft Outlook 2007 are causing the loudest grumblings. While most product releases feature improved performance and functionality, Outlook 2007 actually takes a step - or three or four steps - backwards from Outlook 2004. The reason for this is the "engine" Outlook 2007 uses to render HTML emails. Outlook 2007 relies on the HMTL rendering abilities of Microsoft Word 2007, rather than Internet Explorer, which powered Outlook 2004 and which supports more HTML and cascading style sheet functions.

The decreased HTML rendering abilities of Microsoft Word mean email design techniques that looked fine in Outlook 2004 may not look good - or displayed at all - in Microsoft 2007. As always, the most important thing you can do to ensure consistency is to preview your message in multiple email clients.

Windows Live Hotmail

Still in beta, Windows Live Hotmail will replace Hotmail with some substantial changes. The biggest change is that the interface will closely mimic the interface of a desktop email client, complete with preview pane. Previously, Hotmail users did not have this preview pane option. This meant that your email was judged solely on the from name and the subject line. However, once opened, they were able to see your entire email. Adding the preview pane means recipients will have a chance to partially view your email before deciding to read on or delete, but it also means at first glance they will only see the first 250 pixels or so of your email.

HTML rendering abilities will remain the same, as will security features that alert recipients to email sent by unknown senders and that block images and links by default. Including a line of text at the top of your email asking recipients to add your email address to their address book or safe list will prevent your email from being marked with "unknown sender." Also, designing emails that are a combination of text and images with key points still communicated with images turned off will continue to be an important design consideration.

When designing your email, keep in mind what information is available in the preview pane because this information can now be used by Hotmail recipients to determine whether they open or delete your message. Make sure any important headlines are text. If your message is image heavy, replicate the key points as text at the top of your email. If sending an email newsletter, consider listing the article titles or key points at the top of your message. All these steps should entice readers and give them reasons to open your message.

Yahoo! Mail

Also still in beta, but available for users to test, the new Yahoo! Mail offers the look and feel of a desktop email client the way Outlook and Thunderbird do. Again, this means a preview pane is now an available option for recipients. With this change, two of the top four web-based email clients - AOL.com, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, and Gmail- will now use a preview pane. (Will AOL.com and Gmail follow? It's certainly possible.) This means that paying extra attention to your preview pane design (again, following the recommendations above) will become increasingly important to the success of your email campaigns.

Dealing with Blocked Images

Perhaps even more important is the number of email clients - both web-based and desktop - that block images by default. This is especially challenging for emails that are sent as all images. These emails, when viewed in an email client with images disabled, can appear as white boxes, white space, grey boxes, one large gray box, or security warnings, or they can just be removed entirely. For recipients to view your content, they must click on a link to activate images. Depending on how they feel about you as a sender and about your subject line, they may or may not choose to do this, which means a large percentage of your list might never see your message.

The only way to constructively deal with disabled images is to try to minimize the images in your design. If the message can be communicated with text, it's best to communicate it that way as opposed to an image that may be blocked, even if it means compromising some of the overall design. Your emails might look nicer with stylized text, but if the user never sees it, it's effort wasted. You can use background colors, table cells to create colored rules, bolding and other HTML styles to create your design. Intersperse images and text throughout. Use images to complement your design, instead of using them as the base of your entire design and message.

As always, preview your message in a variety of scenarios...images on and images off, with preview pane and without, in different emails clients, etc. in order to make sure that what you're seeing in your email client is what your recipients will see in their email client. The key is in all scenarios the underlying purpose of your message is still accurately communicated.

For more considerations on how to design and create emails that display consistently across different email clients, click here to download our recently updated white paper, Guidelines for Effective Email Creative. ]]> Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:16:20 CDT 604ba0bd9f0043a19a8087e96237120b Avoid the "SPAM" label
What went wrong? It could have been one big thing; it could have been a number of little things that collectively raised a big red flag. The good news is that if you know beforehand what causes a message to be labeled as spam, you can save it from that giant black hole.

Points of possible rejection

Today's email technology allows many points for interaction before a message ever even arrives in a receiver's inbox. The potential "dead ends" or "filter points" that can kill your message fall into four broad categories:

* Internet-based filters
* Internet service providers (ISPs)
* Corporate infrastructures
* Personal email clients

Your message may be stopped at any of these points for a variety of reasons. It may be that you included specific words in your message, or it could be that your "from" address is objectionable. Your IP address may be blacklisted, or you may have included attachments, not realizing that many organizations don't let ANY mail through with attachments of any kind. Finally, if you do make it to the inbox, the format of your email could get your message junked at the personal email client level. Here are some tips to help you avoid most of the major mistakes.

Killer subject line mistakes

It's likely that you've received enough spam to know some of the tricks spammers use in their subject lines - replacing letters with characters, placing an RE: in there so you think it's a response to a message you've sent previously, misspelling words, etc. While you may not be mimicking these specific tricks, you may be committing similar sins unwittingly because of how your subject line is worded. Here's how to ensure your subject line doesn't raise warnings:

* Don't use an exclamation point.
* The use of all caps, even if it's just one word, is a red flag.
* Don't deliberately misspell words (and don't do it accidentally either).
* Avoid non-standard characters. For example, your brand name does not need a registration mark in the subject line despite what the legal department may say.
* Only use necessary punctuation. In most cases, at most you might need a comma or dash.
* If you're using an apostrophe, make sure it's straight, not "smart." And don't copy any such punctuation from Microsoft Word to paste into your subject line - these are non-standard characters.
* Avoid "spammy" (not sure if this is a word, but it should be) words (see the list below, shown here as an image; otherwise, this email would most likely never make it into your inbox).

Crushing content blunders

There are three things to keep in mind when creating your message content to avoid spam issues. One is the wording you are using, and you just might be surprised. Some words that you wouldn't necessarily associate with spam will nevertheless score points against a spam filter. Here are some words worth avoiding:

* FREE
* limited time
* buy now
* performance
* you're receiving this message because

The second thing to examine is your html (unless a message creation system, like SubscriberMail, is creating the html for you). Mis-formatted html can get your message blocked every time. Make sure your html is clean, and avoid the following:

* extra or unnecessary tags
* heavy use of images versus text
* using non-standard Web fonts
* using text that's the same color as the background

Finally, never send attachments of any sort, including PDFs. Not only can they appear suspicious to a spam filter, but an attached file has no trackable action so you have no way of knowing if someone opened your attachment or not. Instead, include a link in your email to the file you want people to see. This way you will not trigger any filters, and you will be able to tell from your click-through details how many recipients viewed the file.

Keep it clean - your list, that is

The importance of a clean list can't be stressed enough. A large number of repeated bounces or complaints is a surefire way to get blacklisted. Ensure your list is as clean as possible by making sure that:

* hard bounces are removed,
* unsubscribes are removed within 7 days (this is also required by law, though removing immediately is preferred), and
* you are using a strict opt-in-only process.

"I'm on the list"

Think of a bouncer at a popular club. If your name is "on the list," you'll get in with no questions asked. So make a continual effort to get recipients to add your email address to their address book or safe list. You can present this request during the opt-in process when subscribers are maximally tuned in to ensuring receipt of your email. It is especially important that you include this request in your initial welcome message.

And finally, you should add it to the top of all email communications. This can be something simple, such as: "Please add companyname@emailaddress.com to your address book to ensure messages from Company Name are delivered to your inbox."

Protect your Rep

Arguably, if you are taking all these steps, your reputation as a responsible emailer should not be tarnished. Once you have established yourself as a responsible email marketer, you can use this reputation to your advantage. Gaining whitelisted status with ISPs or becoming a Certified Sender through Return Path are a couple examples. These practices will help ensure that your messages are delivered to the intended reader's inbox. All this is important, because reputation is gaining favor with ISPs as a critical factor in deciding which emails to deliver and which emails to block.

By addressing these five areas when planning your next email campaign, you can make sure that you aren't accidentally perceived as a spammer. This will not only help ensure your messages are delivered, but will also help ensure that you're sending relevant information to the right people in a way that is not bothersome. ]]> Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:52:02 CDT 64637e862ad0406180af87e96237120b Strategies for Using Dynamic Content
Dynamic content allows you to create a single email message that delivers multiple versions based on recipients' demographic profile or other data. The possibilities are limited only by the data you have for your subscribers and the content you have that is relevant to that data. Messages can be customized based on variables such as:

* a recipient's personal data (state, status, etc.),
* past purchase history,
* past email activity, or
* any other data you have about your email recipients.

Rather than sending a generalized message to an entire list, dynamic content gives you the power to send very specific, tailored messages to each person - messages that are more likely to generate profitable action.

Dynamic content and personalization

A phrase you may hear along with "dynamic content" is "personalization." Personalization can be viewed as a simple execution of dynamic content, inserting text held in your database into a message. At its most basic, personalzation inserts a salutation such as "Dear First Name." We encourage you to think beyond first name. Personalization allows you to insert any text for which you have a data field. Here are some other examples for using personalization:

* User-specific information, like customer number
* Contact information for a salesperson in the recipient's region
* Location information for the store closest to the recipient

Dynamic content takes personalization to the next level, enabling you to replace groups of text or images based on recipient data. For example, an electronics retailer could use dynamic content to deliver an email newsletter with an opening paragraph about computers on sale or a paragraph about new MP3 players. The actual paragraph that was delivered would depend on the recipient.

How can you use dynamic content?

The possibilities for customizing messages with dynamic content tools are almost endless. Here are some real-world challenges that email marketers are already using this powerful technology to solve:

* Customizing updates by state, province or other geographical characteristics
* Substituting entire paragraphs of text or graphics based on demographic data
* Creating cross-sell offers based on previous purchases
* Alerting customers of consumable products (items or components that need to be replaced on a regular schedule) or recurring services (which need to be performed at specific intervals, such as oil changes and tune-ups).

Dynamic content tips to keep in mind

In general, the more audience segments and variations of your message that you want to create, the more compelling dynamic content becomes. Dynamic content can save you many hours that you would otherwise spend creating, managing and sending numerous variations of your email message to your list segments. However, if you don't have content that makes sense for each segment, or you don't have a list that can be segmented on specific data, dynamic content may not fit a need for you.

Dynamic content is a powerful tool that requires planning. Here are a few areas to address before sending your first message using dynamic content.

* Do you have the ability and bandwidth to create content tailored to each of your key audience segments?
* You'll need to assign rules to the content. (This is easy to do in SubscriberMail.) For example, to deliver paragraph "A" to a recipient if she is an existing customer, you'll need to create a rule for existing customers and assign paragraph "A" to that rule.
* Before sending your dynamically generated messages, you'll need to test the varying message versions to ensure each scenario and audience segment will receive messages that are cohesive and make sense.

Dynamic content can help deliver improved results from your email marketing efforts. SubscriberMail makes it easy for you to create and manage dynamic messages and campaigns. Additionally, our reporting capabilities enable you to view the results of your overall campaign, as well as drill down to see how each audience segment performed so you can further sharpen the effectiveness of your dynamic messages.
]]> Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:47:11 CDT 7355d7d5fbd340d2808187e96237120b Guidelines for Effective Email Creative
As more of your competitors begin to use email marketing aggressively, the pressure is growing to make your messages stand out. In addition, because your target audiences are over-messaged, you only have an average of three seconds to capture their attention and get them to take your desired action. That's why you need to consider every aspect of your email's creative strategy and execution. Here are some tips to help you improve the effectiveness of your email messages:

Keep it relevant.
Readers of email are merciless. If your messages are not targeted to their needs, they will quickly delete your message or, worse yet, they may unsubscribe from your mailing list. To increase the relevance of your messages, think about how to make creative connections with what's going on in your readers' world. Possibilities include holiday and seasonal promotions, connections to major news stories and entertainment events.

Optimize text for scannability.
Remember, most visitors won't read your entire email but will simply scan it, looking for clues to quickly answer their questions. For best results, use short blocks of text and bullets to make your message easier to scan. A call to action should be visible "above the fold" - that is, within the first screenful of information that the reader will see. Make sure that any links are clearly formatted as clickable links. If you're using images for links, make sure they look clickable as well (for example, a button that contains the words "more information" or "order now").

HTML considerations.
Different email programs render HTML differently. They may display table, style and background formatting and other HTML elements in slightly different ways. So it's critically important to test your messages in all of the major email clients, including Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Google Mail.

Use images sparingly.
Given the size of the email canvas, it's tempting to want to fill it with large, complex images. But don't do it. Larger images take more time to download than smaller ones. Also, because of security concerns, some email programs are set up with images disabled. Your message should be understandable, even if the images aren't visible. Try viewing your test message in each email client with the images turned off, so you can identify problems and make any necessary design changes before you send your message to your readers. For best results, use a balance of words and images in your messages.

Rich media.
Embedding Flash, video and audio into emails is a powerful way to add impact to your campaigns. Depending upon the level of sophistication of your target audience, however, they may not be able to view Flash movies or respond to them. Proceed carefully with rich media.

The relationship between testing and creative.
One of the best ways to refine your email creative strategy is through testing. Split your email list and send each segment a variation of your message's text, images, layout and other elements. Then analyze the resulting data to determine your readers' preferences, and optimize your future messages accordingly.

Optimizing email creative is both an art and a science. It should also be a never-ending process. Armed with the tips and strategies in this newsletter and our whitepaper, Guidelines for Effective Email Creative, you should be able to significantly improve the creative design and execution of your email campaigns. ]]> Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:44:21 CDT 9cf5f01fdfa7470f8b2687e96237120b Five challenges for a successful email strategy
Challenge #1: Test at least one metric per email campaign.
Going forward, testing will become even more important to improve your email campaigns. Before you can capitalize on the good or make changes to turn the poor into powerful, you need to know what aspects of your email campaigns are doing well or what are doing poorly. There's so much opportunity to test, there's no reason you should send a campaign without testing one metric. Here's a list that will get you through at least the next six months:

*Subject lines. It's quick and easy. Everyone should be testing subject lines!
*Creative elements and design.
*Long copy vs. short copy. It's long been debated. Which does your audience respond to?
*Best day to send emails. It varies across industries. Don't leave something so important to a whitepaper that reports averages. Do your own testing to find what day works best for you.
*Best time of day to send emails. Again, do your own testing to find what time of day works best for you.
*Landing pages. Are you sending visitors to a specific landing page, or to your homepage where they have to search and find what they're looking for?
*Conversions or website activity. Which emails pushed people to your website, and which emails pushed people to take action on your website?

Challenge #2: Decrease your list size to increase list performance.
To push your list to perform stronger, you need to weed out the names on your list that aren't responding. Of course, you want to increase your list with new email addresses at the same time (see Challenge #3). But the point is, get rid of those old email addresses that aren't performing. Here are some suggestions for cleaning house:

*Take a close look at your lists and list segments. Are there some list segments you are never using? If so, clean them out.
*Review lists of people who have not responded to messages in the past few months. Maybe they should be contacted in a different way than the rest of your list. If they still do not respond, take them off your lists. Remember, today's email success is about quality, not quantity.
*Review any new list segments you may want to make. Are there any ways to segment and strengthen messages to various groups? If so, segment them now and start communicating more effectively to those groups.

Challenge #3: Only use permission-based opt-in processes.
Sometimes permission is defined in different ways. Make sure your list is really an opt-in list. It's a common practice to collect email addresses from customers or prospects who complete a form on your website and provide their email address. Whether it's for a white paper, an online contest or something else, if they didn't expressly say, "Yes, please email me," they haven't opted in to receive email from you. Instead, put a check box on this form with an option to sign up for email. Then, only send to those who check it (and never pre-check it for them). Here are some other ways to collect permission-based email addresses:

*Add a signup box for your email newsletter on every page of your website
*Add a signup checkbox at every opportunity - a contact form, a webinar signup, purchasing a product, etc.
*Provide an incentive to increase optins
*Provide a link to opt in to additional emails in your transactional email messages

Challenge #4: Revitalize, refresh, rejuvenate, re-energize.
Take a fresh look at your email, and you'll see perhaps it's time for a fresh new look for your email. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

*Do the designs of my email marketing templates and messages still fit?
*Are the content elements in my messages still relevant?
*Do I have enough calls to action in my emails?
*What is one item I could add or change that would improve the look of my email?
*How do my email messages compare to my print collateral? To my website? To the rest of my marketing efforts?
*Is a template and/or message format "facelift" in order?

Challenge #5: Be on the lookout for new email technologies and trends.
There are a lot of new electronic communication opportunities and technologies you should keep an eye out for. Look for more info on these trends in future issues of Optin News. Here are some new technologies we'll be covering in coming months:

*RSS
*Sender authentication
*Technologies for quantifying your success in terms of website traffic and activity

We recommend working these challenges into your email marketing plans. Give us a call for help on how to implement one new item, or all of them. After all, our success is your success. ]]> Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:34:21 CDT 89592b63f3f94c17af5887e96237120b Improve the deliverability of your email messages
So how can you improve your email deliverability to take advantage of the positives and reduce the negatives? There are a number of steps you and your email provider can take.

Maximize your list quality
Poor list quality is one of the leading causes of legitimate email being incorrectly branded as spam. Make sure that you have explicit permission from every address on your email lists. This is one of the biggest steps you can take to minimize deliverability problems. If someone has opted-in to receive email from you, then they have already established a relationship with you, and they are much less likely to view your messages as spam.

You can also improve list quality by removing email addresses from your list that haven't been active in some time, i.e. they haven't opened a message from you in the last six months. SubscriberMail allows you to easily find and remove these inactive email addresses with Dynamic Filters.

Avoid spam "trigger" words
Messages containing certain keywords, such as "free" or "teen," often cause messages to get caught in keyword filters at ISPs and individual email programs. SubscriberMail customers can utilize a built-in "Spam Score" tool to analyze the content of each message they create. Spam Score enables you to identify and solve any potential problems that could raise a red flag with spam filters. It also gives you suggestions on how to resolve problem words or phrases if any are found.

Cull your lists for bounces
ISPs sometimes penalize email senders if the messages they're sending result in a large number of "bounces." Be sure to review your lists on a regular basis and remove from your lists any email addresses that hard bounce or that continue to soft bounce. A hard bounce is an email address that is undeliverable because of permanent failure, such as "This account does not exist." A soft bounce is an email address that is undeliverable because of temporary failure, such as "Mailbox full." We automatically handle bounce processing for you, so the lists you're using to send messages are as clean as possible. If your provider doesn't do this for you, then you need to remove addresses with multiple bounces from your lists on a regular basis.

Know and work with your ESP
For best results, the email services provider you select should have someone who is responsible for maintaining ISP relations, monitoring delivery and resolving any issues that may arise.

Make sure that your email provider supports emerging email delivery technologies, such as Sender Score Certified, Sender ID and SPF. We closely monitor these emerging technologies as part of our efforts to maximize your email deliverability.

In summary, maximizing your deliverability should become an integral part of your company's email marketing strategy. All it takes is a commitment to adopt several common-sense business practices, and select an email services vendor that manages ISP relations and monitors emerging delivery technologies. ]]> Mon, 22 May 2006 11:17:53 CDT c86a6bff55874e5bbf14b19ce2d9ad9c Increase response and ROI through greater relevancy with list segmentation
Simply put, people care about what's relevant to them, and they don't have the time or inclination to weed through what's not. So why send them content that's not relevant? Send your customers only the information that matters to them, and watch your response rates rise.

The trick is to first know what content is relevant to them, then divide your email list into groups of people interested in the same information. Don't know what that is? Ask them. Check the end of this article for ideas on how to easily collect this information from your subscribers.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER
Once you know what content your subscribers find relevant to them, divide your list into segments that make sense to your company or business model. You are probably already used to segmentation in your traditional marketing efforts, but many organizations overlook segmentation in their email initiatives. Some typical strategies for segmentation include:

Geography - This is an easy, fairly obvious segment. For example, your customer in Florida is likely not interested in a snowmobile. And your customer in Minnesota probably isn't interested in a jet ski-not in the winter, anyway.

Geography can also be an indicator of buying patterns and other influences on the purchase cycle. Take the high tech industry, for example. In high tech pockets like Silicon Valley and Boston, early adopters are far more common.

Demographics - This is another easy one, and can make a lot of sense. For example, we know men and women can interpret information quite differently. Younger vs. older audiences take in information in different ways as well.

Job title and function - Are you emailing potential users with no - or all the - buying power? An owner or CFO may want to know about ROI. A middle manager may just want to make his or her job easier. And an engineer or programmer wants to find better ways to work. And so on.

Purchasing frequency - Less frequent purchasers may require a time-sensitive offer to encourage them to act. Or maybe you want to reward frequent buyers with exclusive privileges via email.

Monetary spending - Adjust resources so you're dedicating your efforts toward customers who spend the most money with your company.

CUSTOMIZE TO MAXIMIZE
When you've segmented your list according to what works for your business model, maximize action and conversion by sending customized messages to your different audiences. Customize the message content, customize the offer, the subject line, the time of day you send, etc. - all in a way that is directly relevant to the audience you're sending to.

MEASURE AND MODIFY
This should be nothing new since you're already tracking your email campaigns for response and conversion rates. Certainly your overall response rate should rise when you send relevant messages to carefully selected audiences. If a particular segment isn't responding as well as the others, review and make adjustments to improve response. If you don't see a significant overall increase in response rates when you send to segmented lists, then save resources by only sending one email.

EASILY ELICIT THE INFO YOU NEED
At signup - Collect information and ask your subscribers what is most useful to them while they're signing up to receive emails from you. This can be handled in a couple of ways.

1) Make the info required to sign up. This is advisable only if the information is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, you risk losing signups.

2) Include the additional fields but make them optional to sign up. However, be careful not to add too many fields or the mere length of the form may scare people away.

3) After they've signed up, ask them to provide additional information on a separate page to avoid losing signups.

Re-register - If you've been publishing for a while, ask subscribers to re-register. Advise them that you want to make sure their info is up to date. This is also a good way to make sure your list is fresh.

Survey - Send an email and ask subscribers to complete a short survey. To increase response, offer a premium or fun prize. ]]> Wed, 03 May 2006 11:25:28 CDT 0eca0ee3f1014b32925787e96237120b Maximize email performance and increase conversions with effective landing pages
Too often marketers send readers to a generic, existing page on their website instead of designing a page that is specific to the audience and the goal of their email message. Worse yet, links go to a page that doesn't house the information readers are looking for, forcing them to click further to find what they're looking for and ultimately complete a transaction. Conversion rates suffer as a result. However, a properly designed landing page can greatly increase your conversion rates. To maximize the performance of your email messages, consider creating effective landing pages following these 10 tips as a guideline. 1. Align your landing page with the main goal of your email message. A common mistake is to design a landing page that is not specific to the goal in order to appeal to a generic visitor or prospect. Just the opposite, your landing page should be highly focused. Think about your prospect and what you want him or her to do. Then design your landing page around that one goal.

2. Create a single path to your offer. You want to prevent visitors from wandering away from the path you want them to take. Therefore, eliminate unneeded elements, such as links to other resources, or other pages on your website. The consistent navigation bar that makes sense on a website doesn't necessarily make sense on a landing page. You don't want visitors to surf your site. You want them to complete the one action on which your landing page is focused.

3. Match the message and elements of your landing page with your e-mail message. For best results, repeat the headline from your e-mail at the top of your landing page. This gives visitors a feeling of familiarity and comfort. It tells them that they have arrived at the right place.

4. Keep it short and sweet. If at all possible, keep all content above the fold. If visitors have to scroll to find what they're looking for, chances are they won't find it. And if they don't find it, they won't convert.

5. Design for scan-ability. Just as prospects won't read every word of your email, they won't read every word of your landing page either. They will quickly scan the page, looking for further information that compels them to take an action. Make sure your headlines, sub-headings and graphics enable visitors to skim your landing page's content to quickly learn what you're offering and how it will benefit them, and most important, make sure it clearly points out how they can easily take the desired action. If your goal is sales, point readers to a page where they can place their order right there.

6. Lead the eye. Make good use of copy, graphics and white space to lead the reader along the path to your offer. Place images next to the most important text, as readers are more likely to read this text. Use varying font sizes to convey importance. Readers will read larger text first. Use a font color to highlight specific text, but keep the number of colors used to two or three at most (including black). Anything more will be confusing for readers. Resist the temptation to use sidebars that aren't relevant or other distracting elements.

7. If your desired action is to have the visitor fill out a form, keep it brief, and thoroughly pre-test it. Remember, this form may be just the first step of your sales process. You don't want to scare off prospects by asking for too much information.

8. If you are collecting personal information, provide a link to your privacy policy. Most online users are reluctant (for good reason) to disclose personal information without knowing how that information will be used. Be sure your privacy policy states that you do not rent, sell or share information with any other parties.

9. Test, test, test. Just like you should test your email creative, we recommend that you test different elements and copy on your landing pages to learn what works best. You may want to consider web analytics software that allows you run A/B tests. These programs alternate the version of your landing page that visitors see, and track the results of each.

10. Track results. If you don't know how your landing page performed, you can't tell what worked and what didn't work and you can't make necessary improvements to increase performance.

Landing pages are important to maximize the performance of your email marketing campaigns. Your email message and landing page should work together closely for best results. ]]> Tue, 02 May 2006 08:44:43 CDT d66743694c53450b86bc87e96237120b How to determine your optimal email frequency
Not frequent enough. Most marketers are concerned about mailing to their list too often. Commonly, we see that organizations are not mailing frequently enough. As a general rule of thumb, you want to "touch" your list at least once a month. If you are mailing any less frequently, you may be losing your readers' interest and not staying "top of mind" in their inbox.

Be realistic about your resources. Many marketers try to develop an overwhelming email marketing plan and don't have the resources to deliver on that plan. It's better to tackle a high-quality monthly newsletter and have audiences respond well to it than to have unfulfilling messages scattered more frequently that don't represent your brand.

Review and understand message metrics. Analyze and review the metrics from your campaigns. If possible, look at trends vs. just single message results. You can usually spot opportunities for increasing or decreasing frequency based on how your audience is responding. Declining open rates and/or click-through rates and increasing unsubscribe rates over time can be indicators of over-mailing or list fatigue. Contrarily, if these rates remain steady, your frequency is right on target or you may even be able to mail more frequently. Just keep an eye on results for any downward trends, and adjust accordingly.

WIIFM. "What's in it for me?" Think about your reader, and specifically what type of content they will find valuable. Don't bother sending messages more frequently to your audiences if you don't have the content (or the resources to create the appropriate content) to give them. Effective frequency and relevant content go hand-in-hand. Your readers will respond much more consistently if you give them what they are hoping for, and not just fulfill your content ideals. Take a close look at the content you are providing and see how timely the information is and how timely it should be communicated. Try to create a balance of marketing content and content that accurately and positively affects your brand.

Segment audiences and treat them differently. One set of frequency guidelines usually doesn't fit for all of your potential audiences. Try to segment your list and consider how frequency may affect each segment differently. Some audiences may require or respond to more frequent communication (perhaps once a week), while other groups may be more comfortable with a message only once a month. You can also let your audience decide (as long as you have the resources to follow through). Ask readers when they opt-in how frequently they prefer to be contacted.

As you can see, there is no short or direct answer for what frequency works best. Our experience shows the most effective use of frequency depends upon your audience, what they are expecting, what you can deliver, and continual analysis of where success occurs.

SubscriberMail has the experience and expertise to help you determine the email marketing practices that will be effective for you. Contact us today for help creating successful email campaigns for your organization. ]]> Tue, 11 Apr 2006 01:47:26 CDT fbec2f83087e4e2f96d6b19ce2d9ad9c The Buzz About RSS - How you can use RSS in your marketing communications
RSS allows the interested party to subscribe to a very specific stream of information - news stories, advertisements, special interest articles, etc. The content must first be published to RSS, called an RSS feed (accomplished via xml). Second, the person receiving the content must have an RSS reader, an application or client that supports RSS feeds. (In some applications, this capability is already built in. If not, a simple web download will get you started.) The RSS reader pulls content published to the selected RSS feed and displays it for the subscriber to read. The RSS reader continually checks RSS feeds for new items on a set schedule - every 20, 40, 60 minutes, etc. - and pulls any new items it finds.

RSS AND EMAIL

RSS and email are similar in that both are great ways to communicate electronically. They also have unique strengths. With email, you can provide your audience a complete branded experience. You can push readers to your website, track who opened your message, clicked a link, etc. All of these aspects are an e-marketer's dream. Conversely, your email list is only as good as your opt-in process. Depending on how you gathered your list, your readers may or may not be truly interested in hearing from you.

RSS targets readers who are actively pursuing your published information. With RSS, the only way your reader will receive items from you is if he or she specifically subscribed to your RSS feed. RSS subscribers are your most captive audience. Additionally, your feed will always be delivered and it will always be delivered to a place where it's not competing with anything else. Unlike a typical email inbox where your message competes with messages from other senders, your RSS feed stands alone.

Will RSS replace email? In a word: No. RSS still faces some challenges. Though it opens the door to a great dialogue between you and readers, it doesn't lend itself to branding as easily as email and there are no mature systems in place to track RSS subscribers and their activity. Additionally, the reality is that the majority of your prospects still need a push from you before they take action. Email will remain a robust tool in customer communication.

HOW TO MAKE RSS WORK FOR YOU

How can you make RSS work for your business model? Think of anything that's timely or valuable to your customers: product updates, new services, special offers or sales, press releases, events, new hires, etc. Then publish them to an RSS feed. This is information you are likely publishing to html currently on your website. Now all you need are subscribers. Still sound a bit complicated for you? SubscriberMail can help. With our integrated RSS generator, you can easily publish content from Content Manager to an RSS feed in just a few quick steps. Give us a call, we'll show you how. 866-622-2600.

RECEIVE OPT-IN NEWS AS RSS
Give RSS a try! Subscribe to our Email Marketing News RSS feed. Just copy and paste this URL in your RSS reader: http://feeds.subscribermail.com/rss/9fecfa0e884d4810b357b19ce2d9ad9c.rss

Need more information about RSS, like how to set up an RSS reader? Download our white paper, An Introduction to RSS. ]]> Thu, 16 Mar 2006 10:36:54 CDT c4a3d0d200584b2b94ddb19ce2d9ad9c