The Messaging Times

How to Create a Text-Only Part of Your HTML Email

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Tom O'Leary

Although most email recipients today receive HTML email, some prefer to receive a text-only version of your message. GroupMail allows senders to include an automatically generated text version of their HTML message or a custom text-only message part for those recipients who prefer text-only format. If you create a text-only part for your message, then that portion will display only when recipients have their email clients set to view text-only format.

More importantly, the text will display to antispam filters who check the image/HTML to text ratio. Adding a text-only part to your HTML message will help to satisfy this criteria of antispam filters.

To create a text-only portion for your next email campaign, simply click on the Plain Text Message Part tab at the bottom of GroupMail’s message editor when composing your message.

GroupMail Plain Text Message Part

Here, you can select to have GroupMail auto-generate a text version or create your own custom text version which is neatly formatted for text-only recipients.

Posted in design, email, email marketing, emarketing, GroupMail, Infacta, Marketing, newsletters | Tagged bulk email, email marketing, GroupMail, HTML messages, image to text ratio, Infacta, plain-text part, text only email, text-only recipients | 2 Comments

Email Marketing and Twitter: Forward to a Network (FTAN)

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Tom O'Leary

Let’s face it, Twitter and Facebook are making it much easier for people to share information with their network of friends and followers. Of course, marketers around the globe are wondering how they can leverage this ability to easily share content and get their content to go viral – or at least spread a bit more in a secondary push by social media.

Interestingly, a recent study shows that email is still the most widely used platform to share content with just under 50% of email users actively sharing (or forwarding) content to others.

Source: ShareThis – The Value of Sharing; Social Engagment

Of course, the impact of someone sharing (or retweeting) a link on Twitter has the potential to be far greater. Each retweet could mean a thousand new click-throughs.With email FTAF, content is more likely to be distributed in much smaller groups.

So how do email marketers get their recipients to share their content on Twitter?

There is a discussion on Mark Brownlow’s Email Marketing Reports today that sheds some light on the questions that email marketers are asking themselves (or should be) about how best to leverage social media in their email campaigns.

“…It’s very easy to add a “tweet this” link, either through an automated feature provided by your software or ESP or simply by using a link like this:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=See%20this:%20URL”>Share on Twitter</a>

So easy, in fact, it barely takes thinking about.

But should we consider the wider consequences? Are there, in fact, any wider consequences beyond the possibility of some kind of viral spread (however limited)?..” continue reading and participate in the discussion

Do you have a “Share This” link in your email campaigns? If not, why not?

Posted in design, email, email marketing, emarketing, Insights, Marketing, newsletters | Tagged email and social media, email content on twitter, forward to a friend, share this link in email | 1 Comment

Old SpamAssassin Rule Penalizes Email in 2010

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Tom O'Leary

An old spam rule contained in SpamAssassins default installation adds spam points to any messages with the date 2010. Well, now that 2010 has arrived, those penalty points are affecting legitimate email because, well, all email sent today will have a date of 2010 associated with it.

“…Any emails sent as of January 1, 2010 to servers running SpamAssassin before the fix was made available, and to any servers running SpamAssassin that have not implemented the fix, will experience a higher than normal SpamAssassin score. This will effect delivery for messages where the score increase is significant enough to put the email’s score above a filtering threshold

A fix to this issue has been made available, but it may take some time for servers running SpamAssassin to make the necessary updates since administrators are the ones who have to make the fix happen…” continue reading

So if you are noticing a decrease in inbox delivery rates, you might check into this.

Posted in email, email marketing, emarketing, Marketing, newsletters, spam | Tagged 2010 spam, antispam rules, SpamAssassin rules | Leave a comment

Conversation vs. Promotion

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Tom O'Leary

Mark Brownlow wrote a nice piece about the differences between email newsletters and promotions. We are beginning to see more conversations taking place in the marketplace, especially with the increase in Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Not too many years ago, we would sit back in an almost powerless fashion and watch the persuasive promotions crafted to get us to buy something – a certain product or service. Consumers are demanding a more direct and transparent relationship with vendors today. Heck, even CEOs of major companies are communicating directly with their customers today on blogs, Facebook, Twitter and in email.

Consumers today are savvy creatures who often take glossy ads for what they are worth. Product and service promotions certainly still influence behavior and cause action. But, as consumers, we have become much more desensitized to advertising over the years. Especially in our inbox, which fills with promotion after promotion from product and service providers each day.

Today, many consumers are seeking timely and relevant responses to their needs from authentic and engaged providers/partners who are actually listening to them rather than persuasive pitches glorifying products that may or may not respond to their needs. Consumer behavior is changing. The game is shifting.

What conversations are you taking part in? What relationships are you building? Are your emails purely promotional messages or do they respond to topical conversations in your industry? Do your emails bridge recipients to timely and relevant conversations that are taking place about something they are interested in? Hopefully, your email campaigns are doing both.

Posted in email, email marketing, emarketing, Insights, Marketing, newsletters | Tagged consumer behavior, email conversations, email newsletters, email promotions, marketing conversations, online relationships, persuasive pitches, promotional email | 1 Comment

2009 Online Holiday Shopping Review (Green Tuesday?)

Posted on December 23, 2009 by Tom O'Leary

As Will.i.am sang, it’s a new day. And that day is Green Tuesday (December 15th) which trumped all other online holiday shopping days this year with $913 Million in sales on the day.

Will.I.am – It’s A New Day / NEW
Uploaded by Dritingtofrenchus. – Explore more music videos.

December 15th saw a solid 21% increase in sales for the same day last year — the biggest percentage increase thusfar this holiday season. This put Green Tuesday at the top of the 2009 online holiday shopping charts.