The Messaging Times

Recently, I revisited a 2007 article by Jeanne Jennings (of ClickZ fame,) one of today’s leading experts in email marketing. In 15 Tips for Getting Email Delivered to the Inbox, she offers some wise advice and even eludes to the cost of implementing each delivery-enhancing element.

I’ll add two three four more tips to her comprehensive list:

1. Send a text-only part of your message along with your HTML email. That way, text-only recipients (and there are some) will get your message and it may please certain filters. (FREE)
2. Keep your HTML design simple. Don’t complicate the campaign too much for the sake of snazzy design. Email is not a website. It is a platform for communication. Good content is good content, whether it is wrapped in award-winning design packages or not. The more complicated your design, the more likely filters will flag it and the more likely that it will have problems rendering in some clients. (FREE)
3. Monitor your sender reputation and periodically check to see if your mail server IP address is on any DNS based email blacklists. (FREE)
4. Have your recipients renew their subscriptions annually. Request that your recipients confirm their email addresses, update subscription information and express their interest in continuing to receive your emails. Be proactive and keep your list well maintained. This will also give you a chance to solicit additional information from your list (maybe include a request for birthday information for special promotions, sans the year or course.)

Can you think of any more delivery tips?

Al Iverson provides some sage advice about permission-based email opt-in practices. There are some valuable tips for structuring an effective email subscription strategy, to include design and content recommendations.

If I had a nickel for every time somebody lied to me about a list being confirmed opt-in, I’d be a rich man. How stupid do you think ISPs are? They can instantly tell when you’re hitting spamtraps, when too much of your mail attempts bounce, and when your mail generates too many complaints. Just because some ISPs provide data on this back to you doesn’t mean it’ll help you evade their filters and processes. Trust me, I’ve met most of these ISP guys, and they’re smarter than both me and you…continue reading

Permission can’t be faked and there are no short cuts for real, long term success in building an effective email list – a list made up of people who really do want to hear from you.

More and more key decision makers are reading their email on smartphones; and more and more of those key decision makers are using iPhones. What does your email look like on their screens?

“…Looks like the iPhone hasn’t lost its mojo after all. Apple announced today that more than 1 million iPhone 3G S had been sold during its debut weekend, well ahead of analyst expectations.

Apple also said that six million customers had downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 operating system boasting more than 100 added features. Few had predicted that the iPhone 3G S would match the million units sold out of the gate by the 3G model a year ago, especially since it was released in only eight compared to 21 countries last year…” read more

Here are some articles that will help to prevent your email from looking like a rotten apple on an iPhone:

1. The Mobile Version Link in HTML Email. Hmmm
2. Special Report: iPhones and Email Marketing. 10 Pros and Cons (Free Trial Subscription required)
3. How to Design Email for Mobile Devices
4. Email Design for iPhones
5. Mobile Email: The Marketing Challenges

One thing is for certain, you should start including an iPhone, Blackberry and other mobile devices on your list of clients that you test your email campaigns on. Unless of course, you don’t mind sending rotten apples to the key decision makers you communicate with.

Email marketers spend so much time analyzing delivery times, link placement, HTML designs, open rates, click-through rates and subject line copy that they often overlook a key ingredient of successful email campaigns – value. That’s not to say that the analytical side of email isn’t important. But optimizing the mechanics of an email campaign doesn’t actually provide any real value to recipients, so it will only get you so far. In the end, email recipients are looking for one thing. Value.

What real value do you offer to your email subscribers? Are they getting something that they can’t get from your website? Is your offer sufficiently attractive to make them actually look forward to receiving your next email? Have they told their friends, family and colleagues about it?

Email-only sales add value to your message because they provide an offer that is only available to those receiving the email. This will serve to persuade recipients to stay on your list and, more importantly, read your messages to see what’s on offer each week or month. Of course, this will only work if the email-only offers that you provide are attractive enough to your recipients so that they look forward to receiving them. Just because an offer is only available to email recipients doesn’t mean that it is of any great value.

My deleted items folder is a virtual wasteland of promotional messages offering 30-day trials, 20 dollar vouchers and 10 percent discounts. These promotions are so rote that we become desensitized to them very quickly. With so many competing offers, it is getting harder and harder to get email recipients to take notice and even harder to persuade them to take action.

Recently, I received an email-only offer from a local hotel for two free nights accommodation. That’s value. But how do they win? Well, my wife and I will probably have dinner there both nights, some spa treatments and, most importantly, spread the word to others. Empty beds earn them nothing. Good value earned them our attention and business.

By offering real value to your existing subscribers, you have a good chance of keeping them on your list, generating more wallet share and simultaneously creating buzz agents who will promote your brand. Seth Godin calls this flipping the funnel. Getting your existing customers to market your brand, products and services for you is something that brand managers dream of. To make it a reality, you just have to offer something of value that is worth talking about.

When you are analyzing your next email campaign, step back from the statistical figures and ask yourself one simple question. What great value did we offer our recipients during this campaign?

Smith Harmon compiled an interesting report using data from Retail Email Blog which illustrates how optimum retail email design differs from website design. Here are some of the key findings:

1. Most retail email marketers (88% in fact) use a horizontal navigation bar because it is more visible, especially in the preview pane of email recipients.
2. On average, fewer navigation bar(s)/links are used in email compared to websites. The average number of horizontal navigation links used by retail email marketers is 8.1, compared to 8.9 in websites. Personally, I think this is still too much for email. You only have a short time to convince someone reading an email to take some sort of action – and by giving too many choices and requiring too much thought about the options, you’re cutting into that decision-making time.
3. 52% of retail email marketers include a Sale/Outlet/Clearance link either in the horizontal navigation bar or somewhere else in their email.
4. Only 8% of retail email marketers include a link to Gift Cards in their emails.
5. Highlighting the Sale/Promotion link in red can be effective in generating conversions and is used by retailers such as REI.
6. HTML Text links are recommended over Image links for navigation bars in email so that those links will be visible whether images are blocked by email clients or not. Currently, 28% of retail email marketers use HTML Text links in their horizontal navigation toolbars. Up from only 15% last year. HTML Text links are much more common in vertical navigation bars with 60% of retail email marketers using HTML Text for vertical spaces.

This is a good report to read if you are interested in re-vamping your email designs with conversions in mind. You can download the report from the Smith-Harmon website.