I Introduction

One of the most effective ways to reach a large audience, even on a shoestring budget, is via email. There are over 1 billion Internet users in the world today. According to recent research, more than ninety percent of them use the Internet to send and receive email regularly (see Pew Internet Activities Report). As a result, many marketers consider email to be an essential tool for communicating with their customers and prospects. Email is used to promote products and services, provide support, generate traffic to websites, build and improve relationships and improve customer service. Some believe that email marketing is a science – others think of it as an art. Either way, it is the most widely used platform for online marketing today. Why?

Because it works!

Year after year, email garners the best Return on Investment (ROI) of all online marketing channels, returning $45.65 for every dollar spent in 2008.

Many people don’t realize that successful email marketing requires skill, patience, time and effort. It is not as easy as sending quick emails out to a list of people and watching your bottom line grow. Traditional and newly developed marketing tactics are required to persuade recipients to respond to a message. Because email is such a popular and effective online marketing tool, most of our recipient inboxes are already full before our own message arrives. Because of this heavy volume of email, it is not easy to catch the attention of your intended recipient. It is even more difficult to turn that attention into action. Today, it has become even more difficult because of the various mechanisms that have been put in place to protect us from spam.

Since the CAN-Spam Act of 2003, getting your messages delivered has become more and more difficult. Interestingly, subsequent antispam legislation seems to have affected legitimate businesses more than it has the major spammers who send the majority of spam that we see in our inbox. In fact, there are only about 300-600 individuals who send 80 percent of the spam that we see in our inbox (read The Spamhaus Project – ROKSO. Together, these 100 spam gangs continue to send heavy volumes of spam while the rest of us have more and more difficulty getting our messages through a growing list of antispam filters. But in a way, these antispam measures are helping email marketers. Out of all of this, Permission Marketing was born.

“Permission marketing is a term used in e-marketing. Marketers will ask permission before they send advertisements to prospective customers. It is used by some Internet marketers, email marketers, and telephone marketers. It requires that people first “opt-in”, rather than allowing people to “opt-out” only after the advertisements have been sent. The term was coined by Seth Godin in his book of the same name”… continue reading

When recipients request to hear from you, there is a better chance that they are interested in what you have to say. This concept has proved to yield higher conversion rates than the old batch and blast campaigns of yesterday. While the CAN-Spam Act doesn’t technically require you to have initial opt-in permission from a recipient, the anti-spam movement has many marketers searching for ways to increase trust and improve relationships via email. And that is a good thing. Mark Brownlow from email-marketing-reports.com explains how spam is actually defined differently by different people and that ultimately, it is your own recipient who determines whether your message is spam or not. He wrote an informative article that discusses the spectrum of permission email marketing and how perception plays a role in it all (Marketing Email or Spam?)

Even with all of these new rules and concepts, however, email marketing remains top of the leader board with regard to Return-on-Investment (ROI) year after year. Even with so many new online communication technologies at our disposal (i.e. Twitter, Facebook), the killer app from yesterday still reigns today. So let’s take a look at the different elements that make up an effective email marketing campaign.

II Campaign Strategy: The Blueprint

Would you buy a house that was built without a blueprint? Probably not. Well, you shouldn’t engage in an email campaign without a clear strategy either. Every successful business effort is driven by a strategy – an elaborate and systematic plan of action. Without one, you’re shooting in the dark. Sure you might hit something, but you’ll also miss a lot. Developing an effective email strategy isn’t difficult, but it is extremely important if you desire consistent results.

Essential elements of an effective email strategy include audience, content, value, frequency, measurement, resources and budget. Of course, each of these elements should be developed in line with strategy objectives and in support of your overall business vision. Let’s take a look at each of these elements in more detail.

Audience

The golden rule of public speaking is “know your audience”. The same is true for email marketing. The “who” in email marketing will often determine the “what” and vice versa. If your email list is full of 20-year old men and you are developing an email campaign to increase the sales of your range of professional woman’s shoes, then you are not off to a great start. When developing your strategy, define the different elements or demographics that you want to communicate with. If they are existing customers, segment them as much as possible so that each campaign can have real focus. Once your demographics are defined, you will have to give thought to where you are going to get subscribers who fit these demographics. Even if you already have a customer list, you’ll want to include a subscription mechanism in your email marketing campaign so that it is easy for other to subscribe.

Subscribers fatigue over time – loyalty fades. Don’t limit your strategy to just one subscription form on your website. Consider strategic places online where your intended audience will gather – and don’t forget that you can collect email subscriptions offline too. If you have a retail shop, a restaurant, hotel or realty agency in town, consider subscription mechanisms in those locations as well.

Content

Depending on the purpose of your email campaign, the style of writing may vary. For company newsletters, you might write with a personal touch. When advertising a new product, you may choose a more persuasive and promotional style.

Regardless of the purpose though, you want to keep your content relevant to the recipients on your list. Email content can be divided into several parts; the subject, the body and the signature. Your subject should clearly relate what the email is about. The body should clearly express your message and call-to-action. The signature should, at a minimum, contain relevant contact information and opt-out instructions. You might also determine how much content to include in your email messages. If you are interested in recipients visiting your website, you may choose to use a teaser format with links to full content on your site. Ideally, you should direct recipients to relevant links rather than attaching files to your email. Let your recipient decide what they want to consume rather than force-feeding them large volumes of content that takes longer to process and digest. Small is the new big. Less is more.

Value

Each message sent in an email campaign should be valuable to both your recipient and to your own objectives. Value, of course, can be defined in many ways. A good joke can be as valuable to a recipient as a promotional offer. Value to you, the sender, can mean increased subscription rates, more forward-to-a-friend actions and of course, higher conversion rates. The easiest way to ensure value to your recipients is to focus on one thing in each campaign. If you are running a promotion, use your email campaign to promote one item rather than your entire stock. Incorporate value into each campaign and include a value box in your email marketing checklist that we will discuss later. Determining the value of your email marketing campaigns is an important step in the development of your email marketing strategy.

Frequency

Think about when and how often you are going to send emails to your list. If you send email too often to your audience, they may become fatigued or lose interest. Too seldom and the relationship may decay. To find the right balance, consider your content. Do you have regularly updated stock lists that your customers would want to know about each week? If so, consider a weekly update campaign. You will also want to consider how much time you want to invest in managing your email marketing campaigns. Sending a weekly campaign can be a lot of work. Even monthly campaigns require a serious commitment. The important thing is that your frequency remains consistent so that your recipients can expect your message every time that it is sent. Consistency in frequency builds familiarity and trust. Consider this when developing your email marketing strategy. Don’t start off too enthusiastically if you can’t keep the pace up over time.

Measurement

In order to quantify the success of your email campaigns, you must incorporate a process to measure the results in your strategy. Tracking email campaigns is easy today with services like GroupMetrics, which will track every message sent and provide detailed reports on open and click-through rates of your campaign. Measuring your email campaign is the only way to understand how effective your efforts are, and what changes could be made to improve the next one. When developing your strategy, consider what elements you want to measure. Delivery rates, open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates are the most commonly measured actions in an email campaign. Other things to measure include bounce rates, opt-in (subscription) rates and opt-out (unsubscribe) rates. Consider measurement at the beginning of your strategy rather than as an afterthought.

Resources

In your email marketing strategy, you will need to outline the tools necessary to accomplish the task. Email marketing software, an ISP, mail server, website, database, tracking utility, templates, time and manpower are all resources that you will want to outline in your strategy. Make a resource list to keep the necessary resources organized.

Budget

Last, but not at all least is the budget of your email marketing strategy. Determine how much money will be invested in your campaigns each quarter of the year. How much will be spent on software or services, manpower (will you require a full-time position), time, mail servers and other elements of your campaign? Working with a budget will make it easier for you to measure the success of your email marketing efforts. If you know that you spent “x” dollars on email marketing each quarter and that your profited “y” dollars as a result of those efforts, you will be able to determine whether your efforts were effective.

Now, let’s take a look at the specific elements of an email marketing campaign.

III Campaign List(s): Who Are You Sending To?

An email marketers list is the cornerstone of his success – or failure; but building and maintaining a quality email list takes time and effort. Before implementing an email marketing campaign, marketers must have a list of people to send their message to. Building this list takes time. Email marketers must first implement a email subscription strategy to encourage people to request information from them. Often, this is done through the use of website subscription forms, incentives and partnerships with other sites that drive similar market traffic. In this chapter, we will discuss subscription methods, list management, maintenance, rental practices and segmentation.

Subscription Methods

Building a email subscriber list is important for anyone using email to communicate with customers. But compiling an effective list is even more important. Online consumers demand relevance, so list builders must focus on building targeted, highly-relevant lists rather than just gathering a bunch of email addresses. In this section, we will discuss list size, registration methods, data collection and permission requirements.

BIGGER Is Not Always Better

According to Marketing Sherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide, 18 percent of companies with online sales between 25-50 Million have house lists of 100,000-500,000 contacts, while 27 percent in the same earnings bracket manage with lists below 50,000. This shows that you can be as successful with fewer names on your list. The importance of quality in your email list might seem obvious; but many email marketers continue to focus on the size of the list rather than the quality of the leads in it. But the big questions still remain: How do you build the darn thing and what steps can you take to ensure that the names in it will be responsive to your message?

Effective Email Subscription Methods

The Call-to-Register

Regardless of any other tactics used to gather email addresses for your list, a clear call-to-register email subscription form should be available on your web site. For some reason, many websites bury their email subscription form on the page, making it difficult for visitors to see. Others don’t even have an email collection form on their front page. Because Internet users spend very little time making decisions on a website, it is important to make your registration form stand out. Here is an example of a good call-to-register as found on the Marketing Sherpa website:

As you can see, the call-to-register is at the top of the front page. It gives visitors options to choose what information they want to receive (relevance). Furthermore, it expresses value by attesting that 173,000 marketing, advertising and PR professionals already subscribe to this FREE, practical information. To top it all off, they promise potential subscribers that they will “not rent your email to anyone”, building trust from the start.

What they don’t do, however, is request any more information than the email address of the visitor. We’ll talk about data collection later. Beyond having an effective email registration presence on your website, there are other ways to increase subscription rates. Co-registration is one of them.

Co-registration

Co-registration is a growing trend amongst online businesses to gain subscribers to their message. Basically, co-registration partners businesses in registration efforts, so that a related product or service provider will ask customers on their site if they would be interested in subscribing to their partners content at the same time. If the content is relevant to their subscribers, there is a good chance that it will be effective. Here is an example of a site that uses co-registration in its subscription form:

As you can see above, when customers are registering for this site’s newsletter, they can also register simultaneously for other newsletters with related content (their co-registration partners’ newsletters!) Also notice how they have the partner subscriptions pre-checked. This could be seen as manipulative by some potential subscribers – and I wouldn’t recommend pre-checking co-registration suggestions. Let the recipient decide conclusively what they want to sign up for.

There is some concern about the delay in getting co-registered subscription information from partners incorporated in the house list; as delays in sending welcome messages to new subscribers can affect opt-in rates. That said, it has proved to be a successful tactic for many email marketers.

According to Marketing Sherpa, over 60 percent of co-registration users use between one to five partners for registration purposes. A much smaller percentage use over fifty partners to gather subscribers. Not dissimilar to affiliate partnerships, some marketers prefer fewer, more targeted partnerships while others choose higher exposure to larger audiences.

While most marketers engage in exchange-based co-registration partnerships, some prefer to pay for co-registration names, eliminating the administrative effort to gather names for others in exchange. The cost of a high quality (relevant) subscription name averages around $1-1.5 USD each in paid co-registration services. If building a list quickly is important to you, perhaps the investment will seem reasonable. Just make sure that your co-registrant partners have visitors who would be relevant to your business and that you calculate the ROI of each lead before spending the money.

Here are some other tactics to gather names and email addresses for your list that have proved to be effective for email marketers:

• Offering free trials and downloads

• Free newsletter offers

• Running online contests

• Coupons or discount incentives for registering details

• Recommendations (encouraging existing subscribers to forward your message to friends who might find it useful or relevant.)

• Providing a sample of the content that the subscriber will receive

• Having subscription-only content (articles, reports, white papers) on your site

To encourage visitors to register their email address and details, it is important to provide clear information about what they are subscribing to, the frequency of contact to expect and privacy information to ensure them that their data will not be released to others. But how much data do you need from subscribers?

What Data Should You Collect?

If you plan to personalize your email messages, which many email marketers do; then you will obviously need more than just an email address. At the very least, personalization will require a first and last name and email address. Ideally, as marketers, we want as much information from each customer as possible. But there is a delicate balance between gathering information and frustrating users to the point of not filling out the subscription form.

At a minimum, email addresses, first name and last name should be required on registration forms. That said, it would be wise to collect as much information as possible. By making other form fields optional, you can gather additional data without dissuading subscribers who might be hesitant to reveal more than their name and email address.

Research shows that online consumers are likely to give the following information without feeling overly suspicious or invaded:

• Name

• Email

• Work/home/mobile phone

• Address (city, state, country)

• Hobbies/Interests

• Mother’s maiden name

• Marital status, age and gender

• Industry classification

More sensitive information, like bank details, nationality, income levels and credit card data is perceived as private and is rarely shared online unless a trusted relationship already exists.

To that end, it might be prudent to request basic information when establishing the relationship and following up later with requests for more information to support your desire to personalize the experience for your customers. It’s not dissimilar to intimate personal relationships. It’s never wise to ask very personal questions on the first date. In relationships, we get to know each other over time, and share more information with each other as trust grows. The same is true for professional relationships online.

Making Lists More Effective

So, now we have methods to grow our list, but how do we make them effective? Pushing content to recipients who aren’t interested in your message will be ineffective and even counterproductive over time. The days of batch and blast email campaigns are gone. If you blindly send your messages to large, untargeted groups, you’re wasting your time and more than likely frustrating your recipients – which isn’t a good thing to do now that it’s so easy to report a message as spam. That’s why permission marketing is so important. You should only send email to recipients who request you to do so. There are different levels of permission email marketing, and each type of permission results in different response and conversion rates from recipients.

Standard Opt-in

When somebody gives their email address to a website, without confirming that they are interested in receiving email messages from the site. No confirmation email is sent to the recipient. Standard opt-ins might result in a larger list, but response and conversion rates from standard-opt in lists are low, and can generate significant numbers of complaints (or even accusations of spam!)

Confirmed Opt-in

With confirmed opt-in subscriptions, the recipient will receive an email notification confirming that they supplied their email address to a site. They aren’t required to respond or take any action to stay on the email list. Confirmed opt-in subscriptions receive slightly higher response from recipients, but are still met with complaints and can lead to frustration of recipients.

Double Opt-in

Double opt-in subscriptions require that the user respond to the confirmation email sent to them if they desire to continue receiving messages from the sender. If the recipient doesn’t reply to the confirmation, their name will be taken off the list. Because double opt-in subscriptions require effort on the recipient to respond, and because some won’t, the resulting list will be reduced in size. That said, the remaining list is comprised of recipients who confirmed interest in your message and are much more likely to convert into sales. Double opt-in lists have proved to result in fewer bounces, unsubscribe requests and spam complaints as well. Double opt-in lists also result in open rates that are substantially higher than the average, with one in five double opt-in marketers receiving open rates of 60 percent, double the industry average.

For any list to be effective, it needs to be comprised of people who are interested in your message and contain enough detail to support segmentation and personalization. The more details that you have in your list database, the more creative you can be with the personalization of your messages and segmentation of your lists. Personal details can be collected over time, as your relationship with your audience grows. One way to ensure that trust is maintained in your relationship with customers is to be upfront about their ability to unsubscribe from your list, and to make the unsubscribe process easy for them. If someone wants to stop receiving your messages, there really is no point to keep them on the list. All it will do is frustrate them and damage your brand reputation.

The effectiveness of any email list is related entirely to the relevance that your message has to it. If your message isn’t relevant to the people on your list, you are wasting your time and testing their patience.

List Management

It simply isn’t possible to communicate effectively with your list unless you have a database with details of your contacts on it. Regardless of what database you use to store contact information, it is important to think of its functionality when populating it with content. Simply having a database full of email addresses is useless if you want to personalize your messages to groups of recipients or segment your campaigns into targeted groups. To use your database effectively for personalized email messages, there are two main issues to consider; namely, field separation and data style.

THINK PERSONALIZATION AND SEGMENTATION!!

When adding data to your contact database, it is important to think how that data will be used when communicating via email. The most common field used in email personalization is the name field. But there are many other ways to personalize effectively beyond using someone’s name in your message. To most effectively personalize email messages, it is important to separate fields and input data strategically with email communication in mind. It is also important to think about the style of data that you put into each field.

Separating Database Fields

When building your database, it is important to break down the data to the greatest extent possible in order to maximize flexibility when using it to personalize emails. For example, rather than one Name field, split the data into two separate fields so that you can personalize using either the First Name, Last Name or both. Consider also using a separate field for prefixes (Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr.) The same is true with any content that can be separated (i.e. addresses can be split into house name or number, street 1, street 2, city, county, state, country, zip code, etc.)

Obviously, the more fields that you have in your database per contact, the more flexible your personalization strategy will be. Consider the following uses of personalization in an email message:

When separating database fields with email personalization in mind, it is important to think about how each field might be used in your messages. To that end, it is important to think about what data style to use in each field.

Note: I already see that the screen shot that I put together for this article is not truly optimized for personalization. Can you see why? In the address field, I should have split the house name/number from the street name. That way, you could use the street name for personalization in an email (i.e. !*Street Name*! is abuzz with the news of lower mortgage rates!)

The Importance of Data Style within Fields

When populating fields in a database, it is important to understand how those fields might be used when personalizing emails later. First and foremost, the style used should be consistent throughout. When sending a message to a database list of contacts, consistency is crucial. For example, if you abbreviate some State fields (i.e. AL instead of Alabama) and spell others out entirely (i.e. New York), recipients will have different experiences with your message. While the New York recipient will be chuffed to see: New York is a great place! The Alabama recipient will be less impressed with: AL is a great place!

When using fields like “Hobbies”, ensure that the data style can be used successfully in a group message. Using the above examples, Swimming, Tennis and Surfing, it would be safe to use:

!*Hobbies*! is a great activity.

It might not be so clear if we used that statement if our data style for the Hobbies field was swim, tennis and surf. Not only would “swim is a great activity” sound odd, but we didn’t think of the use of capitalization when adding our data to the field. Ensure that names, streets, cities, states, counties, and countries are capitalized correctly in your database. Be consistent with other fields. In the example database above, the Hobbies field is capitalized. That’s fine, but make sure that you use the data in that field at the beginning of a sentence or in a bulleted list; and not in the middle of a sentence.

Spell out all field entries in their entirety so that they can be used in grammatically correct sentences within your message. Also, to successfully use fields like Hobbies when capturing the data automatically from an online form, consider using a complete sentence in your form:

I like to [ fill in the blank ] when I’m on holidays.

That way, the word supplied is in relation to a verb that can be used later in a grammatically correct context.

What happens when fields are blank?

Rarely is every field in a database filled in, especially if the fields are generated automatically by online forms. Some visitors might not want to include their street name, or you might not have someone’s city listed. What do you do to prevent a blank space showing up in some messages?

Good email marketing software, like Infacta’s GroupMail, has IF/THEN functions available. If you were sending an email to a group from your customer database for example, and wanted to personalize the message using your customers’ first names, you would merge the name field from your database into the subject or body of your email (i.e. Dear !*First Name*!) But what if some customers didn’t supply a first name? What if you only have a prefix and last name for some customers? With IF/THEN functions, you can select a term to replace those empty fields. So recipients without a first name in your database would receive, for example, Dear Customer (or whatever term you decide to replace empty fields with, i.e. Friend, etc.)

Dear IF(!*FIRSTNAME*! = Nothing THEN Customer ELSE !*FIRSTNAME*!)ENDIF

GroupMail’s Tweaker Add-on can also correct problems with name fields and capitalization in databases. Read List Management: Name Splitting, Capitalization and More.

Keeping email personalization in mind when building a database might require additional time upfront, but it is well worth the additional effort. A robust database will help communicators to be more effective with personalization and segmentation and ultimately strengthen relationships with their audience.

List Maintenance

Over time, changes take place to your list: some recipients opt-out from your email offers and new people join. Email addresses and other details change. It is important to spend time maintaining your email list. Leaving it unattended will only make things difficult over time. There are three important list management duties that can be automated with email marketing software to make your life a lot easier:

• Adding new subscribers to your list,

• deleting existing subscribers who opt-out, and

• removing email addresses based on a number of bounces that the address has.

Even if these processes are automated, however, it is important to keep an eye on things yourself to ensure that everything is well maintained. Removing unsubscribe requests and email addresses that bounce is very important. If you don’t do this in a timely fashion, you will irritate recipients who have requested to stop receiving emails from you and overburden your mail server with repeated bounces of invalid email addresses. A senders reputation is affected most by spam complaints by recipients and high bounce rates. Read How ISPs Measure Your Sender Reputation.

List Rental Practices

To rent or not to rent? That is the question. Research consistently shows that organically grown lists result in better conversion rates. But it takes time to build an email list of any significant size, and it is tempting for some to spread the news of their latest offer today, not tomorrow. Marketing Sherpa published a guide to renting email lists earlier this year:

“There are plenty of email lists to choose from, and they cover just about every niche imaginable. From talking to several list brokers, the size of the industry is anywhere from 5,000 lists to 20,000. The B-to-B list rental business is healthy and centered on reputable publishers who still command value and trust. The B-to-C list industry is less organized, and many lists aren’t worth a dime. But if done properly, you can succeed.”

So before you jump into the pool of email list rentals, make sure that you take the time to read Marketing Sherpa’s Special Report: Renting Email Lists; Cost, Deliverability and Targeting (Part I)

If you do choose to rent a list, keep in mind that average rental list prices are $170/thousand (B2C) and $277/thousand (B2B). Read Email Marketing: Growing Your In-House Email List. If someone is offering you a list of 1 million email addresses for $49.99, then there are more than likely a lot of bad email addresses on that list – and potentially many spam trap addresses as well.

Segmentation

More and more, email marketers are offering multiple email offers to segmented portions of their market. A MarketingSherpa study this year underscored the usefulness of segmentation. Marketers who used advanced email tactics such as dynamic content, A/B offer testing and segmentation by user details had higher click-through rates than those who did not (read Uncut Email Lists Can Hurt)

eMarketing practitioners regularly applaud email’s ability to support limitless segmentation of messages. Segmentation in traditional marketing required that multiple, high-cost ads were prepared and implemented in different markets. With email, multiple market segments can be reached and managed with a click, and at no additional cost. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project conducted this year, 67% of women, 70% of English-speaking Hispanics, 93% of people earning more than $75,000 per year and 67% of men and women aged between 50-64 use the Internet. To optimize your eMarketing effectiveness, think about your message in terms of each demographic category in your market. Is one message good enough for all of them, or would it be better to segment your message in a relevant way to each demographic?

Micro-targeting is getting hotter now simply because it’s so much easier to do it with the email marketing software that’s available today. With our GroupMail, for example, marketers can create or import large email lists defined by any variety of demographic fields and filter campaigns to subsets of a list using powerful filters. With a click, marketers today can target messages effectively to segmented markets.

When considering the segmentation of your market, think of all of the attributes of your product or service. What attributes would be attractive to baby boomers? Which elements would be attractive to women? Which features would catch the eye of the large 18-29 age group (84% who use the Internet!)? Structure your messages so that you are effectively communicating the relevant attributes with each segment of your market. But be ready to be busy in your order fulfillment center!

IV Campaign Development: What Are You Sending?

So now we have a few thousand people who have requested to receive our email offers, what the heck are we going to send ‘em? Let’s take some time to look at different styles, formats, structures and content of email campaigns.

Campaign Style

There are many different types of email campaigns. Some marketers send monthly newsletters to keep their customers informed with company and products news and updates. Others use email solely to announce weekly promotions on products or services. Some use email to link to website content such as articles or whitepapers so that they will increase traffic to their site.

Selecting an effective campaign style is important. What would your particular customers respond to most effectively? More and more, online customers are looking for authentic and open relationships with their product and service providers. To that end, many marketers are starting to communicate in a more personal, transparent manner with their customers.

According to Forrester Research, email marketers structure their campaigns around the following:

- Promotion or discount – 66%

- Newsletter – 48%

- Product announcement – 34%

- Advertising/Marketing – 28%

- Alerts/Reminders – 24%

- Market Research – 8%

- Other – 4%

But, regardless of what style you use, there are certain elements that are critical for all possible styles.

Campaign Format

There are several things to consider about the format of your email messages. Most importantly you need to determine whether you will send your campaigns in HTML, Text or both. Email marketers have been debating Text vs. HTML methods of email delivery for years. The text camp believes that text-based emails ensure compatibility with all recipients, even those who can receive HTML but disable images in their email client. HTML advocates feel that their message falls flat without some HTML design incorporated in the campaign. Good email marketing software allows users to send a message in both formats simultaneously. Obviously, the most effective way to optimize compatibility, and thus deliverability and click-through rates, is to send a message in both HTML-and-Text, allowing each recipient’s email client to launch the appropriate version based on the user’s settings.

IN a recent split test to 30,000 recipients, Infacta tracked click-through rates, comparing recipient response to messages sent in the following formats; HTML only (10,000), Text only (10,000), and HTML and Text (10,000).

• HTML Only: 1,436 Unique Clicks

• Text Only: 1,353 Unique Clicks

• HTML and Text: 1,518 Unique Clicks

Regardless of which format you choose, it is best to avoid sending emails of a large file size. It delays the process on both ends. It is always better to link to information if possible.

If you are going to send an HTML campaign, keep in mind that there is no standard for HTML email and HTML that looks good in one email client might not be formatted properly in another. To that end, it is important that you test your HTML email against multiple email clients to ensure that it looks good in all of them. For more information about HTML Email, read HTML Email Design and Rendering Standards

Campaign Structure

An email campaign’s content structure can be broken down into three areas; the From Field, the Subject and the Body. Each of these elements is important in email marketing.

The From Field determines who is sending the email and it generally the first thing that recipients look at when scanning their inbox. Some marketers use their company name, others use their own name and still others use a particular brand name that is associated with their company. Regardless of which approach you take, you should be consistent with your From field so that, over time, your recipients will build trust in the name used. Unless your personal name is your brand or is recognized by your recipients, it is usually recommended to use your Company or Brand name in the From field.

Perhaps the most important element of any successful email campaign is the Subject line. Your customers inboxes are full every morning, afternoon and night. Because of the amount of email that is sent today, recipients don’t have too much time to analyze each message. In fact, email recipients scan email subjects, deleting those that don’t interest them after the first glance. It is a process of elimination, and the worst-case scenario for an email marketer is if their message doesn’t make the initial cut. For any message to be effective, it has to be opened and read. Your email subject should be directly related to your call-to-action. If the objective of your message is to sell your latest product, mention the product proposal in your subject line. If the objective is to get customers to your site by offering articles relevant to them, then put your best article headline in the subject. Here are two examples:

• Product Proposal Example: Improve Open Rates with GroupMail

• Relevant Article Example: Email Marketing: 3 Lines of Success

Your subject will be effective only if it is relevant to your recipients. Understanding that legitimate email marketers only send email to customers who are interested in their products or services, the first tier of relevance can be implied. But there is another aspect of relevance that must be illustrated in the subject. What problem is this message going to solve for the recipient. The people on your email list might all have an interest in email-related information, but what is it specifically about this particular message that is relevant to your customers? Relevance responds to a need or desire.

The body of your message contains the meat of your message. In it, you tell readers what you want them to do and why they should do it.

The Call-To-Action

Don’t bury your call-to-action in your email marketing campaign. State the intent of your message clearly and quickly at the beginning of your message.

Buy GroupMail today and improve the open rates of your email marketing campaign.

Link your call-to-action directly to your point-of-purchase if the objective is to sell something. If you expect the recipients of your email to purchase your product or service, don’t make them search for the checkout. If your objective is simply to get customers to your website, link them directly to the page that you want them to see. Calls-to-action should be clear and concise. Remember, you only have a few seconds to hold their attention. To persuade customers, you must communicate why they should follow your recommended action. What makes you different from the others offering similar products in their inbox?

The Unique Proposition

Differentiate yourself from the competition in your message. Why is your product the best? Why is your article or resource of more value than others? What sets you apart from the crowd? One effective way to do this is to show how your product has already helped customers who use your product or service. Use testimonials from reputable names (if you have any), showing why they think your brand is better than the others. If existing customers recommend your product or service, the confidence of new prospects will increase. Use your market positioning effectively to distinguish yourself. If your price is positioned at the low end of the market, communicate that value. If your product is positioned at the high end, communicate the personal support or extra features that set you apart.

“We offer the most affordable Enterprise Solution in the market.”

You don’t have to write a thesis explaining all of the features that set you apart. Remember, email readers skim content. Summarize your unique proposition in one sentence, and then expand on it or go into more detail afterward. Highlight the summary of your unique proposition by

setting the text apart on its own line, or

using bold characters.

By paying special attention to the From field, Subject line, call-to-action and unique proposition your email marketing campaigns should meet and hopefully exceed your expectations. Of course, there are other factors to consider; like the day and time that you send your message, the effective management of your lists, and market demands at any given time. Consider these three elements (From, Subject and Body) of effective email messages before you send out your next email, and measure the results yourself.

Campaign Content

Where do you get the content for each email message that you send to your audience? It’s not easy coming up with new content week after week after week. One good practice is to write content once in a central point on your website or blog and point all other communication channels to that content. Having a large volume of content on your website or blog will help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and give you a pool of ready-to-use material for your email messages.

If you are running a special promotion each month and using your email campaign to communicate that promotion, then you might design a special promotion page on your website that you can point recipients to. This is called a ‘Landing Page’ or that page that recipients land at after clicking a link in your email message.

Email Templates make it easier to structure your content in a consistent fashion. Using templates allows you to overwrite the message you sent last week/month with new copy. At the same time, templates ensure that you keep the same format, look and feel to your campaigns. Some marketers argue that creating campaigns which are too similar in format or style over time will fatigue readers. Others suggest that consistency in format and style builds trust and confidence. See what your own audience thinks.

V Campaign Delivery: How and When Are You Sending It?

Once we know what we are sending to whom, we must figure out how we’re going to send it and when.

There are basically two options in the email marketing game. You can buy email marketing software and send campaigns from your computer very reasonably or you can pay a monthly (or per email sent) fee for an Email Service Provider (ESP) to send your campaigns out for you.

And Email Service Provider (ESP) solution handles delivery for you. Basically you upload your list and message to them and they send it out for you on a per-email rate. They generally have mail severs that can handle even very large list sizes and will provide the sender reports as to delivery rates.

Desktop email marketing software allows users to send and manage personalized, dynamic HTML or Text email messages from their own computer. If you don’t mind managing your own email campaigns, then a desktop email solution is not only an effective way to communicate with large groups, but it can save you a bunch of money too, because unlike ESP solutions, there is no recurring monthly or per-email costs to run your campaigns. BUT (and notice that it’s a big but) while desktop email marketing software is designed to process large volumes of messages quickly, the success of your delivery is dependent upon your mail server’s email policy and mail server capacity. To that end, in order to be effective with a desktop solution, you must align yourself with an mail server that supports your list size.

Most mail servers have policies that limit the amount of emails which can be sent to their mail server 1) at a time, 2) hourly or 3) per day. This is understandable because they have a large base of customers and limitations are necessary to ensure that all customers can get their messages sent out without delay. Many ISPs or web hosting companies have business accounts available which will increase the limits for business users. It is important to check the policy of your own ISP or web hosting company to ensure that their policy is in line with your email list size. Work with your ISP to find a solution that works.

Understanding the policies of your ISP or web host is important when you are sending large volumes of email. All ISPs will have a section on their website that outlines their email sending policy. Cox, a leading home-based ISP provides a well written and informative page regarding their bulk emailing requirements.

Mass Mailing is defined by Cox Business Services as “Opt-in” Mailings are to more than 150 users by either Cox customers or their 3rd party partner to any group of end users. Opt-in means that end user has signed up for mailings voluntarily. Opt-in implies that the mailing is not SPAM and a recipient knowingly and willingly requested to receive information via electronic distribution from the originating domain name or business referenced within the content of the email. Email distribution lists that are purchased from a 3rd party and are represented as “opt in” clean lists are not exempt from this policy and will be treated as SPAM…read more

If you can’t find your own ISPs or web hosts bulk email policy, contact them directly and ask. Remember to ask about a business account as well. If you don’t have a business account, then set one up. Also, understand that you are a customer and that your current provider has competition. If your current provider doesn’t support your list size, you can take on a different provider at any time. You can also take on a secondary outgoing mail server provider just for your bulk emailing.

Many desktop email marketing users choose to use a secondary SMTP server such as http://www.authsmtp.com or http://www.socketlabs.com to route their email campaigns rather than their own ISP or web hosting servers. Others procure their own SMTP mail server. Others use a direct sending option like GroupMail’s Direct Send and bypass their SMTP server altogether. Direct Sending requires that your ISP has Port 25 open and that you are sending from a Static IP address.

Knowing when to send you message is important. People react to things differently on different days of the week and different hours of the day. First thing Monday morning, I’d say that most people are trying to clear their inboxes to make room for the week ahead. On Friday afternoon’s, we tend to ignore anything that doesn’t have to be responded to before we leave for the weekend.

I don’t cook much, but every now and then my appetite convinces me that it is worth the time and effort. This weekend, I thought that it would be a good idea to do some baking with my daughters. We decided on cookies, unanimously. I chose the tried and tested Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook and we rummaged through for something that met our approval. 30 minutes later, there were crumbs on the floor and a sink-full of dishes. Mission accomplished!

Recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup margarine or butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup packed brown sugar or 1/4 cup honey
1 egg 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* bake at 375 degrees for 7 to 9 minutes or till bottoms are lightly browned. Cool cookies on wire rack. Makes about 36.

Some email marketers use a similar approach when determining the best day to send their email campaign. They decide what to send and then look for an available recipe for good send dates. There are some good email marketing metrics available, like eROI’s Quarterly Email Statistics Report.

When betting on horses, a conservative bettor will play the odds. He might not get a huge payoff, but it is the safest way to play the game. Conservative email marketers are no different. They will play the odds and use benchmark data to guide their campaigns.

Recipe for best day to send email:

Here’s the rub.

It costs the same whether you send your message out on Tuesday or Saturday. So the horse analogy doesn’t quite fit this scenario. Also, recipes may work. We enjoyed our cookies this weekend, but I’ve had much better in local bakeries where they created their own recipe. The same it true with email marketing benchmarks. Industry averages can be telling. But they are not necessarily the best fit for your own particular audience.

The only way to really know the best day to send email is to create your own recipe by running tests on your own, unique audience until you find the best response. Keep your own metrics while varying days of the week over a predetermined time period. But always keep in mind that an old recipe can get stale after a while. Your audience can change and the best day to send email can too.

VI Campaign Measurement: How Successful Were You?

Successful email marketing requires careful analysis of each campaign. Through regular measurement, email marketers can identify strengths and weaknesses and make appropriate adjustments in the next campaign. The most important information that email marketers measure is delivery rate, open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, subscription (opt-in) rate, unsubscribe (opt-out) rate and bounce rate. This information is monitored by using special email tracking services.

Delivery Rate

Delivery rate measures how many recipients received the email that you sent. This measurement is important to analyze how successful your delivery was and how it might be improved next time. Your delivery rate might be impacted by the quality or accuracy of your email list, difficulty with content filters or other issues. Measuring delivery rates can help email marketers fine tune their delivery and subject strategies

Open Rate

Open rates measure how many recipients opened the email that you sent. This percentage is important to analyze how successful your delivery was and how it might be improved next time. It also might be impacted by the quality or relevance of the subject line. Measuring open rates can help email marketers fine tune their delivery and subject strategies.

Click-through Rates

Click-through rates are very important. It’s one thing to get recipients to open your email. What you really want is for those same recipients to click on one of your calls-to-action within the message. Click-through rates identify how many people clicked on a link within your message. Email marketers can learn a lot by analyzing click-throughs. Perhaps a link at the top of the message was clicked more than those in the middle? Maybe links with red buttons were clicked more than standard text links? Was the text used in one link more persuasive than another?

Conversion Rate

Without a doubt, the most important aspect to measure in an email marketing campaign is the conversion rate. Conversion rates identify how many of your recipients took the action that you wanted them to. If you were promoting a special offer on a product, how many click-through’s resulted in the purchase of that product. Conversion rates are the most difficult to ascertain, as there might be delays in action, skewing report results. Measuring conversion rates can help email marketers to determine the effectiveness of their landing page and call-to-action. Was the copy persuasive enough? Did the landing page make it easy for the conversion to take place?

Subscription Rate

A subscription rate is determined by how many people signed up to receive your email offer(s) during each period of measurement. This rate can be helpful in determining the effectiveness of your website subscription forms, co-registration partnerships and other online and offline subscription efforts.

Unsubscribe Rate

Conversely, your unsubscribe rate tells you how many people are opt-ing out of your email offers during each measurement period. This figure can reflect how changes in content might affect relevance to your audience. This is a key measurement indicator that alerts you to possible problems with your content or frequency.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rates are measured in either hard or soft bounces. Hard bounces are emails returned because there was a permanent error with an email address on your list. Hard bounces cannot be resolved over time. Soft bounces, on the other hand, are usually returned for temporary problems with server availability or problems. Hard and soft bounce rates will give you information about the accuracy of the addresses on your list and the capacity of your mail server. Monitoring your bounce rates is extremely important both to keep your sender reputation good and to improve your content.

VII Campaign Supports: Who Is Helping You?

Because email marketing involves so many different elements; subscription forms, delivery engines, databases, mail servers and ISPs it is important that you have the necessary support resources available to you.

Even if you don’t plan on sending HTML emails, you will need someone with some HTML or website design experience to help you with formatting issues, forms, templates, etc.

Your email marketing software or service provider will be able to provide assistance with problems with the delivery engine or list management features automated by it.

You should know how to contact your ISP in the event that you need their assistance with any delivery problems or issues that come up. It is always best to work with your ISP and not against them. Some email marketers even call their ISP in advance of a big mailing to give them a heads up.

Sometimes, email doesn’t reach your recipients’ inbox due to antispam filters forwarding it to a spam folder. You know it’s not spam. You have an opt-in list after all. Unfortunately, antispam filters don’t discriminate and cast their nets over messages with content, formatting or other elements that are considered spammy. To prevent this, it is a good idea to test your message against antispam filters in advance. One way to do this is to send your message with TEST in front of your subject line (I.e. TEST My Newsletter) to spamcheck@sitesell.net. They will respond with a spam score (0-10) and outline specific elements of your message that contribute to that score. You can also use their online testing service at http://spamcheck.sitesell.com. This is a free service.

It is very nice to have some design supports available to create seasonal email templates or to design an effective landing page for an upcoming promotion. When possible, try to work with a local designer who you can meet to discuss projects from time to time. Otherwise, there are many resources available online.

You can even create your own supports to help make each campaign as successful as possible. One important resource that you can create is an email marketing checklist which ensures that you cross all of your t’s and dot all of your I’s. Pilots don’t take off without one. Neither should an email marketer. For more information about email marketing checklists, read Post-Traumatic Send Nightmares.

VIII Summary

As you can see, email marketing isn’t simply a matter of sending an email to a bunch of addresses, sitting back and hoping that people respond. The old batch and blast days are gone. Successful email marketing requires good list development and management practices, an effective and persuasive email message, good delivery rates and regular measurement and analysis. But the payoff is great when you invest the time and effort required.

Perhaps the most important quality of a successful email marketer is patience. Just as a high quality in-house email list isn’t built overnight, creating meaningful relationships via email don’t either. Email is merely the channel that you use to communicate with your audience. How effective you are at that communication is reliant on multiple factors. Don’t rush your email relationships. Resist the urge for the quick sale for the long term benefits that email can facilitate – the lasting relationships.

And most of all remember the value. Keep asking yourself what value you are providing to your recipients with each message you send. Put yourself in their shoes regularly and compare your value to other offers available today. Is your offer exciting enough to keep in the inbox? Is it attractive enough to forward to friends and colleagues? It better be, because inboxes are getting full today, and only the best will stay above the fold.

IX Email Marketing Tips (Bonus Chapter)

Email marketing is used by thousands, if not millions of small, medium and large businesses around the world. So many, in fact, that many recipients have become desensitized to many marketing tactics once successful in persuading customers to click. Email recipients are reaching fatigue much faster today. Your audience is smart and wise to your ways. With so many emails traveling around the Internet, it is important to give yours something extra so that it stands out from the crowd. Here are 12 email marketing tips to help your email marketing campaigns have a greater impact on your audience.

1. Use personalization more effectively. Simply inserting the [FirstName] of your email list contacts into the body of your email message isn’t going to persuade them to take action. Most of the emails that they receive from marketers use their name today. Effective personalization requires contextual references that are relevant to your audience. The more personal information you can collect from your customers, the more effective you can be with personalization. Consider using other fields in the subject and body of your email (State, Country, Industry, etc.). More importantly, study your email lists and think of ways that you can segment it to take real advantage of personalization. If, for example, you find that you have hundreds of New York customers, perhaps you could provide a link to an industry-related news story to that segment of your list. Making email personal isn’t simply about inserting merge fields into the subject and body of your message. It requires understanding the makeup of your list and providing information that is uniquely relevant to each person in it.

2. Write a personal letter. Too often, commercial emailers feel that they have to use business jargon and formatting when sending ‘business’ emails. Remember that you are sending your message to people – people like you and me. While it is important to be professional in your communication with customers and prospects, you don’t have to bore them with robotic copy. Bring your copy alive by making your pitch softer and more personal in style. Connect with the person rather than the customer. This will strengthen your relationships with the people on your list.

3. Don’t kill me with bullets. Bullet points can be effective sometimes, but, like powerpoint presentations, they have a tendency to be boring. It is very tempting to use bullet points in an email to punch features or benefits. Try to avoid bullets and use other microcontent copy in place of them. Nobody gets excited or persuaded to action when presented with a lost list of bullet points.

4. Offer something incredible every now and then. Surprise your audience with super value every once in a while. As a branding exercise, offer your customers something of value as a sign of appreciation for their loyalty. Doing so will make them keep an eye on future messages that you send. “Are they giving anything else away?” This increase in attention to your brand message and the buzz that will be created when they tell their friends and colleagues about the incredible offer that they just received from you can have long term impact to your brand. Come up with creative ways to offer value without breaking the bank.

5. Give life to your automated response emails. Take the time to review the auto-generated emails that you send to your customers when they visit your website to purchase a product, request support or subscribe to your newsletter. These autoresponse messages are all-too-often as mechanical as the technology used to distribute them. Just because you are not actually composing each response yourself doesn’t mean that it should be void of a personal touch. Consider your newsletter sign-up notifications, product purchase messages, support request confirmations and any other automated emails that you generate. Avoid canned ‘thank you’ messages and use the opportunity to promote your brand in a personal and expressive way. Also take the opportunity to let the recipients of those messages know about other products and services that you offer that might be of interest to them.

6. Use red buttons. Studies show that people click on red buttons more than they do on text hyperlinks. Use them appropriately for those key links in your e-mails.

7. Test, test, test. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Test different delivery days, times, link placements, formats and styles to see if they affect your results. Don’t lull your audience to sleep by being too predictable. Consistency is important, but don’t be afraid to try new things.

8. Use double opt-in subscriptions. Double opt-in email subscriptions require that subscribers must confirm that they want to receive your email. This prevents unnecessary list management effort and ensures that your resulting email list is interested in hearing from you.

9. Make opting-out easy for your audience. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to unsubscribe from an email marketing list without success. Provide a one click opt-out link and ensure that each request is removed immediately. There is no benefit to keeping someone on your list who doesn’t want to receive e-mail from you. It will only damage your brand.

10. Make your email interactive. Too often, email marketers talk to their audience without taking the time to listen to them. Effective relationships require an exchange of communication. Enable your audience to respond to your message. Use short polls and surveys to invite your recipients to send you feedback, ask them to contribute to a discussion on your blog or Facebook site and solicit feedback and comments regularly in your email marketing campaigns.

11. Create effective landing pages. Having good click-through rates for your email campaign is great. But what happens after your audience clicks on the link? The most important element of an email marketing campaign is the bottom line result – conversion rates. In order to maximize your conversion rates, ensure that your links bring customers and prospects to the right place. Make it easy for them to take the action that you want them to.

12. Encourage recipients to forward your message. Sometimes, simply asking the recipients of your message to forward it on to friends or colleagues is enough to make it happen. Providing a “forward this email” form in your email makes it even easier for them. Either way, the more that people forward your message, the more viral it will be (in a good way!)

X Email Marketing Glossary

Below are some terms that you might come across when reading about email marketing.

A/B split

A campaign in which a list is split into two pieces with every other name being sent one specific creative, and vice versa.

Above the fold

The part of an email message or Web page that is visible without scrolling.

Acquisition cost

The cost to generate one lead, newsletter subscription or customer in an individual email campaign; typically, the total campaign expense divided by the number of leads, subscribers or customers it produced.

Affirmative consent

An active request by a reader or subscriber to receive advertising or promotional information, newsletters, etc. Generally affirmative consent does not include the following — failing to uncheck a pre-checked box on a Web form, entering a business relationship with an organization without being asked for separate permission to be sent specific types of email, opt-out.

Application Service Provider (ASP)

Company that provides a Web-based service. Clients don’t have to install software on their own computers; all tasks are performed on (hosted on) the ASP’s servers.

Attachment

Any file that accompanies an email message but is not included in the message itself. Attachments are not a good way to send email newsletters because many ISPs, email clients and individual email recipients do not allow attachments, because hackers use them to deliver viruses and other malicious code.

Authentication

An automated process that verifies an email sender’s identity.

Autoresponder

Automated email message-sending capability, such as a welcome message sent to all new subscribers the minute they join a list. May be triggered by subscribes, unsubscribe or other actions. May be more than a single message — can be a series of date or event-triggered emails.

B-to-B

Business-to-business (also B2B).

B-to-C

Business-to-consumer (also B2C).

Blacklist

A list developed by anyone receiving email, or processing email on its way to the recipient, or interested third-parties, that includes domains or IP addresses of any emailers suspected of sending spam. Many companies use blacklists to reject inbound email, either at the server level or before it reaches the recipient’s in-box. Also Blocklist and Blackhole list.

Block

A denial by an ISP or mail server to forward your email message to recipients. Many ISPs block email from IP addresses or domains that have been reported to send spam or viruses or have content that violates email policy or spam filters.

Bonded Sender

A private email registration service offered by email vendor Ironport that allows bulk emailers to post a monetary bond to bypass email filters of Bonded Sender clients. The program debits the bond for spam or other complaints from recipients.

Bounce

A message that doesn’t get delivered to your recipient and is returned is said to have bounced. See hard bounce and soft bounce.

Bounce message

The message sent back to the sender explaining why their message could not be delivered.

Bounce handling

The process of dealing with the email that has bounced. Bounce handling is important for list maintenance, list integrity and delivery. Given the lack of consistency in bounce messaging formats, it’s an inexact science at best.

Bounce rate:

This is the number of hard or soft bounces divided by the number of emails sent.

Broadcast email

The process of sending the same email message to multiple recipients.

Bulk folder (also junk folder)

Where emails go when filters determine that they contain spam-like content and thereby are classified as spam by the filter

Call to action

In an email message, the link or copy that asks the recipient to take an action (i.e. click here for more information).

CAN-Spam Act

The abbreviation for the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003

Challenge-response system

An anti-spam program that requires a human being on the sender’s end to respond to an email message before their messages can be delivered to recipients.

Churn

How many subscribers leave a mailing list or how many email addresses go bad over a period of time.

Click-through rate

Total number of clicks on a link(s) divided by the number of emails sent.

Commercial email

Business email sent to sell, promote or advertise a product

Confirmation

When subscribers confirm a subscription or information request (See Double Opt-in)

Content: All the information within an email message, to include copy, images, etc.

Content filter

A device that evaluates header and content information of email messages to determine the likelihood that it is spam.

Co-registration

A method of collecting email subscribers where businesses partner with other sites to collect registration information from users (email sign-up forms, shopping checkout process, etc.) for products and services related (but not in direct competition) to their own.

Conversion

The act of converting a recipient to a desired action (i.e. a sale, newsletter subscription, etc.)

CTR

An abbreviation for click-through rate.

Double opt-in

A process that requires new subscribers to respond to an initial online subscription to confirm that they do, indeed, want to be on the list.

Dynamic content

Email content that changes from one recipient to the next according to a set of rules, usually according to preferences the user himself establishes when subscribing to an email offer. Dynamic content can be based on past purchases, content preferences, location, etc.

Email client

The email software recipients use to read email, such as Yahoo!, Outlook Express or others.

Email filter

An email tool that blocks incoming email based on user preferences or content. Filters may be used at the recipient level, ISP level or a combination.

Email vendor

Another name for an email service provider, a company that sends bulk email on behalf of their clients. (Also known as an Email Service Provider – ESP).

Ezine

Another name for an email newsletter.

Footer

The area at the end of an email message or newsletter that contains information that doesn’t change from one edition to the next, such as contact information, legal information an opt-out link or other information that doesn’t change.

Forward to a Friend (FTAF)

When recipients send your message to other people they know, either because they think their friends will be interested in your message. Email marketers often offer incentives to recipients for forwarding their messages to others, in essence, treating existing recipients as affiliates.

From Field

The information that appears in the email recipient’s inbox in the “From” section

Full-service provider

An email vendor that also provides cradle-to-grave email support, from design to delivery to measurement.

HTML message

Email messages that contain HTML formatting rather than just plain text.

Hard bounce

Messages returned because the email address is invalid. Hard bounces are permanent errors.

Header

All information at the start of an email message (but not visible to the sender or recipient), including the sender’s name and email address, originating email server IP address, recipient IP address and any transfers in the process.

House list

The list of email addresses an organization procures on its own, organically over time

IP address

A unique number assigned to each computer connected to the Internet. An IP address can be dynamic, meaning it changes each time an email message is sent, or it can be static, meaning that it does not change. Static IP addresses are preferable for optimum deliverability.

ISP

An abbreviation for Internet Service Provider. Examples: Comcast, Sbcglobal, AOL, EarthLink, MSN, etc.

Landing page

A web page that email recipients (or search engine users) go to after clicking on a link within an email or search result. Landing pages are also known as micro-sites, splash page, bounce page, or click page. For seasoned email marketers, landing pages are created specifically for email marketing campaigns to increase conversion rates.

List

The list of email addresses that you send your messages to. Lists are generally organic, in-house lists or third-party lists that are sent your message on your behalf.

List fatigue

What happens to recipients over time as email offers lose relevance and they tire of receiving your messages anymore.

List hygiene

The process of maintaining an email list so it stays up-to-date and relevant to your offer.

List management

The overall management of an email list; to include the process of adding recipients, removing recipients and keeping details of the list accurate and up-to-date.

List owner

The person who is in charge of an email list and responsible for its management

List rental

The process of procuring available email lists related to your market. Lists are usually rented by the list provider for a one-time delivery in hope of gaining customers/subscribers. While there are reputable list providers, there are also disreputable ones and email publishers should be very cautious when renting any email lists as it could damage their reputation.

Mailing list

An existing list of email addresses that receive mailings or discussion-group messages specific to content areas.

Open rate

The number of email messages that are actually opened by recipients, usually as a percentage of the total number of emails sent. Open rates can only be measured for HTML email as an open-rate counter must be embedded in the email. Many recipients today do not actually open email messages received as 8 out of 10 recipients make use of Preview Panes (See Preview Pane)

Opt-in

A specific request by an individual to subscribe to a specific mailing list – thereby giving email publishers permission to send them messages related to what they signed up for.

Opt-out

The term for recipients unsubscribing to an email offer and requesting to be removed from an email list. A requirement of the CAN-Spam Act, all email messages must have an opt-out link in them, giving recipients the chance to unsubscribe

Permission

The implicit approval given when a recipient requests to have their email address added to a list. Permission is not permanent and does not give the sender free-range with regard to contact the recipient. Permission is granted by recipients for a specific type of email offer, sent at intervals (frequency) promised by the sender.

Personalization

The process of personalizing email messages using available fields associated with contacts in an email list. Both Subject lines and the body of a message can be personalized using fields such as First Name, Last Name, City, State or any other details associated with a recipient on a list.

Phishing

A type of fraudulent email that purports to be from someone else and seeks to trick recipients into giving personal, and often financial, information such as credit-card or bank account numbers, Social Security numbers and other data.

Plain text email

Email messages that include no HTML formatting code.

Preferences

Specific options a user can set to determine how they want to receive your messages. Often offered in an email subscription form, recipients can select between their email address, HTML or Text format or specific content areas that are offered by the publisher.

Preview pane

The window in an email client that allows recipients to view a portion of the email message without actually opening it. Preview panes range is size but make it extremely important for senders to place their most important information in view of the Preview Pane (See Above the Fold).

Privacy policy

A description of how you or your company uses the email addresses and other information it gathers via subscriptions. It is a good idea to provide a link to your privacy policy on your email subscription form so that potential subscribers feel secure in providing their email address to you.

Queue

Where an email message goes after you send it but before the list owner approves it or before the list server gets around to sending it. Some software allows you to queue a message and then set a time to send it automatically, either during a quiet period on the server or at a time when human approval isn’t available.

Reply-to

The email address recipients will send replies to when they click on “Reply”. It is a requirement of the CAN-Spam Act to have a valid “Reply-to” email address when sending commercial email.

Rich Media

Creative elements of an email message, to include video, animation and other multimedia material.

Segmentation

The ability to slice a list into specific pieces determined by various attributes, such as open history or name source.

Selective Unsubscribe

An unsubscribe mechanism that allows a recipient to selectively unsubscribe from a selection of email offers provided by a publisher but continue receiving others. This is becoming more and more important today as publishers are providing multiple email offers based on specific products and services

Sender ID

Combines two existing elements of an email: Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and CallerID. SenderID authenticates email senders and blocks email forgeries and faked addresses.

Sender Policy Framework (also SPF)

A protocol used to eliminate email forgeries. A line of code called an SPF record is placed in a sender’s Domain Name Server information. The incoming mail server can verify a sender by reading the SPF record before allowing a message to pass through.

Sent emails

The number of email address transmitted in a single campaign. The number of sent messages does not reflect how many were actually delivered or opened by recipients.

Server

A computer system that processes and distributes email from one mailbox to another through relays from one server to another in a network.

Shared server

An email server used by more than one company or sender. Using a shared server, while less expensive, risks having your emails blocked by major ISPs if one of the other users on the server does something to get the server’s IP address blacklisted.

Signature

The portion of an email where the senders contact information is located. Often, signatures are used to also cross sell or up sell to recipients or provide brand information.

SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, the most common protocol for sending email messages between email servers.

Soft bounce

Email addresses that are returned as undeliverable, often because of a temporary problem with delivery (i.e. the recipient server is temporarily unavailable or the recipient’s mailbox is over quota, etc.)

Spam

The popular name for unsolicited commercial email (See CAN-Spam Act). However, some email recipients define spam as any email they no longer want to receive, even if it comes from a mailing list they initially opted-in to receive.

Spamcop

A blacklist database. Many ISPs check the IP addresses of incoming email against Spamcop’s records to determine whether the address has been blacklisted due to spam complaints.

Spoofing

The practice of changing the sender’s name in an email message so that it looks as if it came from another address.

Subject line

The content that appears in the Subject Line of an email message. The Subject line identifies what an email message is about. The CAN-Spam Act requires that Subject lines are not deceptive and relate specifically to the actual contents of the body of the email.

Subscribe

The process of joining or opting-in to an email offer.

Subscriber

The person who has specifically requested to join a mailing list. Subscriber is also the name of an Add-on to GroupMail, which helps users to automate their opt-in, opt-out and bounce management efforts.

Suppression file

The list of email addresses you have removed from your regular mailing lists, either because they opted out of your lists or because they have notified other mailers that they do not want to receive mailings from your company. Required by CAN-SPAM, it is important to keep a record of your suppression files in the event that you are required to show evidence at a later state that you keep a suppression list.

Test

An important step that should be taken prior to sending an email campaign. Different email clients display email differently, and it is wise to test your message against multiple clients to ensure that the formatting of your message appears well in all clients. You can also test the content of your message by sending it to an online content checker prior to delivery.

Throttling

The practice of regulating how many email messages a publisher sends to an ISP or mail server at a time. ISPs have email sending policies that set limits as to how many email messages can be sent to their server at a time. Email marketing software, like GroupMail, allows senders to stagger delivery of their message in line with these limitations (i.e. send 50 messages, pause for 30 seconds, etc.)

Transactional email

A creative format where the recipient can perform a transaction right in the body of the email without needing to visit a web page. Transactions may include answering a survey, or purchasing something.

UCE

Unsolicited Commercial Email, also called spam or junk mail.

Unsubscribe

The act of removing yourself from an email list, either via an emailed request to the sender or by filling in a web form.

Vendor

Any company that provides a service (See email vendors)

Verification

A program that determines that an email came from the sender listed in the return path or Internet headers; designed to stop email from forged senders.

Whitelist

An authorized list of email addresses, held by an ISP, recipient or email service provider that specifies which email addresses are permitted to be delivered to them regardless of spam or content filters.

XI. Resources

Infacta

http://www.infacta.com

GroupMail

http://www.group-mail.com

GroupMetrics

http://www.group-metrics.com

The Messaging Times

http://www.messagingtimes.com

Email-marketing-reports.com

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com

Marketing Sherpa

http://www.marketingsherpa.com

Spamhaus

http://www.spamhaus.org

Pew Internet Research

http://pewinternet.org

GroupMail – Exceeding Expectations of Email Marketers for over 12 years

But don’t take our word for it…

“I’ve always been impressed with GroupMail and my experience has been nothing but pure joy. GroupMail has been updated countless times, and each version becomes better than the one before, although I’ve never had any complaints. I once had a glitch after installing and the support staff answered my e-mails quickly and got it figured out within a day. I love this product and the updates too!” – Kathryn Martyn Smith, M.NLP, http://www.OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com

“I just spent a half hour explaining to one of your competitors why I chose GroupMail over their product. That is not something I will usually take the time to do, but I just like your software so much, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to explain why GroupMail was so much better. Then I realized I should at least take a few more minutes to let you know what a great job you did. I evaluated nearly 30 different mass mail programs and was disappointed with all of them. When I tried group mail it was as if the heavens opened and I knew I had found what I was looking for. The program is clean and concise. Everything is organized in such an intuitive manner that it felt like I already knew how to use everything before I used it. Every feature that I was looking for was there. And maybe this is just because of the drudgery I experienced in reviewing so many other products but every time I open GroupMail now, I get this little thrill, which comes from the knowledge that I’m using a product that is hands down better then any of the others that I tried.” – Joshua Choate, Director of Technology, Healthcare Insights, LLC – http://www.hcillc.com

“GroupMail 5 is everything one could want from an email marketing perspective.” – Julian Ehrhardt, Digital White Ltd, http://www.digital-white.com

“Just a quick note to say that this is one of the most well-designed and smoothest operating software packages I have had the pleasure to own. I wish Microsoft products worked this well.” – David Burch

“Thanks for developing a great product. I purchased GroupMail after spending a great deal of time searching for an email tool to communicate with our customers who buy our signed memorabilia from soccer players in the English Premier League. Importing my customers details was simplicity itself and my first personalized email was out in less than an hour. Inbound orders followed quickly afterwards and the product had paid for itself in 2 or 3 days. This does not even take into account the amount of time I saved over previous methods I had used. GroupMail is so easy to use I communicate more regularly with my customers and our business has benefited significantly from this. Easily the best piece of software I have bought for many years. Well done!” Rob Wylie, http://www.bobbychariot.com

]]> http://www.messagingtimes.com/2009/11/23/a-practical-guide-for-email-marketing/feed/ 0 http://www.messagingtimes.com/2009/09/11/the-email-marketing-nightclub/ http://www.messagingtimes.com/2009/09/11/the-email-marketing-nightclub/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:50:15 +0000 Tom O'Leary http://www.messagingtimes.com/?p=1899 When I was studying in Mexico, a new nightclub opened in Cuernavaca. There were colorful posters everywhere and club promoters took to the streets during the weeks leading up to the grand opening handing out VIP passes to the big event. My friends and I were definitely in the market for a new place to go and it wasn’t too often that we were treated like VIPs as university students; so we took the bait and marked the calendar.

The big night came and we found ourselves standing with the mob of VIPs which formed a line around the corner of the up-lit building. We were excited and eventually found ourselves walking through the neon entrance. It didn’t take long for us to realize that the place was all hype and no substance. The drinks were watered down and overpriced, the music was too loud and too dated and the dance floor didn’t accommodate the crowd. We stayed for a couple of hours before deciding to relocate to an old familiar bar, where the beer was cold and the staff was friendly. We never went back to the club and never recommended it to anyone we knew.

Email marketing is a lot like a nightclub. There are two important elements in successful email marketing; building your list and retaining it. If you do a great job getting people to subscribe to your email, but don’t provide a good experience or good value in your campaigns, then you are wasting your time because those new subscribers won’t stick around for long.

But if you focus on the experience of the people who have already subscribed (those people already on your list) – if you work hard to ensure that your recipients have a good experience – if you surpass their expectations with each message that you send – then not only will they stay on your list, but they will more than likely recommend you to their family, friends or colleagues. Ultimately, your email subscriptions will increase in line with the satisfaction of your existing subscribers.

In Seth Godin’s post The big drop, he explains how the experience of the first group of people that you get to buy your product or listen to your record or read your book will determine whether a second group of people, or a third will want to experience it.

“…If the first circle is excited about what we do and it’s remarkable enough to talk about, they’ll tell two or six or ten friends each. And if we’re really good, the second circle, the people we don’t even know–they’ll tell the third circle. And it’s the third circle that makes you a hit, gets you elected and tips your idea…” continue reading

Attracting new subscribers is important. But keeping them on your list and exciting them enough to spread the news is the real rave in email marketing.

What’s it like inside your nightclub?