MindComet

An Intelligent Way To Clean Your Opt-In List

The email below shows that you don’t always have to make your subscribers jump through hoops for general feedback. Big Cartel sent this email to their entire opt-in list asking if they wanted to continue receiving messages in the future.

It’s engaging, simple and effective in communicating to users that if they want to remain on the list, they don’t have to do anything. But if you want to unsubscribe, the call to action is “right here”. The vibe I get from this send is “No hard feelings. Don’t be ashamed because we’re certainly not”.

In the body above the do-or-die call to action, they openly admit that they haven’t really sent out any emails, which is why they’re double-checking to make sure you still want to get messages from them in the future. It’s smart and proactive on Big Cartel’s part.

What do you think about this method of list hygiene? Would you have done the opposite and made the subscriber click through and fill out their preferences?

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Nov. 18, 2010

Facebook Announces A Unique Vision Of Email

After taking an hour to digest Facebook’s announcement of their new email platform I’ve come to my own prediction on one simple point: For now, this will be very helpful for users who are on Facebook all day, but not your average, casual user so much. This also reminds me a heck of a lot of Google Wave. Since Wave was deemed too confusing by the mainstream and ultimately dropped from Google’s radar, you’d think Facebook would take note and not repeat history. For now, we’ll have to wait to see how things shake out.

Here’s a rundown of the new Facebook feature presented earlier this afternoon by Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Bosworth:

• It’s been in development for over a year and has had 13-15 developers working on it

• 350 million users on Facebook actively use messages, which totals to an average of 4 billion messages per day (consisting of private messages and instant messages)

• Intended to present messaging in a simpler way, delivered in shorter bursts than “conventional” email

• Facebook claims that threading is “archaic” and that “whitelists” are not practical. (I agree with one of those points)

• It will consolidate private messages, IM chats, SMS messages and email into one thread per Facebook user

• The inbox will consist of three levels: “high-signal” important conversations, not so important messages and junk

• Your Facebook username will be your email address. Example: facebook.com/yourname =

• Will be able to with integrate Jabber, Facebook’s API and eventually IMAP

• As they put it, this is “not an email killer”, just a form of more real-time / simpler communication

• Over time, they intend to sync their email system with other email systems, as well as include video and voice capabilities

So that’s the long and short of it.

By the way, what do you think of this? Do you think Facebook Email has the potential to take over “conventional” email as we know it? Will it be a flash in the pan and go the way of Google Wave? Will it not make any difference at all? I’m very curious to hear your opinion!

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Nov. 15, 2010

Quick Tip About ALT Text

I learn something new just about everyday through Ros at CampaignMonitor. This time, regarding ALT text. If your ALT text exceeds the width for the image with some email clients, that alt text will fail to show up. Those email clients include Windows Live Mail, Yahoo! Mail, iPhone, Gmail and Apple Mail. So keep your alt text short and sweet.

If you aren’t already, take the extra effort to style each main image with ALT text. Make ALT text of the corresponding header graphic larger with a color that coincides with the background color of said image. This really is basic stuff that’s simply overlooked most of the time. And don’t wrap header tags around the images with more pronounced ALT text. This causes rendering issues in some clients, so stick with basic CSS styling.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Oct. 05, 2010

An Illustrated Example of Over Sending

Pure brilliance, found on bradcolbow.com:

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Sep. 10, 2010

A New Challenge for Email Marketers: Gmail’s Priority Inbox

Yesterday, Gmail announced their new Priority Inbox feature. It allows users to set their inboxes to automagically sort through their emails and appropriately label them as Priority, Starred and Everything Else. The search parameters call on keywords, replies and general behavior based on the user and sender relationship.

So what does this mean to email marketers? Well, truthfully, this has the potential to lead to lower-than-usual activity rates with Gmail subscribers. If you’re not relevant in the subscriber’s mind, you will more than likely be relegated into the Everything Else box.

Now, more than ever, email marketers need to focus on relevance.

Marketers need to look at their subscriber’s behaviors and reactions to their emails. If this is done, marketers will have a better understanding in predicting how to segment their lists for future sends and hopefully earn the right to the Priorty box. This, of course, needs to be front-of-mind along with making sure you’re whitelisted as well as keeping design and code standards to an optimum.

Peep this video from Gmail below which illustrates the brass tacks of Priority Inbox:

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Aug. 31, 2010

For the Impulsive and Non-Committed: Gmail “Undo Send” Quick Tips

If you’re not already aware, Gmail offers an “undo” option after you send an email. At first, you were only allowed 5 seconds to decide whether or not your email was up to snuff, but now the Gmail team has EXTENDED the undo time limit from 5 seconds and provides 10, 20 & 30 second options.

If you’re unsure of how to turn this on, first go to the Labs icon.

Find the “Undo Send” option and enable it.

Then once you’ve saved your changes, navigate to the Settings link and select your cancellation period.

Now, whenever you hastily write an email and send it without double checking to see if you’ve attached that time-sensitive document, you’ll have up to 30 seconds to cancel, fix your mistakes and send confidently.

Another reason why Gmail is really the only web email client you should be using. No other client comes close to the amount of options and customization offered by Gmail.

Thanks to Mashable for the inspiration.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Aug. 24, 2010

Email Opt-In Fail at Fresh Market

After a quick sandwich run to The Fresh Market, I noticed this little desk next to the door:

What’s wrong with the photo above? Does anything seem a little off to you?

At first glance, it seems like a fancy little desk to fill out a comment card or sign up for a shopping spree… then I saw the SIGN UP call to action. Similarly in email, “the real world” needs CALLS TO ACTION to guide the eyes of “users”, but I digress…

Since there was a keyboard on the desk with a tiny screen attached at the top, I figured it was a very clever way to sign up for an email newsletter before you left. Especially since underneath SIGN UP, it mentioned something about email newsletters. But as I sat down to plug in my email address, I realized the keyboard was there to be used as a way to collect your information if you’re APPLYING FOR A JOB. Major fail and a missed opportunity there.

Notice the little postcards in front of the SIGN UP poster? Yeah, you need a pen or pencil to jot your name and email down. Then they’re gathered up at the end of the day and MAILED to their database headquarters only to be MANUALLY ENTERED, which then I’m assuming the cards are thrown away or at least recycled. What a waste.

To add insult to injury, there was no pen at the desk. I had to ask a cashier to borrow hers in order to sign up. This was a FAIL in every respect of the word.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Aug. 16, 2010