MindComet

Email Myths Debunked

Many “experts” in this industry constantly insist that image-heavy, all-graphic emails are a “no-no”.  Some specialists infer that no one will get the chance to read image-heavy emails because some ESPs will block them, or mark the emails as spam and no one will read them.  The experts’ advisement is to simply “Just say NO to graphics”.  Well, I hate to disagree, but this is not true across the board.  Some email campaigns benefit from graphical emails.  It just depends on the situation, the demographic of your audience and what your goals are.

One of the most rampant myths deals with ensuring that the most important and compelling content is near the top-left of the email, so it will appear in the preview area.  Although this statement is correct in theory, many times your email design just won’t comply. Testing various layouts and designs with your audience in mind is the best way to ensure high open percentages and high click-through ratios – not matter what content is in the top left corner. 

Another popular myth pertains to the email length.  “Make sure your email is short and sweet, since no one has any time in their day to read more than a paragraph’s worth of copy.”  This couldn’t be further from the truth since it does not apply to all messages across the board.  As Teresa Caro acknowledged in this week’s Email Insider, “The value of some products cannot be conveyed in just a few sentences.”  Effective email campaigns usually have an informative header, which also catches the eye.  Then the copy does the rest for those who want more information.

The moral of these legends is to use best practices, metrics, and guidance from the experts as a frame of reference, but don’t consider their advice to be absolute. You need to adjust your email for your target audience and for what you want to achieve. Most importantly, test, test, and test some more.

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Posted by MindComet on Nov. 20, 2006

Less is More: Improve Your Newsletter Sign-up Totals

The key to increasing subscription rates for your newsletters is simple: reduce the barrier between the reader and the Submit button.

When asking site visitors to sign up for newsletters, it is tempting to learn as you possibly can about the subscriber. Most sites will often ask for more information than is necessary.

But the only thing you really need to know is their email addresses. You don’t need any other information.  That is of course unless you want to personalize your newsletters.  Then in which case, you will want to know their names.

Recent tests have shown that lowering the barrier between the reader and Submit buttons have significantly increased sign-up rates.  So keep your sign-up processes simple, short & sweet.

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 31, 2006

Setting the Standard for Deliverability

What are the standards for Email Deliverability and Bounce Management?  The Email Experience Council is looking for the answer.  In a press release published yesterday the EEC announced they are currently conducting a survey to gather results that will be used to identify and institute standards for report and benchmarking in email.

The survey is open until Friday, October 27, 2006.  To read the full press release and take the survey, click here.

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 24, 2006

Subject Line Awareness

The biggest concern among most email marketers is that their emails will be marked as spam and never reach their intended audience.  The most efficient way to avoid this is to optimize your subject line.  Certain words such as ‘free’, ‘offer’ and ‘discount’ raise red flags for most email clients.  There are open source programs such as SpamAssassin that calculate the possibility that an email is spam.  It scores emails on a scale from 0 – 5 based on it’s subject line and content.  The higher your score is, the more likely it will be considered spam.  If you use a subject line that is safe such as ‘Weekly Newsletter #1’, ‘Weekly Newsletter #2’ and so forth, stick with it.  Witty subject lines sometimes confuse users and will in turn report you to their ISP.  That’s not to say that you have to completely avoid catchy subject lines, but there’s a very fine line between ‘catchy’ and ‘spammy’.

As it stands now, there is no sure-fire formula to creating a consistent subject line.  If you’re lacking inspiration, pick up your local newspaper.  Articles usually highlight the story’s most important features.  Also remember to always get to the point with your subject line.  If you mislead your audience, they may lose confidence in your brand.  Lastly and most importantly, TEST your emails as much as you can to ensure their rightful delivery.  This is the only way to determine trends and styles that work for you.

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 17, 2006

A Brief History of Deliverability

For most email marketers today, “deliverability” is a commonly used term.  But this hasn’t always been the case.  Over the past 10 years, the use of email has increased and subsequently, more and more inboxes were flooded with unwanted messages.  In order to defeat spammers across the board, ISP’s implemented complex filters on arriving emails to block potential SPAM.  In it’s infancy stages, information on ISP filtering was not made public.  Additionally, many legitimate emails were marked as SPAM, which sent them straight to the Junk Folder or weren’t delivered at all.  The influx of filtering resulted in lower open rates, lower response rates and lower conversion rates for all email marketers.

The ongoing inconsistencies of SPAM filtering lead to the birth of “deliverability” in 2003.  Since then, this issue has started to stabilize through federal legislations and the implementation of various authentication technologies.  As it stands now, deliverability is a market within the email industry with its own experts, consultants and the like.

For further information on deliverability download this document created by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 16, 2006

E-Mail = email

At the Recent OMMA event in New York, the Email Experience Council, www.emailexperience.org, set its first email-related standard: the official spelling of email, without a hyphen. 

However, the decision was not a random one.  Speaker Paul Beck provided an overview of the research and survey efforts that helped form the decision.  The evolution follows suit of such words as “online” that was originally presented as a combination of a two separate words.

This announcement is the starting-point for the standardization and evolution in email marketing.  With it’s new identity in place, email will once again become a significant tool for both marketing campaigns and branding efforts alike.

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 09, 2006

Holiday Email Strategies

The word “holiday” reminds most people of decorated trees, candy canes and over-stuffed turkeys.  But as we all know, holidays are spread throughout the entire year.  Granted, November and December epitomize holiday sales for most businesses, but there are other holidays that businesses can take advantage of - especially through the use of email marketing strategies.

Holiday email strategies are based on the past customers, using their buying habits as a means to generate more revenue.  Since these customers have supported your company in the past, it is likely that they will do so again, especially if the incentive is there.  More consumers are going online to shop for the holidays than ever before.  The simplicity of point and click is something that most people are taking advantage of when buying gifts.

For your holiday email strategy, send emails out to your established client base on a timed basis leading up to the final day that you can ship your products and still have it arrive at he client’s doorstep.  Secondly, you must send emails out on a shrinking time basis.  Meaning, you should send emails more frequently leading up to the holiday you’re marketing towards.

When you begin your email campaign, include minor incentives.  As you get closer to the final email offer, the incentives should gradually improve.  The more compelling the incentives are towards the end of the campaign, the more likely the customer will act on the deal.

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Posted by MindComet on Sep. 25, 2006