Category: Email Marketing Tips

It’s no secret that email marketing is a powerful tool for communicating with visitors, customers and prospects, but like other marketing mediums, you have to uphold a certain set of rules or best practices to ensure a compliant and successful campaign.

Two of the most important aspects of successful email marketing campaigns are adhering to certain codes of conduct regarding unsubscribing and signup confirmation.  In certain countries, there’s actually laws in place that mandate an unsubscribe link in all marketing emails, so it’s always a good practice to include your link at the bottom of each email and direct users to a courteous page that removes them from your mailing list quickly.  Making this a “one-click” process is also a good idea.

In terms of signup confirmation, you should always use a double opt-in confirmation process.  This means that after your visitor initially enters their email address to subscribe to your list, you should then send a “confirmation” email.  This email should contain a special link back to your email-marketing program, which will then verify that this visitor did indeed sign up to your mailing list.  This ensures you don’t come off as “spammy,” which could be detrimental to your email marketing campaign.

Speaking of spam, try to avoid using keywords such as ‘free,’ ‘save,’ ‘discount,’ etc. in both your subject line and content to avoid getting caught in your users spam filters- which have become very complex in recent years.

The concept of personalization is key in email marketing campaigns as well.  Instead of using the common “Hi there,” or “Dear Subscriber,” you should use individual subscriber names to create a more personable relationship with your readers.  It’s estimated that by simply starting your email with “Hi [subscriber_name]” instead of the boring “Hi there”, you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%.  Why?  Put simply, it’s because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you as you’ve addressed them by their first name.

To maximize click-thru rates, which is most likely the goal of any email marketing campaign, it’s good practice to include clear, concise links that ensure your readers don’t get confused by a design filled with graphics, text, buttons and more.  There’s been numerous research papers that prove that the majority of Internet users respond better to a plain, bold, blue text link as opposed to a banner or button.  If you’re going to include links in your emails, make sure they’re bold, blue and underlined.  This will mean more subscribers click through and subsequently more conversions/sales for you.

In terms of the best days to send your emails, studies conducted by online research analysts have shown the best days are Tuesday and Wednesday, as this is when people are more receptive to communication.  This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, meaning more sales.

On Mondays, everyone is still recovering from a hectic weekend.  On Thursday and Friday, people are already too busy looking forward to the weekend.  This has been heavily experimented with, and the best results were achieved by sending out emails at around 2-3pm (American Pacific Time) on a Wednesday, studies have proved.

These are just a few simply rules, best practices and tips to ensure your email marketing campaigns remain successful.  Of course, it always takes testing and a trial and error approach to determine what the best strategy is for your particular campaign, but certain aspects and un-spoken rules must always be applied to ensure you don’t upset your readers and to make sure you don’t violate any of the most simplest of rules regarding the sending of mass marketing emails.

Since there’s a lot that goes into an email marketing campaign, it’s sometimes best to leave it up to the professionals to worry about the boring technical and compliance issues.  Check out MobileStorm’s PRO offering for an all-inclusive digital marketing platform that will allow you to focus solely on the outcome of your campaign.

I recently came across a great article on the future of deliverability.

Quick overview: We all know that when a subscriber clicks the “report as spam” button, the ISP gets data to help them make decisions about what they want to do with a senders email  such as block or send to the spam folder.

ISPs fight spam in a bunch of different ways, reputation, authentication, content blocking etc.

This article talks about how ISPs are starting to use other types of data such as, “subscribers who do not open emails”, to punish senders with poor best practices. Its all coming down to a marketers reputation.

If email marketing is important to your company and drives revenue, I suggest you work with an ESP (Email Service Provider) who can stay on top of changes like this and help you make decisions about the best way to manage your business.

I always say, delivery is as fluid and changing as water. New technologies and methods to fight spam are constantly being developed and innovated.  Think about it, an ISPs entire business depends on making sure their subscribers are not inundated with spam. If they don’t do a good job, people leave, and revenues drop.

Currently 72% of the 320 billion messages sent on a daily basis is spam. It will continue to become harder and harder to reach the inbox if you do not get good guidance and expertise, this is one of the main reasons we created mobileStorm Pro.

Read this great article on the future of deliverability here:

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/2009/10/future-of-deliverability-1-role-of-user.html

Read the full article here: http://www.marketingprofs.com/short-articles/1425/get-out-that-rake

“Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan had a problem. With an abysmal delivery rate of 81.29 percent, his email campaigns weren’t getting through to many of the people who wanted them. “The company was constantly getting complaints from its subscribers,” explains a mobileStorm case study. “Consumers claimed they hadn’t received Cesar Millan’s once-monthly newsletter or that they only received it sporadically.”

Analysis by mobileStorm revealed the likely cause:

• When subscribers signed up, their addresses were not verified.
• The list—which dated back to 2005—contained inactive and invalid addresses, making it especially vulnerable to spam traps.

To clean up the list, mobileStorm used tactics like these:

• Identifying subscribers who had never opened or clicked on an email message
• Removing obviously non-engaged subscribers
• Sending the rest a message asking them to confirm their subscription, and letting them know their address would be removed if they didn’t respond by a certain date

Finally, the case study reports, “confirmed users were added back in along with known good addresses. Suspect addresses, opt-outs, and non-respondents were removed.”

After the company cleaned the list, the delivery rate shot up to 99.7 percent. ‘Nuff said.

The Po!nt: Time for some fall raking. To help ensure your holiday emails get the most response, clear your lists of “fallen” addresses. A timely clean-up could pay off.

Source: mobileStorm. Read the full case study here.

You’ve gotten a sales pitch from every e-mail marketer on the planet . . . but what should you really be looking for in an effective e-mail marketing campaign?

Hear it from the experts on Jeremy’s Desktop, Saturday, September 26, 2009 at 2pm PST.

CEO and founder of mobileStorm, Jared Reitzin, will make a special guest appearance on Jeremy’s Desktop, to demo mobileStormGo, and answer questions from the audience about how to get the most out of e-mail marketing.

Log on to www.technewsla.com to see the live demo, and to learn ways to optimize the performance of your e-mail marketing campaign.

Register for Jared Reitzin’s guest appearance on Jeremy’s Desktop today – space is limited. Click here to register now: http://bit.ly/DPz3p

* Jeremy’s Desktop is the online edition of Tech News, powered by Make It Work, which airs on KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO every Saturday 1pm – 2pm Pacific. It is hosted by Jeremy Anticouni, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Make It Work, Inc., and renowned radio talent, Tim Conway, Jr.

We all know that reaching your audience with a relevant message and a targeted list is all you need to get results . . . Not!

No one knows this better than the one person who knows more about dogs than dogs do. Cesar Millan learned the hard way, that email delivery is a skilled practice that demands effort and attention and persistently laying down a solid routine (not unlike training your pooch to stay off the couch).

When you take your eye off the ball for so long . . . things start to get out of hand. There are fundamentals to email marketing that will help you avoid a perfect storm that causes email delivery to go into a tailspin.

The biggies are:

• Collecting email addresses without verifying them

• Letting your email database go stale without updating your addys

• Old databases create the perfect climate for “spam traps,” which can ruin a sender’s reputation and cause delivery issues at ISPs.

If any of this sounds familiar . . . know this: The fixes for these types of situations are rarely found in a fire & forget solution. It’s more likely that you need an expert ear to hear you out and, then, an expert hand to roll up the sleeves and do some digital marketing plumbing. While there are no “quick” fixes, lousy delivery rates can totally be turned around. For instance you can:

• Identify all subscribers who had never opened or clicked on an email message

• Segment the data using certain specific time criteria

• Remove obvious non-engaged subscribers from your list

. . . but there’s a lot more.

Cesar’s case isn’t much different than others trying to ride the bucking bronco of email marketing, which rarely promises instant results and, more often than not, requires skill, patience and an expert helping hand. In Cesar’s case delivery went from a paltry 81.29% to a screaming 99.7% (now that’s more like it!).

You can find out more about how stop your email delivery from eating your wallet by reading the Cesar Millan case study.

It’s taken a singing competition to underscore the importance of measurable ROI.

Last month I pointed out how mobile marketing really boosted the success of American Idol (whose parent company, FremantleMedia, is a mobileStorm client), much more so than traditional marketing. Specifically, I pointed to the record numbers of voters–the majority of whom had texted-in–who participated in this season’s finale between wholesome, broadly-appealing winner Kris Allen and runner-up Adam Lambert, whose artistic risks such as a Middle Eastern take on “Ring Of Fire” thrilled music aficionados while likely scaring Middle America. These figures were in seeming opposition to Nielsen ratings numbers, which indicated that viewership was the lowest since the show’s second season.

At first, this seemed to prove that digital messaging engages consumers so much, their participation becomes much more significant than that of a larger number of less-engaged consumers. But The Business Insider notes that the problem may have to do with Nielsen’s technology that gathers viewer data.

“A recent Nielsen study of how people use the meter showed that enough viewers punch the meter incorrectly, particularly when watching TV in large groups, that national ratings could be off by 8 percent,” the report says. Fox, of course, is furious. Such a flub affects how much the network can charge for advertisements that run during the show. Other TV networks are also wary, since their own ratings and ad rates may also be affected.

The only silver lining here is for digital message marketers. Unlike TV ads that are run based on (now-suspect) viewer numbers, SMS and email campaigns offer absolutely-measurable ROI:

• You can count how many unique users (cell phone numbers or email addresses) are participating in a campaign–whether they’ve opted-in to receive email messages or texted into a premium SMS campaign.
• You can see how many people who received your message further acted upon it–such as the number of people who redeemed a mobile coupon, or who clicked on an email sales flier and ultimately made a purchase.
• You can see which of your campaigns did better than others.
• You can use demographic and psychographic information to see which groups of people responded the most to your campaign.

You just can’t get information this specific–or this accurate–with traditional marketing methods. The Nielsen controversy proves that.

Eydie Cubarrubia

“I’d rather you text me”

Last week, I explained that videos and email marketing messages go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Click-through rates for marketing emails increase two or three times with the inclusion of video! This is in part because increasingly larger numbers of consumers (we’re talking trillions!) want to spend time watching online video, and also because it’s becoming easier for them to watch videos sent via email.

Today, I’ll offer some tips on how marketers can create videos that consumers will want to receive via email and watch online. I’ll aso explain explain how marketers can analyze the results of their video email marketing campaigns with mobileStorm’s technology.

Because some companies might not have tried their hand at creating videos, here are some things we at mobileStorm learned while making our online commercials and comedy shows.

• Online video is not the same as a feature-length movie or network TV show. Its purpose is to quickly pique interest in a brand. Thus, it should start off with a “bang” and not be much longer than a few minutes.
• Links should either lead to a video posted on a site like YouTube or MySpace, or else should lead to specially-designed landing pages. Never use embedded video in email!
• Providing your video in the smallest file size possible, but still retaining a satisfactory image quality, is part of best practices for all Internet video. Flash compression is often the best comproise of file size and quality, making it ideal for online media.

Once you’ve deployed a video email marketing campaign, you need to determine how well it did. Read the rest of this entry »

mobileStorm’s six messaging types for marketers are all conducive to our stance that multi-channel campaigns are best. We’ve also long suggested that marketers be multi-channel within a single message–for example, by including video in an email marketing message, which engages the recipient and also makes the message viral.

We’re so forward-thinking that it’s only been recently that the rest of the marketing industry has caught up, and realized that–like chocolate and peanut butter–video and email can be combined into one message to really entice consumers. Two great tastes taste great together, indeed!

• According to analyst David Daniels at Forrester Research, putting a video link within an email, such as a clickable screen shot, “can increase click-through rates by two to three times.”
• Mr. Daniels also notes in his recent report that between July 2008 and July 2009, 17 percent of marketing executives surveyed planned to use video in email. Marketers are getting competitive with video email!
• Meanwhile, Nielsen Online reported that in April of this year, 119 billion unique viewers watched 7 trillion total streams during the month; total streams were up 24 percent from a year ago, while streams-per-viewer are up 27 percent and time-per-viewer is up 58 percent. Consumers love watching online video!
• Technological advances make viewing video in an email more seamless for the consumer. For example, Gmail Labs now has a feature that allows users to turn on previews of YouTube videos. Once consumers set this on their accounts, they’re able to watch YouTube videos from inside the email message. As word spreads, marketers will reach increasingly more Gmail users with video emails!

So savvy marketers will want to beat the competition before it beats them. This requires them to: (1) post videos where they can easily be found, and (2) incorporate video into their email marketing messages. This may be easier said than done, but with mobileStorm’s technology and expertise, it’ll still be relatively easy. Read the rest of this entry »

(The following was written by Patrick Knight, Director, Client Deliverability, and myself.)

When you send out an email campaign, you need to know how many of your subscribers actually took the time to click on your message and open it. This measurement is called the “open rate.”

The open rate compares the number of people who opened an email message to the number who did not. It’s a percentage of the number of messages “delivered.” An open rate is dependent on a number of different factors. It could be affected by aesthetic reasons, or it could reflect your data management, which in turn may have to do with deliverability issues.

For instance, if your email is blocked by Yahoo!, and the majority of your subscribers have Yahoo! email addresses, the open rate for your email campaign may be disproportionately low.

On the aesthetic side, an open rate is influenced by things like the subject line, sender identification, HTML rendering (such as how the email is show on a mobile device), bulk folder delivery, relevancy of content, and timing of send.

Sometimes a message might be reported as having been opened multiple times. This may happen for a number of reasons. For example, email clients such as Outlook render HTLM within the preview pane, so that each time the user scrolls through his or her inbox and passes your message, it will count as an open. This happens because each time the user previews the message, the user is actually requesting the embedded image from your server, resulting in the report of an open. Ultimately, this would be counted as multiple opens versus a unique open.

Unique opens are somewhat like total opens. The important difference is that only one user is being counted or reported. For example:

• User #1—opens email 2 times.
• User #2—opens email 4 times.
• User#3—opens email 4 times.

This makes a total of 10 opens. However, there are 3 unique opens.

Whether or not emails are opened consistently is largely based on sender reputation, relevancy, and other factors mentioned earlier. Although open rates render inconsistencies, email is very much about building a relationship with your subscribers. As you achieve this through relevant content, setting and honoring expectations, creating trust with your brand, and following best practices, email open rates tend to increase. Read the rest of this entry »

(The following is an excerpt from the article “Email Conversion Rates: A Primer” by Director of Client Deliverability Patrick Knight, appearing in tomorrow’s edition of mobileStorm’s Outside The Inbox.)

Conversion data should be analyzed to know the effectiveness of an email campaign. Your conversion analysis can tell you how many of your recipients actually did exactly what you wanted them to do. Based on this number a marketer can better understand the audience, and create campaigns based on this feedback in order to make a future offering more effective.

Additionally, low conversion rates can be used as a key indicator of email deliverability issues. Since conversion rates are based on the number of messages delivered—not messages sent—inbox delivery of the message is of great importance, which ultimately can significantly affect return on investment (ROI). mobileStorm’s technology can provide click rates which can be used in conjunction with other metrics to determine a marketer’s conversion rate.

In the short term, marketers can use conversion data to make adjustments as needed, and find what best works for what they are trying to accomplish. In the long term, marketers can use this data to better understand their client base.

(Want to know more? Subscribe to Outside The Inbox, mobileStorm’s newsletter about digital marketing. Go to the newsletter today, and read Patrick’s article tomorrow!)