From all of us here at The eMail Guide, we wish you and your family Shana Tova!

Shana Tova is a traditional greeting for Rosh Hashanah (commonly known as the Jewish New Year) and it means, “A Good Year”.

The eMail Guide team represents diverse beliefs and backgrounds and as we enter that busy time of year when so many faiths and cultures begin to celebrate family, peace and love, we wanted to wish you all happiness and good fortune!

To our friends of the Jewish faith: Shana Tova -- A sweet and happy New Year!

Source: Get In The Inbox

by CaptainInBox

Arguably the best EmailRadio yet, the chat room was very active and the guests were consistently relevant & interesting. At some points I really struggled to keep up with both of them!

Before I elaborate on the gravy, there a small technical hitch at the start where we lost Bill and I think Jeff for a bit. Of course both Jim and Jeff, the consummate professionals that they are handled it admirably while the chat room took the piss:

remybergsma: allright, which shark is gnawing on those transatlantic lines?

jordievanrijn: Well, lets change seat rows here on the titanic

MarkatEMR: radio’s dead -email killed radio!

On the show was ‘Mr Influential’ Bill McCloskey: as well as the good stuff on his clickz profile Bill is all about the Monitoring and has the largest email archive in the world collected over the last 7 emails, which is then mined for information and trends. He’s been in the biz for a long time and in fact was one of the first people to coin the phrase “rich media”.

Also on the show was “Dr.” Mark Brownlow of Email-Marketing-Reports: who as well as consistently telling us everything we need to know about email lectures on specialist communication and a bit of email etiquette.

Source: DMNews

by Eric Groves

In the build-up to the holiday shopping season, there’s a need to reach as many people as possible with our campaigns, but some are forgetting the basic tenets of permission-based marketing — particularly when it comes to e-mail. Just because you have someone’s e-mail address doesn’t mean you should automatically add him to every e-mail list you manage. That’s a recipe for disaster on all fronts.

When a person gets an e-mail in his inbox, he instantly asks two questions: Do I know this person (or company) and do I care? If the answer to both is ‘yes,’ then the person is probably going to at least open your e-mail to take a quick glance. That’s what we as marketers are aiming for, to get people to open with our or our clients’ messages. But, if the recipient doesn’t recognize the sender or doesn’t care to be getting e-mail from the person, at best, the e-mail will be quickly deleted. At worst, it’ll be marked as spam, which will damage your reputation as an e-mail marketer.

This relationship between sender and recipient becomes more important — particularly in business-to-consumer marketing — with Google’s Gmail Priority Inbox and Microsoft’s Hotmail now using certain metrics to determine where, if at all, an e-mail should land in an inbox. Because Google and Microsoft are essentially measuring how the recipient interacts with the sender to determine placement, it’s more important than ever that your messages, and those of your clients, are recognizable, wanted and draw the reader in.

Source: Conversionation

by JP De Clerk

Despite the fact that inbound marketing is hot and that we live in social media times (and as you might know, I’m a strong believer in the endless opportunities of combining and integrating channels such as social and email), email marketing is still crucial.

Inbound or outbound: it doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s relevant, cross-channel and customer-centric. In fact, I do not see email marketing as being outbound marketing but that’s a discussion for later.

In this post I would like to talk about email template design. Probably not an important issue for many marketers who are looking – and they should – at topics such as content, personalization, measurement, deliverability, integration, conversion etc.

Yet, the design of an email template is very important. And it also has to do with relevance and customer-centricity.

It’s a representation of your brand and plays an important role in getting your emails in the inbox. I already tackled that deliverability aspect on one of my other blogs but I will look at it soon here again, be it from a somewhat different perspective.

Anyway, despite the increasing and very justified focus on the recipient and the relevance of the content in email marketing, one should not forget the basics. And one of them is indeed the design of your mails, whether they are promotional or automated in the case of lead nurturing scenarios.

Source: FulcrumTech

by Mitch Lapides

How healthy is your email-marketing program? In this month’s feature article, I share my favorite email-marketing metrics—as well as several industry benchmarks—to help you answer that question.

How to Gauge the Major Areas of Your Email Program
The metrics that I’ve listed here focus on four main areas that define the health of an email-marketing program:

• The strength of your email list.
• The effectiveness of the factors that drive open rate (e.g., subject line, from line, preview pane).
• The relevance of the content to your audience.
• The extent to which you’ve met your specific results.

Let’s take a look at the eight metrics that I consider the most important for gauging how each of these components of your email-marketing program is performing:

Strength of your email list
This first set of metrics helps you understand the true strength of your email list.

1. Bounce Rate
   This metric measures the portion of recipients who didn’t receive your email message. The bounce rate is further broken down into “soft” bounce rates and “hard” bounce rates. Typically caused by such issues as network problems or a full mailbox, soft bounces are likely temporary and eventually will be delivered. Hard bounces, however, will never be delivered. They’re returned to the email server because the email address is invalid or doesn’t exist. Typos in email addresses are frequently the cause of hard bounces, for example, indicating that your list needs some cleaning up.

   Bounce Rate = # Hard Bounces / List Size

   What’s an acceptable bounce rate? According to MailerMailer’s email-marketing metrics report for 2009, bounce rates vary by industry, ranging from .9% in banking to 4.3% in real estate. At FulcrumTech, we like to see bounce rates lower than 1% for our clients.

2. Unsubscribe Rate
   The unsubscribe rate measures the number of people who “opt out” of your email list. In addition to measuring the quality of the subscribers on your list, it’s also a good indicator of how relevant your audience finds your content.

   Unsubscribe Rate = # of Unsubscribes / List Size

   At FulcrumTech, we believe unsubscribe rates higher than 1% indicate that there’s a problem that needs to be identified and addressed.

Source: Email Marketing Reports

by Mark Brownlow

Eccentricity isn’t limited to 18th century English aristocrats. The software used to display emails often fails to follow standards too.

In fact, there are no email standards, though one organization is trying to change that.

Each email software client or webmail service has its own idiosyncrasies in the way it interprets the code that makes up an HTML email.

So the same email can look different, depending on whether it’s viewed at Hotmail, in Thunderbird or on the iPhone. Outlook 2007 and 2010, lack support for certain design characteristics that Yahoo! Mail, for example, will handle well.

What does this mean for email marketing? Simple: anytime you put together a message or email template, it’s important to check that your HTML email displays as you’d like it to…in all the different places it might be seen.

That’s an impractical task to do by hand: there are just too many email clients and variations out there. But design preview tools help by taking your HTML email and showing you what it looks like in the most common display environments and configurations.

One of these tools is Litmus. Having reviewed their email analytics product, it’s time to see how their design preview tool shapes up.

This Tuesday, September 14th @ 1PM ET, join Jeff and Jim as they welcome Luke Glasner to tackle email marketing metrics!

The number to call: 347.637.3461

• What metrics matter and what don’t?
  That’s the question we’ll be tackling Tuesday September 14th on eMail Radio!
• Got a question about your email marketing reports/metrics?
  We’ll take your calls and questions about reporting and metrics live!

Luke Glasner knows his metrics!
As the Co-Chair of the Email Experience Council’s Measurement Accuracy Roundtable since 2008, Luke has played a lead role in creating the first industry standard for measuring email metrics and how the calculations behind those metrics are applied by Email Service Providers.  In addition to working with the Measurement Accuracy Roundtable, Luke has also served on the List Growth & Engagement Roundtable since 2006 as well as the Speakers Bureau Advisor Board since 2008 at the eec.  Through his involvement, he has participated in many industry projects on topic such as The S.A.M.E. Project, Determining the Value of an Email Address, List Growth Best Practices, and the recent launch of the eec’s YouTube Channel.

When not working with the eec, Luke runs a consulting business, Glasner Consulting, specializing in Email Marketing, offering services focused on email analysis, testing and cross channel integration.  Before launching Glasner Consulting in January of 2010, Luke worked at Rodman Publishing, where he led the development of Rodman’s email program, creating a significant revenue center for the company.  Luke holds a BBA in Management from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is currently a Masters Candidate at New York University’s Integrated Marketing Program concentrating in Marketing Analytics.

Download the podcast of past shows here!

Source: AWeber

by Amanda Gagnon

It can be easy to put together a whole email without thinking once about who will read it. Your mind is already crowded with content to arrange, goals you need to hit and ways to optimize response.

You might not pause to think about your list. You might instead just cross your fingers and send your email zinging toward it? – the “spray and pray” process.

But your list is made up of people – real people with families and jobs, worries and triumphs. And these people have buying power and an opinion of your business. The best way to use email marketing, then, is to pay attention to them.

So let’s look at how to keep in touch with the faces behind those names on your list, whether there are 10 or 10,000.

Your first subscribers are probably people you know well. If your business was a band, you’d be playing for your sister, and your best friends in your basement.

Even if it feels silly, start things off things professionally by sending helpful content. These people are your first brand ambassadors – the ones who will talk up your brand to others.

And this early in your campaign, there may be some bugs to work out. Take advantage of your easy access to feedback – just pick up the phone or ask over lunch. Use their suggestions to create something they’ll be proud to share with their friends, business contacts, stylists, librarians…

Subject line: Guess Who:)

Enjoy the buzz!

CampaignMonitor: How do I create a printer-friendly email newsletter?

Regardless of how strong your love of trees or dislike of printers is, every now and then there’s a worthy reason for either for you or your subscribers to print an email. Sadly though, simply hitting ‘print’ in your email client of choice doesn’t usually bring the best results. If your email contains large images, it can also cost you in toner and paper, as well.

So, you’re probably thinking, ‘Well, this is obvious. I use print stylesheets on the web, so why not for email?’. Not so fast, buster. As we go through some of the options available when it comes to building printer-friendly email, you’ll come to realize that printing from your inbox can certainly be a fickle beast.

Takeaway: If there’s a moral to this story, it’s not a unique one – HTML simply wasn’t designed to translate beautifully from the screen to print. I highly recommend that you read this excellent resource on print stylesheets, as it not only details the challenges faced by folks designing for the web and the printer, but gives you a feel for how this issue compounds when paired with the well-quirky world of email design.

Scott Writes Everything: An Email Snob Interview with Chris Donald

I’m excited to continue the Email Snob Interview series today by talking with email with Chris Donald, Partner and VP of Sales and Marketing at The Inbox Group.

Takeaway: All self-serve ESPs should have education as their top priority. Although Inbox Group does offer self-serve options, but they only make up 10% of our business. We also have a 90-day managed process for self-serve clients so they don’t get to fly solo until we’ve walked them through the process for 3 months and make sure they understand how email marketing is done right.

HubSpot: Mobile App Downloads Are The New Email Opt-in

Despite the power of email, it is quietly beginning to be replaced; however, it’s not being replaced by text messages as many marketers may think. Instead, the distant competitor picking up speed is the text message’s close relative: push notifications.
What is a Push Notification?

Do you have a smartphone? Increasingly more people are buying smartphones, and many of these devices allow push notifications. When a smartphone owner downloads an application, he or she has the ability to accept push notifications from the app. These notifications appear like text messages on the phone and alert the user to a change or action that has happened within the app. These alerts could be a message from another user, a breaking news story, a change in the weather, or a notification about the latest sale. Push notifications are a real-time interaction with users and provide a utility and experience that email can’t match.

Takeaway: Mobile might seem like a distant priority in your overall marketing mix, but taking a look at some mobile usage and growth statistics may demonstrate that it is closer than you may have thought. It is important to have the basics done well before adding mobile to the mix. Your website needs to be optimized, and you should have your search engine optimization and social media strategy in place.

ExactTarget: 10 Ways to Use Email Marketing in Your Organization

Connections 2010 is coming! In less than two weeks 2,000 Interactive Marketers from around the world will gather for 3 days (September 14 – 16) of collaboration and education. The excitement is in full swing around the ExactTarget office and I thought I’d share 10 ways ExactTarget uses email to communicate about our favorite time of the year.

Takeaway: Using email to communicate about events for your organization isn’t just about sending out an invitation. There’s a whole range of content you can produce to pump up the volume and get people talking.

MarketingSherpa: New Chart: Increasing Reach through Social Sharing

In this week’s chart, we analyze the perceptions marketers have of social sharing in achieving a number of email marketing objectives, such as extending the reach of email content to new markets, increasing brand reputation and awareness, and increasing the ROI of email programs.

Takeaway: Social sharing allows email recipients to share email content on popular social networks and other social media sites. It is a rapidly emerging email tactic and, as this chart shows, about eight in 10 marketers agree that social sharing “extends the reach of email content to new markets” and “increases brand reputation and awareness.”

ClickZ: What Engagement Means For E-mail Marketing

What does engagement mean for e-mail marketers?

It’s always been an important factor. But as Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL change the way they filter and deliver e-mail, engagement has gotten increasingly important.

As a result, marketers must act quickly to improve relevancy to tap the opportunity here – and not get relegated to the “everything else” folder.

Takeaway: Test some new approaches and focus on subject lines, too. Be sure that your brand impact is high so you can claim whatever loyalty you have built over time. Marketers have always known this level of attention and care to e-mail programs is important; we just haven’t always done anything about it. Now, we must act, or forever be relegated to the “everything else” folders of our customers and prospects.

If you’ve got something juicy to share via The Buzz, just tweet @TheeMailGuide or drop us a comment!

Catch more of the Daily Buzz here!

The buzz is brought to you by our Ninja sponsor:

Photo by avlyxz

Someone once told me that email relationships are like marriage proposals.

Once they give you their email address, you will be in this deep connected relationship similar to marriage.

I said, if that is true mine comes with a huge prenuptial agreement that’s triggered with an unsubscribe button.

PS: Please don’t make me flag you as SPAM!!!

So, what do you think? Share your comments!

On any email list, there will be a percentage of subscribers who signed up and never again showed signs of life.  They may have opted-into a specific offer, and once they obtained the coupon, free content, or other benefit you promised, they disengaged.

Or, they joined your list while in the market for your product or service but soon afterward their needs were met and they never bothered to unsubscribe.

In email lingo we call these list members “in-actives”.  The reality is that unless an inactive subscriber specifically tells you why he or she hasn’t responded, you really never know why for sure.  Is it that the person is a) not the right fit for your product/service? b) was once a fit but isn’t anymore? c) is no longer interested but hasn’t unsubscribed because they’re “hanging in there” hoping for improved relevance?  d) became overwhelmed and disengaged with email as a communication channel? e) is angry and upset due to a bad customer experience? Any or all of these reasons could be to blame.

You’ll likely never really know on an individual basis, but it’s safe to assume that at least some inactive subscribers would like to re-engage, they just need a good reason for doing so and possibly, would like to do so in a channel other than email.  Because of that, here’s my recommended course of action for dealing with in-actives:

Conduct a Re-Activation Email Campaign
Identify in-actives on your list according to agreed-upon criteria (never purchased? No clicks in 12 weeks? Zero opens in 6 months?) and segment them for a reactivation email campaign containing a special incentive if they re-opt-into your list, confirm permission, and/or provide expanded information.

Connect in Social Media
New (and dare I say it, way cool) low cost applications like Flowtown make it possible for you to identify which social media networks your email list members belong to on a person-by-person basis, then reach out to them to friend, link or follow on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter and more.  If you can get an active connection going in a social media environment, chances are the next time your email message arrives in the inbox, that list member will pay it more attention.

Attempt Offline Connections
If establishing contact online doesn’t work, try connecting through direct mail or by telephone in order to re-confirm and refresh email list sign-up.  Outreach through offline channels adds variety to your marketing mix, and stands out to those who might be ignoring their inboxes, or who simply might have changed email addresses and need to provide you with the newest, most relevant one.

Reduce Volume of Email Messages Sent or Suppress Entirely
Less active email list members warrant less frequent communication.  Suppress in-actives from all but your most general email campaigns (like your newsletter or quarterly updates) or suppress them entirely.  You don’t need to wipe them off your list, simple don’t email them as much, or at all unless and until they show an increase in responsiveness.  Suppressing in-actives you have failed to re-engage via reactivation campaigns will boost your email campaign performance metrics considerably.  Remember, large list size is meaningless if a sizable percentage of list members aren’t engaged.

Email list management and maintenance should be a living process, never an afterthought.  By monitoring your subscriber engagement you’ll undoubtedly identify inactive segments and be able to deploy the strategies described here.  On the flip side, you’ll also identify your most engaged members, so don’t ignore them!  They deserve segmentation for special – albeit different – treatment too because you’ll want to do all you can to remain in their inner circle long term.

Takeaway: Perhaps the most valuable outcome of good subscriber engagement practices is adopting a “quality over quantity” mindset.  Numbers are important, sure, but only to a point.  Small, highly targeted lists with highly engaged and loyal list members outperform sheer volume almost every time.

Check out this other great post from Karen!

Karen Talavera

Karen Talavera is owner of Synchronicity Marketing where she provides digital marketing training, consulting and coaching.  She is passionate about teaching the secrets of integrating email, social media, content marketing and more to create online synchronicity.  Because Karen is dedicated to bringing this knowledge to solo-preneurs, small businesses and other independent business professionals she also founded High Altitude Marketing Academy in 2010 with Mande White.

Since 2000 Karen has taught thousands of entrepreneurs and marketers how to use email legally, unconventionally, and better than the competition! She teaches and has written for the Direct Marketing Association, MarketingProfs, the Association of National Advertisers, Solo-Entrepreneur, the Email Experience Council and more.  In addition to public events, Karen also provides customized digital marketing training and coaching for either corporate or individual clients.

Twitter:                http://www.twitter.com/SyncMarketing
Facebook:           http://www.facebook.com/SynchronicityMarketing
LinkedIn:             http://www.linkedin.com/in/karentalavera
Main Site/Blog: http://www.synchronicitymarketing.com

Email marketing legends, Mark Brownlow of EmailMarketingReports.com and Bill McCloskey, founder of Email Data Source. Join Jeff and Jim Tuesday at 1 PM ET to talk about where email and social marketing is at now and where its going in the future!

We’ll take your calls live @ 347.637.3461!

Certainly there’s lots to talk about considering recent events such as Gmail’s Priority Inbox feature. We’ll take a look at where we are at and where email marketing is going!

Mark Brownlow is a writer, lecturer and web publisher who’s EmailMarketingReports.com is considered to be the “Macdaddy” of all email marketing blogs. Mark is a brilliant communicator and a thought leader in email marketing.

“Email Marketing Reports entered life in November 2001 because I was tired of decent folk sending spam because nobody helped them learn the basics of legitimate email marketing.”

Bill McCloskey is among the more influential thought leaders in the field of interactive marketing.

He was named one of online advertising’s 50 most influential people by Media Magazine in 2004 and one of the 100 people to know by B2B Magazine in 2003.

Since 2003, Bill McCloskey has authored a weekly column called The Email Insider that is read by more than 40,000 marketers worldwide. He frequently speaks at major trade conferences around the world and is jurist for some of the top email campaign and creative awards at these and other events.

Join us!

Call in live: 347.637.3461 with your questions or comments!

Enjoy the buzz!

Deliverability.com: Deliverability by engagement – a class action lawsuit waiting to happen?

It’s just possible that they are acting with the best of intentions, but I for one have always had major concerns about the way email providers – Google, Microsoft et al – deal with the issue of spam. In my view, however well-intentioned, interfering with someone’s email infringes their rights as citizens and is potentially illegal. And to my mind, things are about to get a whole lot worse.

Takeaway: Where we are with spam blocking though imperfect goes far enough, the problem with the Google/Microsoft approach is that they are moving beyond the wholly laudable project of trying to stop illegal activity, and to a totalitarian state where they decide who reads what.

Email Marketing Reports: Holiday email marketing 2010: top resources

As a young and creative September jumps into town, it’s time for the annual holiday email marketing resources post. Check back regularly, as I keep this post updated with the best links on the topic.

Takeaway: Mark’s excellent holiday resource list is a must read and we are proud to be included in the list!

Digital Marketing Excellence: People Want Behaviorally-Targeted E-mails

Overwhelmingly, consumers say they want e-mails that are relevant to them. Marketers have struggled to know how to fulfill this need. Of course, info on sales and promotions for products the customer is interested in has been one of the most popular and easily-implemented solutions.

Takeaway: As we enter the holiday season, retailers should start thinking about ways they can incorporate this preference into their e-mail marketing. For example, updating transactional e-mails to include up sell or cross sell products. Or perhaps add a shipping notification e-mail to the roster?

MediaPost: You Should Be Talking To Women

In 2009, Ad Age reported that women controlled $4.3 trillion of the $5.9 trillion in U.S. consumer spending, or 73% of household spending. And in a trend that continues to go up, up and away, DM News reported this year that women influence as much as 85% of the household purchases.

And moms (a subset of women) have a disproportionately high impact on the economy. Marketing Sherpa reports that the buying power of moms was over $2.1 trillion annually. The book, Trillion Dollar Moms, states that moms account for 55% of spending on consumer electronics and 51% of all food purchases in America.

Takeaway: No matter what your product, there’s a good chance you should be talking to women. And for your campaign to be effective, they should find it easy to talk about you. As marketers have found out in recent years, the rewards of recognizing these shifts in market and marketing dynamics are manifold. It does appear that at least on the Internet, the spirit of the Khasi tribe has just received a massively new lease on life.

Mashable: Google Wave to Rise Again on Its Own

Google Wave was once one of Google’s hottest projects, promising a new way of communication that might even replace e-mail. Alas, it was not to be, and Google shut it down soon after public launch due to lack of user adoption — but not completely.

Takeaway: Yes, Wave was a failure in Google’s hands, but we’re sure that developers will find a way to instill new life into the project. Who knows, maybe soon we’ll see a better Wave, and maybe this new version will (finally) conquer the hearts of users.

Pingdom: Twitter usage up 33% over the summer

Twitter announced yesterday that they now have more than 145 million registered users. That’s a lot, but how much is Twitter actually being used? Turns out that there’s more activity on Twitter than ever before, and it keeps increasing.

Twitter processed 2.64 billion tweets this August, an increase of 33% over May. Not a bad increase over just a summer. In August, an average of 85 million tweets passed through Twitter every day.

Takeaway: Last year was a breakout year for the service, and that trend seems to continue.

If you’ve got something juicy to share via The Buzz, just tweet @TheeMailGuide or drop us a comment!

Catch more of the Daily Buzz here!

The buzz is brought to you by our Ninja sponsor:

Another great week @ The eMail Guide! We had a fantastic eMail Radio show with DJ Waldow of Blue Sky Factory this past Tuesday!
We talked about the changes with Gmail, SWYN and how to integrate social and email.

You can download the mp3 here.

eMail Radio Tuesday, September 7th @ 1pm ET
Marketing legends, Mark Brownlow of EmailMarketingReports.com and Bill McCloskey, founder Email Data Source. Join Jeff and Jim to talk about where email and social marketing is at now and where its going in the future! We’ll take your calls live!

eMail Radio is live every Tuesday @ 1pm EST! You can get the details here!

Due to the long weekend, our newsletter will be out on Tuesday and not the usual Monday.
Have you signed up for The eMail Guide newsletter yet? Sign up here!

Enjoy this week’s top takeaways of email marketing wisdom!

Takeaway: The best marketing is going into a room full of people to deliver your message. Today in the social media space, it’s a room full of people and that is why it’s a prudent thing to do.

Takeaway: Learn the email marketing lingo! Use an online glossary to brush up!

Takeaway: Delivering targeted content will help any business with their email marketing campaigns. Just take the time to review your list and what you know about them and start segmenting and delivering the content they want and need.

Takeaway: The mark of a well implemented Customer Experience Management Program is that your Customers believe your company offers a connected and engaging experience they didn’t know they needed and wouldn’t have asked for, but now cannot live without. Let this be the guiding tenet that we all collectively work towards.

Takeaway: The daily email marketing buzz is a collection of the best email marketing posts every day. Each post in the buzz has a takeaway, making this a buffet of brilliance all on it’s own.

Get more top takeaways here!