Our instinctive, easy to use interface means you’re always in control and can create your professional email campaigns quickly with no fuss. We work closely with all our customers to ensure you get the best from newzapp and that your email campaigns are a success.

Boost Conversion and Deliverability with 3 Email Marketing Rules

Faces come and go in email marketing. Experienced marketers move up the ladder as newbies enter the industry. Reliable information about best practices is in constant demand, which is why Chad White wrote the book, Email Marketing Rules: How to wear a white hat, shoot straight, and win hearts.

White has researched email marketing for more than 10 years. As founder of the Retail Email Blog, he tracked close to 100,000 emails to monitor their content, design, frequencies, and tactics. Today, his research continues as Principal of Marketing Research at ExactTarget.

“The book is the culmination of all of those years trying to help people and putting all of my best wisdom into one package,” said White.

We had the opportunity to speak with White to learn what his new book has to offer email newbies and veterans. First, we had to know, did the world need another book about email marketing best practices?

Yes, said White, because best practices are misunderstood. What many people consider a “best practice” is often just a tactic. Books on the subject can be quickly dated after they are published.

“A lot of people would probably say that ‘responsive design’ is a best practice,” said White. “I walk it one step back from that and talk about how having your emails render and function properly across a variety of platforms is really the best practice.”

One of White’s goals when writing the book was to deliver a set of guidelines that were more timeless and evergreen than the latest buzzword in the industry. His book explains more than 100 rules of email marketing. We describe three of his favorites below.

Rule #11. Focus on maximizing the value of a subscriber, not on maximizing the results of a campaign.

Revenue is always important to retail email marketers. Their programs have to drive ROI or they’re out of a job. B2B email marketers typically need to generate sales leads for the same reason. Both groups have a central goal and they need to maximize results.

Creating a goal for your program is important, but it should not cloud your judgment on a campaign level, says White. Too many companies focus on maximizing revenue from every email campaign. The result is that lifetime customer value is sacrificed for short-term gains.

“We all know there are tricks and little tactics you can use that fool subscribers and generate artificial interest by being misleading or scandalous or offensive. … These kinds of tricks decrease trust and can lead to greater unsubscribes, more spam complaints, and lower response in the future,” said White.

In other words: think long-term. Do not be so obsessed with hitting this month’s goal for revenue that you sacrifice the quality of your list. Instead, focus on serving the subscribers as well as possible. Maximize overall results, not just campaign results.

This mindset will help you discover campaigns that increase subscriber satisfaction and engagement. Although these campaigns might not generate direct leads or revenue, they have impact, White says.

“They are campaigns that create a halo-effect that makes future campaigns more effective. You’re going to miss those opportunities if you’re just looking at things on a campaign-by-campaign basis.”

Rule #14. Don’t attach too much meaning to your open rates.

Open rates are easy to measure. They’re the most-tracked metric in email marketing, but they’re not used correctly, White says.

“I die a little every time I hear someone talking about how they gauge the success of a subject line test based on opens. That’s absolutely the wrong way to gauge the success of a subject line.”

Subject lines can prepare readers for the content of the email and prime them for conversion. That’s why marketers need to know the impact of a subject line on the overall goal of the campaign to truly gauge its results.

For example if the goal of the email is to sell a product, how did the subject line affect sales in the test? If the goal is to spur downloads, how did the subject line affect the conversion rate? Only by tracking all the way to conversion can you determine which subject line is the winner.

“Pay attention to open rates, they’re definitely important,” said White. “But don’t put too much stock in them.”

Rule #17. Accept that ESPs have relatively little control over the deliverability of your emails.

Email marketers need to take responsibility for their programs. If your delivery rates are in the dumps, it’s not your ESP’s fault, and it’s not the ISPs’ fault; it’s your fault, says White.

“ESPs can help you get out of trouble, but marketers are the ones who get themselves into trouble.”

The most important factor in your deliverability is your sender reputation. ISPs monitor the performance of your emails and the number of spam complaints and bounces they generate. If you want to improve your delivery rate, improve the quality of your list by reactivating dormant subscribers, removing invalid addresses, and resolving the issues that cause complaints. The goal is to have a high-quality list, not the biggest list on the block.

“A smaller list is something that most email marketers loathe the idea of, but that’s the path forward for some,” said White.

Stick to Your Rules

Tactics are part of email marketing. They help us get results week after week. But they will always evolve as technology and behaviors shift. We need a compass to keep our programs on the right path during times of change. That compass should be our principles and rules for email marketing – not our tactics.

You should sit down with your team to hammer out the rules of your email program. How will subscribers always be treated? How will the success of a campaign always be judged? When change floods the industry, a list like this will keep you on solid ground.

Takeaway: If you like these ideas and want to check out the other 107 solid marketing rules, Chad White’s book should be your next read. It’s great for Newbees. As for the Ninjas, it will certainly get your marketing juices flowing and remind you of what’s important when it comes to email marketing. Great work Chad!

Check it out on Amazon:  Email Marketing Rules: How to wear a white hat, shoot straight, and win hearts.

How to Get Actionable Intelligence from Your Email Campaigns

There’s no point sending out email campaigns, no matter how brilliant, unless you know exactly how they’ve performed. There are various ways of tracking performance, depending on the type of campaign, but you should always be able to answer three key questions:

• How well did the campaign perform?
• Can I confidently attribute new sales and new customers to it?
• Is the return on investment good enough?

So far, so good. But where do you find the answers?

You need a set of email measurement and tracking tools, or ideally one good quality all-rounder that does the lot for you in one place. Once you know exactly what’s what, you’re in a position to tinker with your emails in all manner of creative ways to methodically improve your performance and achieve perfection!

If you’re looking for expert support to hit the email marketing ground running, find someone who provides all this.

Delivery rate

You sent out 1000 emails, but how many were actually delivered? Good quality, current data should come with a minimal bounce rate, while older or out-of-date data is often less reliable, usually generating a higher bounce rate. A low bounce rate gives you an up-front advantage, putting your message in front of as many people as possible at inbox level.

If you suffer high bounce rates for a data set, you might want to change your list broker or clean up your in-house database.

Open rate

The open rate is a basic indicator of a campaign’s success, expressed as a percentage of the people to whom you sent the message. Open rates are useful for comparative tracking, for example, revealing whether one subject line works harder than another. Subject line testing is classic direct marketing best practice, letting you tinker to establish the best-performing hooks.

Click rate

A bunch of people have opened your email. But how many of them followed your call to action and actually clicked through the link or links in your email? Click rate data helps you format your message so there’s the best chance of click-throughs, for example, by moving your link to a different location within the email body. It can also determine which of several links people preferred to click through; you might decide to remove all but the most popular link in your next campaign.

Devices used

When you track specific customer behaviour you can establish vital fine detail, for example what kind of device people used to open, read, and interact with your message. When you identify how many people used a smartphone, for example, you can make informed decisions about the future nature of your campaign’s layout, content, and format.

Forwarding and sharing

If the people who opened your email loved it so much they shared it with their friends, family, or business contacts via social networks, you know you’ve done a good job. The more sharing that goes on, the better, and the better value you get for every marketing pound spent. You might notice that one particular special offer drove large numbers of people to pass it on. In which case you can roll it out across more segments, repeat it, or improve it to increase your ROI even more.

Redemption rate

Say you make a special offer. You need to establish how many people took advantage of it so you can do more of the same or, if it bombs, drop the idea and think again. This is one of the most important metrics because it goes right to the heart of the money side of things, clearly revealing your ROI.

Actionable data

Data tracking highlights the relative value of campaigns and their content to your customer base, providing insight to help you improve performance and increase ROI over time. But data is only useful if it’s actionable.

If your tracking data isn’t empirically sound, the results, while interesting, will be meaningless.  It’s no good emailing 20 people and basing your next actions on the fact that 3% of them responded positively. Big, statistically sound chunks of data deliver results you can trust; you should never draw conclusions from small data sets.

Targeting and segmentation

If you want to take database marketing a step further, you can subdivide your data into segments and target each segment with a directly relevant message. Provided the segments are big enough to deliver accurate insights, the data you track will have even more relevance, allowing you to fine-tune your offers through a greater understanding of your customers’ and prospects’ needs.

Email marketing systems – What to look for

The best email marketing systems, for example Emarsys, let you customise customer life cycle clusters, analyse demographics, opens, clicks, behavioural, and financial information. And they come with built-in lifecycle programs to help you achieve higher response rates and ROI.

Takeaway: To make a proper job of it you need nothing less than a proper Big Data model and real-time intelligence; customer lifecycle analysis based on recency, frequency, and monetary metrics; in-depth customer insight to help you understand customer behaviour from an unlimited number of data fields; plus goals tracking, flexible segmentation potential and the capacity to drill down at campaign planning level . . .  then you’re really motoring!

Onboarding New Customers at 330 Miles Per Hour

As marketers, we talk a lot about the importance of early customer engagement and creating a positive onboarding experience. The most surprising brand introduction I have had was with the National Hot Rod Association.

My father-in-law invited me to the drag races in Englishtown, N.J. My only knowledge of the hot rod sprints was from what I caught on ESPN when visiting his home. My expectations were similar to other sporting events: find a seat, watch the contest and enjoy some over-priced food and beverages.

My experience was anything but ordinary. We arrived at the racetrack at 9 a.m., walked inside the gates, and headed over to the garages. In one long row of trailers stood each driver, race team, and car. The drivers signed autographs, distributed free photos, and answered admirers’ questions. At 10 a.m., the town lifted its noise curfew and the Top Fuel teams started their engines. The smell of nitromethane is a scent I will never forget. This behind-the-scenes access continued throughout the day. I witnessed mechanics rebuild engines in less than 75 minutes between elimination rounds.

Quick win

As a marketer, I took notes. The speed in which the NHRA created a new brand advocate was as quick as drivers hitting the gas pedal at the starting line. By noon, I had selected my favorite drivers and developed an appreciation for the race team’s ability to build an engine for a single run down a thousand foot track.

Go on green

The NHRA’s unique onboarding experience for spectators translates into revenue growth in three key ways.

1. Activation – The earlier an onlooker emotionally connects with a race team, driver, or sponsor, the sooner he or she will share their attention, cash, and enthusiasm with the brand.
2. Retention – The value of a positive customer experience reduces the likelihood that attendees will leave the track early. More importantly, the engaging interactions with drivers reinforce why fans should return the following year.
3. Cross-selling – With fans fully engaged, the probability that they will spend more money on concessions and merchandise increases.

Recognize reasons for false starts

This type of brand immersion is what marketers strive for, but few achieve. The roadblocks encountered are numerous. Here are a few:

• Misplaced priorities - In a September 2012 survey, RSR Research found that 22% of retail marketers said that building customer loyalty was their lowest priority. This is surprising, as organizations are in a heated competition for the short-attention spans of today’s consumers.
• Lack of guardianship - Few companies have a dedicated position that leads and coordinates onboarding activities across the organization. This job requires a unique ability to assess, make recommendations, and get buy-in from cross-functional departments to optimize customer touch points from the moment prospects hear about the business, until they become raving fans. Without this far-reaching supervision, new customers may miss key milestone experiences where an organization demonstrates its unique value.
• Media preference assumptions - Onboarding strategies often fail to take into account the changes in consumer expectations as their relationship matures with the brand. A consumer who enjoyed following an organization’s Twitter updates when he or she was learning about the company does not necessarily want to continue the conversation over that same channel. Now a paying customer, he or she may want to communicate in a more personal manner through email or SMS.

Get off to a fast start

Attracting new customers is a strenuous process for most marketers. However, it requires the same effort and energy to ensure a customer has a positive shopping experience, develops a deep understanding of the firm’s culture and products, and becomes a brand advocate. Here are three steps to consider in designing an outstanding onboarding program:

1. Identify moments to amaze - As marketers build an onboarding strategy, they must plan for ways to exceed a customer’s expectations through rich interactions. The timing of a message’s delivery can have a significant impact on consumer loyalty. This contact may come as a pleasant surprise, or in the case of the NHRA, an ‘under the hood’ look at the product that generates a greater appreciation for the race itself.
2. Extend the purchasing experience - If NHRA can turn a 4-second sporting event into a full day of festivities, brands can too. For example, in the travel business, the anticipation leading up to a trip, and the recollection of memorable moments from the trip, can be just as important as the vacation itself. Leading travel companies send clients reminders to make dinner reservations before or offer commemorative merchandise after the journey.
3. View data holistically - Data is the lifeblood of any organization. Yet companies continue to struggle with using data properly for effective onboarding campaigns. To be successful, businesses must consider all channels and touch points in the customer lifecycle. Recognize that each communication must explicitly answer the questions, “Why should I care?” and, “What’s in it for me?” Otherwise, the conversation and assistance the brand is sharing will seem disingenuous and disruptive.

Lead rather than push

Temper the need for speed. Organizations must be cautious not to rush new customers. A successful onboarding program is similar to a well-told tale. A great story grabs readers’ attention and instinctively draws them closer to the text. As the story unfolds, book lovers start trying to figure out what will happen next. Yet the patient author only leads the way, permitting readers to make their own conclusions. By anticipating the next plot twist and feeling part of the story, readers are grateful to the author for the experience.

Image via Flickr by goarmyphotos

Red Circle Digital provide a scalable and flexible email marketing platform. The technology is packed with features and functionality to ensure that even the most complex email programmes are manageable in a simple and robust manner, but our aim is to be a perfect fit for your business, so flexibility is standard for us.

At Red Circle Digital we see ourselves as working in partnership with our clients. Their pain is shared with us, likewise gains are a benefit to all parties. It makes sense then that we work to reduce and eliminate the pain points whilst endeavouring to maximise the gains.

You will receive full, in-depth, training on our platform. The extensive training goes hand in hand with dedicated technical, strategic and tactical support provided by our client services team. Our team will be at your side from day one, offering support and guidance, ensuring that you achieve your goals.

Our ultimate goal is to be an extension of your marketing team, never more than a phone call or email away.

• Full training
• Dedicated and friendly account management
• Integration with your current business tools
• Powerful Marketing Automation
• Strong database segmentation tools
• Strategic email programme guidance
• Powerful and meaningful tracking & reporting
• Deliverability expertise to maximise inbox placement rates
• Helping hand for all stages of your campaign, from data selection and template design to landing pages, surveys and more

For us, the key to success is a happy client. The customer must feel that they are in the hands of experts and that nothing is too much to ask. Red Circle Digital thrives, both as a business and as individuals, on intelligent and lively consultations with our clients and others in the email marketing space. Innovation will always result from discussions.

Your email marketing, simplified.

Focusing on Mobile

Statistics show that in only a few years, more people will open email on mobile devices than desktop or laptop computers.

According to most reports, 42% of email is currently read on a mobile device. Mobile email is the most important way that email is evolving and one of the main reasons why it is more relevant today than ever. One thing is abundantly clear, in order to get the most of your email marketing, you have to not only keep mobile devices in mind, but focus on them.

There are two important ways to focus on mobile marketing. One is in the design and layout of your email, the other is in the content creation. Each are important if you want to have the greatest impact on your customers.

Design and Layout:

Admail.net templates are all created to be mobile compatible. Though they may appear different on different devices, they should all work nicely. We also have a mobile category in our templates section that is specifically modified to be mobile friendly. Whatever template you choose, we always suggest testing on a mobile device before sending out.

An issue some clients run into is dealing with how templates respond after heavy modification. If you are going to drastically change a template, it could affect how it performs on a mobile device. The easiest way to prevent problems with this is again, testing. If you’ve modified a template and it breaks in your testing, please let us know as we will be happy to help you.

Another way to prevent issues on your own is to ensure that all of your columns and sections have defined widths. This prevents the mobile device from taking too many liberties with your email layout. We’ve seen recently that email designs without strictly defined widths have issues, specifically on iOS (iPhone).

Content:

Mobile users interact with email differently than desktop users. Mobile devices have smaller screens, users typically spend less time on an email, browsing the web is less viable, and there are many other differences as well. It’s important to consider these differences when creating content for a mobile email. While using a traditional email layout and content may be “OK” on a mobile device, you won’t be completely utilizing the tools you have to create the best email possible.

Email for mobile (which is now all email) should be more concise and easier to interact with. If there is a call to action, the action that you want the user to take must be easy to complete on mobile. This means having mobile friendly websites and online shopping carts.Those big graphics you want to use? Consider that they are going to be on a smaller screen.

Use your common sense and pay attention to how you read email on your own mobile device to develop even more strategies for designing email for mobile. One thing to point out is that, yes, some users will “save” an email that they are interested in and access it on a personal computer later. While this is a valid point, it can’t be relied upon and steps should still be taken to make email mobile friendly.

Takeaway: Mobile device users MUST be considered when creating email now. Gone are the days when mobile users were a small part of your readership that could be largely ignored. Mobile users account for nearly half of your readers and that number is quickly increasing. The time is now to rethink your email building strategy.

Email Marketing and the Power of the Johnson Box

The Johnson box and email marketing, perhaps you don’t even see the potential if you’ve either never heard the term or associate it with direct marketing mail. However, as Kenny Van Beeck points out, email marketing can unleash the power the Johnson box. Here’s seven great tips on how to do that:

The Johnson box is the area that is exposed when opening your email. It’s the section you see in the preview pane. This space determines whether people keep on reading your email message or not.

Here are 7 easy-to-use tips to make that Johnson box work like hell.

1. Respect the 5-30 rule. You only have 5 seconds to convince your reader to keep reading your email for 30 seconds longer. Grab his attention in the Johnson box.

2. Include a crystal clear call-to-action. Tell the reader exactly what you want him to do:  read on, click, fill in a survey, buy something or register for an event.

3. Be sure to include several links that lead the reader straight into the email.

4. If possible, personalize your message.

5. Avoid image-only banners. Most people have disabled images in their email preferences.

6. Always use a top link referring to an online version of your email. It not only helps in case of technical difficulties, studies have also shown that PDA users tend to use this link.

7. In newsletters it’s wise to include bookmarks in your Johnson box, referring to the actual content of the email.

Takeaway: Use the power of a well-constructed Johnson box to drag your readers into the content of your email. It will keep their attention fixed to what you expect them to do.

What about you? How are you working that Johnson?

- Convert your photoshop file into html which will be mobile friendly and look good on all devices
- Responsive & scalable designs will auto adjust the template according to the screen size
- Ready to be installed into ConstantContact, MailChimp and other email software
- Easy to re-use the html code in future
- Litmus tested on all popular devices – iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Windows Outlook, iMail etc
- Easy to copy and paste text and images for reuse the template in future

And we do all of this for just $99.

Top Five Ways to Boost Email Marketing Results and Impact in 2013

There couldn’t be a better time to strategize final changes and improvements to your 2013 email marketing programs as you ready them for launch. In fact, while many of your New Year’s email plans may be firmly sketched out, it’s not too late to give them a final polish with these insights and tweaks. Knowing where to amplify, adjust or even contract can take your email marketing programs from “ho-hum” to significantly greater impact on your bottom line in 2013.

Here are my top five recommendations for boosting email marketing results and impact in the coming year. Stay tuned in January for even more ideas to make 2013 your email program’s most successful year yet!

1. Strengthen and Clarify Permission


Review and clarify your permission practices and tie them to specific types of email you send or specific email communication tracks/programs/publications you offer. Make it easy for people to pick and choose what to opt-into, what the different tracks/programs are, and how they can adjust frequency or format (daily vs. weekly digest? graphic vs. text?). If you’re still offering a single global subscribe/unsubscribe to your email marketing, it’s time to expand into detailed preference centers and to begin collecting specific email preference data from your subscribers.

2. Engage New Subscribers Early and Often


Most companies’ email lists are heavily burdened with inactive subscribers (up to 60% by some estimates). One reason is that interest in most brands or merchandise categories naturally wanes over time. But sadly, a huge percentage of inactive subscribers is the result of never properly communicating with them in the first place. One secret to avoiding disengagement is to intentionally cultivate a pattern of response with new subscribers right from the start. Think in terms of repeatedly encouraging them and conditioning them to take action, even if it isn’t to buy but simply to interact with content, enter a sweepstakes, or share to social. Furthermore, consider amplifying your welcome and onboarding email programs by expanding them from a single message into a series of messages.

As for those subscribers whose activity has truly lapsed, consider attempting to wake them up and keep them awake earlier than the typical six months to a year most marketers wait before they do anything about the problem. When it comes to your email list, early and frequent intervention to the disengaged will prevent them from lapsing into a permanent coma.

3. Think Mobile

There’s no avoiding it – email is on the go – being read everywhere, all the time, thanks to mobile devices – and showing no signs of stopping. With upwards of 30% of all email now read on a mobile device (and this figure is projected to increase) you’ll probably need to simplify email message design to accommodate the visible limitations of email on smartphones and tablets. In your email templates and messages, think single column, leaner content, and easier-to-see-and-press call-to-action buttons or icons. Use Litmus or similar tools to test how your email is showing up in the inbox. And don’t forget landing and site pages – they may need design tweaks as well to become easier to view and interact with in mobile environments.

4. Deepen Segmentation

Simple segmentation by gender, age, company size or other such attributes may still have its place, but it’s been long understood by database marketers that past behavior is an excellent predictor of future behavior. That’s why it’s essential to collect subscriber data that can be used to segment in ways that drive more business, such as using annual purchase totals to segment by spend level. When a subscriber takes a meaningful action, record it so you’re building a behavioral history for use in future segmentation, targeting, development of triggered email programs and selection of offers for different customer groups. Plus, knowing past behavior gives you a baseline against which to test and learn the email strategies that successfully move the needle – yielding greater opens, clicks, more sales, higher average order value, or more frequent conversions – in the future.

5. Make the shift from Static to Dynamic Content

Does your email message design still follow a “one size fits all” approach? It doesn’t have to. The use of dynamic content allows date-, place- and time-specific images and copy to be served in an email message so that it is unique to when, where or on which device it is opened. Dynamic content also enables the serving of different copy or images to different subscribers based on individual attributes or segmentation criteria (i.e. East Coasters see one version, West Coasters another; or men and women see different versions of a message). Imagine incorporating actual user reviews, custom recommendations based on previous purchases (like Amazon does) or even different suggestions based on the weather! All is possible with dynamic content; check out this prior post for more.

Takeaway: Chances are, if you’re not already employing most of the above, even incorporating one of these power-boosters will yield an increase in revenue and profits from your email marketing. For more ideas request a no-cost, no-obligation breakthrough session and tune again in January.

Until then, feel free to share your top suggestions for boosting email marketing results – what have you tried or tested that made a huge impact for you? What hidden gems and kernels of wisdom do you have to impart? Share them in comments below, and happy Holidays!

Email delivery is important, even if it’s something that happens behind the scenes. Most of us have heard stories of what spam filters look for, the word F*R*E*E, too many bad links or messy HTML code. And while those things could send an email to the spam folder, the latest thing that ESPs are looking for is content engagement. It’s not just about how you say something, it’s what you say and how your readers interact with it. Today, we’ve got some helpful tips to get your email in the inbox. Read on!

Your list – It’s more important than ever to have good list practices. Use a double opt-in form for sign-ups and then select who you want to mail. Create lists based on interest in your products or services, folks who open your email, folks who click your email or non-responders, and send info specifically of interest to them. You don’t have to send to your entire list every time. By targeting portions of it you can be more productive.

Content, content, content – You’ve heard it before, content is king, and email delivery is one of the many reasons it is. Send content your readers like and are interested in, and the info you promised at sign up. Also, keep an eye on your stats. Watch your open and click through rates, track what articles, stories or products are clicked on most so you know what connects with your readers.

Keep following the rules – Spam filters are evolving but you still need to follow CAN-SPAM rules like having a clear From Label and Subject line, an unsubscribe method and a valid postal address. And you still need to have clean HTML, links that go to good web pages and avoid spammy words and phrases.

Email delivery can seem like a mystery, but with just a few tweaks and great content you’ll be in like Flynn.

The multichannel messaging solution enables Brick Street clients to carry on conversations with consumers over multiple devices as these multi-tasking shoppers move about their day. The single platform architecture allows organizations to have unified views of each consumer—across all channels to engage shoppers, drive sales, and develop loyal relationships.

Brick Street’s software developers have been pioneers in digital marketing since the dawn of the internet and the evidence can be seen in every string of code. CONNECT’s agile engineering makes it possible to access any PHP page to pass information through SMTP or JMS. The modular design enables marketers to respond quickly to consumers’ adoption of new digital communication channels while not creating an IT security threat. This forward-thinking strategy helps some of the world’s most successful companies send over 10 billion messages a year.

By: MailerMailer

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned designer, choosing an email color scheme can be tough. To begin, you’ll want to choose colors from your branding — specifically your logo and website. You’ll need about five to seven colors to use for your email color scheme. Colors are needed for the background, headings, sidebar, header, footer, text, and links. However, some areas, such as header and footer, can use the same color.

Tip: If you’re bored with your brand colors, resist the urge to experiment (unless you’re doing a complete branding makeover). Recipients should instantly recognize who the email is from. If they can’t, your email might end up in the spam folder.

Some General Advice

Range of Colors
When choosing your color scheme, select a good range of contrasting colors. If all your colors are light or dark, or too close in hue, your message won’t look as appealing.

Text
In general, dark text on a light background is easier to read than light text on a dark background. If you choose light text on a dark background, use a sans-serif font, such as Helvetica or Arial. A dark background will “swallow” the serifs on each letter, making the serif font, such as Georgia or Times New Roman, especially difficult to read.

Link Color
As mentioned in a recent post, links should contrast with both background and text color, so they can be easily recognized. Use one color for links, or at most two. This way, they can be easily spotted throughout the message.

By: HubSpot

he Next Web published a great article recently calling out a company, Fab, for their pretty remarkable email opt-out campaign.

That’s right, they run an automated email opt-outcampaign.

What makes this campaign stand out from the crowd is that Fab isn’t just emailing their unengaged contacts to see if they want to change their preference settings … they’re straight up opting people out of their emails.Whoa. Bold move, guys.

This addresses a pain point we’re all familiar with: Most people are struggling with inbox overload, and email marketers are struggling to get seen amid the clutter, without harming theiremail deliverability and sender reputation. This is a pretty novel way to try to address all of those pain points through your email marketing — and dare I say I think this is quite lovable email marketing? I mean, lovable marketing is all about delighting prospects, and setting the right people up with the right content at the right time. I think – I say “think” because there might be a downside to this, but we’ll discuss that later — this campaign hits all that criteria for total and utter lovability.

Let’s talk about this campaign a little more, dissect what makes it a fantastic example of lovable email marketing, and see what we can learn from their execution here.

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New Report: Email is Key for Australian Content Marketers

Australians have embraced content marketing more so than their North American peers, according to the first Content Marketing in Australia report.

The report is a joint effort from the Content Marketing Institute and the Association for data-driven marketing and advertising and presents some interesting findings for Australian marketers – many of which support the key role of email.

Content is the cornerstone of email marketing.

Firstly, 96% of Australian marketers are using content marketing and on average use 12 content marketing tactics.

The 3rd most popular tactic is email newsletters. This just reinforces that content really is an important part of email marketing.

Although it is essential you have clean databases, good deliverability and visually pleasing email design, content is what will draw your reader in and keep them coming back for more.

It is worth noting that e-newsletters are just one of many e-messaging platforms. Another great platform for carefully crafted content is autoresponders. One of the best things about autoresponders is that they don’t take long to set up but return a really high reward. Check out 5 reasons to use email autoresponders to get the ball rolling.

Top tips to improve your content marketing

The report identified a profile of best-in-class content marketers in Australia. From this I have drawn out a couple of tips to improve content marketing in your emails:

• Use a variety of content marketing tactics and integrate them with each other; for example, use e-newsletters, product releases and SMS
• Use more social media platforms and encourage people to share your e-messaging across multiple platforms. This is also a great way to grow your list.
• Personalise your content (the report found on average 92.5% of Australian marketers already do this – well done!)

The reason why we do it

Overall, Australian marketers cite brand awareness as their top content marketing goal, closely followed by engagement.

But as most of you already know, producing engaging, relevant content isn’t always easy and it can be very time consuming. In fact, 71% of marketers in Australia believe they are ineffective at content marketing. If this is you, then check out our 20 ideas to inspire your next email newsletter  to try and make tackling content a little easier.

These ideas are the starting point for creating great content, but there is a lot more to it. What do you find most difficult when it comes to emails and content marketing? Please share any thoughts you have below.

Takeaway: Email marketing is the third most popular content tactic for Australian marketers. This highlights that content really is the cornerstone of email marketing; the two go hand in hand.

By: ClickMail

We’re already three months into 2013, and one of this year’s hottest topics is still the importance of triggered email marketing. Has your company launched any automated campaigns yet? If not, you might want to consider these five reasons to take on triggered email, because this isthe year to get automation working for you…before your competitors get it first.

Reason 1: Triggered emails perform better
When considering your choice of email marketing solutions, consider this: triggered emails simply do more in the inbox, garnering more open rates and more click throughs than the average marketing email. According to a recent email marketing study:

• Open rates for triggered emails averaged of 47.7% in Q3 of 2012, 75% higher than the business as usual (BAU) rate.
• Although click-through rates for triggered emails dropped 2% compared to 2011 (from 11.7% to 9.7%), the average click-through rate for triggered emails was more than double that of BAU emails.

Reason 2: Triggered emails lighten your workload
Picture working without working—that’s what triggered emails are like. You determine the triggers and create the emails, then leave these automated emails alone to do their job. You don’t have to think about them, and you can set up alerts to tell you when something does need your attention. One caveat, however: you can’t leave them alone forever. You still need to monitor how well these emails are performing, and test and tweak to constantly improve them.

By: ClickZ

As a practitioner in the email marketing space, my being truly impressed with an email experience doesn’t really happen that often. After all, a brand doing what it “should” is an expectation that I have – because I know they can. But I had a unique experience with a brand recently that I thought would be extremely valuable to share with all of you. You may not deem this an “advanced” email marketing tactic (yet), but the reality is that…well, it is.

Your customers have come to expect and rely upon the email communications they get from you. It is something of a lifeline, or a direct connection between them and your brand. But too often, that direct connection is cut short by marketers in an attempt to simplify their own lives. What am I talking about here? You guessed it: the dreaded “do not reply.”

As marketers, we have become complacent with telling our customers to not respond to us. It goes something like this: marketer sends email, invokes a question or a need to engage by the customer, customer hits reply, automated message comes back that says the inbox is not monitored and to not reply. Come on! Is that really the message we want to send customers who we are trying to drive to engage with us?

Recently, I ordered replacement contacts from 1-800 Contacts. I needed to get them quickly and just went through the quick process of reordering since I had done so previously. Hours later, I was thumbing through my email and saw my confirmation message in my inbox (to be clear, it didn’t take the company that long to send it, it took me that long to look at it), and it jumped right off the page at me! The shipping address was wrong (we recently moved and I didn’t update it on the account). It was my own stupidity and haste.

We need a new business model: Is it free?
Just the other day a new MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) called mailerQ was launched. That by itself is news. Every professional email software system uses an MTA to be able to send large volumes of emails, there are just a handful of commercial MTA flavors. Messagesystems, PowerMTA and Strongmail are the most well-known. But what makes this new MTA launch more interesting is because of their business model. It is free, admitted with some conditions, but it will allow you to run your own MTA for free up to 10K emails per minute. The big question is: “Why would they do that?”.

Well, I could give you one reason: Because change is needed
Remember when there was first talk about the freemium model for ESPs? You can find it offered often now, you are able to send 2000 emails free per month to get you started. One ESP for the small market made that a very, very popular model. And I dare to say that largely because of their pricing model and monkey jokes that they are now so widely used.

Other ESPs look for a different pricing model and charge you per record in your database, others per click. There are some that venture into a revenue share model, for instance in ESPs that specialize in  abandoned shopping cart recovery. And even an ESP that offers a “pay for speed” service. The faster you want to send, the more it costs.

But is the type of cost structure the right question? I think Chris Marriot is right in his analysis about email marketing CPM. Selecting a new ESP has been about price more than it should. It should be about the best idea, software and services and not just price.  Unless you believe that all ESPs and agencies are the same and easily interchangeable, but that definitely is not the case.  But still it is a very nontransparent market and that makes it less easy to differentiate.

Given a choice between equal solutions every marketer is going to choose the cheaper one.

Why knowledge might be the saviour of email ROI
I believe that the free part should be in adding specific knowledge to the equation. And that is where the top of the market is headed. Based upon the real life problems marketers run into, the supplier should be able to help. You are seeing this right noe, the educate and thought leadership trend catching on. But it requires a mindset of shared responsibility and creating profits together by the ESP and the client.

Takeaway: In the end, the increase of the ROI would not come from the ESP working under the lowest price but from increased revenue.

By: ClickMail

Recently a client asked us if “click-able” graphics and buttons should be avoided in his email marketing. This client worries that email click-through rates are harmed because important content in graphics are not visible. He asked if our other clients avoid images and make all buttons as text-in-tables.

The big answer to his question is, of course, it depends. It depends on your audience and their expectations and desires. It depends on your brand, because some brands are built on imagery. And it depends on how well you adhere to email marketing best practices that affect your use of images in email.

Make no mistake: we people are visual creatures. Imagery has its place, and it’s a pretty high priority one. (If you think images don’t matter, please explain the escalating popularity of Pinterest!) In most cases, an email is more visually appealing when it includes an image, and that could mean higher conversion rates. However, in most cases, the image won’t be seen due to image blocking.

Let’s also be clear that we aren’t only talking about pictures. The term “images” also refers to graphics like call to action buttons or call-outs with the offer highlighted, such as a graphic that says “35% Off” or “Only 3 Days Left.” When images are blocked, not only does your recipient miss out on the possibly engaging pretty picture. He or she will miss out on the offer or deadline too, if you’re not working around the whole image blocking issue. And you’ll miss out on the opportunity for conversion.

 Chances are they’re not seeing your images anyway

Lest we get too far into this discussion under false pretenses, let’s make sure this is clear from the start: images are blocked by default in most email clients, meaning many times images aren’t seen anyway, whether a picture or a graphic. If it’s an image, it’s blocked until the recipient says otherwise.

And don’t assume they will say otherwise. In one study of consumer behavior, only 55% of respondents said they turn on the images in the emails they receive. But only 16% will add a business as a safe sender—which would ensure images appear inevery email from that sender. That puts the onus on the marketer to make sure recipients want to see the images in your emails and will choose “show images” consistently (although you should continue to ask to be added to the safe senders list too).

By: Trendline Interactive

We have been pretty busy at Trendline these days. In addition to being super busy with our awesome clients, we have managed to sign up for some great email programs just to see how they handle things.  As I watched the welcome emails and first few interactions with these companies, there was one disturbing trend that I started to see amongst companies who leveraged an email to either confirm my subscription or re-confirm (DOI) that I had subscribed with the call to action of wanting me to click to confirm.  Whether you send a confirmation email or a DOI confirmation email (prior to my welcome or series of welcomes) here are a few tips that you should consider:

1. Brand It – Don’t send me an email asking me to click or confirm my subscription that looks like some IT guy created it at 2 am with little supervision from the marketing department.  After all, this is my first interaction with you in email so you have to make it count.  Put a logo in there and for kicks, maybe a splash of a template so I know what to look for.  Sending me a text email if you are visual brand is lazy.
2. Write It – Write something that is meaningful and doesn’t smell that you could care less about my subscription.  Get someone in your marketing department to write to your voice and make it personal to me.  You are either asking me to confirm my willingness to subscribe or at the very least tell me what I can expect.

By: Background checks

Technology is changing how we do everything, from connecting with friends to investigating our family history. While most of these changes are for the better, the reality is that many of these new technologies expose us to serious privacy risks, especially as legislation has struggled to keep up. Yet both here in the U.S. and around the world, that could soon change. There are numerous new and pending laws that are starting to seriously tackle the challenges posed by modern technology, helping close gaps in legislation and enforcement that open you up to online stalking, medical data breaches, and disclosure of your online data. Even if you don’t realize it, many of these laws can have a major impact on your life, from how you buy insurance to which bits of personal information are gathered while you shop online, go to the bank, or talk on the phone. What follows is a brief guide to many of the newer and upcoming laws regarding privacy in the United States. You’ll learn what the bills propose, how they’ll affect your life, and when they’ll go into effect, if they haven’t already.

Digital Life

These laws and proposals are designed to protect your privacy in the online and mobile spheres, ensuring that you and those you care about aren’t tracked, subject to data seizures, or the victims of online predators. The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011Proposed by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, this bill is designed to increase the enforcement of laws related to child pornography and child sexual exploitation, specifically by requiring Internet service providers (ISPs) to provide data about subscribers to law enforcement officials. While still on the table for debate, the law has attracted a lot of attention from those who believe it has serious implications with regard to consumer privacy.

• How It Will Affect You: This law doesn’t just affect those who create and distribute child pornography. If passed, all Internet users would see a reduction in privacy. The law would require ISPs to retain user IP addresses and subscriber information for one year, even in the event service is cancelled. This information would include names, addresses, telephone numbers, and account numbers, with no limits on the scope of subscriber information that can be retained and accessed by the government. What’s more, this collected information could be used to prosecute for any issue with probable cause and a warrant. This not only poses problems for the misuse of data by law enforcement; it could also result in serious security issues if information is hacked. It also opens up that information to gross violations of personal privacyand security.

How to Resend an Email to Non-openers the Smart Way 

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.

It’s a message that’s been drilled into us since childhood.

But how well does it stack up when it comes to your email marketing?

If you send an email and it doesn’t perform as well as you hoped, should you resend it to people who didn’t open it?

On the plus side, some people who missed it or were too busy the first time might take a look and you’ll get a few more opens, clicks and (hopefully) conversions.

But on the down side, some people will get annoyed by the additional email and might unsubscribe. After all, they may have deliberately left the original email unopened. Or they may have actually opened it without displaying the images so the email is reported as not being opened.

As you can see – it’s a bit more complicated than just resending the email and hoping for the best.

But if you are going to resend an email to non-openers, let’s explore some tips for getting the most out of it.

1. Only resend the most important email campaigns.

Suppose that every time a subscriber left one of your emails unopened, you resent it. Imagine in time how annoyed that person would get. It probably wouldn’t be too long until they unsubscribed from all of your email marketing messages.

As well as being annoying, resending every one of your emails is a bad idea because it actually trains subscribers to ignore them. They’ll start to think it’s ok to not read your email because you’re going to resend it to them anyway.

So pick your most important email campaigns and limit your resending to just those ones.

2. Tweak your email subject line.

They say that insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. I think the same thing applies when you resend an email without changing the subject line.

The subject line plays an important part in capturing your reader’s attention and enticing them to open the email. If it didn’t work the first time, what makes you think it’ll work the second time?

One way to tweak the subject line is to add words like “reminder” or “last chance” in order to create a sense of urgency. Alternatively you could write a new subject line that takes a completely different approach to your original one.

Tweaking the subject line also has the added bonus of letting readers know this email was not resent by mistake. It lets them know that you think the email is important enough to be resent and that you don’t want them to miss out by not reading it. Of course this is a pretty big statement so make sure you follow the tactic above and only resend the most important email campaigns.

3. Adjust the timing of your resend.

When it comes to timing your resend, make sure you give people enough time to respond to your original email.

Look at your previous email campaigns and identify how much time it takes for most people to open them. Do NOT resend your email within this timeframe.

If you don’t have access to this information, a good waiting period before resending your email is 3 days. This is when 91.66% of people who open emails have done so according to the Email Marketing Metrics Report Australia.

It’s also helpful to resend your email at a different time of day than your original email. Someone might not have had time to read your email when you sent it at 9am. But they might have time at midday, so resending it at this time might get a different result.

4. Measure the impact – both good and bad.

The entire goal of resending your email is to encourage a few more opens and clicks in hope of driving additional conversions. But as I mentioned above, this can come at a cost. Some people may respond negatively to the additional email in their inbox and unsubscribe.

So be sure to measure the unsubscribe rate of your email resend and weigh this against the additional conversions that it creates. If too many people are dropping off your list because of the resend, it’s probably not worth it.

Takeaway: Resending an email to non-openers can be an effective way to drive a few extra conversions, but it should be used sparingly. As with all email tactics, be sure to test it out and measure both the success and the risk to determine whether it is right for you and your subscribers.

Email Marketing Coordinator @ Saks

The Email Coordinator reports into the Email Program Manager and will be a key contributor to driving online sales via email. This position will support the daily execution of marketing and trigger emails, track key email metrics on an ongoing basis, derive insights from results and share recommendations with the broader Saks Direct Team. Specifically, the primary goals for this role will include:

• Support the management of the email process workflow including planning email calendar with Merchants, ensuring timely completion of Creative Briefs, collaborating with Creative and Merchandizing Operations on content, obtaining timely approvals on email content from Leadership and working with QA to test email assets.
• Work closely with ESP to plan and launch daily emails. Help manage vendor relationship with Cheetahmail – Saks.com’s email vendor of record.
• Work with broader Marketing team to enhance email segmentation and develop new, trigger based email campaigns.
• Track key email metrics such as Open Rate, CTR, Circulation, $/Circ and Opt-out Rate by various segments, establishing benchmarks for each. Work closely with the broader email team to analyze findings, identify trends and recommend a course of action.
• Execute and maintain 2012 Test Plan for key email components such as subject lines, time and day of week, reactivation tests, etc. Synthesize results to determine a recommended course of action.
• Create referral ids to track email conversions.
• Participate in the cross-flow of results and best practices with the broader Marketing team in a timely and actionable format.
• Share reports and surface key insights with Leadership team on a weekly basis.

By: EmailBrain

Click through Rate (CTR)
CTR is an indicator of response to a given email message. It is measured by the percentage of recipients that click on a link enclosed in the email. To determine the click through rate, you divide the number of responses by the number of emails opened and multiply the result by 100 to express it as a percentage.

Confirmed Opt In (or Double Opt In)
This formula of obtaining permission to send email messages and/or campaigns requires that the subscriber confirms his subscription by clicking on a confirmation link or by replying to a confirmation email, before you include them in your opt in list. See also: Double Opt in.

Database
A database is an organized collection of information stored in a computer, which can be accessed and consulted in different ways. In terms of email marketing, your database is the software where you store your records, forms and lists. There are numerous forms of databases, including MS Excel, Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape, Oracle, and Sybase.