| |
| |
|
Email Marketing Information |
|
|
|
E-Marketing Deliverability Issues
Does it seem to you that when you view "openings" within your statistics, that fewer recipients seem to be opening your campaigns?... Where: There are 3 places your email can go once you have hit 'send' on your latest e-marketing campaign: 1. The Inbox. Safely delivered (and hopefully read!) 2. Junk Mail Box. This has negative implications on: a: Brand image b: Decreased profile c: Inaccurate campaign reporting 3. Undelivered. (?or are they?) Why: The 3 main reasons why your statistics show less recipients are opening your campaigns: 1. Filters. 2. Fallen out of favour. 3. Statistics not accurate. How: Let's talk about how we can improve both the deliverability and the statistics of your campaign: 1. Filters. When an email is wrongly filtered out as Spam, this is known as a "False Positive". Here is a list of the most commonly used filters. a) Community: This is based on the community joining together and installing the filters, then reporting any occurrences of Spam. False Positive occurrences should be low, but in reality they aren't. This is due to a couple of reasons: The first being the weed theory. What one person regards as a weed, another may regard as a flower. We all have different opinions. The other is that many people are now reporting once wanted email as Spam instead of unsubscribing. b) Blacklisting: ISP's generally use their own proprietary lists of known Spammers, created by themselves. Third party blacklisting companies also publish databases of Spam senders. False Positive's are extremely high, as these third party blacklists have no accountability. In fact anyone can report an IP Address as a Spammer and do not have to qualify their reasons. c) Address recognition: Sender's email address is in the recipient's address book or the server's/gateway's acceptable list. Email senders must earn their position within these lists. d) Trapping: The filter company plants email addresses all through the Internet to attract Spam Harvesters. Once the false addresses receive Spam, the source of the Spammer is identified; the sender is then blocked immediately across all users of the filter. False positives are extremely low. e) Challenge-Response: This white listing concept is based on all emails being Spam and the sender having to prove otherwise. Before an email is delivered, the ISP or PC that uses the filter challenges that a human sent the email. The sender has to then manually click the link and then they are added to the subscriber's permissible list. Any auto-responses such as Double Opt in responses do not work well with this type of filter. f) Rule-Based: This is the most commonly used type of filter on a server. It catches Spam by rejecting/accepting messages based on predetermined rules of what is acceptable. g) Bonded Sender: Email markers gain status as a non-Spammer through these bonder senders and are therefore permitted through the filters. h) Volume Blocking: Spammers are known to send high volume emails without thought to speed, volume or list cleanliness. The ISP sees the large amount as well as the other problems and terminates the connection. i) Probability: Using rules, this filter "learns" the user's definitions of Spam and decides what may be regarded as Spam. False Positives increase as rule-based Spam is reduced. To combat these filters and to work towards not being a "False Positive", you should make sure that your Email Service Provider: 1: Manages delivery list hygiene and opt outs (or provide tools for you to do so and automate opt outs etc) 2: Manages ISP relations 3: Provides Anti Spam tools and testing functionality 4: Provides Copy advice or tools 5: Provides Copy rework and testing cycle 6: Separates your campaigns from everyone else's i.e sends them separately 7: Monitors delivery outcomes 8: Check blacklists often You should also ensure that: * Your recipients want to receive your emails * You only send emails meeting the permissioned purpose * You are explicit-what, when, how often * You provide easy to use unsubscribe links * You invite recipients to add you to known senders list 2. Fallen out of favour, but not unsubscribed. An unfortunate trend nowadays is for recipients to report as spam or assign to the junk box, rather than to unsubscribe from the newsletter. For this reason alone, make sure your unsubscribe action is easily achieved. According to Jakob Nielsen's Newsletter Usability Report, the 3 main reasons for newsletters falling out of favour are: 1) Too frequent 2) Irrelevant Content 3) Not signed up If your statistics are showing less openings, then reviewing your list, your content and your frequency maybe applicable. 3. Statistics not accurate.This can be caused by 3 main reasons: 1) An increased amount of text only recipients. Most ESP's deliver using MIME Technology, which ensures the recipients receive the correct format for their requirements. Increasingly more recipients are able to receive HTML, although with "text only" email providers such as Gmail coming on this scene, the balance maybe maintained. 2) Delivered to Junk mail box. Emails that are read by the recipient in the junk mail folder may not produce any response or statistical information and so can affect the accuracy of the campaign report. 3) Image blocking, which means that the campaign 'opens' cannot be tracked, hence giving you an incomplete report. This is one reason to educate users about the need to add trusted senders to their address books, as AOL and MSN (Hotmail etc) don't display images in e-mail from unknown sendersby default. However, if you can convince your recipient to add you to their address book, thereby 'whitelisting' you, the images will display by default and they will receive your HTML email as it was intended to be seen. A solution to this is to run an "Add to Address Book" campaign. The aim is to get subscribers to add senders to their address books. Add this text to the Thank You page after a new subscription is collected, add it to a Confirmation Message and the Welcome Message, and add it to the top of the HTML and Plain Text versions of the email. Make it part of your template, add it near the top of your template as well as near the unsubscribe link. Some examples are:"Want to unsubscribe? Click here!" "Want to make sure that you keep receiving our valuable publication? Be sure to add [insert your sender address here] to your address book!"). Hopefully these hints and tips will better equip you in getting your campaigns delivered into your recipient's inboxes. Kath Pay is Marketing Director of Ezemail, a web-based e-communications tool, which enables you to create, send and track your email marketing and SMS messaging campaigns. For more information please go to http://www.ezemail.com or contact Kath at: kath@ezemail.com.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
14 Ways To Persuade Your Web Site Visitors To Give You Their Email Address 1. Ask visitors to subscribe to your e-zine. Successful Advertising Most folks starting out on the Internet have tried freeclassified ads sites and they usually get hit by peopletrying to sell you stuff. Or, they get into the top twentyresults in the Search Engines, and a week later drop tonumber 164. 8 Quick, Hot Reasons You Should Offer an E-mail Course Today 1. E-mail courses are generally quick and easy to create. Protect Yourself Legally with an Autoresponder Service Another powerful reason for making the switch from using the unlimited autoresponders that come free with your web hosting account to paying a monthly fee for an autoresponder service is improved legal protection.Since all e-mails you send using a paid autoresponder service are hosted on their servers, you are insulated from false accusations of sending spam (unsolicited commercial e-mail). Is Your Autoresponder Truly Promoting Your Company? Getting other people to promote your web site is one of the most popular Internet marketing methods around, today. Affiliate relationships are all the rave with people who have web sites. The Name Squeeze - Should You? Shouldn't You? This is a little "beauty" of an idea if you want to grow a massive list QUICKLY! But some are wary of trying it. They worry it turns customers away. 14 Ways To Persuade Your Web Site Visitors To Give You Their Email Address 1. Ask visitors to subscribe to your e-zine. Email Marketing: How Much is Too Much? I have a special new email address. It's in addition to my primary email address and it's where I tell online marketers who want my business, to send their mailings. Summary of Adestras Presentation on Best Practice EZines at the July NEPA Conference At the recent Online Marketing Show, Adestra ran an email clinic. Attendees spent time with an Adestra expert who provided feedback and useful advice about how they could improve their campaigns. A Single Email Is Never Enough "Repetition is the key to advertising (marketing)". Those words were said by a friend of mine, Jason Olson, back in his days of selling radio and direct mail ads. Do Your Autoresponders Drive Your Customers Crazy? A chained auto-responder is a sequence of emails that gets delivered automatically when someone subscribes to this autoresponder.It is used in marketing to deliver mini-advertisements, teaser courses, demo extracts, testimonials or stepped sales letters, and all of this is designed to get the client eventually to click on the "buy me now" link for the main product that is being promoted. 15 Ways to Manage Your E-Mail More Effectively ? Are you tired of searching for e-mail messages you know are somewhere?? Is your electronic "In Box" full of outdated messages?? Do you frequently get ultimatums from your IS department to "clean up your act?"Love it or hate it - or both! - e-mail is increasingly the primary method for communicating in today's digital world - at work and at home. Research shows that introducing e-mail into a company increases printing by 40%. Effective Email Marketing I've been sending out email camapigns for clients for over 6 years, and in that time I've seen variations in clickthrough ranging from 3% to 84%!Some of this is due to the product, or the professionalism of the website, but a great part of it is down to the message that is sent.So how can you maximise the chances of getting adecent response from your first email campaign?Follow these simple rules and your email camapaign should be successful right from the beginning. 3 Simple Steps on how to Get Unlimited E-Mail Accounts for Pennies a Day As an Online Home Based busy owner you will reach a point where all those free E-Mail Accounts just don't work anymore. It is possible to get Unlimited E-Mail Accounts for Pennies a Day just follow these 3 Simple Tips1. The Lowdown: How To Create And Send HTML Email I am frequently asked how to create and send HTML email, usually with regard to how to broadcast it to a mailing list. This article presents the various options available to you. Masterful E-mail Marketing There are more than 100 million e-mail users in the United States. Imagine how many of them might need YOUR services or products. Email Laws That Could Bring You to Jail Even if Youre Not Spamming First things first, I'm not a legal expert and so this article DOES NOT represent any legal or professional information and nor can I guarantee its accuracy. I only wrote this article to introduce you to these email laws that might affect us, email marketers. Say More Than Thank You Most Websites are gathering e-mail addresses. When you submit your e-mail address, you will be redirected to a thank you page. The Ultimate Business Network: One Secret Power of the Masters Dear Friend:If you're out there networking and have been for sometime, you understand the astronomical benefits of networking with the "right" people -- especially when they have your kind of prospects who are hot and willing to buy.If not, you're in for a treat! Let me briefly explainThe average networker spends his time networking with the general public. Email Advertising - How Ad Tracking Helped Create a Killer Ad I recently undertook an email advertising promotion, using a number of advertising media. The exercise involved a program of mine called the Magical Marketing system.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
