BeRelevant!

It's Not About Email, It's About Great Customer Experiences

2008-11-25T11:06:18+01:00

Great quote from Whitney Hutchinson in her latest Email Insider column:

Email marketing, as we probably all agree, is not the be-all and end-all. As David said, it’s simply one piece of the puzzle: a piece integrated with many other pieces, working together, to build a consumer experience with a brand (online or off).

It’s a tactical representation of a communication that we, the marketer, want to have with our consumer. It’s not the only communication that our organization has with a consumer, and that fact requires us to adjust our thinking. In the end, it’s not about email; it’s about the customer experience and how email plays into and supports that.

So what does that mean to you and me, who are responsible for the email channel? It means that it’s time for us to step up. To challenge our organizations to think of email not as a separate silo, but as an active part of the consumer experience.

We need to work with our colleagues in media and social marketing; with our Web development teams and our offline direct marketers, and say, “Let’s build a comprehensive communication strategy. Let’s build a true eCRM program that integrates all of the channels at our disposal to maximize customer experiences and value to our organizations.”

I totally agree! Continue reading her article here. It's well worth a couple of minutes of your time!

Three Things You Can Do for Free to Boost Your Deliverability

2008-11-25T10:45:44+01:00

Here are some of my takeaways from this post by Anne P. Mitchell about deliverability:

Increasing email deliverability is both an art and a science, and to really get results, you need to have some expertise in both.

But there are some fairly simple things that you can do on your own to help monitor and boost your email deliverability. Here are three things that you can do that can make a big difference to your email delivery, and all they will cost you is your time:

1. Open test accounts at each of the major free webmail hosts, such as Hotmail and Yahoo, and add them to your mailing lists.

2. Run your email through a spam filter like Spam Assassin before you send it!

3. Keep it Simple: One of the biggest problems that legitimate email senders run into is trying to make a single email do too much. So they put tons of unnecessary HTML and lots of links in their email, without realizing that the more they put in, the harder it is for that poor little email to run the gamut of spam checkers and filters, and to get to the inbox.

Elements of a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

2008-11-21T08:10:53+01:00

Here are the slides of my presentation at the Brussels Email Marketing Forum yesterday where I talked about the things I look at when I evaluate an email campaign. Let me know if you have any questions!

Elements Of A Successful Email Campaign Tamara Gielen

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: email marketing)

12 Ways to Reduce Spam Complaints

2008-11-18T13:35:36+01:00

If you get one complaint out of thousand emails sent, your dedicated IP address runs the risk of being blocked by one or more ISPs.

In this blog post, Neil Anuskiewicz shares a bunch of tips to reduce spam complaints:

1. Never harvest email addresses off of Web sites.
2. Even if it is opt-in, be careful when sending to an old list that has not heard from you in a while.
3. Do not just email every contact you have.
4. Do not purchase email lists.
5. Too many hard bounces (email addresses that do not exist any more) can get you blocked by a number of ISPs.
6. Do not send too many emails at once but ramp up.
8. Configure a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record in your Domain Name Service (DNS) records for your domain name (company.com).
9. Make sure to do a plain text version of your email, too.
10. Very small fonts can get you filtered.
11. Consider putting the unsubscribe link at the top.
12. Maintain a good balance of graphics to text.

Links for 2008-11-18

2008-11-18T10:26:47+01:00

Here's an overview of interesting stuff I read lately:

AOL to Begin Using DKIM
http://blog.deliverability.com/2008/11/aol-to-begin-us.html
http://blog.wordtothewise.com/2008/11/aol-and-dkim/
AOL announced its plans to begin DKIM verification sometime this next year during an ESPC call moderated by Ben Isaacson of CheetahMail with special guest Mike Adkins from AOL. DKIM is the next generation of DomainKeys, an encryption based authentication method, which is picking up adoption in the receiver community. Currently, AOL uses an IP based reputation algorithm to determine the propensity of outbound mail to be spam. Under the new paradigm, a sender’s domain will be verified against the DKIM signature with inbox success being determined by that domain’s reputation. Mike proposed that by the end of the first half of 2009 an initial version checking the signature will be in place. As part of this, AOL has deployed an address where any sender can check the validity of a DKIM signature against the AOL DKIM implementation. To check a signature, send an email to any address at dkimtest.aol.com. It was also mentioned that SPF will be actively used as another data point providing information about a sender, whereas now SPF is checked but not used in the reputation algorithm.

Always Have Smooth Landings with the Landing Page Checklist
http://blog.emailexperience.org/2008/11/always_have_smooth_landings_wi.html
The eec Email Design Roundtable have added a Landing Page Checklist to their Email Checklist Series. This checklist offers a collection of ideas that you can easily apply to your program.

AOL Launches Online Sender Support Tools
http://blog.deliverability.com/2008/11/aol-launches-on.html
http://postmaster-blog.aol.com/
AOL is once again leading the industry in making available their knowledge and systems to legitimate senders

Follow deliverability on Twitter
http://blog.deliverability.com/2008/11/follow-delivera.html
Dennis Dayman provides a list of email marketing experts on Twitter

Campaign Frequency: Striking a Balance
http://blog.blueskyfactory.com/best-practice/campaign-frequency/
How often should you send to your list of subscribers? It depends on your audience, your product, your content, and your marketing goals. These elements ultimately determine “your” optimal frequency. John Kirk provides some basic guidelines.

Email As Part of a Multi-Channel Approach

2008-11-18T07:58:41+01:00

The reality of today's multitasking market place means none of us exist in a vacuum. As we all compete for engagement, the use of a single slice marketing medium approach is no longer sufficiently supportable. The exclusive path to sought after opportunities must be a shared one. Today is also a sensitive political environment with strong opinions on the use of various marketing tools and their perceived intrusiveness. Mindless communication blasts to anyone pre-qualified — or not — is often viewed as unwanted additional noise or junk and incents the clamor for a more responsible, self-enforced coherent approach.

Recently I was looking at soccer uniforms for my son's team. I went to a local retail outlet and registered for additional information. Soon thereafter I received a printed catalog in the mail with a variety of clothing options. Then I received a postcard notifying me of an upcoming event sale. No sooner did I get the postcard in the mail then I also received a follow-up e-mail supporting the same graphics seen in the postcard plus pictures of available uniform complete with my son's teams name displayed. I was directed to a Web site and the sale was made! This entire multichannel experience had me engaged. It was fun and had my attention with several distinct but related consistent touches.

Special emphasis should always be placed on when the prospect actually engages. In conventional direct mail that means use of available tools to confirm when an individual piece of mail is actually received in-home not just placed in the mail.

This then determines an “event,” and can and should trigger additional communication phases across multiple mediums including e-mail, print and even telemarketing. Driven by robust tracking options one can confirm within statistical reason when someone actually receives the individual piece of mail. These mailpiece tracking systems are powerfully used as a trigger for the now well placed and critically well timed follow up or supporting e-mail speaking to the same topic and engaging to the next step.

Source: http://www.dmnews.com/Leveraging-for-relevance/article/120410/

Landing Page Best Practices to Increase Conversion

2008-11-18T07:57:25+01:00

1. Audience and Goal. Thinking about your intended audience and the actions you want to inspire were your primary foci in creating your email, and they’re also the core of the landing page. Construct your landing page to propel your audience toward1s the next step.

2. Design. To facilitate the unity of the experience, the creative elements must stay consistent with the email—use similar graphics, text and imagery. Keep your designs quite simple—consider losing the navigation and extra links that will distract from the primary message. Use images if they can earn their keep by relating specifically to your offer—steer clear of distracting, generic imagery.

3. Main Copy. Best practice is to use a white background behind text. Keep your copy brief, and start it off by stating the benefits of the offer concisely and in manner consistent with the email copy. It often works well to use bullet points and a large font for readability, listing the benefits in order of value. Every word should work toward getting the visitor to act.

4. Forms. If you need to gather customer information with forms, hold interest by keeping them short and sweet. Ask only for the most necessary information, clearly indicate required fields and pre-populate those fields whenever possible. Include all forms and CTAs necessary for conversion on the landing page.

5. Call-to-Action. Your landing page’s great love, its reason for existing: the big CTA. But don’t stop at one: repeat your CTA multiple times to maximize clicks. The initial CTA should live right after the summary of the offer details and needs to fall above the fold. The CTA copy must be direct and obvious and pack a punch that inspires action. Be careful not to drive your sale to soon—let the CTA match the subscriber’s place in the decision-making process. If you’re a retailer, consider using an “Add to Cart” button as opposed to something like a “Buy Now” button.

6. Other Tips. It may also be a good idea to create multiple landing pages so that they can get as specific as possible to different customer segments. Keep your landing pages live for longer than you’d expect. You don’t want people who read their messages later than the rest of the crew to be sent flying with nowhere to touch down and act.

A solid landing page that attends to best practices offers customers a memorably smooth experience with your brand while effectively increasing conversion. For even more tips and tricks, check out the new eec Landing Page Checklist.

Source: EEC