Anatomy of a Good, Healthy HTML Email Newsletter

The following is an excerpt from MailChimp’s free 65-page email marketing guide, Designing, Coding & Delivering HTML Email: A Beginners Survival Guide from Mailchimp - definitely one of the best email marketing resources I’ve come across so far.

Anatomy of a Good, Healthy HTML Email Newsletter

Here’s what a well-built HTML Email Newsletter looks like: (Click the pic to see a larger version)

 1.  Your company name in the “From.”  Recipients should recognize who the email is from instantly. It can’t be deceptive in any way (duh). If a recipient has to strain his brain to remember who you are, he’ll click “this is spam” instead of opening.

2.  A relevant subject line (don’t be “spammy”), with your company or newsletter name in it. So they instantly know who the email is from, and what it’s about (hence, “subject” line).

3.  The “To:” field of your email should be personalized to the recipient’s name, not their email address. MailChimp lets you “merge” recipient names into this field, if you have it in your database. You would insert *|FNAME|* *|LNAME|*, for example. Search our help documents for “merge tags” if you want detailed instructions.

4.  A one-click opt-out link that removes people from your list immediately. Consider placing it at the top of your email (as well as in the footer), so that people who want off your list can find it really easy (instead of clicking their
“Junk” button). If you use MailChimp’s Managed List functionality, you would use our *|UNSUB|* tag to generate your unsubscribe link (it’s required in every email you send from our system). Any recipient who clicks it will be instantly removed from your list. If you use our built-in HTML email templates, we insert that link into the footer for you (no coding required).

5.  In addition to your opt-out link, you might also include a link in your header for recipients to “view this email in your browser.”  Point it to an archived version of your email on your server. This helps if the email got forwarded to friends, and then got mangled along the way. MailChimp automatically keeps an archived version of all your campaigns on our server. You can just use our *|ARCHIVE|* tag in your emails to link to yours. If you use our built-in HTML email templates, we automatically place this link at the top of all your emails.

6.  A link to your company’s privacy policy should be in your email. If you don’t have a privacy policy, you can use the DMA’s privacy policy generator. Google the phrase, “DMA privacy policy generator”

7.  Your valid, physical mailing address, and as much contact information as possible. The more contact information you provide, the more reputable your email will look.

8.  Bonus: It’s a really good idea to also include some kind of reminder text, like “You are receiving this email because you signed up at our website.”  People forget opting-in to lists, and they get a little trigger-happy with the “this is spam” button. That can get you reported to the major ISPs, so you want to prevent that as much as possible. Also, in the rare case that a recipient reports you to an antispam organization, having this reminder text can make the difference between a server admin blacklisting you forever, or contacting you for further explanation. If you use our built-in email templates, MailChimp inserts that reminder text into your email footer automatically.

TIP: If you’d like to sign up for a free trial Mailchimp account, click here.  This link makes you eligible for a $30 credit in the event you decide to upgrade to a paid account. 

Spammers Strike Again

Argh. These spammers ruin EVERYTHING.  Find out what they’ve messed up now in Ken Magill’s article below.

E-mail Killers Strike Again
Originally published on May 1, 2008 by Ken Magill

Is there anything e-mail related that spammers can’t ruin? First they killed graphics; Internet service providers block them. Now they’ve apparently wrecked personalized subject lines.

While e-mails with personalized messages achieve high clickthrough rates, those with personalized subject lines do not, according to MailerMailer’s e-mail marketing metrics report for the second half of 2007. Moreover, nonpersonalized e-mails outperform those with subject line-only customization.

Read the full story here.

Return Path Reports Surprising Flaws in Top-Brand Companies’ Email Marketing Programs

Return Path recently conducted a new "Subscriber Experiences"study, subscribing to and studying email programs of 61 top-brand companies from the US.   The findings were surprising, to say the least:

• 85% of companies failed to personalize the first email message sent to subscribers

• 75% of the companies collected information in the signup process that they could have easily used to personalize their emails - but didn’t. 

• 60% of the companies studied never sent a welcome message to new subscribers - missing out on an ideal opportunity to establish great rapport with new subscribers.

• The companies studied sent their first regular email an average of nine days after a subscriber joined. In addition, 65% of those first regular email messages did not contain any special offer for the new subscriber.

"As marketers continue expanding their use of email, they need to keep in mind the unique capabilities that email offers. If you’re collecting information in addition to an email address when a person signs up, you should be using that information to create a personalized message. Personalization keeps subscribers involved with your brand and more inclined to purchase," said Bonnie Malone Fry, RP’s Director of Strategic Services.

For more details, (and some important tips) read the full article about the Return Path study findings here. 

Got Something to Sell? Email, Don’t Text

A recent article by Emarketer.com shows that consumers prefer email to text-messaging when it comes to promotions and other business dealings - and I have to say I agree 100%… especially when the sender is someone I don’t  know.

Much as I dislike it, I’ve gotten used to email spam - it’s so common, you can’t help it. But I VIOLENTLY LOATHE text spam. Somehow it feels more of an invasion of privacy  ("How the hell did this joker get my phone number?") and reflects very poorly on a company’s image.  

To read the Emarketer article "Consumers Want Your Email,"  click here.

5 Reasons Subscribers Could View Your Email as Spam

 Ever received a Spam complaint you really didn’t expect?  Here’s an excellent article from the Constant Contact Learning Center that might shed some light…

"But I’m Not a Spammer!"
5 reasons subscribers could view your email as spam and what to do about it
by John Arnold, Constant Contact Regional Development Director and author of Email Marketing for Dummies

Receiving a spam complaint from someone who is supposed to know you and your business might feel like you’re being betrayed by a friend, especially when you’ve worked so hard to build a permission-based list. You are following the rules, so why the spam complaint?

It may be that certain characteristics of your email look like spam to your subscribers or they aren’t satisfied with what they are getting from you. But take heart: there are ways to help more of your recipients respond with approval instead of with the spam button. Here are the five most common consumer spam-complaint triggers and how you can avoid pulling them.

1) Questionable Identity

Clearly communicating your identity is the number one way to avoid spam complaints. According to a survey by the Email Sender and Provider Coalition, 79 percent of consumers clicked the spam button when they didn’t know who the sender was. Here are the two simplest ways to make your identity apparent.

• Use a familiar name in your "from" line. Use the same words your audience uses to identify you or your business. For example, if you’re an online business and your customers refer to you by your domain name instead of your formal business name, put your domain name in your "from" line. If you are your brand, and everyone on your list knows who you are, use your name.
• Include your brand. Insert your logo into the upper left or center of every email and include image descriptions (alt text) of your company’s name for readers who have images disabled. Choose colors that identify your business when designing your email templates and use the same colors in every template you use. Don’t just use the stock template colors.

2) Irrelevant Content

Consumers expect their email subscriptions to deliver value. According to eMarketer, 46 percent of Internet users say the commercial emails they receive are not targeted to their needs. Since your email list is likely to include people with a variety of interests, take these interests into account before you send.

• Offer choices on your sign-up form. Some consumers want to receive promotions, while others only want informative newsletters. Offering options helps you make your emails relevant.
• Use click-through data to target future messages. When people click on your links, they tell you what they are interested in. Use this data to create different email lists.
• Send surveys and polls to learn about preferences. Instead of making assumptions about what to send, ask. You can conduct a formal survey before starting a major email campaign or use ongoing polls to get small bits of information over time and adjust your strategy as you go.

 3) Broken Promises

Sending emails that your subscribers didn’t ask for (i.e., promotions when they signed up for an email newsletter) can be perceived by your audience as a broken promise. Give your subscribers clear expectations before they share their email addresses, then keep your promises.

• Tell your new subscribers what you’re going to send. Clearly describe each type of email communication you offer (e.g., promotions, newsletters, event announcements, etc.) and ask new subscribers which they would like to receive.
• Send a welcome email after new subscribers join. Whether they join through your website or you add them to your list after they subscribe offline, send a welcome email that clearly describes the email content you plan to send. You can also include a link to archived emails to reinforce your content description.

 4) Excessive Promotion

Selling your products or services is an important part of your email marketing, but, according to a Jupiter Research survey, 40 percent of consumers said they stopped subscribing to opt-in emails because they were getting too many offers. Sending promotions too frequently might lead to spam complaints.

• Keep your promotional frequency in line with your business model. If you sell items that are consumed quickly, your audience probably expects more frequent promotions than if you sell items that are normally purchased every few months, years, or once in a lifetime.
• Place promotions on your website and use informative email content to drive clicks. Instead of putting an entire article and a promotion in your email newsletter, use only the first two or three sentences in your email and post the rest of the article, and a related promotion, on your website.
• Know your audience’s promotional preferences. Some consumers love coupons, sales, and discounts. Others don’t. If you’re not sure of your audience’s promotional preferences, use a survey, a poll, or a choice of interest list to sort your subscribers into groups.

 5) Confusion and Illusion

Sometimes consumers report legitimate email as spam because they simply want to get off a list and don’t understand the negative impact of hitting that spam button. Here are two reasons why consumers might choose the spam button over the more forgiving option of unsubscribing.

• Your subscribers can’t figure out how to unsubscribe. If your audience has trouble finding the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email, use a permission reminder at the top of your email that includes the link.
• Your subscribers don’t trust the unsubscribe link in your email. Use your sign-up process and welcome email to reinforce the ability to safely unsubscribe from your list by clicking the unsubscribe link in any of your emails.

While it may be impossible to take the sting out of receiving a spam complaint, it is possible to minimize the amount of complaints you receive. Stick to permission-based tactics, make your identity clear, send relevant content, and keep tabs on your frequency. If you put all these tips into practice, then you’ve done everything in your power to keep subscribers on your list and stop them from clicking the spam button when they receive your emails.

San Francisco Cafe Launches the Coffee Buzz Newsletter

Popular coffee chain San Francisco Cafe launched today the maiden issue of its  Coffee Buzz Newsletter, designed by yours truly.

Care to check it out?  Click here 

If you’d like to receive SFC’s monthly Coffee Buzz, you can sign up at http://cdemails.com/pages/sfc

The Mad Slasher’s Guide to Email List Cleaning

As tempting as it may be to send your promotional emails to everyone in your address book, it’s just not practical…or wise.  Sometimes, it’s just plain stupid.  (I mean, how irritating is it when people send  email invitations to events or parties in MANILA to their friends in other countries?  Like they’ll be able to come???)

Also (more importantly) list hygiene plays a HUGE role in email delivery.  Many ISP’s have been known to block senders’ email domains forever for repeatedly sending messages to nonexistent email addresses.  (Believe me, you don’t want that.) 

Always remember:  Relevance is key to email marketing success. When it comes to email marketing (or any form of direct marketing), list QUALITY beats QUANTITY any day. Send only to people that might actually be interested, or benefit from, whatever it is you have to offer. 

In my experience, it’s usually in your best interests to go on ”Mad Slasher” mode when it comes to list cleaning - no matter how painful this may be. It’s pretty simple, really.  When in doubt, DELETE.

There are many ways to clean your lists, and the method will always depend on list size and source.  Huge lists from corporate databases require special treatment, but for smaller lists, here are a few useful tips you can use to “clean house” :

Manual Slashing: Slash unrecognizables (i.e, “who the heck is this?”-type email addies), duplicates and potential Spam reporters.

• Export your email address list/s (from wherever you keep them) and merge them into an Excel file.  Delete any unnecessary columns that might have been exported.  You only really need names and email addresses to begin with.

• Go through your list, and delete any unrecognizables, ”unknowns” and other undesirables you might have picked up along the way.  Tip: The less likely a person is to remember you or your company, the more likely he or she will report your email as Spam. 

• If you have more than one email address for certain contacts, pick just one and delete the rest.

• After you’ve cleaned out the undesirables and unnecessaries, copy and paste just the email address column into a separate worksheet, and use this cool tip I learned from Mailchimp to clean out any leftover duplicates:  Click here to view the tip in PDF format (you might want to save it).

Automated Slashing:  Use this 2-step method to  further clean up your list:

STEP 1: Get rid of bad/invalid email addresses by using an email address verifier.  An email address verifier (a.k.a. email validator) is a tool you can import your list into, which tests each email address’ validity by connecting directly to its SMTP server and checking it for you. Nothing is sent to the recipient.

Try Dynamic Email Validator or  Advanced E-mail Verifier - both are free.  Personally I prefer the latter, but the free version only allows you to run 100 addresses at a time, and doesn’t allow you to export the results.  Dynamic’s free version allows 500 email addresses at a time, and lets you save valid, invalid, and unconfirmed addresses as separate files.

Here’s what to do:

• Save your surviving email address list as a Text (tab delimited) file.  
• Import your list into an email address verifier, and run the software.
• Save the valid email addresses, and delete the rest

Note:  Email validators can’t verify free email addresses like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail etc, so don’t bother running those. You’ll have to save them for Step 2.  

STEP 2:  Send a WEEDING OUT email campaign to identify any other invalid addresses (they’ll bounce), and allow any uninterested contacts to unsubscribe before you send out your first real email promotion or newsletter. 

Here are a couple of “weeding out” email samples you can adapt to suit your own purposes:

• Tsukiji  ’Personal Invitation”  - sent to personal contacts of the owner
• San Francisco Cafe “Corporate Invitation” - sent to addresses from business cards collected at SFC outlets

(You can actually also just use a plain text email for this purpose.)

Important: To do Step 2 without making yourself crazy, I suggest you use email software or a hosted email service provider that allows for automated bounce handling and unsubscribes.  (See my previous post about ESP reviews for some suggestions. They all offer free trials.)

Is it a hassle?  YES!   But is it a waste of time?  Definitely NOT.  So start slashing away! 

New Updates to the CAN-SPAM Law

 Source: VR Marketing Blog from Vertical Reponse  (Original entry posted on May 23, 2008)

CAN-SPAM - New Updates to Federal Law

I asked our ISP Relations & Deliverability Manager George Sukara to update me on some new CAN-SPAM rulings that just happened this past week (and break it down in plain English for all of us.)

1) POSTAL ADDRESS - Valid Physical Address can include a PO box or Mail Stop, as long as the USPS recognizes it. This might be an obvious one but it used to be a gray area, now it’s not.

2) PERSON is now defined not just as a human, it can also be a corporation, non-profit, etc. This is who is responsible for CAN-SPAM compliance when sending a commercial email. So business entities, as well as regular folks are now responsible for CAN-SPAM compliance in regards to all commercial email they send.

3) DESIGNATED SENDER RULE - This applies to you if you include any advertising or partners in an email. If you don’t include your company name "in the email" with a link to access your site, your advertisers are responsible for CAN-SPAM compliance even if your name is in the From Label. This mainly applies to companies who send coupons or offers on behalf their partners.

For example: Company A sends an email to their list with a special offer from Company B. In the email, Company A must have some information that advertises their own service, and some way for the recipients to access their site.

If Company A does not include some kind of ad for their own company inside the email, then Company B being advertised within the email would be responsible for all CAN-SPAM compliance.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’re advertising in another company’s email marketing campaign, make sure they put something about their services with a link to their site. You don’t want to be on the hook for their CAN-SPAM compliance.

Also, CAN SPAM states (again) that all commercial emails:

• Must have a working reply-to address or other web based opt-out mechanism (which must also be conspicuous) for the company listed in the From Label
• Can’t be false or misleading
• Can have no deceptive subject lines
• Must comply with the SEXUALLY EXPLICIT label

4) UNSUBSCRIBE - Unsubscribes must not be complicated, nor can it require some kind of purchase, or taking a survey. The only thing you are allowed to ask for in an unsubscribe is an email address and the user’s email preferences.

As usual we’ll keep you informed on most of the CAN SPAM updates, just be sure you follow the simple the rules above and you’ll be AOK.    

Ask Before You "Blast": The Importance of Permission

Republished with permission from Mailchimp

Be honest. Whenever you get email marketing that you weren’t expecting, or that you never even requested, what do you do (after cursing the name of the person who sent it)? You click that "this is spam" button in your email program. Heck, according to some studies, 30% of recipients click "this is spam" for email marketing campaigns, even if they specifically requested it from the sender!

So what’s the big deal? Some really scary stuff happens behind the scenes whenever someone clicks that spam button. First, a message is sent to their ISP (like AOL, MSN, Hotmail, Earthlink, Yahoo, Juno, NetZero, etc.). That message says "I think these guys are spamming me." Then their ISP starts watching you, because you’ve aroused their suspicions. If enough people on their network report your email as spam to them, they’ll block all future emails from you. How many abuse reports are enough to get you "blacklisted"? ISPs all have different thresholds, but 0.01% is the number that’s most often discussed by people in the email deliverability business.

It’s even worse than you think. Some ISPs don’t even require a human to report your email to them. Some of them will block your emails if automatic spam filters think your messages are "spammy" for whatever reason (like using red fonts, or the phrase, "click here!"). Some ISPs use firewalls that can read reported spam, and blacklist URLs that are in the content (so not only will your company’s email server get blocked, but so could ALL emails that have ANY links related to your company). And ISPs and anti-spam services often share their records with each other.

Finally, once you get blacklisted, it almost takes a miracle to get de-listed. That’s because most blacklists are run in secrecy. If you want to contact the owners, you usually have to post messages on public anti-spam forums, and hope they’re lurking. Then, pray they take you off the list (after a thorough verbal-flogging by the other members of the forum, of course). Send one bad campaign, and your email marketing efforts could be compromised for a very, very long time. Yikes.

So what can you do?
If even a handful of spam complaints can cause serious deliverability issues for your company, what can you do to avoid them? Here’s a list:

• Never, under any circumstances, send email marketing to anyone that hasn’t requested them from you. Got a list of prospects (customers, friends, family who’ve done business with you)? Send them an invitation to join your email marketing list. Don’t just start sending them email newsletters or promotions.

• Never, ever, ever send email marketing to a purchased list, to emails you "scraped" from websites, or to a list of people you just assume would want to hear from you (even if they’re in your industry, or co-members of some trade association). You might not piss them all off, but a tiny handful is all it takes to get yourself blacklisted. At MailChimp, we’ve had to shut down the accounts of countless real estate agents, trade show vendors, photographers, and one Alpaca farmer for violating this rule.

• When people sign up for your email list, use the double opt-in method. Basically, when they submit your opt-in form, they’ll receive an email with a "Please click to confirm that you want to receive emails from me" link in it. Using this method, people will only be added to your list if they truly want to hear from you.

• All throughout your opt-in confirmation process, ask subscribers to add your email address to their contacts list or address book. This will "white list" your emails, so they won’t get accidentally blocked (or reported as spam) in the future.

• If you have an old list, you should ask for permission again. If you haven’t been in contact with them within the last 6 months or so, chances are extremely high that they’ve forgotten who you are, let alone signing up for your list. Instead of sending them a full blown email promotion or newsletter, send a very brief, "Hey, remember us? Still want emails from us?" reminder email.

Before you click that "Send" button, you should ask yourself, "Did every recipient on this list give me permission to send them email marketing?" If your answer is anything less than a confident "YES!" you shouldn’t send that campaign.

Are Gmail Users Laughing at Your HTML Email?

They could be. Chances are, if you design HTML emails without paying heed to the different "rules" set by various email clients, you might get away with it on most browsers. But on Gmail? Your email probably looks like crap.

It’s a pretty well known fact that HTML emails display a little differently depending on the email program you use.  In some cases, like Yahoo and Hotmail, the differences might be minor - for example, the fonts shown may not be the ones you used in your original design.  In AOL, your background might not show up.  Other email clients won’t display your images unless you click and allow it.  Annoying, but not such a big deal.

Gmail however, is a completely different story.  Among other things, it strips any code before the body tags, and doesn’t support a lot of other code that people normally use. So what might look like a gorgeous work of HTML art to you could seriously look like an awful mess of gobbledygook on Gmail.  Outlook 2007 can be pretty evil too. Trust me on this.  Here’s a real-life example.

 This is the original design of a newsletter template I made BEFORE I learned about the Gmail thing:

See full-size view

     Here’s how it looks in Outlook 2007 (Yikes) 

See full-size view

   And here’s how it looks on Gmail  (EEKS! WTF???)

See full-size view

I’ll definitely have to fix that, and soon.  Unless you’re familiar with HTML and actually do your own coding, it’s pointless to discuss design tips to address this here, but there are a few solutions for the not-so-HTML-savvy.

The simplest solution - which you’ve probably already seen in a lot of HTML emails you’ve received - is to have a web version of your HTML email, and include a link to this in your email.  But would a person who isn’t really all that interested in your email to begin with even bother to click it?  Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Just do it anyway.

The ideal scenario is to have your email formatted in such a way that on the first look - even without images showing - people already see the most important things you need them to see. That means that your main message should be in the text - NOT the images.   

It’s amazing how many people make the mistake of sending emails that are full of big photos - or worse yet, made up of nothing but one big image - say a print ad they just decided to stick onto an email.  Not only will these emails not display in email programs with image viewing turned off by default (for ex, Outlook) - the images also affect email deliverability.  Using images in emails to hide dubious text is a typical Spammer technique, and the Spam Police have caught on pretty quick.  So any email that is too image-heavy is automatically on the suspect list of most spam filters.

Secondly, never send out an HTML email without previewing it in different email browsers first.  Sign up for a bunch of free email accounts, set up some email addresses on Outlook and other popular desktop email programs, and create a test list you can send to before sending to your actual list. Then check each one to see if your email looks ok.  If it doesn’t - tweak as needed until it does. If there’s really nothing you can do - just make sure you have that link to a web version.

If you don’t want to go through the hassle of maintaining and all those email accounts, there are some service providers that have built-in preview features that allow you to see how your email will look in most email programs.  Mailchimp has the "Inbox Inspector" (costs extra to add it on to your account though), and Interspire’s Sendstudio email software has a preview feature for Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 built right into the email editor. 

Bottom line — don’t just assume that your HTML will look as great as you think it will - whether on Gmail or any other email program.  If you really want to use a snazzy HTML design,  take the time and effort to format it properly (hire a professional if you have to). And remember that in most forms of communication, substance beats style any day. If you really want to make sure your message goes out, just keep it simple and keep it clear. 

The ESP Dilemma: Which Email Service Provider Should You Use?

 My, what a sorry world it is, when one has to turn down profitable opportunities and send people elsewhere.

In the past couple of months, I’ve received quite a few requests to handle people’s email marketing projects, and while it may be tempting to snag a few side projects here and there, the truth of the matter is that my day job really does take up all of my time.

So here’s the deal.  Back in the day, when I thought Email Marketing was easy, I thought I could be an ESP (Email Service Provider).  But time and experience do have a way of dragging one down the ladder of dignity.  So forget that.

There are, however, a LOT of Do-It-Yourself Email Service Providers you can make use of for an extremely reasonable price (about $15 a month) - which are easy to use,  and can guarantee great delivery rates and list management capabilities. 

Here’s a rundown of 3 of my favorites so far.  (They all offer free trials, and you don’t have to give your credit card details to sign up, so if you’d like to try them out, just click the "Free Trial Details’ links at the end of each review)

Constant Contact.  Constant Contact offers do-it-yourself email marketing and surveys, and in my view is the ESP of choice for:

• People who’d like to create a good-looking HTML email quickly.  Of the ESP’s I’ve looked into so far, Constant Contact has the prettiest ready-made HTML email templates, and the widest range of choices.  All you need to do is pick a template and customize, and if you have all your content ready, you can pretty much have your email design ready in an hour.  

• Companies who send lots of emails to a small to medium-sized list.  Constant Contact pricing is dependent on the number of subscribers on your list, not the number of emails you send. 

What I like about it:  Pretty templates and the per-contact pricing

What I don’t like about it:  All outgoing emails have a Constant Contact logo at the bottom right, which you absolutely cannot remove.  Also, you can only host up to 5 images on their site with the basic plan. To host more, you have to upgrade to the Premium Image hosting (an extra $5 per month).  Lastly, they don’t have an autoresponder feature.

Pricing:  dependent on number of contacts in your list.  Starts at $15 per month for 0-500 contacts.

Free Trial details:  Email free for 60 days to up to 100 contacts. (You have to pay if you have more than 100)

Vertical Response.  Vertical Response offers complete email, survey, and direct marketing solutions (USA only though).  Use Vertical Response if:

• You want to use your own HTML email design.  Vertical Response also has hundreds of its own customizable templates, if you’d like to use them, but for those who’d like to use their own design, VR’s process of setting it up is the simplest. (Just cut and paste.)

• You want to do more than just email marketing.  Vertical response has a postcard marketing service which totally rocks - although you can only mail  to US addresses.  (I use it to send Christmas postcards). Basically you create your postcard mailing using their do-it-yourself software, upload your mailing list and schedule your mailing. VR will print and send your postcards via first class mail for about a dollar each.   

• You want to use and store lots of images.  With your VR account you can store up to 25Mb of images free of charge, and they have an extensive library of 75,000 stock images you can also use for free.

What I like about it:  Definitely the postcard mailings, and their awesome support library, which offers a lot of really valuable tips, articles, webinars, case studies and other resources for email marketing.

What I don’t like about it: As with Constant Contact, the Vertical Response logo at the bottom of every outgoing email is a non-negotiable. Also I find it a little weird that their newsletter sometimes lands in my Yahoo junk folder - although when i send a test email campaign using my account, it always goes straight to the Inbox.

Pricing:  dependent on number of emails/postcards sent.  Starts at $15 for 1-1000 emails, but goes lower the more emails you send.

Free Trial details:  Send 25 emails and 1 postcard free 

MailChimp is by far the ESP with the most personality, which is why I can’t help but mention it in list of favorites.   Visit their site and you’ll see what I mean.  But aside from that it has some pretty fantastic features you won’t find elsewhere.   Use MailChimp if:

• You want to send your emails out WITHOUT their logo on it.  MailChimp doesn’t require you to attach their logo to your outgoing emails — so you can pretend you’re doing all this impressive HTML email sending without help from any 3rd party provider. 

• You think you can refer enough friends and associates to significantly decrease your email marketing costs. MailChimp may not require you to put their logo on your emails but if you DO, and someone clicks on it and signs up for their service, you get $30 credited to your account. (Incidentally the person you referred ALSO gets $30, which is pretty cool.)

• You want to do split testing to see, for example, which subject line works better. MailChimp has a new A/B split testing feature, which you can use to run quick, automatic A/B tests with every single email you send.  No need to setup randomized segments, send multiple campaigns, and constantly analyze piles of campaign data. They do it all for you. You just click the "A/B" button, specify a few criteria, and their patent-pending A/B tester handles the rest—automatically.

What I like about it:  As I mentioned earlier, aside from all the great features, they also have personality! After going through all the boring corporate-type websites I have to visit each day, MailChimp.com is like a breath of fresh air.  All their web copy, including the articles in a truly fantastic resource library, is infused with wit and an often irreverent tone I find totally refreshing.  (For example, they have an article entitled "Stupid HTML Email Design Mistakes (Seriously, You Should Know Better)."  They also have an excellent 65-page Email Marketing Guide you can download here. 

What I don’t like about it: They have 4 basic HTML templates you can customize, and though the customization wizard is cute and easy to use, there are no "ready-made" templates available that you can just tweak a little bit.  So the email creation process takes a bit longer.  

Pricing: MailChimp has 2 pricing plans (which is also pretty cool).  One plan is for frequent senders, based on number of subscribers.  This starts at $15 for 0-500 contacts.  The other plan is a prepaid "Pay-As-You-Go" plan on a per-credit basis, starting at $15 for 500 email credits (good for sending to 500 subscribers).

Free Trial Details: Email Free for 30 days

So there you have it!  As I mentioned at the beginning of the rundown, all of the ESP’s in my favorites list are cheap, have excellent delivery rates, and offer all the tools you need to create, send and track your emails - so in the end the choice really boils down to what  suits your particular needs and requirements.

 Good luck, and happy ESP-shopping!

Spam Arrest: Why Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways…

Not much time to write a full article today, but just going through my significantly Spam-free email inbox, I figured I’d write a quick ode to one of my absolute greatest discoveries ever:  Spam Arrest.

As an online marketer, I probably sign up online for anything from 3-10 different things a week - free software trials, site memberships, newsletters, reports, white papers - you name it.  Sometimes I really want what I’m signing up for, and sometimes I just need to see what other people are doing - so I can copy!  Haha!

As an email marketer I understand that each of these signups means I’m going to receive anything from 1 to 100 emails from each site I sign up at (!!!) - but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Before I discovered this lovely thing called Spam Arrest, I was literally receiving at LEAST 120 junk messages per day, per email address that went into my Outlook.  I have SEVEN email addresses in there.  DO THE MATH.

So Spam Arrest, why do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

1. You send an automated challenge email to everyone who writes me, to weed out the undesirables

2. You forward only the "good" email I actually want to my Inbox, and leave all the undesirables in a separate folder - lost in cyberlimbo until I say they’re ok. HAHAH! SUCK IT, Spammers!

3. You keep a copy of all my email online, so I can access it from anywhere…

4. You’re cheap…

…and so much more.  Like I said, not much time today.  Admittedly, there still are some doggedly determined Spammers who still get through - but my Outlook junk filter takes care of those. … And seriously - 3 or 4 pieces of junk compared to over a thousand (???) is perfectly fine by me.

To see more about how Spam Arrest works, watch this demo:

Testing, Testing, Testing: Why You Should Laugh in the Face of Anyone Who Claims to Be an Email Marketing "Expert"

I received my professional certification seal for Email Marketing yesterday, and I’m thrilled to pieces… though I do realize there isn’t a whole lot to jump around about …it hardly qualifies me as an expert.  Here’s why…

There’s NO SUCH THING as an email marketing expert. Never let those glib, smarmy consultants tell you otherwise.

Email marketing is a constantly moving target, and everything any "email expert" knows today could be old news tomorrow.  The key to successful email marketing (or any other kind of direct marketing, come to think of it) is TESTING, TESTING, TESTING.  And then some MORE TESTING, for good measure.

Effective email marketing is a never-ending cycle: Test. Send. Analyze. Improve. And then start all over again.  You can take a million courses, attend every seminar in the world, and read every book available on Email Marketing… but at best you’ll only learn the basics, as well as current trends, practices and findings that can help you along the long, tortuous journey to the Inbox.  While still extremely valuable, these things can’t tell you what only your own testing can …what works with YOUR particular database of customers and subscribers

Fortunately, testing in email marketing is relatively inexpensive, and most (though not all) changes you need to make can usually be made in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately,  the list of things you can and should test is pretty formidable:

 1. Deliverability.  Is your email getting into inboxes or junk folders? Or is it just not getting delivered at all??  In a 2007 Email Deliverability study conducted by Lyris Technologies, they found that:

• Marketers sending permission-based emails to U.S.-based ISPs still land in the junk/bulk folder almost 16 percent of the time.

• Marketers sending to European ISPs face even more trouble. More than 20 percent of permission-based emails were sent to the junk/bulk folder.

As for Asia, WHO KNOWS?  But I’m willing to bet the numbers aren’t any prettier.

2. Envelope Fields.  In email lingo, envelope fields refer to your "From" and "Subject" lines - basically the only 2 things your recipient will see if he/she doesn’t have a preview panel.  If you learn nothing else from this article, learn this: NEVER underestimate the importance of  your From and Subject lines.  

Ten times out of ten, they will ultimately determine the fate of that carefully-designed email campaign your creative department took months to get "right."   Jupiter Research reported in December 2007 that consumers receive an average of 274 personal emails and 304 business emails a week.  Do the math.  How capable is your boring subject from XYZ company of standing out in that crowd?  And don’t make the mistake of thinking a clever subject designed to elicit an open (but not delivering on its promise) will endear you or your product to the readers you just tricked.

3. Copy.  How effective is your Introduction, or Lead?  Does short or long copy work better for your product offering? Which offer or incentive is more appealing to your consumers?  What particular "Call to Action" is actually "acted upon" the most?  These all have to be tested - and one at a time at that. it’s important to note that when testing, you can only change one variable at a time, with all other elements remaining exactly the same  in order to determine what exactly caused the rise or decline in your response rate.

 4. Layout.  Your layout, look, style, fonts and even colours not only affect email deliverability.  They also (GREATLY) affect your email’s effectivity in bringing your message across, and reinforcing your brand and corporate identity.

5. Landing page.  If you just read this and said "Huh? What landing page?" - and email is a significant (of at least potentially significant) source of sales for your business - then prepare to cringe.  Back in the day, using the email as a standalone sales vehicle may have been enough.  But not anymore.  Ideally, your email should focus on just one objective:  to make the reader click through to a landing page where you have all the freedom you need to knock yourself out and close the sale.

This may seem lke a short list ("Cool, just 5 items!") - but believe me… it’s NOT!  Even when you do get through testing all the different aspects mentioned above, the battle is far from over. 

 As I mentioned at the start, effective email marketing is a never ending cycle of TESTING TESTING, and more TESTING. When you get to the bottom of the list, and come up with an email creative that actually works… that only means it’s time to start all over again.   

 Welcome to my world.

About BACN: Spam’s (Slightly) Less Repugnant Sibling

Ok, so maybe you’re not a Spam Artist after all, but it’s possible your emails fall under a new (slightly less repulsive, but still not quite desirable) category - BACN.  

What is BACN?
Unlike SPAM, BACN isn’t an attack on your privacy. It’s pretty much self-inflicted.  BACN is email you signed up for, but rarely read…  or email you might want to read, but not right now… or email you sometimes need, but still find irritating.  Some examples:

• "hot deals" newsletters or new product announcements from your favorite store or website

• frequent flier or vacation club updates

• those notifications you get from Multiply or Facebook telling you what your friends are up to

While BACN isn’t SPAM, it can still be pretty annoying (honestly, Facebook, how often do i have to read that someone poked me?) The reason you DON’T unsubscribe is that once in a while you might get something that interests you, or an offer or information you might actually need.  For the most part, though -  you scan, yawn and delete.

As an email marketer, it’s important to take any and all steps necessary to ensure your opt-in email doesn’t turn into the dreaded BACN. Here are three tips that might help:

1. Create anticipation. The main reason your email messages may be going unnoticed is that you send them too frequently. You want to generate some anticipation for your next offering so that when your email enters the inbox, the recipient says to him- or herself, "Oh, I haven’t heard from them in a long time. I wonder what’s going on?"

Limit email sending to enhance the reader’s expectation, and be creative! At the 2008 Email Summit in Miami, I met a newsletter publisher who sends out company newsletters "every full moon."  Because it’s so original (and really, pretty hilarious) he  actually gets reminders from subscribers when newsletter time draws near ("The full moon is coming - how’s your newsletter coming along?").

2. Add more personalization.  Over time, you collect a lot of data on your subscribers: who they are, what they like, how much they spend. Use this data to create engaging, one-on-one communications. Make your subscribers feel that your email message is just for them alone — a one-off message that engages them in a real conversation.  There’s a lot of great email software you can use to do this, which I’ll discuss in a future post.  

3. Segment unresponsive subscribers. As hard as it may seem, at some point it’s best to just weed out  unresponsive email addresses and let them go.  You don’t have to get rid of them altogether, but as a first step, try putting unresponsive addresses in a separate list.  Treat them differently. Woo them back. If all your efforts fail, just make a clean break.

Over the past 3 months I did a major hatchet job on my company’s email lists - cutting down huge lists of 10-20,000 down to a seemingly alarming 1,000+ responsive names per offer.  Because my lists were smaller and more segmented, they were easier to personalize, make relevant to the recipient, and track… so instead of decreasing sales (as everyone thought it would), the hatchet job actually BOOSTED sales - and more importantly… customer loyalty and satisfaction.

 At the end of the day, the same rules apply - whether to SPAM or BACN or even personal email.  Only send people messages that they actually want to read.  Be relevant. Be interesting. And remember the sage advice of our non-techie parents, as it still applies today… if you have nothing good to say, it’s often best not to say anything at all.

Complying with CAN-SPAM - 7 Key Steps

A little more info for those of you who failed the Spam test.

Complying with CAN-SPAM - 7 Key Steps

The CAN-SPAM Act lays the foundation for a clear differentiation of "spammers" from permission-based email marketers. Consider taking the following steps to ensure compliance:

1. Convene all company staff involved in the email marketing process - marketing, Webmaster, IT, call center, legal, sales and others. Ensure that all affected personnel have a good understanding of the act and how it might affect their practices and policies.
2. Review your company’s email marketing programs to ensure that they comply with the content and notification requirements and involve your legal counsel as appropriate.
3. If you haven’t already, add a postal mailing address to all of your commercial emails.
4. Review and test your opt-out/unsubscribe language and process. Make sure it’s clear, simple and actually works. Also, make sure you are using a valid return email address or Internet-based reply mechanism that will function for at least thirty (30) days after messages are sent.
5. Ensure that all opt-out requests are honored within ten (10) business days of receipt. The best approach is to utilize software (installed or hosted) that automates the reply, unsubscribe and global unsubscribe process.
6. If you use pre-checked boxes or other "passive" opt-in mechanisms in your email sign-up process, it’s recommended that you change to unchecked boxes or another affirmative consent approach. Otherwise you’ll need to add conspicuous language that identifies your email as advertisements or solicitations.
7. Add a profile update page on your site and link to it from your messages. This enables customers and subscribers to update their address, opt in or out of individual and multiple newsletters/communications, request global suppression, change email formats and modify preferences and other information.

Source: EmailLabs.com  (Do check the other articles in the resource section of this site, as it has really great material)

5 Simple Steps You Can Take Right Now to Improve Your Email Deliverability

In case my last post (Are You a Spammer?) depressed you, here’s a list of 5 things you can do - right this minute - to get started on the road to improving your email situation:

1. If you haven’t done so yet, set up and publish an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) Record for your domain.  (Not sure if your domain has an SPF record?  Check here.)  You can find more information (and a free tool for creating your SPF record) at http://www.openspf.org, but in extremely simple terms an SPF record basically tells the receiving internet service provider that the email you are sending is really from you. If your email fails an SPF test, your email MIGHT still be delivered, but this raises your SpamAssassin rating unnecessarily. (Ideally you want to aim for a score of 2 to ensure delivery.)

2. Publish (and adhere to!) a Privacy Policy, and set up "abuse@" and "postmaster@" email addresses for your domain to handle spam complaints. I’ll have to tackle the privacy Policy in more detail in another post, but the abuse and postmaster addresses are recommended by Internet standards set by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).  Some MTA’s (message transfer agents) do a ping back on the postmaster@ address, and if it doesn’t exist they will put the email(s) in quarantine or bounce, or drop the email, and some will just send an entry to the blacklists (very bad news).

3. Check your current email reputation. Are you on a blacklist? Is your email not getting through because of spam complaints? Is your SpamAssassin rating off the charts?  You really need to find out!!!  There are several ways to check your email reputation, including Habeas.com’s free rep check, but I personally use the Delivery Audit by Email Reach.  You can register for a free trial, but if you’re serious about your email marketing, I recommend you sign up for a paid subscription ($49.95 per month, cheaper if you get a longer subscription) — as it really is the most incredibly useful tool I have ever come across.  Basically you send an email to their 23 test email addresses, and they will test and score your email’s deliverability based on reputation, content, which inboxes it landed in, and whitelist status.  For each "failure" it provides recommendations to improve delivery.  Pretty amazing, though I’m warning you … some days it will make you want to cry.   

4. Add an unsubscribe mechanism to your emails.  It always amazes me how people (and I’m talking big name companies here!) neglect to do this.  You need to give your recipients a way out of receiving your email.. (1) because they may actually not want to receive it (have you ever considered that?) and (2) .. if they don’t have a way to unsubscribe they are likely just to report it as spam.. and believe me, you do NOT want that.  Your unsubscribe mechanism can as simple as a note to "reply to this email with "STOP" as the subject line" - though a one-click unsubscribe (i.e. an unsubscribe link) is always better.  More on this when I discuss email service providers and email sending software.

5. Last, but definitely not least, make your email content relevant to the people you are sending it to.  This is perhaps the most valuable learning I took home from this year’s Email Summit. While you may think your company, promo, service etc is the best thing since sliced bread - others may disagree. Live with it.  Move on. Organize your email lists, and send specific offers only to those who might actually benefit from them.  Stop flooding the inboxes of your friends and relatives, and for god’s sake, please do not send email to people you don’t even know!  Once again, details on email relevancy will have to be tackled in future posts (too much to cover here), so just be patient. 

 Well that’s it for today.  What are you waiting for?  GO! Get cracking!

Happy Easter, and have a great week!

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Are You a Spammer?

Surprisingly, even legitimate marketers from reputable companies can be guilty of sending SPAM (unsolicited commercial email).  I should know - because I receive lots of it!!!

Are YOU a Spammer? Take this quick test to find out: 

1. Are you mailing to anyone who has not explicitly agreed to join your mailing list?

2. Are you sending email to a rented or purchased list of ANY kind?

3. Are you sending email - without knowing who the recipient will be - to non-specific email addresses such as: sales@domain.com, business@domain.com, webmaster@domain.com, info@domain.com, or other general addresses?

4. Are you sending commercial email to distribution lists or mailing lists (for example, Yahoo groups) which send indirectly to a variety of email addresses?

5. Have you ever falsified your originating email address or transmission path information?

6. Have you sent out email using an email address or domain name that is not your own without the owner’s permission?

7. Does your email’s subject line contain false or misleading information?

8. Does your email fail to provide a working link to unsubscribe?

9. Are you failing to process unsubscribe requests within 10 days of the request?

If you’ve answered YES to any of the above, then you’re (unfortunately) guilty as charged - which is a pity, because email is without a doubt the single most cost-effective medium for promoting any business. But with the proliferation of spam (and consequently, spam filters!) it’s become more and more difficult for legitimate email marketers to get their messages delivered… let alone actually read.

The old method of sending a mass email to your entire contact list via CC or BCC - whether they’ve asked to receive your message or not - just won’t cut it anymore. (In fact, in some countries, the practice is actually illegal.) If you’re failing to provide and abide by an unsubscribe mechanism - that could mean big trouble as well.

To successfully tackle the challenges of Email Marketing today, it’s become mission-critical to keep up with global "best-practice" email sending standards adopted at the 2003 Email Authentication Summit II.

These include:

• Sending email only to confirmed opt-in subscribers. Your mail recipients MUST have agreed to receive your communications, by signing up for your mailing list either online or offline. If a spam complaint is raised you must have a means to verify that the subscriber asked to receive your email.

• One-to-one correspondence. Commercial email should be sent "one address per piece" - meaning that each piece should be addressed only to the primary recipient, and should not be cc:ed or bcc:ed to additional addresses.

• Bounce management and unsubscribe request handling - All commercial email must include a working unsubscribe mechanism, and email senders should maintain a system to immediately process unsubscribe requests, complaints and delivery failure notifications.

Sad to say, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  The rest will have to be reserved for (several) future entries - there’s just too much to cover.  Email marketing is a constantly moving target, with the rules changing constantly (and often inexplicably!)  The very things that brought your email into the Inbox one day could land it into the Junk folder tomorrow.   So bookmark this blog because there’s a whole lot more to come!

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The Marketer’s Creed

 Copyright©2008 MarketingExperiments

 The Prospects Protest (A Problem)

I am not a target; I am a person: Don’t market to me, communicate with me.

Don’t wear out my name, and don’t call me “friend,” until we know each other.

When you say “sell,” I hear “hype.” Clarity trumps persuasion. Don’t sell; say.

I don’t buy from companies; I buy from people. And here’s a clue: I dislike companies for the same reason I dislike people. Stop bragging. It’s disgusting.

And why is your marketing “voice” different from your real “voice”? The people I trust don’t patronize me.

In all cases, where the quality of the information is debatable, I will always resort to the quality of the source. My trust is not for sale. You need to earn it.

Dazzle me gradually: Tell me what you can’t do, and I might believe you when you tell me what you can do.

In case you still don’t “get it,” I don’t trust you. Your copy is arrogant, your motives seem selfish, and your claims sound inflated. If you want to change how I buy, first change how you market.

The MarketingExperiments’ Creed (A Response)

ARTICLE ONE: We believe that people buy from people, that people don’t buy from companies, from stores, or from Web sites; people buy from people. Marketing is not about programs; it is about relationships.

ARTICLE TWO: We believe that brand is just reputation; marketing is just conversation, and buying is an act of trust. Trust is earned with two elements: 1) integrity and 2) effectiveness. Both demand that you put the interest of the customer first.

ARTICLE THREE: We believe that testing trumps speculation and that clarity trumps persuasion. Marketers need to base their decisions on honest data, and customers need to base their decisions on honest claims.