Archive for the 'Deliverability' Category
August 20th, 2010
Neil Berman recently used the analogy of a wedding to explain the importance of planning your marketing efforts, but it got me thinking how much email marketing is like a relationship.
Imagine your prospective recipient’s first visit to your site as the first date. Perhaps a friend set her up (through a personal recommendation or link from a trusted site), or she used a dating service (you showed up in a Google search).
You begin spending time together, getting to know one another (through browsing and analytics). One click leads to another, and before you know it, you’re popping the question (“Would you do me the honor of becoming my subscriber?”)
She says yes. The wedding is set and when the Priest/Rabbi/Judge asks “Do you..?” (in the form of a confirmation email), she says “I do!” (by clicking the link.)
Read more of “It’s Not You….It’s Me”…
August 10th, 2010
Plenty of women hate the color pink and wouldn’t have enough time to leaf through magazines even if it were 100 degrees and they could use them as fans. But whether they’re purposely defying tradition or simply following their own paths, many of the professional women who love Atlanta-based publisher Pink are helping its e-newsletter stay firmly in the black.
“We had been, historically, a magazine,” Pink CEO Cynthia Good says. “And we also had launched Little Pink Book to reach the women in our audience, globally, via our e-note. We had a small [e-mail] firm we were working with, and we did that for about nine months or so. We were just frustrated, because there were a lot of problems in terms of the deliverability. Sometimes—and we lost clients over it, too—they wouldn’t get an e-mail or they’d get more than one e-mail. And it became more and more important to us, that part of our business. It actually became our core business.”
To read more of this Target Marketing article, please click here.
With help on improving the delivery of your emails, contact Delivra today!
August 5th, 2010
I often hear from marketers asking how to protect various aspects of their recipient lists(s) from others in their organization who are looking to do something they know isn’t right. The questions normally come on the acquisition end (“They’re convinced buying a list is a good idea, what should I say?”) but sometimes, it goes the other direction, and the marketer is dealing with higher-ups who think it is a good idea to sell their list to a third party.
Read more of “Beware of Easy Money”…
July 27th, 2010
The John Caples International Awards honors the best in direct and interactive marketing around the world. It was founded in 1978 by Andi Emerson, a direct marketing pioneer, in order to honor well-recognized copywriter John Caples.
The Awards are open to any agency, client or individual involved in direct marketing and relationship marketing communication throughout the world.
For more information on the details of entering and what category may be the best fit, please click here!
May 28th, 2010
Not long after joining Delivra in September 2008, I embarked on a research project. I wanted to sample the end-user experiences offered by competitors to Delivra and compare those to our own subscription/profile management tools. So I set up a brand new Gmail account and immediately subscribed it to about three dozen newsletters.
The companies I picked were those I knew to be doing business with other ESPs. I purposely picked a cross-section of well-known brands from across multiple industries: restaurants, hospitality, consumer goods, retailers, not-for-profits and service providers. Without listing their names, let us just say that you’ve heard of most of them. They were the only senders to whom I’ve ever given this new address.
That was over sixteen months ago. Since then, I’ve only logged into the account three times. The most recent of those logins was yesterday. Care to guess how many unread messages I had?
Read more of “The Least Engaged Subscriber”…
May 27th, 2010
I read a question from a marketer recently who was asking if he should include a text message in addition to the HTML messages that he is sending and it made me realize that some of the things I take for granted aren’t necessarily common knowledge. The shortest answer to the question is “yes.” In general, HTML-only emails are seen by receiving systems as more “spammy”, so creating your message with both a text and HTML message (and letting the receiving system decide which to display) can help your deliverability.
Read more of “HTML-only or multi-part?”…
May 19th, 2010
I am always on the hunt for great email marketing resources and I have my usual sites I check like EEC, DMA, DM News, BtoB, Marketing Sherpa, and Marketing Profs for insight into email marketing. However, I have found that outside of the EEC, there are only a few that have a wealth of resources in one place. I often end up searching all over the internet. In that time, I have also found a few valuable blogs that mention email or are dedicated to the practice of email marketing.
One of those blogs is The Email Marketer’s Club. This is a great resource for all types of information. Things like:
- Best Practices
- Statistics
- In Depth Discussions
- Resources for email marketing design, strategy, and implementation
Read more of “Need Inspiration? The Email Marketers Club Could Be For You”…
May 12th, 2010
I read an excellent article this morning on BtoB that was posted in April by Karen Bannan. The article highlights tips on how to boost your deliverability. This is a question that we often get here at Delivra. Here is an excerpt from Karen’s article:
Spam is still a huge challenge for marketers. Last month, for example, spam messages accounted for 89.34% of all e-mails sent, according to antivirus provider Symantec’s “State of Spam” report for March. With that level of spam activity, it’s no wonder that deliverability issues continue to plague legitimate senders. How can marketers make sure their messages get into the inbox and aren’t flagged as spam?
Read the full article.
Glad to see that some of the tips I often give are included in the article! Here are my top three ways to avoid SPAM:
- Marketing to the masses does not always get your greater results. Sometimes trimming your list to those that are engaged and find your content relevant are the best way to get your message out.
- Design with the recipient in mind by making sure that you have text behind your images, that you are concise, and that you have strong calls to action.
- Ask for permission and also maintain that permission by asking their preferences.
If you have questions or would like to learn more, contact us at 866-915-9465 or at info@delivra.com. Tell me what you think by commenting on this post below!
Carissa Newton | Marketing
March 3rd, 2010
Here’s the latest spin on why email marketers shouldn’t have to worry about opt-ins. According to the CEO of one marketing database company, this time, it’s the economy. Because, really, who can afford to follow best practices these days? Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that. Naturally, his company is there for you in these troubled times. Go ahead and read the whole thing, including (especially) the comments. I’ll wait right here…
Read more of “Unsolicited Email: Follow the Money”…
February 18th, 2010
We spend a lot of time talking about and counseling our clients on obtaining permission. Having a good, solid program to allow people to opt-in to your mailings is critical to the success of your campaigns. Email marketing has matured to the point that most people understand that concept and agree that permission is absolutely essential to keep complaints low and connect with those people who want to receive the mailings.
But permission isn’t the only thing you need to consider. The most common problem I see is a failure to set proper expectations about the type or frequency of emails. A few simple steps when designing your subscribe process that can avoid problems down the road are:
- Provide a link to the online version of a recent mailing (any item stored in our Delivra Content section can be linked to).
- Let your subscribers know when or how often you’ll be sending (“We’ll send your newsletter on the first Monday of each month”)
- Let the user know what address you’ll be sending from. (“Add newsletters@example.com to your address book”
- Send a “hello” message automatically after sign-up thanking them and reiterating all of the above.
- If you have multiple newsletters or options, allow your subscribers to choose at sign-up or modify their options down the road (Delivra can help create a profile form to do this.)
Setting the right expectations up-front can help avoid problems down the road.
Kris Dougherty | Deliverability & Operations
