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Case Study: Reaching the Inbox and Rendering Solutions
May 29, 2007
We just completed a case study with ReturnPath on Reaching the Inbox and Rendering Solutions and how to design so as not to encounter these issue pre-campaign.
eROI uses this data primarily to educate, consult and design. We like to help the troubled mailers become good ones and enjoy the increased response that comes from improved deliverability. Of course, if education fails, they can segregate their IPs so top-notch marketers don't suffer because of other mailers misdeeds. (Which is why eROI has so many IPs and spend so much time monitoring, balancing and segmenting mailers on volume, reputation, list hygiene, vertical industry (say banking), and even by brand.)
eROI also uses Sender Score Campaign Preview to help their clients with content assessments. Content is another area where many ESPs typically have little control, so having a mechanism to help clients pinpoint where they need to make changes is crucial. But eROI is a hybrid ESP with full service and self service clients, agencies and other partners; due to this they can head off or test for issues prior to a campaign drop that they are creating, or test on behalf of a self serve client that requests it. Read more about how eROI uses the Sender Score suite to help its clients.
If you are struggling with deliverability issues, talk to eROI about how they address these problems. They help you assess your content? They segregate high reputation mailers from low reputation ones to protect their deliverability. You can't expect your ESP to solve the problems that you are causing in your program, but you can expect eROI to help you diagnose and solve your problems so that you can increase your email success. Why else would we have so many great long term clients and even more each month selecting us as a partner.
http://www.eroi.com/eroi-email-marketing-q207-reaching-the-inbox.html
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 10:00 AM | Permalink
I'd like to buy Coke some Email Marketing Advice
May 28, 2007
So, after a multi-million dollar media blitz, I signed up for MyCokeRewards, which I wasn't quite sure how I would benefit from (aside from a free coke here and there).
After sometime, I received an email telling me I had 50 free points, and to login and add a confirmation code. I did this, and the process was easy and quick. Good stuff.
Then...it went downhill. A week later I got a similar 50 free points email, which rendered horribly in Gmail, possibly the easiest email client from a rendering standpoint.
The I get to the site and I am told this....
You figure one of the biggest brands in the world would make sure this type of thing wouldn't have happened. You need to make sure you aren't sending people to a page with a code that has already been used or won't work.
Testing your creative in all of the free consumer accounts is a must. We use Return Path.
I bought a Diet Pepsi yesterday for no reason. Coincidence?
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 11:36 AM | Permalink
Outlook 2007 Offenders - SellingPower.com
May 25, 2007
Another newsletter focused on a b-to-b audience, SellingPower.com. This newsletter is focused at the large community of slackers...I mean salespeople. Most all salespeople I know use Outlook and will migrate when their company tells them to.
You will start to see a running theme of issues related to Outlook 2007.
After examining the HTML, here's why Outlook 2007 rendered the email like this:
- No set width for email content
- All css styles are referenced in the
- Positioning of elements (div) - Menu doesn't display correctly b/c it uses an unsupported style: position
This gets back to the new Outlook 2007 motto - Old School Table Layouts.
Keep an eye out for this new weekly feature - Outlook 07 Offenders.
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 11:57 AM | Permalink
Scariest Email Article of the Day
May 21, 2007
This article below was in one of my Google alerts. It's real. Seriously. I am not sure what she is even talking about at sometimes. I posted this so you can remember that we are always fighting crazy spammers like this.
This may be my favorite quote....sounds like a mix of George W. Bush or maybe the evil Cobra Kai teacher from Karate Kid.
"Be aware that some subscribers may email them back wondering why they are on their list. People forget that they signed up for their list. People might call them bad names, but don't worry about it. Just delete those emails and move on. They can't be afraid to upset their list. If they are scared or upset easily then they need to get out of the email marketing game. Yes, it is a game and they have to be a tough, confident competitor."
Here is the full article.
If You Want To Make Money You on the Internet Need to Send Out Emails ConstantlySuwanee, GA -- Send out emails constantly. Internet marketers need to have constant traffic to their website. If they are not sending out emails then they are not maximizing their profits. If they want to make money then send out emails. Let me repeat - if
they want to make money then send out emails!Set up an email schedule. Send emails every week. Why? If they are emailing every single week then they know that they are making money on a consistent basis. Ask them each week about what they want to sell that week. It doesn't matter how many people they have on their list. They may have heard of 'ABC - Always be closing.- Instead think of 'ABE - Always be emailing.- Don't be afraid of emailing and promoting your products.
Of course they want to not just send sales type emails, but also emails that provide content. But don't be afraid to promote and sell. If they want to make money then they have to promote and sell constantly!
A major advantage of sending emails on a consistent basis is that it gets their list used to them. They establish a relationship with them. Plus, the more emails they write the more practice they have. They can work out the kinks of their email copy right from the beginning.Be aware that some subscribers may email them back wondering why they are on their list. People forget that they signed up for their list. People might call them bad names, but don't worry about it. Just delete those emails and move on. They can't be afraid to upset their list. If they are scared or upset easily then they need to get out of the email marketing game. Yes, it is a game and they have to be a tough, confident competitor.
Many top Internet gurus receive hate letters. It is part of the game. They have to not worry about receiving these letters and not taking them personally. They can't please everyone all the time. Keep this in mind so they can stay strong when they are faced with people who have issue with their emails.
They know are doing things right when the world divides. They may have people unsubscribe from their list. But, guess what? Those people that unsubscribe probably weren't going to buy their product anyway. Delete these people from their mind and move on. Focus on the subscribers that are positive and buy their products!
Tip: A little controversy in their email and marketing can go a long way if they do it correctly.
Additional tips to creating their own wealth include: Follow the piles of cash. Find people who have successfully www.promotingtips.com [created wealth] and learn from them.
Remember, it's not only what they know, but who they learn it from. Learn from someone who is more successful then you. Learn the tricks of the trade and www.powerfulpromoter.com [internet marketing tips] from someone that has actually built wealth and not just written a book about it. Forget the past. It does not matter who they are or where they came from. Everyone deserves to be a millionaire.
Contact Information:
Stephanie Bunn
2935 Horizon Park Drive, Suite D
Suwanee, GA 30024
Comments (2) | Posted by alex at 1:14 PM | Permalink
Defining the customer lifecycle, Part 1
May 14, 2007
I am working on rewriting our customer lifecycle document (get the current one here). What is the customer lifecycle?
The customer lifecycle is based on customer loyalty, however, many clients that I speak to mistake revenue for loyalty. Now, I agree that revenue is an important component, but loyalty is also made up of brand awareness and brand interaction. The customer lifecycle should be based on the loyalty of a customer and their interaction with your brand. Your lifecycle program needs to be a flexible and dynamic experience.
In Part 2 I will talk about the steps to building loyalty and part 3 will focus on what does it mean when it comes to developing an email program to grow customer loyalty for the customer lifecycle.
Comments (0) | Posted by Jeff at 9:38 PM | Permalink
Outlook 2007 Offender - B-to-B
May 13, 2007
Today starts my weekly series of "Outlook 2007 Offenders", to show you the effects of the new Outlook 2007 HTML rendering engine (MS Word). We will then examine the HTM and show you why the email is having problems.
Who better to start with than B-to-B, since Outlook is predominantly used by the business world (around 85%). Aside from the email getting flagged as spam, which it does frequently, the email is a mess in Outlook 2007.
After examining the HTML, here's why Outlook 2007 rendered the email like this:
1. Styles are referenced in header (Outlook 2007 doesn't recognize styles defined in the head tag.)
This causes:
- Font to lose formatting
- Margin of email doesn't show - there should be 10 pixels of padding between the content & edges of the email
- Background doesn't fill consistently, there is a div tag that is referencing a style tag in the head of the document.
2. No Defined Table Width
This causes:
- Inconsistent view depending on the size of your email window.
- The email shell to stretches to the width of email client window no matter how wide or narrow.
- The "Forward to a Friend" graphic is within a table that has a width defined so it is in a set position while the rest of the email width is undefined.
Keep an eye out for this new weekly feature - Outlook 07 Offenders.
Comments (1) | Posted by alex at 8:33 PM | Permalink
Study: How Marketers Design, Code and Test Email
May 11, 2007
In the coming wave of eROI studies to be released over the forthcoming weeks here is one we just completed hot off the presses for you.
Over the last quarter, we took a look at how marketers are designing, coding and testing email. Email deliverability and rendering has been a hot topic for a long time, but how important is it to marketers. There is a vast difference between what they say and what they do.
In addition, we took a look at open and click statistics of those that fun all their email campaigns in house vs. those that use the services of an agency. The basics: eMarketing agencies drive nearly 50% more traffic to your site and increases brand awareness. This 8-page Q2’07 email study is chock full of valuable information, graphs, statistics, and charts to inform you on how to improve your email marketing strategies, design, and coding. As a bonus, you’ll also get an additional PDF of our brand new release of the Email Design Best Practices Guide. Learn how to code for Outlook 2007 and other email environments.
We encourage you to learn more about eROI, email marketing and this study, by visiting our Free Guides download.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
eROI Launches New UGC Video Site
May 10, 2007
Well this site moved in at the speed of light and brought us into a new tech platform from KickApps in NYC. These guys let us use the back end of their system to build out a custom User Generated Content/Social Video site for Widmer Brewing. The video and design from Sasquatch Advertising who is their agency of record. (We just got to chop it up, style the design elements and mess with endless code that we had never seen) It was a fun project to work on and a good learning curve for a new project which rolled in last Thursday from HBO/Cinemax for a new series show that starts June 1st. (Yeah that gives about 3 weeks to knock it out of the park) Can't tell you much more than that now, but it is going to be saucy and use social video and user generated content. (And has to do with Las Vegas, beautiful people and steamy plotlines.)
I would love for you to take a look at the LemonYourWidmer site as the videos we loaded it with to start it off sure are a lot of fun. AND believe it or not 100% legitimate. After you see the golf chip shot (which took only 10 takes) you will know what I am talking about. If you have an idea of how to Lemon your Widmer, shoot it and load it up.
And of course it uses emailROI to power the front page Send to a Friend functions with a custom HMTL email template.
If you think of eROI as just an email ESP, you are missing the other 40% of our business: campaign sites, blogs, DM PIN campaigns, corporate sites, Web 2.0 application builds and advergames.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:00 AM | Permalink
Taking one for the Team - Outlook 2007
May 9, 2007
The Urban Dictionary defines "Taking one for the Team" in various humorous ways. For those 24 fans out there, Milo took one for the team in the most recent episode.
I prefer the definition of "The act of someone willingly making a sacrifice for the benefit of others." Readers, I have done just that. For the benefit of my co-workers and eROI, I have installed Office 2007. All of it.
First thoughts, the new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook are really impressive. I really don't have much to complain about. And I absolutely love the new OneNote program, a kick-ass program to have open for taking notes, screen shots, etc...
I just have this one complaint - Email marketing sucks in Outlook 2007. Big time.
It is worse than you have heard. I would say 60-75% of the emails coming through are screwed up in some way. Some are complete train wrecks. Like a bald Britney Spears. Others are slightly off, some I can barely notice.
Being an email marketer, I have made this sacrifice to all of my favorite newsletters to really to be able to speak about the effect Outlook 2007 is going to have on our industry. The new Office suite is really nice, both visually and functionally. People are going to want it.
I am going to be dedicating one post a week to show you some of the disastrous email rendering coming into my inbox. I will also explain what this email needs to do to pass the Outlook 2007 test.
I will be moderating an eROI webinar next week on this topic. Join in.
RIP Milo, you will be missed.
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 11:32 PM | Permalink
Getting to the Point
May 6, 2007
We have added a new category to our blog called "Getting to the Point."
This will cover ways to quickly relate your call to action and get the user clicking through towards your goal.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the Innotech Conference eMarketing Summit in Portland. (Austin readers - we will be coming to the Austin Innotech Conference in October.)
During my presentation I mentioned my dislike for lengthy reading, especially in newsletters. Quite a few people were shocked by my statements, and asked me if I "just had a short attention span." I do, but I told them that I am similar to most busy people in the web2.0 era we live in. This is even more true if you are courting a 25-40 demo.
You have to get to the point....quickly. Don't write like you writing a press release, "talk" to them. Tell them where you want them to click and why. Your click-thru results will improve.
To back-up my statement, this little nugget on Seth Godin's Blog:
How to write for a billionaire“I’m sometimes frustrated by the long stories,” Rupert Murdoch says about the Wall Street Journal.
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 4:40 PM | Permalink
We're not the only ones cleaning our email lists.
May 3, 2007
eROI VP Dylan Boyd spoke about our internal list cleaning project we conducted earlier this year on his blog The Email Wars.
Our goal was to get rid if the subscribers that were not opening, reading, or clicking on anything we were sending them. We figured that we were better off just emailing the people who were interested, based on their behavior, and letting the rest go. Seems we are not alone....
CBS SportsLine Slashes E-Mail Lists in the Name of QualityBy Zachary Rodgers
May 3, 2007
E-mail marketers and media companies focused on newsletter distribution tend to assume that bigger is better when it comes to list size. But in today's cluttered marketing environment, where engagement metrics like open rates and response rates pose a growing challenge to sheer reach, that's not necessarily the case.
In a bid to boost list quality and brand equity, a small number of companies are taking steps to pro-actively unsubscribe low-engagement recipients from their e-mail lists. Last week CBS SportsLine began to actively unsubscribe readers who don't take steps to continue receiving its mailings.
Patrick Herde, director of product management and marketing at CBS SportsLine, said the company has so far slashed the ranks of only one of its five newsletters, but intends to eventually cull the whole lot."We're pretty much changing our philosophy with respect to e-mail communications with our customers," he said. "We came to the conclusion that these broadcast e-mails are a detractor from our brand... In the old world, having a big list was probably a value. Now we're more interested in active recipients."
Despite the premium CPMs the company commanded for its wide-distribution newsletters, "We were offering declining value to our sponsors," Herde said. To fight that decline, on April 23, CBS SportsLine notified opt-in subscribers of its program guide newsletter, called "This Week on CBS SportsLine.com," that they would stop receiving the mailing unless they took an active step to re-subscribe by April 30. It was a one-time mailing, and those who didn't reply to it by the deadline were removed.
Herde declined to specify exactly how many addresses were unsubscribed from the newsletter, but he did say the total number of recipients on the list shrank from seven to six figures. "It was a pretty significant fraction," he said.
SportsLine will take a more delicate approach to culling the remaining four lists, however, offering three messages instead of one. They'll consist of an initial notification, a follow-up e-mail with a deadline to re-subscribe, and a final reminder.
Reducing the size of its lists is only the first step in CBS SportsLine's drive to improve engagement with newsletter content and marketing offers. The next step is a redesign "that will bring users back to the SportsLine Web site as well as expose them to sponsors in the best way possible," said Herde, who added the move is about maintaining the CBS SportsLine brand as much as tending the quality of its lists.
"How much of a brand detractor is it to send e-mail to people who either aren't interested or don't care?" he said. "Maybe they're just hitting delete when they see our 'From' line. I can improve our relationship with those customers by coming back to them with an offer they care about."
Another firm, marketing agency Future Now, recently "wiped out" its database of 40,000 e-mail addresses. Bryan Eisenberg, Future Now's founder and a Clicks columnist, said the move was driven by a desire to emphasize audience engagement over volume.
Marketers and media companies that want to clean their lists need not e-mail the whole database, according to Jared Blank, VP of client solutions at direct marketing agency Epsilon. Blank recommends list owners target their re-subscribe requests to users who haven't opened the last several messages sent. "It wouldn't be your whole list," he said, adding he doesn't believe such aggressive purging practices have become widespread.
On top of improving quality, the move has the additional benefit of reducing delivery costs, savings that can be put toward future list growth, said Herde. "Now that I've cleaned up the subscription list and I'm going to put out a much better content product, I can reallocate those dollars and focus on growing that list again... even winning back our old subscribers."
http://clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625745
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 3:26 PM | Permalink
OMG....the new eROI site is getting close
May 2, 2007
Just saw a preview of the new eROI site, and it looks incredible! We have been working on this for months and the new site really coming together.
One of the new exciting features is going to be our Emarketing Resource Center. After you have signed up, you will have unlimited access to all of the latest eROI resources with out having to fill out those annoying forms each time. This will make life a lot easier for our audience.
The site will be launching mid-summer, so make sure you are on the eROI email list to be notified of the launch and the new Resource Center.
Sign up for the eROI newsletter.
Comments (0) | Posted by alex at 10:09 AM | Permalink
