Each day email marketing becomes increasingly sophisticated. From MTA throttling techniques to data marts, the email marketing space has changed tremendously over the past few years. There are still basic building blocks to email marketing that the customer controls and needs to ensure are setup. Role accounts are one of those basic items that every person who engages in email marketing needs to setup and actively monitor. A role account is nothing more than an abuse@ and postmaster@ email account for the domain you use in your “From” email addresses.

Some users will not use your unsubscribe links and just forward their unsubscribe request to one or both of the role accounts. It’s important that you setup these accounts and actively check them. Another best practice with your role accounts is to register them with Abuse.net. Many ISP’s and blacklisting organizations want to see legitimate mailers with listings in this database. It helps to show you are not trying to hide where complaints should be sent.

Adding role accounts is very easy. Make sure your domain has them and that someone is actively monitoring these accounts.

With all the social networking sites popping up lately, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.  However, we’ve found one that anyone in the email marketing world should join - the Email Marketer’s Club!

According to the site, the Email Marketer’s Club allows you to “network and share knowledge with email marketers across the globe.”  Create your own page with info about yourself and then connect with others in the email marketing space.  You can contribute to and learn from discussion forums, join groups specific to your areas of interest, read the club newsletter, catch up on the latest events, and even find your dream job on the job board.

Click here to sign up for the club.  Once you’re there, be sure to search for your Blue Sky Factory friends.  We’d love to chat!

Is your email marketing program a one way street? If you are sending emails to your subscribers but asking for no feedback, you are really missing an opportunity to gather valuable information.

I’ve used a certain mid-west bank for years. Every month I get an email from them with my statement balance, but nothing more. This morning I received an email from them with the subject line “How are we doing? We want to know.” The email was a link to a short survey on their site which asked for feedback of different natures, but one thing stood out: they asked me which types of mailings I want, and how often.

This is a little different from the article we posted recently about Subscriber Preferences, because this company is currently only sending emails with account and statement information. They sought to find what their users wanted before sending a single newsletter or offer. Once they have the collected desires of their customers, they can put that into practice. After that point it’s up to them to take it another step further with Subscriber Preferences, but the initial ask was well-planned and appreciated.

Ask your customers what they want, then deliver (no pun intended.)

We recently announced the addition of our Google Analytics feature to Publicaster.  This feature allows you to track clicks from your Publicaster email campaigns to your website activity in your Google Analytics account.  

After receiving valuable feedback from our clients, we are moving this feature to be an option under the Account Preferences section in Publicaster.  As of today, under Account Preferences, you will be able to choose whether or not you’d like the Google Analytics feature to appear on your Send/Schedule Emails screen.  By default, this option will be turned “off”. 

To read more about this feature, read our blog post.

If you have any questions about this updated feature, please contact your Account Manager or email Customer Support.

How do you match up to your peers?  We’ve added a BSF quick survey to our monthly newsletter.  Take our most recent survey on what matters most in email marketing.  Once we’ve collected all the results, we’ll report back on the outcome.  Check back in to see how you compare to your fellow marketers!

When your email hits the inbox, does it stand out from the crowd? Is your email creative rendering correctly across all email clients? Are you up-to-date on all of the latest best practices of email design?

Join us for our “Design for the Inbox” webinar to learn how to design emails that make a real impact.

This webinar is for you if:

• You want to maximize readability and visual interest
• You are interested in increasing your email return on investment
• You are new to email marketing design, or want a refresher on best practices

Click here to register!

Details:

Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Time: 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM EST

Presenter: Melanie Sims

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.3.9 (Panther®) or newer

You’ve done it all right so far.  You have built up (and monitored!) your sending reputation, minimized the “spamminess” of your email, set up authentication, and sent the email to a true opt-in list.  The only step left is the final gatekeeper: Your subject line.

I was reminded recently that subject lines can be powerful not just for your emails, but for blog posts as well.  The other day some BSF staffers were taking a look at the highest clicks into Thinking Inbox blog posts from RSS.   Take a look at the top 10 winners:

The Email Standards Project
Growing Your Email List
Combat List Fatigue
10 Email Marketing Resolutions for 2008
New Year’s Resolution: ­ Improve Your Email…
Writing and Designing an Email Newsletter
Issue Brief: Mobile Email Marketing
When Best Practices Become Requirements
9 Ways to “Make Nice” with ISPs and Network Operators
The Anatomy of a Lousy Email   

Clearly the subject line of the blog post is the gatekeeper as well, provoking a click or getting passed by.  The Email Standards Project was an unintentional winner, since that was the name of the site (and just so happens to be compelling all on its own.) The rest are very clear and straightforward in their intent, just as a good subject line should be.

Which of your subject lines is winning in opens?  What can you change to bring the others up to that level?  Every audience is different, so observing the trends of what makes your subscribers open or not open the emails should give you insight into what you should do in the future.

You may have noticed a new addition to the more recent issues of our newsletter, Factory Direct.  By adding BSF quick surveys to our newsletter, we hope to provide you a way to stay up to date with the most recent email marketing trends. Our first survey focused on our readers’ daily email behavior and activity.  Listed below are the questions along with our readers’ responses:

·  On average, how many hours each day do you spend writing and responding to emails?
o  6.3% spend zero hours
o  68.8% spend 1-5 hours
o 18.8% spent 6-10 hours
o  6.3% spend more than 10 hours

Stay tuned for more surveys and results!

Last month, we announced the addition of our Email Folders feature to the Publicaster Email Library.  After receiving valuable feedback from our clients, we will be moving this feature to be an option under the Account Preferences section in Publicaster.  As of this morning, under Account Preferences, you will be able to choose whether or not you’d like the Email Folders option to appear in your Email Library.  By default, this option will be turned “off”.

Another improvement we have made is that your Email Folders, should you choose to use them, will be listed in alphabetical order. 

To see a sample of how the Email Folders feature would look in your account, please click on the image to the right.

If you have any questions about this updated feature, please contact your Account Manager or email Customer Support.

Did you know that many email clients display not only the subject line of a new email arrival, but also the first line of text within the email? Take a look at your current email design. What’s the first line of text? Does this first line of text get your message and call-to-action across, or is it just fluff? If it’s not grabbing your reader’s attention, it’s time to add some snippet text!

The first line of text, or “snippet text,” as it’s been coined, has come up recently as a new way to grab your reader’s attention and display the call-to-action of your email. Here’s an example of the snippet text in action: If you use Microsoft Outlook, you have the option to receive pop-up alerts in the bottom righthand corner of your screen when a new email arrives. This pop-up states the email’s Friendly From Name, Subject Line and the first line of text. Gmail uses this same information to display your email details in the list of Inbox emails.

Click on either of the two images for examples of what not to do. These samples show how your email alert appears in Outlook if you only use a View in Browser link at the top of your email, and also how the email description would appear in your Inbox list in Gmail. As you can see, having a relevant and interesting snippet text above any other links or images in your email is very important to grabbing your reader’s attention.

It has become best practice to add snippet text to every email campaign that you send. This will help you get your call-to-action across, even when the recipient quickly scans through the emails in their inbox. This also helps to relay the message of your email when images are blocked, as this snippet text will come through at the top of your email even when images do not.

Here’s another tip: Make your snippet text different from your subject line so that your recipients aren’t simply seeing the exact same message twice. Maximize the message you can get across in this valuable email real estate. And have some fun with it … try testing different snippet texts to grab your reader’s attention and see which one performs best. Give this best practice a try, and let us know your successes by leaving a comment below.