It Is Broke, So Let’s Fix It
June 25, 2009 at 9:23 am
I’m a proud supporter of the Email Standards Project; a project born out of frustration with the inconsistent rendering of HTML emails in major email clients. Due to the lack of standards in email clients (ie. Outlook, Gmail, etc.) when we create email marketing templates we are very restricted with what we can do to make them render well in every client. The Email Standards Project is a community effort to improve the standards and make life easier on us and better for clients.
There’s a big push on right now – and we’re looking at you Microsoft!
Microsoft has just confirmed that it intends to use the cripplied Word rendering engine to display HTML emails in Outlook 2010.
- This means for the next 5 years, we will have to continue to use tables for layouts on email designs.
- We’ll continue to be afraid to use CSS like float and position and background images are still a big no no.
- That’s not even considering the long list of bugs and quirks that break the simplest of layouts.
For many people out there in corporate-land, Outlook IS email. It would make life so much better if Microsoft took the big step of addressing the problems that are inherent in Word rendering. If you’ve ever tried to copy and paste text from a Word doc into, say, Wordpress and you see dodgy looking code… that’s the good ole Word rendering killing the beauty of your work.
Utilising The Power of Twitter
Outlook 2010 is still in beta and Microsoft has announced they want to hear your feedback on this decision. Let them hear it! It’s time for the email marketing and design community to rally together and encourage Microsoft to embrace web standards before it’s too late.
20,000 individuals sent a message to Microsoft since yesterday via Twitter. You can see all those lovely smiling faces here. This has forced Microsoft to respond – kudos for the speed of response, but a little sour in my opinion by trying to diss the Email Standards Project as “not representing a sanctioned standard or industry consensus in this area.”
If you are involved with email template design – either as a designer, client, or indeed recipient, please take the time out to add your voice to the throng. If Apple and Yahoo are happy to work on standards, why not Microsoft? If MS came to the table, it would be a huge benefit to everyone in the community.
Tags: Email Marketing, Email Marketing Ireland, Email Standards Project, Microsoft Outlook 2010
Listen to me
January 16, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I’m talking to Alex Gibson of the *award winning* podcast The Persuaders today at 1pm.
You can listen here.
I’m going to be talking about my most favourite of internet marketing techniques – email marketing!
If you have any questions you’d like answered, you can have them answered.
Tags: Email Marketing, The Persuaders Podcast
How To Clean Your Email List
December 12, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Everyone’s talking about value these days. If you want to get real value from your email marketing, you should clean your email list at least once every 3 sends. Why?
- To get a better picture of the real size of your list and your readers.
- Which means your stats are going to be much more accurate and true.
- And of course, if your variable cost of send depends on the number of subscribers, you don’t want to be paying for those ones who aren’t reading you – now do ya?
Here’s how I go about it – both for my own list and my clients.
After every send, keep a record of non-responders. These are people who may or may not have received your email.
- They have have received it and didn’t open, ie. just scanned it in the preview pane of their email client. Note that this is tending to be on the increase because many email clients are blocking images or requiring users to click to download. Email marketing software reports are generated by an image file being popped back to the server. If the recipient doesn’t download the images, then this file doesn’t get popped and the stats get a bit messed up.
- Or they may have received it and it didn’t even register amidst the mass of other pressing emails they have to deal with.
- They didn’t receive it. It got stuck in their spam filters. They are oblivious to your amazing offer, article, or whatever else you put in your email newsletter.
After every third send, take your non-responder list and send them a personal email, ie one from your own email address that you normally use and that should be familiar to them.
- Tell them that you’ve noticed they’re not opening the mail your records would imply that they either don’t wish to receive it or are not receiving it. Write this bit friendly, avoid big brother language! And of course don’t take it personally if they are not interested in what you have to say!
- Ask them to email you back if they wish to continue receiving it. You’ll get a real kick when they do!
- It can be helpful to add a link to the latest email newsletter so they can remind themselves what they’re missing.
The ones who email you back are those who wish to continue receiving the email. The ones you hear nothing from should be removed from your list just before you do the next send. Then do and do it. Delete their names from your list. I know this can feel painful, all that hard work building your email list, but it’s worthwhile because it means you are emailing an audience who want to hear from you which means more accurate reporting, and less expense on cost of send.
Now you know what to do next week if you’re kiling time in the office after a long lunch. 
Tags: cleaning your list, email list cleaning, Email Marketing
Email Marketing No Brainer
October 24, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Recently I reviewed our Email Marketing services page – updated the text, added a new image, and soon to be adding some fresh client testimonials. Did a Google search for “Email Marketing Ireland” and we came up on the first page – good – but what I noticed when I reviewed the competitor offerings for email marketing is that we are the only ones who are not trying to hawk our own in-house software onto clients.
What does this mean for Irish businesses who want to introduce email marketing to their communications mix?
All internet marketing agencies will sell you on the advantages of email marketing. That much is true. But most will try to sell you a license to use their software. You’ll find yourself paying out for training in how to use that software and no doubt will hear all about the robustness and excellent deliverability of their systems – but after that, you’ll be pretty much left to get on with it yourself.
I strongly disagree with this. And let’s call it what it is – companies pushing something onto unsuspecting clients that delivers the best return for their balance sheets, and not necessarily the best result for the client.
I’m a big believer in email marketing; in fact it’s my favourite! I believe in it so much that I’m happy to provide training to clients in how to do it themselves. But what I’ve known to happen is that training can be delivered, but when it comes to getting the email out, it’s a big stress on the client.
Doing it yourself eats up loads of time.
Testing takes ages and this drives up the cost. When you’re trying to get an email out, 100% perfect, on time, and it’s not your core area of expertise, it can be really stressful. It’s not surprising that many businesses start out with high hopes of doing regular email marketing and over time, they let it slide because it becomes too much hassle.
When I deliver training in email marketing – it’s about more than just how to use a piece of software.
- It’s about planning the messaging, who you’re communicating with, what you have to say.
- Putting in place an email marketing content plan so that you know what you have to write throughout the year.
- And most importantly of all, how to analyse the statistics.
- All that plus advice on list building, and of course design of beautiful and effective email templates.
If you’re interested in learning all about that, our last public training course of 2008 is on 27 November. Find out more… But know this – DIY Email Marketing is only for you if you’re comfortable using software and have the time to devote to managing your campaigns.
When we do email marketing for our clients, we sit down with them and work out messaging, frequency, list building, and design.
But after that we look after everything leaving them free to get on with running their business.
What this means is that our clients know that every email communication going out on their behalf reads great, is professionally designed, and is delivered using the best web-based software developed by companies whose sole focus is this. Not some two-bit piece of kit that was knocked out by the techies back when the ‘agency’ added email marketing to its list of services.
Then, one week after send, our clients receive a report detailing all the user interactions with the email and with recommendations on how future email content and offers can be targeted to get better results.
We’re about making our money by providing advice and best practice delivery. Not by selling software. It’s an email marketing no-brainer.
Tags: Email Marketing, Rip Off Ireland
