Holiday Marketing Gift – more customer email addresses
 
Growing a permission email list takes time, money and effort. If you have customer contacts that are missing email addresses there is one way to quickly obtain their email addresses as well as ensuring that they’re permission based. How? ReachMail’s Email Append Service.  Properly done, Email Append allows you to extend the relationship you have with your current customers from the postal world to the digital world of email marketing. 

ReachMail Media Services partners with three of the largest data providers including Axciom, InfoUSA and Experian to build the largest database of opt-in email addresses to our customers. Simply provide us with the complete postal record of your customers and ReachMail Media Services will compare it with the databases of all three providers. If there is a match ReachMail will arrange for a “Welcome” email message to be sent to the email address. If your customer prefers not to be contacted by you via email they have the opportunity to opt-out at that time. Opt-outs and undelivered records are then removed from your new email list. This new email list is then placed in your ReachMail account for you to market.  Questions? Contact Brian Peiffle VP of ReachMail Media Services at 888-947-3224 x 703 or bpeiffle@reachmail.com

Getting the most out of ReachMail – Checking the performance of individual lists

Email lists are not static and neither is their performance. For example you may have gathered email addresses from a trade show two years ago. How do those lists perform over time versus subscribers to your newsletter? A list may initially perform well but nose dive in response rate 6 months later. ReachMail makes it easy to see changes in open rates, undelivered email and other metrics. Check out the  “List Reports” tool from the Reports section.

List Reports shows you at a glance how many active recipients you have in a list, your bounces (hard and soft with a history of each for every mailing you’ve done. To run the report simply select the list you want.

The report has two sections. The first shows you graphically the current breakdown of your list, Active recipients, opt-outs and bounce detail. Plus a section on html or text preference

Want to see how your list performed over time? The second section lists the most recent mailings including open rates and bounce details. The key indicator to look at is “Total Read Recipients” over time. Don’t remember what the content was? Simply click on the mailing name to be presented with your HTML copy.

Deliverability Tip – Beware of old Hotmail or MSN email addresses
Unique among major ISPs, Microsoft looks for spammers by how often emailers send email to “old” hotmail or msn addresses. ReachMail has found that if you have a list that has not been mailed to in a long time that you may inadvertently have a spam trap within your list. How? It appears that Microsoft monitors dormant/unused accounts, typically hotmail accounts that are no longer being used by the recipient.
These are legitimate email addresses that have been abandoned by their owner a frequent occurrence since hotmail accounts are free. If you mail to one of these then Microsoft “hits” you as a spammer and reduces your deliverability for at least two weeks we’ve seen. Our advice: if you’ve not emailed a list in over 6 months and it includes these domains contact us for the proper procedure. We’ll keep you on Bill Gates good side….and your response rates up!

ReachMail API - Beta Testers Requested
ReachMail is nearing completion of a full featured API that will allow you to synch ReachMail with virtually any database. You'll be able to access and control your ReachMail account from programs such as salesforce.com, ACT or any other database such as SQL Server. If you're interested in becoming a beta tester for the new ReachMail API or if you'd like to be personally contacted when it becomes available - please email Greg Gulik at ggulik@reachmail.com

 

Introducing ReachMail Media Serivces

This monthReachMail is proud to introduce our newest division, ReachMail Media Services (RMS). RMS is an independent media buyer with expertise in list rentals and cost-per-lead programs. RMS brings together the best from direct marketing and demand generation to offer clients a fully integrated prospecting solution. RMS is fully independent of any media owner or publisher to insure that recommendations are objective and performance based. RMS's core focus is to recommend the mix of marketing programs that will drive the lowest overall CPQL, cost-per-quality-lead.

RMS has brought in Brian Peiffle as division head. "I'm excited about offering a unique resource to marketers," says Brian, "By consolidating the CPL and list purchase with one vendor our clients can limit duplication issues and leverage their entire marketing spend to get the best rates." Brian, former Sr. VP of List Brokerage with InfoUSA, has over 10 years of experience guiding marketers to the most targeted media for reaching their prospects.

To learn more about ReachMail Media Services, please visit reachmail.net/media or email bpeiffle@reachmail.com

Getting the most out of ReachMail - Contents and Assets

Attaching files to a large email distribution is tricky. It severely hampers delivery rates, can damage your reputation with ISPs and can harm your relationship with your recipients. So how do you deliver a crucial PDF or PowerPoint presentation to your list? ReachMail's contents and assets library has the answers. The contents and assets library is a simple way to host your documents and deliver them to your recipients on-demand for download. All you have to do is upload your files, link to them in your email, and that's it. All your recipients will be able to click the link and download your file.

There's no size quota for the library, you can upload as many files as you like regardless of size. There's also no expiration date, your files stay available until you delete them. Your files are hosted on a secure server and are accessible only through your account. It's the easiest way to provide your recipients with PDF, Word, Excel or PowerPoint files (or any other file type) without large attachments jamming their inbox or damaging your reputation with ISPs.

The Contents and Assests library is part of the ReachMail enhanced edition. For more information on upgrading the enhanced edition and what it has to offer please contact sales@reachmail.com

Deliverability Tip

Recently we came across an issue with the content filter on the earthlink.net domain that we thought we would share. It seems that earthlink.net uses a junk mail filter that searches the content of incoming emails for poorly formed HTML as well as certain HTML tags. Any instances of these will trigger the filter and capture the mail. The mail won't even go the junk folder, it will simply not be delivered. If you have a lot of earthlink.net addresses in your list check out your mailings and adjust them as needed to fit these rules.

• No open HTML tags: close your tags, Earthlink won't deliver bad HTML.
• No font tags: Earthlink will not deliver any mail with a font tag, if you need to emphasize copy use bold, underline, italic, or emphasis tags.
• No span tags: You will be delivered, but to the junk folder.
• Use heading tags: You can use heading tags in concert with inline style elements to use color and size to set off copy.

ReachMail API - Beta Testers Requested

ReachMail is nearing completion of a full featured API that will allow you to synch ReachMail with virtually any database. You'll be able to access and control your ReachMail account from programs such as salesforce.com, ACT or any other database such as SQL Server. If you're interested in becoming a beta tester for the new ReachMail API or if you'd like to be personally contacted when it becomes available - please email Greg Gulik at ggulik@reachmail.com

Building your List with Co-Registration

One of the biggest challenges in email marketing is to build a list of engaged, qualified email subscribers. An effective technique is co-registration which simply is offering subscribers the ability to join your list when they join another.

Co-registration takes place when two websites partner to build their respective email lists. For example, when a visitor to your website registers for your newsletter, you can offer him/her a chance to sign up for newsletters from the partnering website. According to Jeanne Jennings, an email marketing and website strategy consultant, "for an online or e-commerce merchant, the offer [to sign up] may be more focused on a promotion, such as 'Get additional news on our products, sales and special offers.'"

You don't want to enter into a co-registration deal with just anyone, Jennings said: "Work with someone who targets the same customers as you and doesn't offer a product mix that's directly competitive to yours." If you sell career clothing to professional women, a co-registration deal with a company that sells shoes to professional women would be a good fit. Partnering with a company that sells men's shoes would not make sense.

Setting up a co-registration partnership is easy once you have the right pieces in place. Jennings said that, in many instances, "one site collects registrations for its partner by adding a second form to the registration process, and then provides the information gathered to the partner on a set schedule," perhaps weekly or monthly, depending on volume.

Another option is to partner with a publisher who offers paid co-registration. Typically you will be able to present a small image, a paragraph of text and a few qualifying questions. Subscribers then can simply say yes/no to your offer and will not have to re-enter their information.

How to block certain companies (or individuals) from getting your emails

If you have a list of companies or people who you’d like to suppress from some of your marketing messages ReachMail can help. Often times you may have a special discount that you’d like to only send to new customers (not your regular ones) How do you do that? ReachMail has a special feature called Demographic Filters that will allow you to do just that.

In this example we will show you how to block certain domains

First, using the "Action" drop-down menu select "Run demographic filters" on the list which you would like to filter.


Next, select "Company name" or another value which you would like to filter by. Choose the option "Create a new mailing list." Click "Continue...".


Finally, select the specific values which you would like to filter (in this case the name of the company). Check the option to "Create a list including all of the selections I have made. Name the list and tie the list back to the parent by checking the appropriate box. Doing this will allow the parent list to receive bounce and opt-out information from the child list. Pick a group in which to save your list and click "Build List." You will then have a company specific list to use as a suppression list in your mailings.


Deliverability Tip – Keep off of blacklists and what actually are blacklists?

Blacklists were of the earliest defenses against spammers before email filters became prevalent. Network administrators started keeping lists of known offenders and blocked future emails from those sources. They then started sharing and subscribing to other blacklists. They still are in large use today – SURBL is one of the larger ones. In fact there are over 250 blacklists. How do you stay off them?

First, rest assured ReachMail monitors all of the major blacklists 24/7 that can affect your deliverability. Second, only use lists that you’re certain have opted in to your company. If you have a list with an uncertain origin, don’t use it. ISPs, especially Microsoft with Hotmail and MSN, deliberately put email addresses out on the internet so as to trap spammers who harvest them and sell them. If you buy one of those lists and send to it you will end up on a blacklist. Third, honor any opt-out requests. If a subscriber opts-out ReachMail adds them to your Global opt-out so that you will be guaranteed not to email them again. Fourth, do not over-mail, if you see open rates declining space out your mailings so you’re not sending too frequently.

Party with ReachMail in Las Vegas!

If you’re attending the DMA Direct Marketing Annual convention in Las Vegas ReachMail is sponsoring the AMP Association of Marketing Professionals party at the Hard Rock Café Monday night October 13. Enter to win $500 in chips! Attendance is limited so contact us quickly to reserve your tickets. Contact John Murphy for further details at 620-324-7163 or jmurphy@reachmail.com

Optimal Email Design – how do you make sure your email is actually readable and gets maximum deliverability?

Designer Dan Nielsen shares these design tips to get your email to the inbox.

Well designed email messages get delivered by ISPs at a significantly higher rate than poorly designed  “spammy” emails. Why? ISPs  receive a high rate of complaints about emails that appear to be spam; they therefore tend to put those emails which look like spam into the junk folder rather than deliver them. Here are three simple rules to follow:

1.    Do not make your email one big image. There are several reasons why. First, many email clients cannot  read images (i.e. blackberry devices), ISPs also deliver email with images turned off so your recipient will see a blank email. ISPs noticed that single image emails are often from spammers so they filter them at a high rate.

2.    Make sure to include plenty of text. Your email recipients should be able to read and act upon your email even with all images turned off. Furthermore, make sure you have the “alt” element defined in the image source tag  for each image. The “alt” element is a text description of what the image is (i.e. “company logo”) See our newsletter blog entry for how to define “alt” elements in ReachMail.

3.    Ensure your font sizes are normal. Large font sizes are akin to yelling in the email world and that prompts complaints to ISPs, which then scrutinize carefully email messages with extra large fonts.  Make sure to keep your fonts below 14 pixels. If you want to use a font size above 14 pixels use heading tags. Heading tags are semantically accurate and will not trigger filters.

Here are two examples of emails. The first one violates all three of the above rules. The second one corrects those violations.

Remedy – the next time you receive an email from your designer try looking at the email with the images off; you should be able to understand and respond to the email. Make sure that each image tag has the “alt” element defined. If you don’t see a description of the image then they didn’t fill out the alt tag. This will also make a dramatic difference in response considering the growth in mobile devices as primary email clients.

Getting the Most from ReachMail – renaming links for easy reporting

Sometimes when working with tracked links you find that the URL is extremely long or sometimes just plain indecipherable. Not to worry, ReachMail provides you with a simple way to rename links for easy reporting. This feature doesn’t change the display text of the link, or the destination, it just changes the link’s name in the mailing reports to a more readable phrase.
This feature is found on the link tracking page when editing a mailing (step 3).  Just type the name you would like displayed in the reports in the link identifier field. See the screen-shot below.

In the following screen-shot of the reports section note that links have been identified by the names given in link tracking screen-shot.

Email Deliverability Tip

Words and Phrases to avoid for maximum deliverability

Designing email to generate a response can sometimes lead marketers to write “spammy” copy. Certain words or phrases are automatically suspicious to subscribers and should be avoided.  Anne Mitchell, CEO of ISIPP & Surety Email Accreditation says to avoid deliverability problems avoid these words or phrases.

•  Secrets
•  Learn the Secret
•  Money-Back Guarantee
•  Click Here
•  Response Required
•  Risk Free
•  Be Amazed
•  Here is your new account information
 
In addition:

•  Using the name of the recipient in the subject
•  Offers of a full refund
•  Claims of compliance with anti-spam laws
•  Instructions on how to stop receiving your offers

In addition, I’ve noticed the following words get caught in the spam filters too:

•    Abuse
•    Absolutely
•    Mailings
•    Methods
•    Offers
•    spam

Beyond that she says to proof your copy with a critical eye of a consumer. Take your marketer hat off and say to yourself; if you’re a consumer would you hit the “This is spam” button?

Boost Response with an Updated Template

Are your customers taking your email for granted? Consider having your designer or ReachMail revise and update your template. Your goal should be to get your customers to notice you while keeping branding consistent. A well designed template can increase deliverability as well as enhance the effectiveness of your message. Here ReachMail designer Dan Nielsen shares the four essential “musts” any new design must have plus examples of his latest works.

Brand Identity: Echo your current design in your emails. Customers look for familiar keystones, so don’t change around your logo or try out a new color scheme when putting together your emails. You customers are probably used to visiting your website so try an replicate that as much as possible. If you can’t replicate your website, make sure that you have your familiar logo in a prominent place in the email.

Simplicity:  Remember that email is still primarily a tool for communication. It cannot be as interactive as your website. Consider what point you’re trying to get across and make that the focus of the email. Complicated emails can muddy your message and will result in a lower rate of engagement from your customers. For example, if you have a sale offer or a major news release, that should be front-and-center in your email. Put your periphery information below or to the right of your focus so that customers aren’t immediately distracted by it. 

Organization: Thoughtfully organized emails will enhance how valuable customers judge your emails to be. Getting your main point across and carefully organizing your periphery content will help increase your click-through rate.

Room to grow: Don’t use a design that limits you to one type or style of email. In the future you may want to add more content, change content positioning, or add new elements. Two or three designs in a common theme can help you do that.

Custom templates are available from ReachMail. Pricing for a standard template is $199. For further details please contact John Murphy at jmurphy@reachmail.com or 630-324-7163

Note: For visitors of your site, this entry is only displayed for users with the preselected language English (United States)/English (United States) (en-US)

Second part of our series on how ISP's (in this case Hotmail/Microsoft)decide what is and what isn't spam. An excellent inside view on how to increase email deliverability.

How to estimate response rates for email marketing campaigns

In this issue  Best Practices  New ReachMail Feature - Delivery Approval  Deliverability Tip  Training and Tours Best Practices - Subject Lines or less is more When it comes to subject lines what's the ideal length? According to email expert Karen Gedney the shorter the better. Subject lines that are 35 characters or less have a 5.1 percent higher open rate and 1.7 percent better click-through rate. Think about this - if you currently are averaging a 17% open rate you might be able to increase your opens by 25% or more. Here are some guidelines to consider when devising subject lines:  Does your subject arouse curiousity? The goal of the subject line is to get the respondent to open - not to provide information - that is what the email body and your landing page are for.  Convey only one idea - your subscribers are trained to make quick decisions. If you make readers work to understand your subject they will skip your message.  Is your subject line easy to understand - follows the point above. An easy, simple to understand idea is more compelling.  Can the majority of email clients read the whole subject line? A practical reason for keeping the subject short is that most people can not read longer subject lines  Consider personalization - ReachMail allows you to personalize the subject line. Most recipients rarely are addressed directly in the subject line so consider testing this feature. New ReachMail Feature: Mailer Delivery Approval - Requiring a manager approval before an email is sent For larger, more complex organizations being able to control the content of email messages can be critical. We've added a new feature that allows you to require approval from an account administrator before an email is sent out. If you have more than one employee who uses ReachMail this may be a feature you should use. Here is how you use it. First - Go to the Account Manager Tab on the ReachMail Dashboard. Click on Users - Create new user New users will have restricted access by default. Leave "Mailing Delivery Approval" unchecked to require this new user to get approval from you before an email can go out When the new user schedules a mailing an email is sent to the administrator (or administrators) to request approval for this mailing. You'll receive an email like this: ReachMail: Mailing Scheduler  to jsmith     Acme mailing: "July Newsletter" has been requested at 7/27/2008 5:17:08 PM and is waiting for approval. Please login to ReachMail and go to Mailings/Scheduled Mailngs to review the pending mailing details and preview the mailing. Once you have reviewed the mailing you will be able to approve or reject it. To approve tha mailer, log in to ReachMail, go to the Mailings Tab and click on "View Scheduled" Select "Preview Mailing." From there select the list, schedule the date and time. Email Deliverability Tip Beware of the rented or swapped list - they may have "honey traps" Sometimes you may get an offer of a great email list - "5,000 Purchasing Managers" for sale for $199. Sounds great? Actually, no. Those lists often have spam traps built in. Many ISPs (especially Hotmail/MSN) post bogus email addresses on the internet that are not actually registered with a real user. Spammers then scrape those emails addresses and offer them for sale. If Hotmail receives a message to one of those email addresses they will label the sender a spammer. Those ISPs will either severely limit or cut off access to your legitimate customers solely based on you emailing the honey trap email addresses. Lesson learned: never buy or swap email addresses. New Colleague Training - if you have a new colleague that could use ReachMail please let us know. We'll provide complimentary online training for one or a group. Simply email support@reachmail.com or call 888-947-3224 And always, if you or a friend would like a guided tour of ReachMail contact us at www.reachmail.net/guidedtour.htm

At the inagural AOTA Email Deliverability and Trust Academy conference in Seattle, Hotmail insider Krish Vitaldevara shared the top 5 reasons ISP's block email. His message boils down if you don't want to be treated like a spammer - don't act like a spammer. I'll cover today the number one reason they block email:



REASON # 1 Sending Infrastructure - the problem is in essence your email does not clearly identify who you are. Steps to remedy this:

• Authenticate/Publish your domain authentication or Sender ID. This allows the ISP to look to see if the domain your sending from is authorized to send mail.This process is called Sender ID.
  

• Separate traffic by brand or type of email. Each brand should have it's own IP address. Furthermore you need to separate the traffic. Transactional emails, i.e. order confirmations, shipping updates need to be separated from newsletter or marketing email.

• Send mail from the same IP's with consistent volumes and frequencies - ISP's don't like surprises - if they see a new IP or a not so new IP that has a jump in volume that's a warning sign for them to block or at a minimum severely throttle your traffic. This issue is especialy a problem for holiday mailers who should not introduce new IP's just before the season

• Ensure effective bounce management for both hard and soft bounces - bounces take up extra resources of ISP's. If you have a large number of bounces that can be an indicator that you have poor list management practices. ISP's then take the easy route and block your email. In general a hard bounce should be removed after no more than three delivery attempts. Soft bounces should be removed after no more than eight delivery attempts.
  

• Add "list unsubscribe" header offering subscribers a clean way to opt-out. This is the hardest thing for a marketer to do - to make it easy for a prospect or customer to leave. Unfortunately if you make it hard then they'll use the ISP email interface and click on the "THIS IS SPAM" button. If that happens repeatedly then you are more likely to be blocked.