Return On Email Subscriber

While this email from Paypal might not blow your mind, I think it is effective and well thought out. How well did it convert?  We don’t know that (hint, hint Paypal email marketing team).  But let me tell you why I singled it out and what you can learn from it for your campaigns, after the jump.

(more…)

What you are seing in this image is the rollover Mail preview on the AOL homepage. Look at how much “trailblzaers” sticks out in that list. If you read this blog you know I hate webmaster@ in email marketing. This validates that point. This view is very similar to the view on a mobile device as well.

Brand before the @ in your from address and you will see improved open rates, guaranteed.

First off
I think it is time to put an end to email campaigns being sent from the “webmaster@” email address. There are more reasons not to do this than I care to list here today. Same goes for info@, no-reply@, etc…

Plus, most people think a webmaster is like that SNL skit “Nick Burns, your Company’s Computer Guy.” This is who you want your readers thinking is running the email marketing program?

Here are 2 reasons to change this:

1. Branding
In email clients like AOL, that don’t show the masked “From” name, this is the first thing a subscriber sees.
Volvo does a good job with this: volvo@volvocars._.com.

2. Calling out Content
If you have a specific segment, you can use this space to call out “specials” or “events”. This can help get an open just as much as a subject line. Some I see in my inbox today are: dailydeals@, specials@, events@,

Little things like this matter.

Rednering. I mean Rendering, I knew that did not look right didn’t it.

If it does not look right or does not look attractive, you are wasting your time. Run some rendering tests, e.g., Return Path. The best offer and most compelling copy is wasted on an email I cant interact with easily.

Just wanted to throw out the news that we have changed out RSS feed address. For those of you that subscribe by RSS, make note to update your feed for us to:
http://feeds.eroi.com/ReturnOnSubscriber

And for our other blog:emaidays.com
http://feeds.eroi.com/LoveEmailHateEmailViralEmailMarketingInbox

And for the TheEmailWars.com
http://feeds.eroi.com/TheEmailWars

IF you have no clue how to use RSS, then you can subscribe on the right hand side for weekly email recaps using our new RSS to EmailROI platform. That’s right, you will be using RSS and have no clue how or why, but it powers the emailROI plaform for you automatically. It’s magic like how Santa gets his big can down that skinny little chimney.

Thanks for continuing to read the rants.

Many URLs are now taken, both .com and .net versions. While .com is obviously the best, .net will do. In the eyes of email, they are the same, there are no penalties or awards for having a .com vs. .net domain, but the one domain that really hurts - .biz. Spam Assassin automatically assigns a 2 score to any URL that uses a .biz domain. While you wanted to keep your URL simple and easy to remember, consider the damage it is doing to your brand and email marketing.

Try get another URL to reference that is .com or .net and allow that to redirect compared to sending people to a .biz. While redirects don

Have you ever wondered why your message gets flagged as junk in Outlook. Well, ReturnPath would probably say “it is reputation” but they are wrong, it is actually content — shocker!

Outlook flags purely on content - From name, email, subject, body. here is a list of what the newest version of Outlook flags as junk. If you have any of these in your email, it will put it in junk - one and you’re done!

Junk E-mail Filter
First 8 characters of From are digits
Subject contains “advertisement”
Body contains “money back “

(more…)

David Baker wrote a very good article in the Sunday edition of Email Insider. I thought the information in it was very insightful and worth posting here.

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE you come across a great article that just spurs your intellectual juices. One such article was written by Paul Gillin in BtoB magazine’s print edition last month, titled “New Technology, New Media and New Paradigm.” If you have not read it, I highly recommend you do.

We read a lot about strategy, issues, trends and client work, but rarely do we see anything written about the future of e-mail and its dependence on the rest of the digital world. I don’t have time to wait for the analysts to make their predictions. I need a far-reaching vision of how this channel fits into our business and consumer lives now and in the future.

So follow this logic and let me know what you think. A couple of passages from Paul Gillin’s article rang particularly true, not least for the sheer simplicity of how he laid out his thesis. He said:

“We hear a lot about blogs, but blogs aren’t important. What’s important is personal publishing, or the ability to communicate a message to a global audience almost instantaneously. Personal publishing will permeate electronic media, providing counterpoint to mainstream sources and adding depth and color to the conversation.

“We hear a lot about podcasts, but podcasts aren’t important. What’s important is time-shifted media. The phenomenon that started with TiVo has spread to digital audio and will soon capture portable video. Information consumers will no longer be beholden to program schedules or even their living rooms. Our TV shows will travel with us.

“We hear a lot about RSS, but RSS isn’t important. What’s important is the ability to subscribe to information that really interests us. RSS is mainly used to subscribe to blog posts and podcasts. But in the future, they will use it to subscribe to ideas.”

So, as someone who aspires to effect a change in the paradigm of digital communications and consumer behavior, I put my spin on the future of e-mail using this same logic. I conclude that we hear a lot about e-mail, but e-mail isn’t important. What’s important is our ability to communicate in a synchronous and asynchronous fashion in a mixed media world. E-mail will be our notification agent, alarm clock, Post-it

As many of you are frustrated (we all are) with the rising costs of gas and getting the most out of your dollar, I went out to find out where I could look at a new Smart car from Mercedes Benz. Now I was upset that they still have not worked out who is going to sell this in the US, but I signed up anyways hoping to hear soon. I mean 120 some miles to the gallon and a roll cage that might stop an H2 from crushing me on the way to work is appealing, right?

I loved the site and the email trigger that came out, but I wanted some “smart” icons to represent the brand and take me to an action rather then a text link. I know that most of us are smart enough now to know what an underline word link looks like, but a button or arrow or something would have completed this for me. Must have put that creative budget item in the car design and not the email budget.

View image

In the retail fashion world I am a big fan of simplicity and wanting to learn more. Metropark does a failry good job in creative and driving me to click though to see more. Where they let me down is on the click and site itself. The click always takes me to the home page and not the line itself or item level page. And when you get into the site they don’t actually house any of the product info on the site. Sure this will drive you to the retail offline store and keep them top of mind, but I find it odd that they link out to allthe brand sites to look at items once in thier site. And for this email, they did not even have a functioning link to the brand site. The link just went back to the home page.

View image