Text vs HTML and the winner is....

Jeanne Jennings released another article about the great debate over Text vs HTML. The article contains feedback from readers. Readers agreed that HTML is better than text. But remember you should always ask the recipient thier mail preference!

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies on email marketing.

Gmail Best Practices WhitePaper

ExactTraget recently released a whitepaper on Gmail best practices. Here are some highlights of some of their recommended best practices:

• The subject line is entitled up to 60 characters, and the snippet (bits of text pulled from the top of the email body) uses whatever space is left (up to 86 characters).
• Try adding a column with a strong border at the right of your newsletter to reduce the chance that the user's eyes will not drift further to the text ads.
• Plan on repeating your main message/call to action in text at the top of your email
• Give your subscriber the option to subscribe to receive a text version of your email.
• Best to reduce the use of images at the top of the message to reduce visual interruption of mulitple "image missing" icons.

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

Microsoft Junk E-mial Filter

This webpage is a description of exactly which words the the Microsoft Junk and Adult Content filters look for and where the filter looks for them.

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

2004 ReleMail Email Privacy Survey

Relemail recently released it's 2004 Email Privacy Survey. Here are some of their findings:

• 87% of internet users believed that they have been spammed after they subscribed to an email newsletter
• 83% of users avoided subscribing to an email newsletter because they weren't sure they could trust the publisher
• 78% do not always believe companies ' own email privacy statements
• 91% of users say they are more likely to give thier buisness to an organization that follows ethical email practices and respects their privacy
• 72% said they are more likely to subscribe to an email newsletter that has been independently certified as trustworthy

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

eROI's Customer Lifecycle Value

eROI published a whitepaper recently about customer lifecycle value as it relates to email marketing. They give a nice customer lifecycle chart and a great explaination on how to effectively use this to increase your email ROI.

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

Tips to Build Your E-mail List

Kendra Wright, of Wright Strategies, shares a couple of tips on building you email list on the DMA website. Her first tip involves prominently displaying a sign-up form on your home page. This is a great tip. You should also be putting a sign-up form on all of your web pages. Not all of your customers come through the front door of your website.

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

Email Metrics 2005: Real-life Data from 2,293 Marketers teleseminar

SilverPop along with MarketingSherpa will be hosting a teleseminar on MarketingSherpa's 2005 Email MArketing Metrics Guide on December 16th at 4pm EST. You can sign up here.

eINFO - a collection of articles and stuides about email marketing

Promotional Incentives Significantly Increase Email Marketing Performance

A recent press release by Advertising.com finds that promotional offers can improve email open rates by more than 100 percent and clcik-through rates by up to 1,000 percent. The type of promotional incentive offered played a significant role in campaign success, whereas frequency was not found to be a major performance factor.

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

MarketingSherpa Teleseminar on Latest Email Stats

MarketingSherpa hosted a teleseminar on Dec 3 on the some of their latest email stats. There is a recording and PowerPoint slides that features 11 useful charts on budgeting, open rates, filters, click trends, conversion rates, and gathering opt-ins.

PDF of PowerPointSlides: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/tele/SherpaEM.pdf
Audio (approx. 60 minutes): http://www.marketingsherpa.com/tele/mrktsherpa120304.wma

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

DoubleClick Releases Q3 2004 Email Trend Report

DoubleClick just released their Q3 2004 Email Trend Report. Here are some interesting stats:

• Average open rate (avgerage of 34.3%) declined 7.5% from Q3 2003 (37.1%)
• Avergae click-through rate (8.2%) decreased 10.9% from Q3 2003 (9.2%)
• Average click-to-purchase rate (4.2%) increased 25.5% from Q3 2003 (3.4%)

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

Using Email To Improve Results From Your SEM Campaign

Andy Sernovitz, CEO of GasPedal, states that you should focus your search-based acquisition efforts on driving people to sign up for an email newsletter. The rationale is that if you can get a visitor to give you their e-mail address, then you can put them on a list and sell to them again and again at no additional cost. Email is your tool to convert that single, paid exposure from a search engine into multiple exposures with email.

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

Holiday Season is a Great Time to Publish

Merryl K. Evans, from eNewsletter Journal, thinks that your enewsletter should not go on vacation during the holidays. The reasons include:

• Those who are in the office are likely to have more time to read email.
• Other publishers don't publish, giving your newsletter less competition for attention.
• Your organization will retain stability by continuing to publish on schedule.
• You will avoid falling into the trap, "It won't hurt to miss this one time" as "this one time" could turn into "many times".

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

Teaser Copy for Preview Panes and New Mail Notifiers

When a recipient opens an email in a preview pane and the images are blocked, chances are that they may see very little actual content. Ensure that your recipients can get a sense of the contents of your email at a quick glance. Try including some teaser copy at the very top of your email that is easily viewed in the preview pane.

In addition to preview panes, this teaser copy approach will also benefit “New Mail Notifiers”. Currently Outlook 2003 and Gmail have these Notifiers. When a new message arrives, the Notifier brings up a small slide-out window that displays details about the message: the sender’s name, subject line, and part of the message. So when the teaser copy is placed at the top of your email it will then display right after the subject line in these Notifiers.

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing