Background Images and Colors in HTML Emails

MailChimp blog provides a quick tip to help you ensure that your background image or color appears in browser based email applications. Here is the tip:
• Set a big table that 100% wide, then specify your background color or image there.
• You can use the attributes “bgcolor=” or “background=”
• Then post your actual newsletter code inside the table.

Check out MailChimp’s “HTML Email Design Guide” pdf.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Whitepaper: HTML Email Design Guide

MailChimp Blog ( http://mailchimp.blogs.com) has a whitepaper, “HTML Email Design Guide” that provides several tips on HTML email coding and design. Worth a read.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Returning Trust To Email Marketing

Richard Gingras, co-founder and CEO of Goodmail Systems, released an article on iMedia Connection, “Returning Trust to Email Marketing”. Richard describes the challenges email marketers face in 2006. Here are the challenges he talks about. The article provides some solutions to overcoming these challenges.

• ISP blocking of images in high volume messages will increase.
• The use of whitelisting and the level of privileges provided will decline.
• Domain authentication is an important tool but not a silver bullet.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

AOL Moves To Certified Email

AOL is moving away from their IP-based Enhanced Whitelist and moving towards to Goodmail’s cryptographic CertifiedEmail program. The CertifiedEmail program should be fully implemented by AOL by June 30, 2006. AOL will add a ”trust symbol” to messages sent by Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail senders. Goodmail will charge marketers a fraction of a cent per message sent.

David Daniels, Jupiter Research, provides several reason why a move to third-party reputation programs is going to replace whitelisting. Read David’s post, “AOL Phases Out Enhanced Whitelist, Moves to Certified Email”.

Other source: AOL to Implement E-mail Certification Program, Clickz

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Flash in Email

Are you considering using Flash in your newsletter? Check out the Campaign Monitor blog post, “The truth about flash in email”. The CampaignMonitor blog ran a series of test in several major email environments (Outlook, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, Mac Mail,…) on how they handle Flash in emails. The results were not too good.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Study: eROI Q4 2005 Email Statistics

eROI released their latest email study, “eROI Q4 2005 Email Statistics”. The study looks at day of the week email trends.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

The Halo Email Effect

“A well designed email will reinforce its message. Researchers suggest a ‘halo effect’ is created by this visual impression. If people feel positive about the design, they are going (to) feel positive about the content of the email.”

An excerpt from Blue Sky Factory blog referencing a recent study in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Study: Email Address Validation Study of 50 Top Retail Websites

FreshAddress released a new study, “Email Address Validation Study of 50 Top Retail Websites”. FreshAddress tested the 50 top retail websites (based on Internet Retailer’s The Top 400 Guide) to validate nine common email address input mistakes.

• 16% allowed six or more invalid email entries
• 20% allowed five invalid email entries
• 50% allowed four invalid email entries
• 10% allowed three invalid email entries
• 2% allowed two invalid email entries
• 2% allowed one invalid email entry

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Where in the World is Spam?

Postini knows...world spam map.

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

MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing Summit

MarketingSherpa is holding their Email Marketing Summit & Expo in Chicago on April 20-21, 2006.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Using Surveys to Support Your Email Newsletter

CheifMarketer.com article, Support Your E-Zine With Surveys, provides some best practices when trying to elicit feedback from your subscribers through a survey.

• Use short, interactive surveys.
• Start with seven questions and then try surveys with varying length to determine the ideal number of questions for your audience.
• Send a text message with a link to the survey from online.
• If you intend to survey often, ask your subscribers to specifically opt-in to be a participant in your surveys.
• Embedded forms yield higher response rates. (I would advise staying away from this since there are several render issues in various email applications with forms.)

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Outlook Disabling of Suspicious Links

Bill Nussey, The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing, points out in his latest blog posting that Microsoft Outlook 2003 program “ignores safe senders when it is checking for suspicious links, but it considers a bookmark that allows a user to move from one part of an email to another to be suspicious.”

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

ExactTarget’s 2006 Top Email Trends

ExactTarget released their annual Top Email Trends for 2006. They see the future focusing on deliverability, analytics and multi-channel marketing.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Advantages of A/B Split Testing and Multivariable Testing

In MarketingExperiments.com latest research brief provide some benefits of using A/B Split Testing and Multivariable Testing.

Advantages of A/B Split Testing:

• It is quick and easy to set up.
• The results are typically available quickly and the best course of action is usually quite clear.

Advantages of Multivariable Testing:

• If you have a number of variations and combinations to test, multivariable testing can save time and aggravation.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

How Does Multivariable Testing Differ From A/B Split Testing?

From MarketingExperiments.com:

An A/B test isolates a single page variable and tests two variations against each other.

A multivariable test transcends the limitations of a simple A/B test in two ways:
1. You can test multiple page variables at once.
2. You can use more than two variations for each variable.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Report: Travelers’ Use of the Internet

Travel Industry of America and the interactive marketing agency USDM.net recently released their latest findings from their report, Travelers’ Use of the Internet 2005. Here are some of those findings:

• In the travel space , the most effective online marketing technique that trigger a consumer response:
  - Unsponsored search engine results (36%)
  - Email recommendations by friends or colleagues (34%)
  - Inks to websites (26%)
  - Opt-in emails or newsletters (21%)

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Key Guidelines for Integrating Promotional Content into Transactional Email

Heather Palmer Goff, Director of ISP Relations and Deliverability for Responsys, provides some key guidelines for integrating promotional content into transactional email messages in her latest article, Transactional Messages.

• Two-thirds/one-third rule: More than two-thirds of your email content must be information related to the transaction. The remaining one-third may be for promotional use.
• Do not place any promotional content in the subject line or above the informational content in the message body.
• Ensure the look and feel of the message reflects your other email marketing messages.
• Do not forget to monitor for inbox delivery, and key performance indicators such as open rates, click-through rates, and post-click activity.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

What is a Transactional Message?

Heather Palmer Goff, Director of ISP Relations and Deliverability for Responsys, explains what constitutes a transactional message in her latest article, Transactional Messages.

• It facilitates, completes, or confirms a commercial transaction that the recipient has agreed to enter into with the sender.
• It provides warranty information, product recall information, or safety or security information about a commercial product or service used or purchased by the recipient.
• It provides any of the following, regarding a subscription, membership, account, loan, or comparable ongoing commercial relationship involving the ongoing purchase or use by the recipient of products or services offered by the sender:
  
  
  
  • Notification concerning a change in the terms
    
  • Notification of a change in the recipient’s standing or status
    
  • Regular periodic statement of account balance
    
  
  
• It provides information directly related to an ongoing employment relationship or related benefit plan.
• It delivers notice of goods or services, typically no-charge updates or upgrades to existing products, that the recipient is entitled to receive under the terms of a transaction that the recipient has entered into with the sender.
  

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Marketing to the Global Inbox

Elizabeth Lloyd, CMO of DMO Global, released an article on iMedia Connection that looks at several countries’ laws involving email marketing. In her first article, Marketing to the Global InBox, she highlights laws from United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, China, and Japan. Her second article, Marketing to the Global Inbox – Part II, she highlights Korea, Malaysia, Germany, and Spain. Elizabeth will release a third article on this subject in the future.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.