Webinar: Designing Effective HTMl Emails

EmailLabs, Stefan Pollard, will be hosting a free webinar, "Designing Effective HTML Emails" on November 27th at 1 p.m. EST and November 28th at 10 a.m. EST. The webinar will cover:

• HTML design and coding for optimal inbox delivery
• Reducing Spam Signatures
• Combining Text and Images to improve readability
• Stylesheets and Tables
• Layout Tips for Preview Panes

Webinar: The State of Email Deliverability

Goodmail Systems and JupiterKagan's David Daniels are hosting a webinar, "The State of Email Delievrability". The webinar will be held on November 29th at 2 p.m. EST. The webinar will cover new research on:

• Average delivery rates
• Which delivery improvement techniques are commonly used today
• How does blocked links and images affect email results
• Paying for assured delivery of email
• Case study on how two leading Internet marketers improved email revenue and business results using Goodmail's CertifedEmail

ReturnPath receives Patent on ECOA Service

Looks like ReturnPath has received a patent for their Email Change of Address (ECOA) service. So if you are looking for those lost customers you may want to consider ECOA. At my previous job we tested ECOA on a list of non-delivered email and received about a 10% match rate. S

Straight from the markteting machine:

Thought that you would be interested in the news about Return Path's receipt of a patent for its Email Change of Address (ECOA) service. Launched in 2000, Return Path's ECOA service provides a fully permission-based way for businesses to find customers' new e-mail addresses and allows consumers to search for friends' and families' new e-mail addresses for free.

To date, it has been used by more than 400 companies and more than 31 million consumers have registered with the service. On average, 15,000 people register daily with Return Path's ECOA service. The patent awarded to Return Path from The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, number 7,080,122, applies to both the system and process for updating electronic messaging accounts.

Refer A Friend ( RAF ) Study

Chad White, RetailEmailReports, has released a new study that takes a look at the effectiveness of Refer A Friend viral marketing among some large online retailers. The study has some interesting information to ponder.

It looks like Chad publishes a new report every month since he started his blog (August 2006). This one blog that you will want to add to your blogroll.

5 Missed Opportunities Email Marketers Make

Chris Marriott, Acxiom Digital, released a new articled, "Bad Email is Bad Business". In the article Chris points out five mistakes that he often sess from email marketers.

1. No welcome message.
2. Not using the data gained from the questions asked about the recipient's preferences.
3. Treating everyone on your list the same.
4. Letting everyone in your organization mail to the customer.
5. Sending plain text transaction emails without any cross promotion or up-sells.

Here are some tips and best practices on some of the mistakes that Chris points out.
How To Maximizing Email Welcome Message
Six Tips For Your Welcome Message Email
Preference Prove Profitable for Email Marketers
What is a Transactional Message?
Key Guidelines for Integrating Promotional Content into Transactional Email

Technorati tags: Welcome Message, email best practices, email, email marketing, einfo

Sender Reputation Biggest Factor In Email Deliverability

ReturnPath released a new research brief that found Sender Reputation drives email blocking and filtering. Here is a break down on the causes of email deliverability that ReturnPath found.

• 77% - Sending IP's Repuation
• 17% - Email Content
• 6% - Domains in the email content

The take away here is that the biggest factor regarding deliverability is how ISPs look at the IP address that is sending the email. They are taking into consideration such factors as email volume, whether the server is authenticated, list quality, complaint rates, spam trap hits and listings on public blacklists and whitelists.

Canadian Q3 Email Trends

Canadian firm, Card Communications, released their 3Q Email Trend Report. Here are some pf their findings:

• Smaller lists achieve higher deliverability, open and click through rates
• Non-profit organizations and associations enjoy the best results industry wide
• event planning achieved high open and click throug rates but lagged in deliverability

Email Experience Council Releases Preliminary Survey Results

The Email Experience Council ( EEC ) released some preliminary results from their recent Deliverability Roundtable survey. The ECC is going to use this data to set some standards in the areas of bounce management and more. Here are some of those results:

• 20% of respondents are using a combination of internal email systems and ESPs with limited, to no coordination between the two platforms.
• 65% of respondents are not tracking whether their email is being delivered to the inbox or spam folder.
• 10% of respondents admit that they are not removing bouncebacks (hard or soft) from their list.

They hope to have the final results out in a few weeks.

Leveraging Behavioral Targeting for Your Email Marketing

Jeff Daniels, JupiterResearch, released a new report called, "The Connected Click-Through". The report looked at how email marketers are using their web analytics program to imporve their behavioral targeting. The report found:

• 15% actively use Web sile click stream behavior as an audience segmentation attribute
• 21% of marketers are planning to implement this kind of behavioral targeting in the next 12 months

The report also notes that there are some obstacles in implementing behavioral study into email marketing.

• Lack of staff expertise
• Lack of resources
• Web analytics vendors do not provide integration for easy use and movement of data between applications

Our Own 300 Millionth Baby

I have been away for a bit due to my wife having our baby (who we consider the 300 millionth baby born in the U.S.). Andrew Brennan was born 10/17/2006. We are so excited and tired! Consider this our virutal baby announcement.