May 2006
Cheat Sheet: E-mail promotion
Tips on how to ensure your e-mails are delivered and how to improve response
By Linda C. Chandler
Basic e-mail measurement terms
• Delivered rates — Percentage of your mailing that actually got through filters and spam blockers and made it to a mail box.
• Bounce rates — Hard bounce means a bad address or undeliverable after five days; soft bounce may just mean the e-mail box is temporarily full.
• Opened rates/unique opens — Unique means one individual. One could open same e-mail several times, thus, not unique.
• Click-through rates — Click to links/Web sites.
• Conversion rates — Resulting registrations/sales/survey responses/downloads of information.
• Forward rates — Sent to another.
• Unsubscribe rates — Opt out of receiving future messages.
• Complaint rates — Recipient marked a message as spam rather than unsubscribing.
Do’s and don’ts for e-mail promotion
In the from line
• The buzzword is “authentication.” Register your company and any e-mail service vendors authorized to send e-mails on your behalf with all the major ISPs.
• Check to be sure past e-mailings have not put you on ISP blacklists. (See the rule of thumb about complaint rates.)
In the address
• Use only opt-in qualified lists, whether in-house or rented.
• Clean lists of bounce-backs after each mailing.
• Respond immediately to unsubscribe requests.
In the subject line
• Avoid vague statements and hyperbole. Be clear and honest.
• Avoid exclamation points and all caps.
• Avoid “free” and other potential spam-suggestive key words.
• Use benefit, problem-solving wording.
• Focus on news or information.
• Use professional, not informal, language.
• Put the brand or organization name in the subject line.
Rules of thumb
• When a recipient clicks a “report as spam” button for an e-mail, it reports the sender to the ISP. The ISP tracks the complaints. A complaint rate of 0.1 percent (one in 1,000) is enough to alert ISPs to block further e-mails from the sender.
• Standard practice is to delete an e-mail address from a list immediately after a hard bounce and after 3–5 soft bounces.
• Regular, opt-in newsletters should get a 30–50 percent open rate and 5–10 percent click-through rates. Acquired/rental lists may produce 10 percent open rates and 1 percent click-throughs.
Avoiding list fatigue
• Resist e-mailing too often. Your e-mails will be perceived as spam and will likely produce more complaints than opt-outs.
• Tell subscribers how often they’ll receive newsletters — weekly, monthly, etc. — so they know what to expect.
• Multiple e-mails spaced closely before a show are common, but hone the content and be sure each successive message offers something new of value for the reader.
Linda C. Chandler is a freelance writer/editor based in Tyler, TX. She has written for association and convention publications for 17 years. She served as Director of Publications and Editor of Meeting Professionals International’s magazine. Contact her at linda.chandler@earthlink.net.
Tom Beck, Catapult, (408) 369-8111, www.catapultdirect.com • Lou Mastria, Direct Marketing Association, (212) 768-7277, www.the-dma.org • Jeff Mills, EROI Inc; (503) 221-6200; www.eroi.com • Chris Price, Graphics of the Americas, (305) 558-4855; www.graphicsoftheamericas.com • Aaron West, InterShow, (800) 226-0323, www.intershow.com
Find additional Web-only content, including:
• Links to e-mail marketing software and service providers and other helpful Web sites
A sampling of E-mail marketing software and service providers
www.catapultdirect.com
www.cheetahmail.com
www.clicktactics.com
www.doubleclick.com
www.emaillabs.com
www.epsilon.com
www.enhancerate.com
www.eroi.com
www.habeas.com
www.listrak.com
www.lyris.com
www.pivotalveracity.com
www.responsys.com
www.returnpath.biz
www.streamsend.com
www.subscribermail.com
Other helpful Web sites
www.the-dma.org
www.emailauthentication.org
www.clickz.com
www.btobonline.com
www.spamassassin.org
• More do’s and don’ts for e-mail promotion
In the text
• Avoid colored backgrounds and overly large or small type sizes.
• Use the first paragraph to pull in and hook the reader. Get the main message up front so it gets in a preview pane.
• Keep it simple. Control the file size and limit the number of images you put in the body of the e-mail, but don’t be afraid to use photos when relevant.
• With a series of e-mails, change the offer each time and include an incentive, such as a discount, a publication, logo merchandise or an opportunity to attend a special reception or meet a speaker.
• Law requires that e-mails contain an address at the bottom; the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) requires its members to provide a street address, not just a P.O. box.
• The opt-out/unsubscribe function that’s required by law must work — and it can be monitored to ensure it does. DMA best practices say the customer should be informed of how long it takes to process the opt-out.
• How to score your e-mails
E-mails are given scores based on elements that indicate how much they resemble spam. Internet service providers (ISPs) and spam blockers use these computations to determine whether to allow e-mail messages through. Points are assigned to typical spam elements such as specific words like “dear,” “guarantee” or “free”; overuse of capitalization; exclamation points or quotation marks in text or subject lines; invalid dates or times; encoding irregularities; and evidence of origination from known spammers or proxy servers.
Spam Assassin (http://spamassassin.org/tests.html) provides an extensive list of scored elements and allows a test of e-mail to determine its score.
Plus, find these related back EXPO articles:
• Telemarketing response rates up, May 2005
• Cheat Sheet: E-newsletters, April 2005
• From quantity to quality, February 2005 |
