Mobilize Mail Opinion

According to a recent www.adotas.com article online social networking sites are good for business! The article says a British think tank’s recent survey supports the theory that staff using social networking sites benefits their employer.

Social networking sites are said to help users build relationships, and share information and this benefits rather than hinders businesses generally.

The thought to date has been quite the opposite where the argument has been that too much ‘work’ time is spent on some sites like ‘Facebook’ and ‘YouTube’ and more control of usage has been necessary to up the productivity rate. Businesses were either banning staff from accessing sites or restricted their access while in the workplace. The latest evidence suggests a complete ban is now said to be counterproductive as research has shown that participation in social network groups forges the relationships needed in difficult trading times like we are experiencing now.

Not All Social Networking Sites Are Equal

There has been a rise in ‘professional’ social networking sites where businesses encourage staff participation rather than prohibit it. Local sites like PropertyTalk.com which is a targeted discussion site for property investment provide a ‘melting pot’ for professional discussion that benefits businesses providing a product or service to this sector. On PropertyTalk.com Accountants, Lawyers, Analysts, Journalists, Property Traders, Investors are some of the users that actively participate in discussions that lead to new relationships and business opportunities.

Providing more freedom and flexibility to workers is now encouraged and benefits are realised especially in tough economic times.

Joining community based web sites that are local to your region is also a massive help in the promotion of your business. [business:Silicon Welly] is a classic example of a great local business community helping to promote local business to the world.

Always use ALT tags

The experts all agree that we should use alt tags in our emails (HTML code that gives alternative text for images not displaying). This gives us a backup means to get our message across when the reader’s email program (called an ‘email client’) such as Outlook can’t find or show images. The alt text may be a description or call to action, or whatever supports the original purpose of the image. This is what the code looks like:

<img src=”http://yourcompany.co.nz/productxyz.jpg” alt=”Product xyz free offer” />

Here’s how the image might display when images are blocked and no alt attribute is specified:

Here’s how it displays when images are blocked and an alt attribute is present:

But avoid the traps

Not doing the alt tags properly can play havoc with your page layout, so here’s a few tips:

Remember to add height and width attributes

When no height and width attributes exist, most email clients and webmail services shrink the image to the size of a small icon which in itself can screw up your page layout.

Webmail clients such as Gmail and Yahoo! Mail expand the image icon to fit in the alt text, potentially shunting right-hand elements off the page if the text is long. This is a particular danger if you have several images side-by-side such as a set of navigational buttons. Outlook 2003 does the same but adds its own lengthy security warning (‘Right click here”) before the alt text which really blows it out:

The solution to all this is to specify each image’s height and width, which will retain the integrity of your layout:

<img src=”http://yourcompany.co.nz/productxyz.jpg” width=”a” height=”b” alt=”Product xyz free offer” />

Match the alt text to the image size

With height and width specified, only the alt text that fits into those dimensions will be displayed, so any words exceeding the height or width will be cut off as shown on the left.

So, with Outlook putting its security message in first, your alt text probably won’t even be seen unless you have large images.

You can’t get it perfect for every email client program

Using the above method will preserve your page layout when images are blocked, but some email clients don’t show alt attributes at all, e.g. Windows Live Hotmail just shows blank grey boxes, and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you’re keen, you could segment your list by domain and have a unique design for @hotmail addresses that minimises the effects of grey boxes in your image positions or just use plain text emails.

Don’t rely on images and alt tags too much

Because presentation of images and alt tags isn’t bullet-proof, it’s safest to use text as much as possible to ensure your message gets through adequately without relying on images too much, especially for headlines, links (including navigation), key messages, and calls to action.

Realistically you need to test your design to avoid the risk of damaging your online reputation

Testing is the only way to be really sure of how your emails display in the range of email clients and webmail services that your clients use. Mobilizemail has an email display testing service to help you here. We will write up a report on test results and provide recommendations to improve or fix any display issues and find the image/ text combination that works best for you across all clients and webmail services. Contact us for more information on this.

You can have a web page version of your email that doesn’t have these problems

[business:Mobilize Mail] now has support for a “web version” of your email. All you need to do is add a special code tag in your email content and our system replaces that tag with a link to your web version of the email which can be viewed in a web browser such as Internet Explorer.

The time is right for surveys! What do your customers think of your business? You can find out soon by creating a survey in your Mobilize Mail account. Very exciting and the results are viewable immediately!

The survey feature gives you the power to create surveys at anytime and have your subscribers complete the survey all within your Mobilize Mail account!

Survey features include:

1. The survey presented on a web page with or without your branding.
2. Add as many questions as you want and as many response options as you need.
3. A question can present a single text box for the response or graduate through to lists of check boxes and dropdown options.
4. Full personalisation on the survey form. For example “Hello Bob, please fill in the survey details below”.
5. Automate “set and forget” survey expiry.
6. Once the survey is completed the subscriber can be presented with a thank you message or re-directed to another web site.
7. Real-time survey results are presented in your account.
8. The survey can be reused as many times as you desire.

The count-down begins. Contact us to find out more!

Create a survey within your account. No new software needed!

Easy to create questions!

Personalised your surveys!

Easily add a link to any survey within your email message!

Survey with first name personlisation!

Real-time survey statistics!

Coming late October!

Did you know Mobilize Mail supports animated images? We do – and while you may not always want to include an animated image in your email message for special promotions on multiple items the animation is really effective.

The animated image clicks through to a webpage displaying all the items viewed on the image.

With Christmas around the corner – animated images may be just the ticket for your marketing emails.

Testing Results of Animated Images in Emails

Our testing lab has put the animated image inclusion through extensive testing to see how it presents in the most popular email applications. The results show the animated image renders perfectly in:

Lotus, Entourage, Apple Mail, Eudora, Windows Mail & Thurderbird.

However the image will not animate in Outlook 2007 (one of the most popular email applications in use today).

Microsoft provided this explanation:

Symptoms

When you receive an email message that contains animated graphics, such as animated .gif files, only a static image appears.

Cause

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 does not display animated graphics files in the body of email messages. Only the first frame of the animation appears.

Resolution

You can view the message in your Web browser to see the animation.

View an e-mail message in your Web browser

1. Open the message.
2. On the Message tab, in the Actions group, click Other Actions
3. Click View in Browser
4. Click OK

A reasonable solution I suppose and Mobilize Mail does accommodate the ‘view in browser’ option so your Outlook 2007 users will get the option to view the animated image. We also track the clicks for the ‘view in browser’ so there will be another statistic for you to eagerly view and review.

For more information please support@mobilizemail.com.