Our Feature Request email was very well received a few weeks ago and it has kept our development team very busy. Due to popular demand the feature we now have - is a default value for a subscriber attribute!

Before this feature was added to your Account

Prior to this new feature - the personalization of your messages for example “First Name” would present an empty space if the subscriber did not have a value for “First Name”

For example:

If you had “Dear [First Name]” within your email message (as seen in figure 1) and the subscriber did not have a value for the “First Name” then the message would go out with “Dear ,” as seen in (figure 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2

From today onwards our new feature applies. If a subscriber does not have a value in an attribute you want to use within your email then a default value can be added!

Figure 3

In the example above the email message contains the default value for the “First Name” attribute and was used because the subscriber did not have a value in the “First Name” attribute.

To set a default value for an attribute update the “Default” field within the subscriber attribute form.

Figure 4

Its that easy!

I know this enhancement will please a few clients who find using a CSV file a bit too nerdy.

The process for bulking uploading subscribers is still the same. The system is smart enough to know if you are using a CSV file or spreadsheet. It even supports that latest version of Excel which uses *.xlsx.

We have also provided a facility where you can send yourself a bulk import report via email with the results of your import. This report might come in handy later on when you need to reconcile your subscribers.

The bulk import report provides a whole heap of information about the import including any invalid records located during the import.

Do you want opens or clicks?

Past analysis has focused on open rates, which is the first measure of success people tend to think of. After all, we want our target audience to open our emails before any business is going to happen right? The Alchemy Worx analysis takes things a step further, measuring click–through rates as well, to get a better picture of real success.

Short subject lines will get you opens, but…

Some companies maximise open rates by using ambiguous, mysterious, or potentially misleading subject lines, a technique often used by spammers. Shorter subject lines are more likely to be achieve this, attracting more reader interest and curiosity, but are they the right customers? Often not, and that’s why they get much lower click-to-open rates.

At the same time, relevant customers may not realise that the email contains a proposition of interest to them, and may not open it, and therefore won’t click through.

Long subject lines will get you what you really want

The research found longer subject lines to be markedly more effective for driving action - earning a much higher click-to-open rate, indicating real relevance. Longer subject lines serve as a filter for customers to check relevance to their interests.

A more specific subject line, containing more than one proposition such as “50% off Nike trainers; the latest from Wimbledon; plus your chance to win a spa weekend” ensures that all the propositions contained in the email are communicated, attracting the maximum number of relevant customers.

Avoid the dead zone in the middle

The open rate and click-to-open rate curves cross over at about 60-70 characters, a “dead zone” where neither result is optimised. This usually happens when subject lines attempt to over-simplify multiple propositions too much, or unnecessarily lengthen single propositions – adding no value.

Make sense?

If you want click-throughs, as most businesses will, you need a long specific subject line (80 characters +) that concisely communicates your specific propositions, with no extra waffle. Realise that any old long subject line won’t necessarily cut the ice…you must touch the hot buttons of your target customers by communicating relevant benefits in their terms of interest (versus just company product features).

Now before we begin the FROM address field in an email can comprise of two parts:

The senders email address such as "Newsletters@mobilizemail.com",

A text part such as "Mobilize Mail". The text part if provided is sometimes displayed instead of the email address.

So for a FROM address you could have: "Mobilize Mail <newsletters@mobilizemail.com>".

In most modern email clients this would be displayed as:

If you did not have a text part in the FROM address then the email would be displayed like this:

When you click the reply button your email client is normally smart enough to use the email address that was supplied within the FROM address.

Best Practices for the FROM Address

The most common best practice around the content of the FROM address is to provide something that will spark some form of recognition with the subscribers such as your business name or your full name.

In the example above the FROM contains "Mobilize Mail" which alerts the subscriber instantly to who sent the email. The subject line also provides a good indication of the intent of the email.

Now, what happens if after a while you decide to change the FROM address to something else?

For example:

That should not be a problem should it?

Well there are a number of considerations to think about before you make the leap. For example what if the subscriber added a rule in their email client that located your emails based on the FROM content?

Below we can see a subscriber has created a mailbox rule for any email that contains "Mobilize Mail" in the FROM field.

By changing your FROM address you may in fact be damaging your existing relationship with the subscribers by making their existing mailbox rules redundant or worse causing your emails to be deleted or moved to the trash folder.

How did the email clients like the change?

One thing that we were interested in was how an email client would deal with a change in the FROM address if there was a current address book entry.

For example below is an Entourage address book entry for "Mobilize Mail".

When an email is sent to the client this is how the FROM address currently appears:

Now lets change the address book entry for Mobilize Mail to "Joe Bloggs" as below.

We then send the same email again to this subscriber with the same FROM address which is "Mobilize Mail <newsletters@mobilizemail.com>".

Below is how Entourage now displays the FROM address. Entourage completely ignored the FROM address in the email!

We can see from this example that Entourage will display the details within the address book for the sender not what has been added to the emails FROM address.

This could be a pain for some email marketers who frequently send out emails using the same email address but change part of the FROM address.

In order to see how some of the more popular email clients dealt with changes to the FROM address with an existing address book entry we created the following simple test:

1. Create an email campaign with the following FROM address "Mobilize Mail <newsletters@mobilizemail.com>" and send to the test email lab.
2. Once the email arrived add the senders details (in the FROM address) to each email clients address book including the text part which is "Mobilize Mail".
3. Send the second email campaign and change the FROM address to "Mobilize Mail Newsletter Service <newsletters@mobilizemail.com>".
4. Finally send the third email campaign but only have "newsletters@mobilizemail.com" in the FROM address (no text part).

What we are looking for is if the address book entry overruled the change in the FROM address of the email. The findings are below:

Apple Mail:

No problems with Apple Mail.

Entourage:

Bummer! The Entourage address book controls the FROM address!

Eudora:

Gmail:

Interesting. All 3 emails are grouped by the "Mobilize Mail" contacts entry which works like an address book. When the email group is clicked all 3 emails are expanded - see below.

Lotus Notes:

Lotus Notes is happy.

Outlook 2007:

All good here.

Thunderbird:

Changes showed up in Thunderbird.

Windows Live:

Yahoo! Mail:

Our testing identified only one email client namely Entourage that refused to display the emails correct FROM address if there was an existing entry in the address book for the recipient.

Gmail grouped the emails together based on the "Contact" entry which is not great but at least the correct FROM address details are displayed when you click on the email group.

Our Tips for the FROM Address

Even though only one of the email clients refused to display the emails FROM address (namely Entourage) and instead displayed the address book details you should still seriously think before you change your FROM address text or email address.

Subscribers these days create rules to help them manage their email which includes rules using the content of the FROM address.

We recommend that caution should be taken to any decision to change the FROM address details. If you do need to change the details then warn the subscriber in at least one email prior to the change so any changes they need to make can be done at their end.

Sometimes Tim provides a little movie dealing with something interesting which automatically appears within my email client. In the last installment it was how to “peel” a hard-boiled egg without peeling!!

To view the movie within my email client all I have to do is play it. The movie starts in seconds and there is no latency and well – it just plays where it is – no trips to a web site or nothing.

I thoroughly enjoy watching the movies and told many of my friends to sign up to his email alerts.

What I forgot to mention was that unless you are using Apple Mail as your email client you are not in fact going to see the movies nor in Tim’s case will you ever know they were ever present!

You see Apple Mail as of this posting seems to be the only email client that plays flash movies.

In order to prove my statement I ran Tim’s latest email blog alert through our email test lab – see the results below:

Apple Mail

Go Tim!
Tims video in Apple Mail

Entourage

Interesting that Entourage at least provided a blank space where the flash should be running. At least you know something might be missing.

Yahoo! Mail

There is even no mention of the movie not even a little broken icon to make me wonder what I am missing.

Gmail

Nope – nothing here.

Outlook

No surprises here. Outlook 2007 would be the last email application I would expect flash to run in.

Outlook Express (Windows Mail)

A warning about the flash file is all that Outlook Express can muster.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird at least displays a blank area where the flash should be.

Windows Live Hotmail

Hotmail doesn’t want to know about the flash file either.

So is it Worth Sending Flash Movies in Email?
Looking at the results the only reason you would bother inserting flash movies in an email is if you knew for a fact that most if not all of your subscribers used Apple Mail.

If not don’t bother. You can try and fiddle with wrapping the flash in a table or a DIV and provide a backup image but I doubt that even the image would appear if its anywhere near the HTML that deals with the flash file.

In Tim’s case I doubt he is even aware of this issue and maybe its not a concern as most people would just visit his blog.

Mark over at Email Marketing Reports has a number of articles on the subject including this one.

Email vs other communication mediums – will it survive?

The study confirms increasing concern about email fraud, scams, spam, viruses, and privacy, but…despite all this:

What about emerging platforms such as mobile?

There is an increasing trend toward consumer use of mobile devices such as internet-enabled phones, but far from superseding email, they will provide another arena for it. Just like Web sites, mobile versions of email need to be compact and focused to reach mobile users effectively. This is an opportunity not many businesses are tapping into yet, but will become more commonplace – probably for businesses with more time-sensitive services. It could be worth thinking forward to be ahead of the game…

What are the most important factors for success?

The study confirmed interest from consumers in gaining more control over their online interactions with businesses, and noted other trust factors:

What things will most scare your customers off?

Previous studies have shown a real ‘email insecurity factor’ among consumers, in fact nearly 60% keep different addresses for entities they trust vs don’t trust. If you can make it into their latter category, your emails will likely attract ready attention.

So…stick with email but keep looking forward with good reputation management

Far from being eclipsed by other emerging communications methods, consumers expect email to be the main workhorse channel into the future. Organisations that build trust with consumers through forward-looking reputation management strategies will stand out and gain long-term competitive advantage. As a brand expert recently said…your reputation is your brand - the most important asset your business has.

A recent study provided another statistic that all email marketers should find interesting:

“Study Finds Emails of 23% of Retailers Are Completely Unintelligible When Images Are Blocked”

So if its looking bad for images what should you do?

Here are some basic tips that will help your email content be understood by your subscribers even if the images are not displayed:

1) Use ALT tags for all your images. The text within the ALT tag will be displayed if the image is blocked by most (not all) email applications.

Image displayed

Image Blocked but displaying ALT text

<img src=“whale.jpg” alt=“Picture of Humpback Whale”width=“555″ height=“599″ />

We have seen quite creative ideas when it comes to the text within an alt tag! For example:

“So you don’t want to see the special deal we have for you?”

2) Try and avoid adding important messages and call to actions within images. Using an image for “Buy Now” is not a good idea instead provide a text link.

3) Provide a statement somewhere near the top which could say:

“Best viewed with images on”

A certain portion of your subscribers will have images blocked and have no idea that there is image blocking occurring.

4) Add height and width values for all your images. This is very important if you use images to space or partition your content. If images are blocked and you have not provided width and height values the email application will attempt to guess or default to a height and width which more than likely will not be in your best interests.

5) Avoid adding too many images “above the fold” as this is valuable real estate that will be viewed within the preview pane.

The good news is the reputation of the sender can be enhanced and using an Email Service Provider (ESP) to deliver your bulk email is step in the right direction to improving your ‘sender reputation’.

I know I am biased due to owning an ESP however there is proof that using the same IP Address to email out on and implementing email authentication mechanisms such as SPF, Domain Keys, Domain Keys Internet Mail and Sender ID does provide the sender with a desirable reputation for successful email delivery. These solutions are available to you with Mobilize Mail.

However it is also very important to remember that one of the most important influencers of whether your email ends up in the inbox or spam folder is of course your subscribers. The power of the “This is SPAM” button is clearly something to be respected.

If you send emails to your subscribers that are far from interesting or poorly presented the subscribers will (one survey stated up to 60% of people use the “This is SPAM” button to unsubscribe!) without much hesitation click the dreaded button. What follows thereafter depends on the recipient’s mail server. For example your email could be processed by a content filter such as Cloudmark.

Cloudmark scans the email content looking for “finger prints” and other common spam indicators.

As with the spam complaint button, one report by itself will generally not affect your message however if enough subscribers mark your message as spam the end result is not good for you, your business and your sales.

Your email content needs to look professional, have appropriate content that is of interest to your subscribers (not you) and email presentation needs to be formatted smartly as to not raise suspicions that your email could be a hoax (called Phishing).

The latest Habeas report provided the following alarming facts that you need to be aware of:

1. 69 percent of respondents worry about being victimized by e-mail fraud scams, up from 62 percent in 2007.
2. 35 percent said they don’t know what to look for when trying to sift through e-mail messages that are potentially dangerous. This means 65 percent feel they know what to look for.
3. About 25 percent lose “some degree of faith” in a company that can’t deliver e-mail reliably.

This means that if your message does get to your subscribers, they might still decide that it looks like spam and click the “This is SPAM” button. Overtime your email will end up in the spam folder.

We recommend that you not only provide content that is of interest to your subscribers but also really focus on providing a professionally presented email (we can help you here with our content presentation services for email. If you are an existing client please send your content to newsletter@mobilizemail.com ).

Here are some tips to help you that our content presentation team deem as 101:

1. Avoid small text (less then 8 points should be avoided but no large than 14 points.
2. Try and keep the use of ‘spammy’ words down for example mentioning the word “free!” 10 times in your message is not a smart idea.
3. Misspelled words are a ‘no no’ – it seems spammers are not great spellers.
4. Don’t hide text by making it the same colour as the background on which the text is presented.
5. No CAPS!
6. Respect your subscribers’ inbox by only sending on the frequency you initially promised them. If you stated a monthly newsletter then avid sending them a fortnightly one.
7. Make sure the subject line provides some spark of recognition to the subscriber about your business. Using a vague or ‘spammy’ subject line is almost guaranteed to get your email ignored.

At the end of the day it all comes down to common sense. Provide email content that is interesting to them (not you) and is professionally formatted.

Email Marketing is Evolving

Email marketing is continuing to evolve and the solutions enhancements are providing more value for business. We are witnessing an increase in client requests for solutions capable of managing more complex communication e.g. rewards programs, promotions and events registration.

In a tighter market competition is fierce and businesses are responding with more ingenious incentives to drive more sales revenue.

Competitions for free holidays, new cars, pamper packs are all the rage and the good news is email has evolved to manage the data capture, communication and record management for these marketing incentive schemes.

Do you have an Event or Promotion coming up? Contact us for your tailored email solution.

Over the years I constantly remind myself of this advice and with email marketing its very important to use common sense. Here is an example.

Last week I received a commercial email from a property related business which was full of talk about how great a company they were, how many sales they did last month, how many awards they have won, blah-blah-blah.

Now if the author bothered to think like one of his/her subscribers they would ask themselves:

1. What benefit is this email giving me?
2. Do they help me with a problem I have?
3. Would I read another email sent from them?

9 times out of 10 if you think like your subscribers before you write your email message you will provide an email that will add value to the subscriber and they will continue to open your emails.

If you don’t then 10 times out of 10 you will start losing subscribers and that means business.

Tip: Think like your subscribers when creating your email message.