My email is too long? No way!

Apr 25 2012 by Jeanette Brown, MBA

When it comes to email marketing, how long is too long? The best practice is to keep emails to a maximum of 1-2 scrolls for desktop readers and four scrolls for mobile readers. That is just a guideline to stick to, but the shorter the better.

As found in the 2012 Association Email Marketing Benchmark Report, readers spend anywhere from 3 seconds to over 10 seconds reading an email. Ten seconds!!! Can you read your email in that short of time? No, right?

When composing an email, the goal is to get the reader to click, but they need to get past the first two sentences to become engaged. In these sentences, make sure the content gets the reader excited, leaving them craving more details. Don’t ask for them to register in this area or join your group; that is too soon and can cause anxiety to the reader. Give them a reason to read further, perhaps by offering a discount or promotion, relevant to a problem they may be facing that can be solved by attending your course. Whatever it is, remember, an email is not a website or brochure — it is the platform to increase interest and achieve that click!

To learn more about our 2012 Association Email Marketing Benchmark Report and to download your free copy, click here.

Filed under: Benchmark Report, Blog
Leave a comment »

“I’m in a holding tank of sadness!”

Apr 19 2012 by Greg Robinson, Deliverability Manager

Alicia (a coworker) delivered this amusing line at a meeting this morning, misquoting one of Will Ferrell’s popular Anchorman lines. “I’m in a glass case of emotion” is how the line actually goes, however her point was still made and I am sure many of you have felt the same way, especially when your email campaign didn’t reach its target audience.

You’ve put a lot of thought and effort into your copy, supporting images and determining to whom the message will be relevant (FYI, sending irrelevant content can quickly get you blocked).  The mailing is published and you have moved on to your next task.  When you come back to check your activity report a day or two later, we hope that you see good results.

Unfortunately, even the best senders will experience delivery issues somewhere along the way.  When issues do arise, Informz is here to help.  We’re constantly monitoring mailing results and working hard to find the root cause of your delivery problems.  To aid us in this battle, Informz has recently partnered with Return Path, a well established name in the email delivery world.

The partnership primarily includes Return Path’s tools for Informz use “behind the scenes,” with the end result being improved deliverability support with greater insight into how your sender habits are perceived on the receiving end.  Return Path works with Sender Reputation, which is essentially a summary of your sender habits in the form of a “Sender Score” given to your sending IP address.  Return Path has a network of reporting partners, many being large ISPs, from whom they collect data to use in calculating your Sender Score.  This score (on a 0 – 100 scale) is also used by some receiving domains as part of their filtering process.

Think of your Sender Score like a credit score.  With a quick glance, one can see how your IP address ranks and also find the top problems reported on email originating from this IP address.  In an effort to be even more proactive and to expedite resolution of delivery issues, we’re constantly monitoring these scores (along with other data available to us) and looking for trends that could indicate issues that should be addressed.

To see how you rank, feel free to check out your own sender score by visiting senderscore.org and using the IP address(es) assigned to your Informz account.  This is the address that all of your published mail originates from.  You’ll get a little extra information on the senderscore.org site if you sign up for a free account.  Even if everything looks good, you might want to check your score occasionally, as you may spot an issue here that you didn’t know about.

In addition to monitoring sender habits, we’re also now able to refer Return Path Certification to you, our clients.  Return Path Certification is like a large scale whitelist, providing you with special treatment at domains worldwide, including Hotmail, Yahoo! and Comcast, to name a few.  This could lead to improved inbox delivery rates for a large portion of your list.  Click here to view the current list of ISPs and filters that participate in the program.

If your organization is interested in Return Path Certification, contact your advisor and we’ll see if you might qualify.  Even if you aren’t interested in certification at this time, we’ll be using Return Path’s tools to improve your email delivery.  If we find a problem that needs to be addressed, you can expect to hear from us!

Filed under: Blog, Deliverability, Return Path
Leave a comment »

Informally…Alison!

Apr 18 2012 by admin

At Informz, we like to think of our team of eMarketing Advisors as your personal email trainers. Today we are going behind the scenes with one of our Senior eMarketing Advisors, Alison Donato. Alison has been with Informz for 5 years and is truly an email expert!

What is your official title and what does your job entail? How long have you been with Informz?

I am a Senior eMarketing Advisor.  I am here to help our clients with anything and everything.  I am client support, marketing support, and technical support all rolled into one!  I have been with Informz for over 5 years now!

What is your favorite part of your job?

I love that I get to speak with my clients every day, yet every day is different.  It keeps me on my toes.  My favorite part of my job is helping a client understand how to use Informz to its fullest potential so that ultimately they can do their jobs more successfully.

Describe your typical work day in three words.

Unpredictable, interesting, quick.

What is your favorite quote? Why?

“If you come to a fork in the road, take it” by Yogi Berra.  I like this quote because a) its nonsensical, and b) to me it says that you never know where life is going to take you, but you should be prepared for anything.

Filed under: Blog, Company, eMarketing Advisor, Informally
Leave a comment »

Email and Social: Friends or Enemies?

Apr 11 2012 by admin

Friends!

We often hear the question, “how can I utilize my email marketing programs to better support my social media initiatives and drive participation?” More and more it seems that people are realizing that using the two channels together can lead to great results, but are struggling with where to start.

Here are four of the key strategies that we recommend and are a great place to start with:

1. Start by utilizing email as the “announcer” to launch your social media program.
Break your launch campaign into 3 segments. Start with targeting your influencers and those most involved in your organization. Have those people access the site first to help you set the tone and provide content for the community as well as to supply feedback for improvement. Then do your general launch out to your larger audience and make sure to clearly demonstrate the value someone will get out of participating in your social sites. In this email it’s also a great idea to include a contest or incentive for participation. A week or two after your general launch, use an action-based target group to segment out the people that haven’t taken action, and set an automatic follow-up email to go out to them. In this email change up the messaging with a stronger call to action or a different incentive.

2. Utilize email to promote your social media presence on an ongoing basis.
After the initial launch make sure that your social sites are promoted in all of your emails. You can do this by including a logo and link to your social sites in your email templates in a prominent area like the sidebar or below the header. Try calling it out with text like “connect with us online” or “continue the conversation.”

3. Encourage conversation about your organization.
In emails or newsletter articles, try posting a question or discussion topic with a link to discuss the topic more on your social media site. This is a great way to drive participation and also to increase results of your email by making it an interactive experience.

Also utilize the social sharing tool on the Informz toolbar to encourage people to talk about your brand on their social media pages in addition to your official page. By making your email easily sharable (and by providing valuable content!) people will more likely share your email and this can make you visible to people that you might not have reached previously.

4. Use your enewsletter to highlight top contributors and top discussions.
Call out a section of your email to highlight and thank those people that are most active in your community. This is a great way to give a special thanks to these people and to encourage them to continue participating in the community. This is also a way to help encourage other people to become active in the community.

Also, try devoting a section of your newsletter to “Hot topics on the community.” This is a great way to promote the value of the community and to drive people back to the community to read more.

There are so many ways that you can use email marketing and social media together, these are just a few to get started with. What are some tactics that you have found to be a great success?

Filed under: Blog, Social Media
Leave a comment »