Posts Tagged ‘Email Reputation’
Posted by Dave McCue on September 30th, 2009
If you take pride in your email marketing, you wouldn’t think your messages would contain elements found in some of the most Spam-tastic emails out there, right? Well, you might be surprised. To illustrate, I’ll be using a collection of the SPAM-iest emails I’ve received lately. If these characteristics sound familiar, it’d be a good idea to make some changes to your messages—the less you have in common with these bottom-feeders the better.
What’s the problem: (click to enlarge the sample message
The absence of a “To” address or any type of personalization leads me to believe that I did not actually win $2.5M dollars from Asia Power Ball Online Lottery Promo. This is also commonly found in emails sent by organizations who do all of their email marketing in-house, and often enter an entire mailing list of addresses entered into the “Bcc” field. The risk of accidentally using the “Cc” field instead of “Bcc” field is one possibly embarrassing reason to avoid this practice. Another is that seeing a blank “To” field can make recipients immediately suspicious as to the validity of your message, regardless of how legitimate you may think it is.
Using generic subject lines is another bad practice. You may not have content as enticing as a multi-million dollar prize, but it’s your responsibility to make it as enticing and informative as possible. And take care to avoid too much fine print or legal copy at the bottom of your messages—it can give recipients the impression that things aren’t what they appear, or that some “catch” is involved. If extensive Terms & Conditions apply, list them on a web page and link to it the way you would your Privacy Policy.
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Posted by Drew Miller on July 21st, 2009
With more and more marketers trying to expand their reach beyond just a database of prospects, many are digging deep into their social networks – specifically LinkedIn and Facebook – to amplify their marketing message. While this may be acceptable within the walls of these specific sites, it by no means gives any marketer permission to do so outside of them – especially for Email Marketing.
I recently received Email Marketing from a person I was connected to on LinkedIn. This was by no means what I would consider a “strong” connection, but a person I had casually met through a conference a few years ago. I didn’t immediately recognize the from name, and wasn’t particularly interested in the subject line offer (solicitation for his website development company), but out of pure curiosity decided to open it anyways.
I could easily go through this email message and point out a number of things that were wrong with it, but I’ll save that for another email marketing review. What bothered me the most about this message was the little note about why I was receiving this email:
My first reaction was: “Wow – that’s one heck of an assumption.”
I’ve never visited my connections’ website, never opted-in for email (other than that within the walls of LinkedIn) and have never agreed to accept solicitations from companies my connections are employed by. Instead of trying to deepen the business relationship using a more personal approach, this particular person abused it.
The bottom line: Don’t get desperate when you are trying to expand the reach of your marketing message by dipping into trusted relationships on social networks. Abusing these connections and friendships might do more harm than good.
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Posted by Dave McCue on June 8th, 2009
Moving into our first home has made the last month and a half a pretty busy one for my wife and I, but the process also shed light on what a valuable opportunity movers present to email marketers. Unfortunately, this opportunity was not always taken advantage of.
Here is a sampling of some of the hits and misses, graded A to F:
- Using the US Post Office’s website to change our address was much easier than battling the crowds at a USPS location, and it wasn’t long before I received an email confirming that my change of address request had been received. The email explained that I would receive a confirmation letter through the mail at my new address. In addition, much like if I had visited a physical post office to change my address, I was presented with a batch of helpful resources to assist with the move. Everything from information on security systems to census facts about my new neighborhood were available, as well as online resources to change vehicle registration, register to vote in my new town, and several coupons (which any mover can appreciate). Lastly, the USPS included a Quick Poll to solicit feedback about the entire process. Simple, valuable, and well done all around.
Grade: A
- Once the paperwork was finalized, our realtor emailed my wife a link to an easy-to-use message builder, allowing a non-technical person like herself to put together a simple moving announcement that she could email our friends and family to notify them of our new address and share a picture of our new home. Of course, this announcement was neatly branded with the realtor’s logo along with our agent’s contact information—an easy path to some free publicity. Points were lost, however, because the message’s “From” name defaulted to that of our realtor, resulting in a message that certainly wasn’t viewed nearly as often as it would have been coming from my or my wife’s email address. Still, the combination of value, engagement and potential for sharing made this a strong campaign.
Grade: B
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Posted by Dave McCue on April 15th, 2009
If you climbed into the ring against a heavyweight boxer, wouldn’t you want more than just a mouthguard to protect yourself from harm? Email marketers should think of themselves the same way—CAN-SPAM compliance is your mouthguard, and that heavyweight opponent (in the form of thousands of email subscribers) is poised to start swinging.
Plenty of email marketers wisely learn the ins and outs of CAN-SPAM laws early on in the process to protect themselves from harm, but too many mistakenly believe that adhering to the rules of CAN-SPAM means they don’t have to worry about SPAM complaints. This is far from the truth; as long as “Junk” and “Spam” buttons exist on every popular email client, any message being sent is at risk for SPAM complaints.
So what’s a marketer to do? Don’t get complacent just because you’re compliant; there are always gray areas.
Before every email marketing campaign, think carefully about any potential negative reactions the campaign might cause. Your standard approach may be enough to satisfy the law of the land, but the moment you set foot in a recipient’s inbox you are no longer in control. CAN-SPAM says you can email a recipient one time without his/her permission; does the recipient know that? Not only is it a mistake to assume that your audience knows what truly constitutes a SPAM email, but it’s even more unrealistic to believe they worry about the damage they could be doing to your reputation as a sender by marking your message as SPAM.
To put it simply, the best defense against SPAM complaints is common sense, but it’s an approach that is all-too-often pushed aside. Never forget that all of the email addresses on your mailing list, as well as any other addresses you “acquire,” represent actual people. Try their patience, and they’ll act the way people do.
To go back to the boxing analogy, if compliance is your mouthguard, let common sense be your headgear. If you find yourself justifying an email strategy by saying “technically, this is totally legit,” you’re going to want to stop and re-evaluate things. If it means sending less email—if it means sending to less people—it might help you take a lot fewer punches in the ring.
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Posted by Nic Winters on March 25th, 2009
You work hard and invest great amounts of money to establish your brand, thus your company likely wouldn’t send out a direct mail piece or push a TV ad without reviewing it. Why would you treat your email marketing differently? …especially when it can be forwarded and spread for further exposure quicker than other marketing mediums!
Thus, when teaming with an email service provider, make sure that you will have access to variable user allowance controls. These could be as simple as a few basic user types (those who can create content, manage lists, deploy messages, etc.), an advanced allowance system such as SubscriberMail’s soon to be released User Feature Access Management tool, or a channel marketing solution for large organizations sharing corporate approved content to multiple divisions.
With the many restrictions brought about by CAN-SPAM, your email reputation could easily be damaged by an eager salesman entering the email address of a prospect who has not formally opted-in or an under-informed employee who deploys messages to an incorrect email list. In these highly regulated times, it’s always best to take a “safety first” approach.
With our new User Feature Access Management tool, clients have the ability to create various user roles within their accounts, specifying exactly which features should be exposed for each user type.
With SubscriberMail’s patented channel email marketing solution, a client can create corporate-approved content and email templates for use by independent marketing divisions, ensuring that messaging is uniform across channels and maintaining your brand identity.
Incorporating these types of technologies into your email marketing plans assists you in reducing your risk and safeguarding your precious brand and email reputation.
…which brings to mind a question – what potentially damaging features do your users have access to today?
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