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Tag Archives: eMarketing

Dissection of an Email Done Wrong

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Posté par Michele Shubert le December 15, 2011 – 4:40 pm
dans Email Marketing, Marketing Strategy

The world of email marketing is one of constant change. As spammers find ways to circumvent spam filters, the filters become smarter and more sophisticated. And email marketers who want their messages to make it to recipients’ inboxes have to stay up-to-date and make constant adjustments to their email marketing program.

There’s an email in my inbox from a company name I recognize. It’s from a large company, a national brand, one I have not given permission to email me. Studying marketing messages we receive from other companies and analyzing our personal reactions to them can help us learn and improve our own email marketing practices.

Let’s take a look at the email.

Here’s the subject line: “Connect 2012 – 5 Reasons to Connect.” Not super enticing, but there’s a smidgeon of interest. It’s from a Fortune 500 company, so I’m inclined to open it. But since I never signed up to receive emails from this sender, there’s hesitation. It’s probably spam. Spammers are smart like that.

Tip: Even though your recipients know who you are, if you send to them without their permission, they may think you’re a spammer. Read More »

Tips on Sending an Effective Apology Email

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Posté par Michele Shubert le October 10, 2011 – 7:55 pm
dans Email Marketing

apology emailsUh-oh. You sent the email. And then you noticed the mistake. Oops! Now what?!

Mistake emails happen to all digital marketers. Even well-known, experienced marketers mess up. Of course, we don’t plan to make mistakes. But when a mistake happens (and it will), what is most important is how you respond — and how quickly you respond — after you realize the email is wrong.

Not long ago, I sent an email to a freshly uploaded list and noticed several replies come in within minutes after the email was deployed. The first was from Robert asking why his email salutation was to Stephanie. Another was from Victoria, wondering why she was being addressed as Anthony. Uh-oh. After checking the data, I realized what had happened — the entire list had been incorrectly sorted and the uploaded data was mismatched. Wait! Undo!

There’s no undo when it comes to email marketing. You can’t take it back. You can, however, apologize. And if you do it right, you can make it work in your favor.

Soon after discovering what had happened, the recipients of the blundered email received a follow-up with an apology explaining that the mistake was due to our (my) human error. What amazed me were the replies we received after sending the apology. One said, “At least now I know you’re human!” Another recipient admitted, “I didn’t open the first email you sent. But when I saw a second email from you with ‘correction’ in the subject line, I opened and read the message and was impressed by your honesty.”

What you do after a mistake is made is what matters. First, decide whether your mistake merits an apology. I mean, do you really want to send a second email because of a tiny typo that most subscribers will overlook? If the mistake is not a big one, it might be better to avoid pointing it out.

Here are some tips on sending an effective apology email:

  1. Send the apology as soon as possible after you discover the mistake.
  2. Indicate it’s an apology/correction in the subject line.
  3. You may only need to add a paragraph at the beginning of your original email content; more serious mistakes may call for a dedicated apology.
  4. Be sincere and true to your brand. You can use humor to poke fun at yourself or make light of your goof. Or, if that doesn’t fit your brand’s personality or the seriousness of the error, just be honest and admit you messed up.
  5. Keep it simple. You don’t need to go into detail about what went wrong.
  6. If the mistake inconvenienced your subscribers, make it up to them by including an offer.
  7. Make sure your apology email is free of mistakes!

Have you found yourself needing to apologize for an email mistake? How did you handle it? Please comment with advice or tips you think might help other email marketers.

Free Email Tracking

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Posté par Robert "Dude" Spellings, Jr. le March 12, 2010 – 4:06 pm
dans Email Marketing

I just ran across this very interesting email tracking service:  www.WhoReadMe.com.  Essentially, the service will allow you to do some limited basic tracking on emails that you send, for free.

I say “limited” above because (1) its only truly “free” for your first 20 emails per day, and (2) their email tracking is still handicapped by all of the same pitfalls as all of the other tracking services, which include:

  • If the recipient’s images are turned off, then none of the tracking will work at all.
  • The number of forwards/opens/unique-opens is inaccurate if multiple users are behind a corporate firewall and all have the same outward-facing IP address.
  • The metrics about browsers and operating systems requires that the recipient be using a web-based email service like hotmail, yahoo, or gmail.
  • Cookies are used to track some metrics, which don’t work in most email clients that are not web-based.
  • You are dependent on their network for the tracking, and if they experience a network failure, the tracking will not occur during the outage.
  • Cannot truly track if an email is “read” or not.
  • Cannot determine if an email was delivered to the inbox, the spam folder, the trash bin, or quarantined in a spam-filtering system.

In short, this system has all the same Achilles heels as most of the other email tracking solutions, but since this one is free, it’s a pretty good value.  I point out the limitations only because people who may not be so tech-savvy may not understand the current limitations of technology.  The current trend in online marketing is to rely heavily on these kinds of metrics, so just be sure you know what’s really happening.

QuantumDigital Helps Santa Deliver Christmas Wishes to Children in Need

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Posté par Cynthia Fedor le December 9, 2009 – 5:18 pm
dans Leadership & Innovation

It feels so good to help those in need all year round, and we do so by participating with Mobile Loaves & Fishes and Angel Tree Prison Fellowship among others. But I’ll admit it feels exceptionally good to bring a smile to a child’s face during the holiday season. I can just imagine the look of utter joy and amazement on an adorable kiddo’s face when he or she discovers that a special present has been waiting just for them.

ChristmasGifts

This year, QuantumDigital–an online service provider for targeted direct mail, on-demand printing and eMarketing–contributed to Salvation Army’s Angel Giving Tree by sponsoring the holiday wishes of 30 children. Requests from children were divided up amongst many of our QuantumDigital team members who purchased items such as clothing, soccer balls, riding toys and dolls.

Thousands of little angels could still use your support and care. It’s not too late to help. Go to http://angel.jcpenney.com/ and purchase a gift for an angel by December 9 or a JC Penny gift card by December 14, 2009.

Thank you to all the QuantumDigital team associates that donated time and resources in order to put a smile on a child’s face this year. Here’s what a couple of our participants had to say about this great program:

Why did you decide to participate in the Angel Giving Tree program?

I feel so very blessed to have all the things I have that I just wanted to give to someone who might not otherwise have anything to open for Christmas. I can’t bear the thought of a little one not having warm clothes to wear or toys to play with. I also like to set the example for my own daughter, so that she understands the meaning of giving. – Deborah L.

Because I feel really fortunate to have a decent job during these hard times and I wanted to try and make a difference for a few children whose parents may not be as fortunate. – Robert “Dude” S.

How does it make you feel?

It makes me happy to know that now three children will have new clothes to wear and learning toys to help them develop. I also feel good about being able to help another parent. – Deborah L.

If makes me feel good to know that a few children will have a little Merrier Christmas this year thanks to the generocity of our department. – Robert “Dude” S.

What do you hope for the recipients of your donation?

I hope they have a wonderful Christmas and that they can just enjoy being kids. I also hope this gives a sense of relieve and excitement to the parents who won’t have to worry about how they are going to provide for their children. – Deborah L.

I hope that the recipients of our donation will like the gifts, but I also hope that its helps boost their spirits to know that they live in a community where people care about each other. – Robert “Dude” S.

Thanks again. Happy holidays!

Standardization Will Improve Deliverability

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Posté par Robert "Dude" Spellings, Jr. le August 21, 2009 – 11:35 am
dans Email Marketing

Reading one of my favorite email deliverability sites, I came across this article announcing what is believed to be the first attempt to aggregate email bounce codes into a single list. Warning: the rest of this post may get pretty geeked out, so proceed with caution.

Why Is This Good?
I will try to explain this in a way that keeps most people interested, but it will challenge my writing ability, I am sure. Anyway, the reason that this is good is because this is the first step in standardizing bounce codes across different email providers and ISP’s, which will lead to better spam-filtering and better delivery.

What Happens Now
From the perspective of someone who is responsible for ensuring that emails get delivered, the process of interpreting bounce codes can be somewhat frustrating. Each email provider and ISP has their own collection of various bounce codes. Usually, each company has dozens, if not hundreds, of different bounce codes that get communicated from their receiving mail servers back to the sending mail servers to indicate the delivery status of each email. Email service providers (those who send marketing emails on behalf of their customers) then interpret the bounce codes in order to convey the delivery status back to their customers. This is how senders know delivery rates, bounce rates, etc, then adjust their lists and sending practices to improve delivery. Its a key part of the whole system.

Improving Delivery
While is it important that email service providers convey the delivery status to their customers, its actually more important that the email service provider understand and utilize the information being sent back by the ISP’s and email providers, so that they can continuously improve delivery and reduce spam. Currently, when I get notice that we have an unusually large bounce rate at one or more domains, I have do what amounts to a manual investigation as to why the bounces are occurring because the industry has not settled on any sort of standardized set of bounce codes (there actually is a specification for general bounce codes, but its not specific enough for today’s modern delivery and spam-fighting practices). Each ISP has their own set of codes and format for reporting the codes, so manual intervention is necessary to ensure proper interpretation of the delivery status.

Standardizing the bounce codes will allow email service providers and senders to automate tasks that will ensure even greater deliverability and better spam protection. Once their is a standard set of codes to be interpreted, all of the delivery verification and proper responses can be fully automated. Email service providers will be able to shut down spammers at the earliest signs of trouble, and other delivery problems that might incorrectly send up a spam-flag currently will be reduced, if not eliminated. Standardization, like with most everything else, will make email delivery and spam detection much more efficient.

Conclusion
Although this is not actually “standardization” yet, its a good first-step toward that process. Having all of the bounce codes aggregated in one place will make it easier for email delivery experts and others to treat bounced emails (and those who send them) properly. Its an exciting step in the process. Eventually, email delivery will be almost totally ubiquitous, like turning on your faucet and expecting water. Users will send emails and the ones that should be delivered will be, and the ones that should be blocked will be blocked and reported back to the sender with the appropriate punitive measure happening automatically. It might seem like we are almost there to many users, but there is still a lot of labor going on behind the scenes that will ultimately be automated.