Email Software

Design Tip of the Week: Email Rendering in Gmail

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Andrea Smith

This week we’re focusing on email rendering in Gmail. Gmail, like other web-based email clients, is constantly evolving. These updates continually change the way HTML emails are rendered. Not only do email designers need to pay special attention to Gmail, they need to be aware that their Gmail subscribers may be seeing one of two different versions of Gmail. Depending which browser and version you are using, scroll to the bottom of your account and select the “older version” link to test that version of Gmail. To revert back to the newest version, select the “newer version” link in the top right section of the account.

Below are some great tips to consider when building your email campaign in order to create the best experience possible for Gmail subscribers.  

Image Blocking - Alt Tags
 Images are blocked by default in Gmail. Gmail does display stylized “alt” tags, so add those to your design when it makes sense to help create brand synergy. 

CSS
In both versions of Gmail, CSS must be applied inline. External or embedded CSS in the head of the HTML will be stripped out.

 CSS Borders
The newer version of Gmail has difficulty rendering CSS borders in IE8. Occasionally, 1-2 pixels of white space will be added to the left or right side of the content enclosed within the border. This issue affects some designs more than others, so if you have a particular element that depends on symmetry, test both old and new Gmail versions to ensure your design renders properly. If CSS borders are giving you trouble, you may want to consider using a background color combined with a spacer .gif to create the same look.

Background Images
Background images are supported in both versions of Gmail. However, the “background-image” CSS property is not supported, so the HTML “background” attribute must be used to assign a background image. Previously, there were issues using the CSS property “background-repeat”, but that property is also now currently supported.

Gmail Themes
Gmail introduced the concept of “themes” this year, which allow the user to select different combinations of background colors, text and link colors to personalize their inbox. Some combinations may render light text on a light background, or dark text on a dark background. The bottom line: you must specify background, text, and link colors in your HTML, or they may be changed in accordance with your subscriber’s Gmail Theme.

Testing
Always be sure to test in major web browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox, and remember that there are both newer and older versions of Gmail. Gmail is a great client to test first when finishing your campaign, as it exposes rendering problems and is unforgiving of any HTML syntax errors. 

Personally, I love using Gmail — it has great features including shared docs, calendars, folder organization tools and other interactive capabilities, so let's make sure our subscribers continue to have a great experience in Gmail. Portions of this blog, Design Tip of the Week: Email Rendering in Gmail, and more information on email rendering can be found in our whitepaper "Email Marketing Design: The New Essentials”.

Do consumers hate email append?

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Al Iverson

It sure looks like they do. Morgan Stewart breaks it down. It looks to me, as it does to Morgan, that consumers are not pleased when a company they've done business with, but not provided an email address to, suddenly start emailing you. When they put you on a mailing list without consent. When a company falsely assumes that a business relationship equates to permission.

Seriously, can somebody explain to me, why would you ever engage in a marketing practice that is going to upset a good 50% of the people who end up on your list?

It's nice to see the data on consumer expectations. It backs up the deliverability side of the equation, the elephant in the room that people have been dancing around for years: Email append grows your lists, grows them into big, dirty beasts that get you blocked and bulked. The biggest, the worst, the most significant deliverability and marketing strategy issues I've dealt with over the past years, they are all due to email append. A company, some well meaning big brand, tells me their list is all opt-in, everybody asked for this mail, and they're just plain stumped as to why the big ISPs don't want to allow it to the inbox. Many discussions and much head scratching later, it comes out that they had done some big email append and magically grew their list by a couple million addresses. And gee, if you back that append data out, suddenly their deliverability improves. (Most of the time it has been Just That Simple.)

As Morgan says, "The belief that marketers can send email to their customers based on a ‘prior existing relationship’—the premise for email appends—is dead. Customers don’t want the practice to continue."

Real Email Threat #3: Lax Permission

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

The issue of permission presents one of the greatest threats to the future of email marketing. According to data shared by Julie Katz at Connections ’09, consumers want greater control over email. They want control over SPAM, they want to be able to unsubscribe from email more easily, and they want greater control over the frequency of commercial email coming to their inboxes.

In both 2008 and 2009 we asked consumers to indicate how acceptable it was for them to be contacted via email for “Promotional messages (i.e., sale, special offers) from companies whom you regularly conduct business, but have not specifically asked for ongoing information.” As we outlined in the 2009 Channel Preference Study, consumers’ attitude toward non-permission communications from known companies is souring quickly. In 2009, 50% of consumers considered these messages with unacceptable, nearly doubled from 26% in 2008. The belief that marketers can send email to their customers based on a ‘prior existing relationship’—the premise for email appends—is dead. Customers don’t want the practice to continue.

Nevertheless, the industry continues to allow embarrassing practices like email appending and list rental. Not surprisingly, the only people that fully endorse these practices are those that profit directly from them. The rest of us squirm and manage to squeak out the words, “It can work, if you do it right.” However, few believe that it ever will be done right on a consistent basis. After all, we've been writing about this for quite a while.

There are three interrelated reasons for this. First, as I mentioned in my first post in this series, email is too easy and too cheap. It’s simply easier to do email appends and list rental incorrectly, using an opt-out model that has no regard for permission. The numbers are more impressive--and let's face it, big lists still sound better than little ones. Second, pricing models are still based on match rates and list sizes. These models favor sending to the masses, which in turn favor the opt-out model. Third, since there are still enough suckers out there who will pay to do it incorrectly, email append and list rental vendors have no incentive to change their revenue model. Given that opt-in revenue models are likely to be less lucrative, it won't change until the issue is forced.

But it may already be too late for email append and list rental companies.

While the industry has failed to police itself, two entities with the ability to make real changes have lined up with consumers. First, ISPs continue to serve the best interests of their customers by increasingly relying on reputation systems that include engagement measures such as opens and clicks to determine if messages should be routed to the spam folder (see What’s in store at the ISPs 2009-2010 from Pivotal Veracity). Second, Canadian Parliament continues to push forward Canadian Electronic Commerce Protection Bill C-27 which mandates an opt-in standard.

Comparatively, US CAN-SPAM laws are notoriously weak, making the joke that US CAN-SPAM laws say, “yes, you can spam consumers so long as they can opt-out.” Unfortunately, Unfortunately, many companies use this law to condone their continued distribution of non-permission email. In short, the US Law falls short of meeting customer expectations—again more than half of consumers believe non-permission email is unacceptable, even when it's from a known company. This doesn’t support an opt-out standard. I interpret this as, “there is no excuse for sending email without the express consent of consumers. Period.”

Interestingly, in the same comparison of opt-in promotions from 2008 to 2009, there was no change. Consumers believe permission-based email is highly acceptable. In fact, given the choice, 75% of US consumers (see the 2009 Channel Preferences Study) and 74% of UK consumers (see Strategy Meets Customer Expectations) prefer to receive permission based promotional messages through email.

It’s simply that we need to draw a hard and fast line. Opt-in permission should be the only standard by which we live. Not supporting efforts to eliminate questionable practices in our industry reflects poorly on the industry as a whole. After all, as Matt Blumberg, CEO of ReturnPath, recently wrote, “What's good for consumers is great for direct marketers. Marketing is not what it used to be, the lines between good and bad actors have been blurred, and the consumer is now in charge.” Amen!

It's time we completely honor consumers' preference for an opt-in standard. We can no longer afford to lend any support, even passively through silence, those who don't.

I'm Honored

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Joel Book

Vote for the Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management in 2009

I am really honored to have been nominated as one of the Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management in 2009 and would sincerely appreciate your vote.

When I was notified about my nomination last week by Jim Obermayer, Executive Director of the Sales Lead Management Association (SLMA), I was humbled because the list of nominees includes so many of the top professionals in our industry – including ExactTarget’s CEO, Scott Dorsey.

Voting is open until November 13th. Both SLMA members and non-members can vote for up to five nominees. You can view a full list of finalists here.

Taco John’s and Scotts Highlight MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer

The recent MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer conference in Chicago attracted more than 300 interactive marketing professionals and was a huge success. Congratulations to Anne Handley and her team for producing a first-rate event.

Among the conference speakers were Renee Middleton of Taco John’s and Kip Edwardson of Scotts. Both joined me in presenting a special session to a standing-room-only audience titled, “Email, Social and Mobile. The New Triangle Offense of 1to1 Marketing.” Renee and Kip are on the cutting edge of one-to-one marketing, and discussed how they are using email in combination with social networks and SMS text messaging to attract consumers to their websites, convert them to email subscribers, and use email to drive consumers to retail stores. What they are doing – and the results they are achieving – serves as a great example of what’s possible when you match the right strategy to the right technology.

If you were not able to attend the conference, and would like to get a copy of our presentation, leave a note in the comments and we'll get you a copy!

Real Email Threat #2: The Specter of “Inbox Clutter”

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

There is a lot of talk about the sheer volume of email consumers receive. According to Forrester, 60% of consumers believe they receive too many email offers and promotions (Forrester, December 2008). Thus, it should also be no surprise Forrester also found 64% of consumers say they delete most email advertising without reading it and for them to conclude that consumers find marketing emails a burden.

According to MarketingSherpa, 32% of marketers see general inbox clutter as the biggest challenge to their success in email marketing (MarketingSherpa, Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, September 2008). In Customer Knowledge is Marketer Power, Forrester found that 90% of marketers who believe email will be less effective in 2 years believe the reason for this decline is “too much clutter in consumer inboxes,” while 59% believe “SPAM” will drive this decline.

Yes, inbox clutter is impacting the industry-wide success of email marketing. In fact, at the beginning of this year I the following prediction in our 2009 Marketing Almanac: “On average, we expect open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates will decline in 2009 as subscribers’ inboxes are flooded with bad email from marketers trying to stay afloat.”

The latest DMA figures suggesting that the ROI from email marketing slipped again this year, down 3% from last year to $43,62, support this prediction. However, recently release open rate benchmarks from Epsilon suggest my prediction was wrong. They say open rates have increased slightly in each of the past 4 quarters. From Q2 2008 to Q2 2009 they report an increase from 18.8% to 22.2%. That’s an increase of 18%!

Okay, so the DMA says ROI is down 3% and Epsilon says open rates are up 18% over the past year. At the end of the day, all this suggests is that even if inbox clutter is having a negative impact, it isn’t having much of one on individual marketers.

Consider the following information presented by MarketingSherpa. 31% of consumers indicate that one of the reasons they unsubscribe or disengage from emails is related to inbox clutter. However, this is the third most common reason identified in this survey. The relevance and frequency of YOUR emails are much more important.

Thus, I call this threat the specter of ‘inbox clutter’. It's simply another myth that your emails are being crowded out by junk. Unless you plan on running an average or below average email program, none of this matters for you! If your program delivers value, your program will continue to thrive. The problem is not “out there” as the specter of inbox clutter suggests. More and more, the challenge is to create an above average program.

Are Your Subscriber's Fan's For Life?

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Lindsay Niemiec

On my drive back from Chicago last week, I noticed a large billboard towering over the interstate. Of course, many billboards crowd every interstate, but this one was different. The advertisement for the Chicago Bears, read “if you’re not a fan, you’re a tourist”. What grabbed my attention was not only to how clever I though the ad was, but how applicable it is to the ExactTarget’s Subscribers Rule! philosophy. Everyone wants to be a part of something special, and marketers want their customers to feel as if they are special too. It starts with delivering 1 to 1 direct marketing of which subscribers are a fan.

Does your marketing program address what your subscribers want? Or do you blast out the latest news and hope for click-throughs? Do you dynamically target the content of your emails to your subscriber's preferences? Or do you batch and blast the same email to everyone, hoping they find it relevant? As the NFL season continues and the holiday season kicks off, the relevance of your email campaign programs could be the key component in making your subscribers true fans.

If you make your subscriber a fan, then much like a Bears fan, they're in it for life. If not, then they're just a tourist on your list for now waiting for the next best thing.

ExactTarget "Embeddable" Defined

Friday, October 30, 2009 by Dennis Hall

Embeddable

ěm-běd'ə-bəl

–verb (used with object)

    1. Ability to incorporate or contain as an essential part or characteristic

    2. Capacity to leverage existing code and infrastructure to save costs and accelerate speed to market

    3. Marketing automation technology from ExactTarget

Commercial Software developers and IT professionals need power, control and flexibility when it comes to managing the lifeblood of the business – INFORMATION! ExactTarget delivers on all fronts with its agile and embeddable marketing automation technology and services.

Contact your marketing automation partners at ExactTarget today to see how our technology can augment your technology stack and go to market strategy.

Inadvertent blocking at Cox this morning.

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Karen Balle

Cox made some changes to their mail servers this morning, leading to some accidental blocks this morning that we understand were not actually listed on the dnsbl referenced. Other sources have confirmed that these blocks were wide-spread and accidental.

Cox seems to have this resolved now and our tests show that previously blocked emails are now being delivered. They responded to earlier cases and asked that customers who had email blocked this morning to try resending their blocked messages.

We received the following official statement from Invalument:

On Thursday, October 29th, Cox Communications make a number of changes and improvements to their spam filters. They added a special Postmaster
page:

http://postmaster.cox.net

And they added the invaluement.com DNSBLs to the blacklists they use to eliminate spam.

Unfortunately, during the early morning hours after this was implemented, there was a glitch in their system which caused some legitimate e-mail sent to cox.net addresses to mistakenly get blocked, and this was mistakenly attributed to the invaluement lists. (The invaluement.com lists did NOT have those legitimate sending IP addresses
blacklisted.) This glitch occurred between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. EST on 10/29/2009. The damage was greatly minimized by the off-hours timing of the incident and greatly minimized by Cox's internal whitelist.
The glitch is now completely fixed.

What is ExactTarget Embedded?

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Eric Hensley

As one of the newest members of the ExactTarget Partner organization, I am tasked with managing and growing relationships with ExactTarget’s Embedded Partners. On its surface, that sounds pretty straightforward. However, for the past several months, I have been trying to better define around what an “Embedded” partner truly is. There are multiple ways to define the topic, depending on who you ask.   And, in my experience, most of the answers I have heard are right in some way or another.

However, the official definition is that ExactTarget Embedded Partners are typically ISVs that go to market with messaging as a part of their platform. As an Embedded Partner, your software product's user interface contains features and functionality that enable your customers to manage the process of creating and executing email campaigns (as well as SMS and Voice). This is about the most comprehensive and accurate description I can come up with myself. But, with the growth in popularity of “Cloud Computing”, I believe it is and will be much more than that.

Cloud computing has garnered a lot of media attention in the past year or so as the next big technological breakthrough. But, in my opinion, the concept isn’t really all that new. Companies have always looked for ways to combine technology services in a more commoditized way to drive efficiency and cost savings. Amazon.com has been doing cloud computing within the company for a long time. Essentially, that is the exact same goal for cloud computing. I think the biggest difference with cloud computing is that the concept is getting turned outward to the Internet, hence the “cloud” tagline. As more companies sign on to utilize these services, the less they will be inclined to build internal infrastructure to support corporate applications.

Think of the advantages:

    *No capex/low capex to get started

    *Highly scalable with on-demand allocation of resources

    *Reliability of multi-location architectures

So how does messaging fit into the cloud? I see integrated messaging becoming its own service or platform in the cloud. Just like clients are looking to Salesforce.com to quickly and efficiently deploy CRM as a service, why not for marketing and other communications? It even makes more sense when you look at what the future of ISVs might be. More and more we are seeing a drive towards SaaS applications. Do you think it makes sense for a CRM or Print-on-Demand application provider to build their own messaging infrastructure? Probably not for several reasons, the most obvious being, it’s not their core competency. They will continue to be focused on what pays the bills. But, will they be eager to provide a marketing communication platform to their customers….absolutely. These companies will turn to partners that are similar to them…on-demand/SaaS/Cloud Computing…whatever the tagline of the week is. Why, because it provides the same advantages to them as to their clients, mainly low/no capex, highly scalable, and reliable service. This is where ExactTarget Embedded becomes the Messaging as a Service platform for the cloud.

Obviously the push towards SaaS and Cloud Computing is real.   As the industry continues to evolve, so will ExactTarget Embedded and our partners. Our robust and flexible integration capabilities will allow ExactTarget to become the industry leader in Messaging as a Service.

Real Email Threats #1 – It's Too Easy and Too Cheap

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

Last week I addressed several misperceptions about the future of email and provided a list of recent statistics showing that the future of email looks bright. I also mentioned that there are real threats to the future of email.

I had the honor of moderating a panel at Connections titled “Research Survey Says!” On the panel were three of the smartest folks one could have the pleasure of working with: Julie Katz from Forrester, Rebecca Lieb from eConsultancy, and Stefan Tornquist from MarketingSherpa. With the assignment of presenting “relevant research” and a stacked deck of panelists, my job was simply not to mess it up. My strategy? Leave the topic really loose. I asked two simply questions, “What are the perceived threats to email?” and “What are the real threats to email?”

To my surprise, there was nearly unanimous consensus about the real challenges facing email. In summary, email is so easy and so cheap that even when used ineffectively, it still gets results. And that is a big, big problem since it makes it easy to send bad email.

According to research shared by Stefan Tornquist, email programs that do not follow best practices (e.g., batch-and-blast) are becoming less and less effective. In fact, these programs were half as effective in 2008 as they were in 2002. In contrast, programs that do follow best practices (e.g., segmentation, personalization) are slightly more effective today than they were five years ago.

While email experts have been talking about relevance for a long time, I have not seen it presented in a way that makes it this clear. It is not enough to send email. It is imperative for marketers to deliver authentic value to subscribers--and that is not easy!

This point is further supported by consumer-oriented research:

58% of consumers say the primary reason they unsubscribed or simply stopped reading emails from businesses is because “emails were not relevant to me,” followed by 44% who said they “Received too many emails from the sender” (MarketingSherpa, Consumer Media Survey, Sept 2008)
54% say most of the email ads they receive don’t offer them anything of interest (Forrester, “Winning Email Subscribers in a Down Economy” Dec 2008)

Earlier this year, I asked a professional triathelete to coach me in preparation for a half-marathon (we'll see how that goes before I sign up for a full marathon). In that time I have learned that while nearly everyone can run, the majority of people do not run well. I find myself cringing at the sight of people clodding around my neighborhood and placing unnecessary stress on their feet and knees. Only six months ago, that was me.

Email marketing is similar. Since nearly everyone who tries it sees some degree of success, many mistakenly believe they have it figured out. "Why bother with all that stuff the 'experts' preach?" Because if you don't listen and apply what they say, your glory days are behind you. Your email program will grow less and less effective. It's all downhill from here.

This does not need to be the case. The success of your program is in your control. Commit your program to constant and never-ending improvement. Keep learning. Keep modifying. Keep delivering content your subscribers find valuable (not what you think is valuable). Do this and the value derived from your email program will continue to grow.

E-Mail Plus is the Key to Success

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 by Kevin Nuest

Our very own Joel Book recently wrote an article that was featured in Online Strategies Magazine. The article, E-Mail Plus, addresses how to integrate your email efforts with other vital marketing campaigns, platforms, and tools to drive extraordinary results.

In the article, Joel talks about how companies like Johnston & Murphy, Pet Place, and the Cable Shopping Network leverage Email + Analytics. Also discussed is how companies like Carmax, Powell's Books, and Dreamfields Pasta successfully integrate a Email + Social Media strategy into their marketing efforts.

To see more amazing examples, you can check out Joel's posts about Motorcycle SuperStore, Mike's Carwash, and Gordman's.

Email System Process Term of the Day: Asynchronous, Scheduled, and Real-Time

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 by Amanda Cross

Your email marketing messages don't have to be processed right away. Different timing is appropriate for different tasks, and in some cases the ExactTarget application gives you the control to choose how--and when--your system does its work.

Asynchronous
An asynchronous process is a process that runs “behind the scenes” while you continue to use the interface to perform other tasks. You receive an email or other alert that the process is complete so that you can view the results.

For example, if you start an asynchronous report, the report runs while you continue working. When the report is done, you receive an email that contains the report results.

Scheduled
A scheduled process is a process that runs automatically at the time you designate. You receive an email or other alert that the process is complete so that you can view the results.

For example, if you schedule an email send to begin at 11p.m., the system begins the send at 11p.m. and can send you an email when the process completes to give details on the success of the send.

Real-Time
A real‐time process is a process that runs in the foreground of your application. You cannot
perform other tasks while the real‐time process is running. When the process is complete, the application presents the results on your screen.

The Effect of Email Engagement on Inbox Delivery

Monday, October 26, 2009 by Chip House

You're likely not surprised to hear that 90% of the email ISPs have to deal with is spam, which has driven them to constantly evolve and improve their filtering processes. Competition for users with mail accounts hasn't abated, meaning that the ISP that does the best job of keeping the inbox clean and relevant wins.

In a recent article at eM+C titled: "The Effect of Email Engagement on Inbox Delivery" I discuss the balancing act marketers need to deal with at major ISPs. In this article I mention: "For marketers, this means that gone are the days when you can email away willy-nilly while ignoring what’s happening on the other end. You need to monitor all of your campaigns for engagement, looking primarily for opens and clicks, which indicate that subscribers care about your email. If they don’t, over time the sum total of those ignoring you may outweigh the ones that are paying attention to you. If, in addition to this, some portion of your target audience continues to vote your email as spam, you could end up in the spam folder."

We have evidence showing that Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and AOL.com all monitor the engagement level of your email recipients as part of their email filtering algorithms. We've known for years that ISPs monitor user complaints, but now the implicit actions of your subscribers are just as important as the explicit actions. I like to think of the process as being a large scale used to distinguish the mail that recipients want from the mail that they don't want.

Al Iverson hit this in his recent blog titled, "The Rise of Emperor Engagement." In it he states, "If your mail is going to the bulk folder at a top ISP, it's probably going to be because recipients don't care about your email. They're not engaged."

The good news is that focusing on creating content and offers that your subscribers want will not only boost your deliverability, it will also boost your email revenues!

Time for your Halloween email...I mean Holiday Email Program

Monday, October 26, 2009 by Shelly Griffin

I don't know about you, but I like to enjoy each holiday on its own and in order. Especially in the Fall when the three big holidays come hurtling at you back to back from the dark days of Fall: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't put out Halloween decorations until October, I don't buy a turkey until November and I don't really start planning for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. I definitely do not shop for Christmas presents in July! Who really does that anyway?

Unfortunately in the world of email marketing, you need to start planning your holiday email program now - today - Yesterday! You need to ensure that your emails are planned, designed, tested, scheduled and ready for delivery. The holiday season is when the inbox gets the most congested and without advance planning, your emails may be lost in the crowd. In addition to driving for results, you want to ensure that you are not one of those marketers that over do it - sending a different offer everyday. After just a few of these emails, your subscribers will start ignoring (and deleting) your emails. Chip House spoke to this very subject in a blog post from last year "High Holiday Frequency Drives the Ignore Rate to New Heights".

You also don't want to be one of those marketers that make no significant change or improvement in your email campaign. Those emails seem uninspiring at a time of year when you should be grabbing the attention of your subscribers. Make sure to check out our design tips and tricks at Email Marketing Design blog. Then on top of everything else, there are deliverability challenges at the holidays.

Where will your email program land?

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Friday, October 23, 2009 by Karen Balle

When my nephew was much younger, we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas together on VHS until the tape broke. He even thought his name was Jack the Pumpkin King! The soundtrack will be stuck in my head for the rest of my life.

Not only is this one of the best movies of all time, but it's a wonderful commentary on the state of email marketing during the holiday season. I don't just mean that trying to get email delivered is a nightmare starting around Halloween or that marketers find themselves in somewhat different situations than they're used to during the rest of the year. The flow of the movie and the soundtrack fit with how email marketing happens during the holiday season. It happens every year.

There's a dramatic uptick in all email marketing, be it legitimate email marketing or spam, that starts when the weather gets cold. Some years, it triples or quadruples normal email volume. And that means slower mail servers, more filters, more complaints, and slower response times. It also means overworked, cranky mail and abuse admins. I know. I've been one of those cranky abuse admins.

The rules surrounding email deliverability, which are confusing enough, get more complicated during this time of year. It feels like every company you have ever driven past and every partner of theirs is vying for your attention. There are a lot of little things that you can do, from holiday ramp-up strategies to promoting special holiday-only marketing campaigns that draw customers in.

I'll leave you for now with this very important thought.

Engagement is more important than ever. If you don't get the attention of your recipients, you'll find your email in the spam folder or blocked during your most crucial sales period.

As I've been writing this, the song "Making Christmas" has been running through my head. It makes me want to ask which mindset do you have for your email campaigns, going into this holiday season?

"Snakes and mice get wrapped up so nice with spider legs and pretty bows.
It's ours this time."
(Your focus is on your ideas of what your recipients should want. You reach years back into your subscriber database. You send out email to people who didn't give you permission.)

Or
"This thing will never make a present. It's been dead now for much too long.
Try something fresher, something pleasant."
(Your focus is on what your customers are really interested in. You're interested in actively engaged subscribers rather than the number of subscribers on your list. You use dynamic content to create a one-to-one experience for your customers.)

Design Tip of the Week: Email Rendering in Outlook 2007

Thursday, October 22, 2009 by Andrea Smith

written by David Hoang

With the move from Outlook 2003 to 2007, Microsoft made a lot of security improvements. Along with that, however, were a number of design changes. Outlook changed its engine for rendering HTML content from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Word. Before, it essentially meant that if your code looked good in Internet Explorer, it looked good in Outlook.

However, that is not the case anymore.

This is a huge impact in the way we design emails; because of the high volume of Outlook users, particularly in the Business-to-Business realm.

Here are a few key elements to consider while designing email messages in Outlook 2007 to ensure it looks sharp.

Keep your styles in-line
Though Outlook 2007 does support embedded CSS, there are certain properties that present challenges, such as margin, line-height and float/clear. Keep your styles in-line while you are designing. In addition to being an email design best practice, using style attributes in-line will help ensure that your message renders properly.

No Animated .gif files
Animated .gif files will not function in Outlook 2007. However, there is a solution for using .gif files with Outlook 2007. Since the file will not animate, you only need to make sure the first frame makes sense; as that is what will appear in Outlook 2007.

Contain Yourself, No Floating!
Outlook 2007 does not support floating or CSS positioning in any capacity. Use standard HTML tables to contain and control the layout. This will ensure that your design elements won’t go flying all over the place!

Specify Accurate Table Widths
When using HTML tables it is important to specify accurate table widths to ensure proper display in Outlook 2007. This is especially important in table structures that contain multiple columns. For example, when you have a table cell that spans two columns, the width for that cell should equal the sum of the widths of the other two cells.

Continue Using Alt Tags
As it was in Outlook 2003, it is in 2007; images will automatically be blocked. While you’re designing your email message, keep in mind of what it will look like with images disabled. Remember that Outlook will display alt tags, but they will only appear after a default security message. For a list of acceptable tags in Outlook 2007, check out this guide on Microsoft’s website.

No Forms
Outlook 2007 disables embedded forms. If you design an email with a survey or form in the content, include a direct link (hosted from a website) to the survey for your Outlook users. Indicate clearly in your design that the form is not broken, so subscribers don’t get frustrated by trying to fill out the form.

With 2010 quickly approaching, you may be wonder if there will be any major CSS/HTML changes in Outlook 2010. Right now, don’t expect major changes.

To conclude, sticking to standard HTML table design for emails should help you effectively render emails in Outlook 2007. Be sure to read our design tips in the coming weeks for rendering tips in other email clients, including our past issue: Email Rendering in Hotmail by Anna Meier. Portions of this blog, Design Tip of the Week: Email Rendering in Outlook 2007 and more information on email rendering can be found in our white paper “Email Marketing Design: The New Essentials.”

For additional information about rendering in Outlook 2007, check out our white paper, Seven Email Marketing Design Tips for Outlook 2007.

Real vs. Perceived Threats to Email: Part 1 - Addressing Misperceptions

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

The now infamous Wall Street Journal article announcing the death of email sparked a fire in the bellies of email marketers and social media gurus alike. The overwhelming response is that social media is not posing a significant threat to email. To date, all the signs seem to indicate that these two channels will continue to evolve together.

True, there are dissenting voices. However, I have found none that are backed by credible statistical data. Since there is no statistical validity in personal anecdotes, I don’t care (except for the value they provide in forming hypotheses to be tested in future research). I care about what well-founded research tells us about the world at large.

Here is a list of the data sources I have located that reveal the truth about the current state of email use and email marketing:

Pew Internet & American Life: Online Activities Trends

79% of Americans use the Internet
90% of online Americans use email, making it the most popular online activity
57% of Americans check email daily

MarketingSherpa

78% of users email friends a link to information they wish to share with friends over the internet.
22% share through social media
MarketingSherpa’s research directly contradicts research released earlier this year from AddToAny, which suggested people share information twice as often through Facebook as they do through email. However, there were serious issues with the AddToAny research.

USC Annenberg Digital Future Report

How Many Americans Are Using E-mail? -- Almost everyone who goes online uses e-mail (97 percent of all Internet users).
Regular Contact by E-mail -- E-mail users maintain weekly personal e-mail contact with an average of seven people in the current study, down from the peak of nine in 2006. Forty-nine percent of e-mail users said they maintain personal contact by e-mail on a weekly basis with five or more people.

Participatory Marketing Network

Email (26 percent) and text messaging (26 percent) are the activities least likely to be "given up for a week," followed by TV (15 percent), talking on phone (11 percent), visiting social networks (nine percent), reading magazines (seven percent) and visiting non social network sites (six percent).

Pontifelx / Harris Interactive Survey

96% of online adults who have actually taken the step of providing brands personal information have shared their email addresses with marketers
12% of online adults have been willing to share information like their Facebook user name or their Twitter handle with a brand in exchange for information or promotional offers

SmartBreif on Social Media

While not nationally representative, this poll is interesting in that is suggests even social media professionals are not significantly curtailing their use of email.

59% of SmartBreif on Social Media readers (likely to have a heavy disposition toward social media use) report their use of email has stayed about the same despite the growth of social networks.
28% are using slightly less often
11% are using more often
2% of these readers rarely use email

ExactTarget – Is Email Marketing Endangered?

We asked a question similar to the SmartBreif poll, however, the question excludes marketers—so it is a better representation of the population at large.

Net 25% of online consumers report using social networks more often over the past 6 months (42% using more often, 17% using less often)
Net 23% of online consumers report using email more often over the past 6 months (29% using more often, 6% using less often)
Net 21% of online consumers report using text messaging more often over the past 6 months (38% using more often, 17% using less often)
71% of smartphone owners report sending more PERSONAL email on their smartphones than BUSINESS related email—it’s not all business.

ExactTarget – 2009 Channel Preferences Study

57% of online consumers use email most often to send written messages to their friends, over text messaging (24%) and social networks (10%)
75% of online consumers prefer to receive permission-based promotional messages through email—up 3.6% from 2008—followed by 17% who prefer direct mail promotions and 4% who prefer text promotions.
More than half of online consumers have made a purchase as the direct result of and email message they received, more than any other online communication channel.

Forrester Consulting – Customer Knowledge is Marketer Power

34% of marketers believe email will become more effective over the next two years, 19% believe it will be less effective
Asked why marketers believe email will be more effective:
- 74% believe their email communications are getting more relevant
- 58% see email as an integral part of their multichannel activities
- 44% believe customers prefer email as a marketing channel

That is not to say there are not threats to the future success of email. Stay tuned for part two where I share insights from a panel I moderated at Connections last week where Julie Katz from Forrester, Rebecca Lieb from eConsultancy, and Stefan Tornquist from MarketingSherpa were asked to share their takes on the real versus perceived threats to email marketing.

Across the Pond

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by Amanda Cross

I can hardly believe I work in a multi-national company.

I mean, I've worked in multi-national companies before--my last company had an office in Exeter, England--but I wasn't there when it happened. Back then, it just meant that I had to come into the office early to get one phone calls with them and learn to drop the serial comma when I edited their documents. Now, it means I have actual friends there who will show me around if I ever get a chance to visit.

ExactTarget expanded into England via the acquisition of Keymail Marketing, already an established partner in Europe. Our application already supported multiple character sets for your email and landing pages messages in languages other than English, as well as sending SMS and voice messages to many different countries. But with this move, ExactTarget becomes an even better partner for your multi-national marketing campaigns.

Because we're there man.

Email King vs. Social Media Prince

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by Vince PeGan

Last week’s Wall Street Journal article “Why Email No Longer Rules…” certainly grabbed my attention. It emphatically proclaimed:

“Email has had a good run as king of communications.
But its reign is over.”

After reading this I had to ask myself if the Wall Street Journal knows something ExactTarget doesn’t about the way we communicate today.

What dashing prince of communications has come in to take email’s throne?

No such prince exists. Enter MarketingSherpa’s chart of the week that shows how individuals share links when they want to pass them on to friends and family. The fact is that 78% link through email, while 22% use social media to share. It’s a fragmented communications battle out there, marketers. That’s why you have to prepare a multi-pronged communications strategy.

Check out our Social Media Kit for planning your attack. After all, the king and the prince are family, they work better together.

Is Mobile Email Driving Consumers to a Disappointing Experience?

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by Morgan Stewart

As outlined in our recent whitepaper, Is Email Marketing Endangered?, Smartphones are a major force behind consumers increasing consumption of email. As such, the importance of mobile email for email marketers will continue to increase. While the solutions remain less than ideal, Mark Brownlow has done a wonderful job of summarizing the challenges of mobile email and linking to useful resources on the topic.

But getting mobile email to work is only the first step. Assuming your email is successful in getting consumers to your site, they need to be able to actually do something. This appears to be a challenge. According to new research from Equation Research commissioned by Gomez Inc., end users are disappointed with their mobile web experience.

Among findings of the report:

60% of consumers have encountered a problem when accessing a website from their mobile phone during the past 12 months

The number one reason cited was slow load times (73%). There are a number of factors that may impact load times that are out of marketers’ control. However, the other top reasons are all things that marketers should be able to test and rectify:

* 51% experienced errors or crashes on the mobile site

* 48% said formatting of the mobile site made it difficult to use
* 45% had issues with the site functioning as expected

Among common formatting errors, the study identified content that is too large or too small for the screen, links that do not work, and overlapping or illegible text and graphics.

Poor mobile experiences impact brand perception

Consumers have high expectations of mobile sites—they should load quickly, look good, and function properly. The consequences of not meeting these expectations are also high. While it makes sense that consumers would be less likely to visit the site again (61%) and that they would visit a competitors site (40%), the negative impact on the brand at large is more alarming:

* 23% would be less likely to purchase from that company
* 19% would have a negative overall impression of the company
* 18% would be less likely to go to the company’s website on their regular computer

If mobile experiences impact consumers’ willingness to interact with companies at large, we can’t think of mobile as simply another channel. It is part of the communication landscape at large. It is not about developing mobile campaigns, it is about facilitating users ability to get the information they need at their convenience.

Thus, not only do optimizing mobile email and optimizing the mobile web go hand in hand, but both of these go hand in hand with optimizing our traditional email and web experiences as well. It’s all connected.

Take a look at the full report Why the Mobile Web is Disappointing End-Users.

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