Archive for the ‘Deliverability’ Category
Addressing your low open rates with four top tips
“My campaigns have a very low open rate” - A common response when asking clients how they feel their campaigns are performing.
The focus of email marketers at the moment is very much on automation, responsive designs, and clever dynamic or conditional content. These are by no means bad things to concentrate on, but neither do they address one fundamental requirement: the recipient actually opening the email when they receive it.
In the recent Econsultancy and Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2013, a staggering 44% of companies spend between 2-8 hours on the design and content of their email, yet only 20% of those same respondents suggested that they spend a similar amount of time on strategy and planning. You can create an amazingly designed and responsive template, full of dynamic content, with all the bells and whistles, but if no one is opening it, your time and resources – both commodities in short supply – could have been better spent.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
With the above quote in mind, to improve your open rate you need to have a plan in place and dedicate some resources to implementing it. Open rates are affected by two main things:
- Sender / From Name – they instantly recognise and know who you are
- Subject Line – should be clear and create a desire to open the email
Here are four quick and easy tips to help you refine your messages for the above points, and put together a plan that will enable you to increase your open rates:
1) Use a consistent Sender / From Name - this is a straightforward but very important part of building your reputation with recipients and increasing brand recognition. By using a consistent sender name, the recipient won’t have to think about who the email is from, and will make a quick decision as to whether it is an email they wish to open. It’s important to consider whether you use your company name or an actual person; if you build your brand on a person’s name and they leave your business, you will lose that recognition when you change the sender name.
2) Subject line strategy - this is possibly the most overlooked part of any email campaign. If you don’t have a subject line strategy, it’s time to start. This is all part of the wider idea of ‘inbox branding’: having consistent, recognisable, and inticing subject lines that someone can always associate with your brand. As an example, take a look at how Ebuyer.com emails appear in my own personal inbox:
Notice their strategy with the subject line? It’s always consistently personalised with my name, along with a single product for ‘only’ a certain price plus free delivery. Because of this, I always associate Ebuyer.com with a good price and free delivery on items.
3) Set expectations to new signups – although this may not be considered by many, it’s worth planning a welcome program, or at least a welcome email, when someone does opt in or signup. By warming them with a welcome email and setting an expectation of when they can expect to hear from you (daily, weekly, monthly etc.) you’ll increase the chances that they’ll continue to open your emails in the future. By not doing this, you run the risk of the user potentially forgetting they ever signed up at all, forgetting who you are and binning, marking as spam or unsubscribing altogether. Some companies like Ebuyer.com actually state that they send their newsletters on a Monday, Thursday and Saturday, which can be good to get recipients used to expecting their emails at regular times on specific days.
4) Clean up your data - why not read my previous blog on letting go of old or inactive data? Cleaning your data and removing those from your list that haven’t engaged in over a set period of time (e.g. 12 months) will naturally boost your open rate and be a better indicator of open rate among your active recipients. As an example, if you have a list of 100k contacts with an open rate of 5% (5000 people), and 50k who haven’t opened an email in 12 months, removing the inactive contacts will naturally increase your open rate to 10%. The 50k you remove can then be targeted differently to try and re-engage them to bring them back onto your active mailing list.
The above are four very quick tips but are by no means an exhaustive list of what you can do. It’s all about standing out and being unique in the inbox to ensure your email is read first and above all others.
They say the best things come in threes, so I’ll leave you with a final quote from General Patton about adding some of your own creativity to your plan. I encourage all clients to come up with as many crazy, out-of-the-box ideas as possible for the simple reason that…
“If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking.” - General George Patton Jr.
So, spend some time this week thinking differently about your emails and how you can increase your open rate. After all, your hard work and time spent in the design of email creative and content will be rewarded by people finally seeing the fruits of your labour.
MessageFocus Updates – 27th April, 2013
Lots of good stuff in the latest round of MessageFocus enhancements, including browser compatibility, data and reporting improvements, more design options in the HTML editor, and some built-in hints to make your campaigns more effective.
Campaign Hints
This brand new addition to the campaign overview provides you with hints on how you can improve your email campaign, while you’re creating it. From hints about using some of the additional functionality that MessageFocus offers, like split-testing or social sharing links, to reminding you to add a text version, Campaign Hints help to ensure you’re making the most of the technology available to you.
Campaign hints show up just above your campaign image.
You can easily turn Campaign Hints on or off too by clicking on “show” or “hide” Campaign Hints.
Turn it on by clicking on the ‘Show Campaign Hints’ link just above your mailing list information.
Read more about this feature in the MessageFocus Help documentation
Internet Explorer 10
With the recent release of IE10, we’ve made a number of browser compatibility improvements to provide Internet Explorer 10 users with a better user experience in MessageFocus.
New HTML Editor
Based on our clients’ feedback, we have made a few design-focused improvements to the new HTML editor. These include:
- ‘Helvetica’ is now available in the list of fonts.
- The colour selector now defaults to the colour of the currently selected text, making it much quicker for you to use.
- It’s now possible to add default colours to the colour selector that match your brand and email design. To set these up, just contact the MessageFocus support team with a list of hex codes (e.g. #0000FF) that you would like to default, and we will set them up for you.
Reporting
If you’re using Conditional Content in your email campaigns, the heatmap now has an option to show how the content would look for an individual contact that you have sent to. The click data for the whole campaign is still used when displaying the heatmap.
Click the ‘Show content for contact’ button to the right of your screen, just above the Link Activity section.
You can then select a specific contact to view how their email would look in the heatmap.
Data Management
Account administrators have two new data management features available to manage the way data is accessible and visible in your MessageFocus account.
- It’s now possible to specify which workspaces a core table or data tables are available in. This means you can have a core table available in multiple workspaces and hidden from others, making data management and control easier.
- Saved filters now have the option to to be shared over the same workspaces as a core table, making it possible to have account-wide filters saving you time.
If you have any questions about the changes to MessageFocus, please contact your Account Manager or email us on clients@adestra.com.
What’s in a name? How to use domains to your advantage
What’s in a name?
Standing out from the crowd can be tricky when so many businesses are increasing their use of email marketing. So why not make it even easier for your emails to go straight to your subscribers’ inbox and ensure your messages are heard?
We initially use a sub-domain of MessageFocus (msgfocus) within emails but this can be customised to be a sub-domain of your website or brand domain instead. Sending from your own domain can ultimately improve deliverability and increase your ROI.
Why do I need one?
By using custom domains in your email marketing you can ensure your brand identity is consistent and recognisable. It has the advantages of building user trust as the email is coming from a recognisable, safe sender and reduces the risk of ending up in a junk folder.
How does it work?
There are two possible ways to use custom domains in your email marketing:
• Authenticated domains – for using a personalised from address
• Delegated domains – allow a custom domain to form the links in your emails
To use an authenticated domain to make your from address appear more friendly, you need to set up an SPF record and assign it to the specified domain. If you’re not sure about the how-tos of this, it’s something your IT team will be able to help with. This has the ultimate advantage of making your from address appear less ‘spammy’ and more personalised as it removes the tracking string before the @ sign.
For example, using Adestra as the brand, a from address without an authenticated domain might look like this:
But it could look like this with an authenticated domain:
A delegated domain can also be used to make image and link URLs more consistent across your email campaigns. MessageFocus allows you to use your own domains for hosting links and images in your campaigns. This creates additional opportunities for branding and increases user trust as recipients can verify where the email has come from.
As your email campaigns are sent via the MessageFocus sub-domain, the links may look like this when they reach the recipients’ inbox:
By adding a CNAME record to your domain which creates a delegated domain, the links in your email campaigns would instead appear like this:
These little tricks can go a long way to improving deliverability as strict firewalls will be less likely to block or red-flag your campaigns before they hit the recipient’s inbox. Building your sender reputation and increasing brand awareness are added bonuses too.
Your Account Manager will be available to discuss further dos and don’ts of domains and make sure they work for you. Or you can contact clients@adestra.com for more information. Until next time!
Addressing your low open rates with four top tips
“My campaigns have a very low open rate” - A common response when asking clients how they feel their campaigns are performing.
The focus of email marketers at the moment is very much on automation, responsive designs, and clever dynamic or conditional content. These are by no means bad things to concentrate on, but neither do they address one fundamental requirement: the recipient actually opening the email when they receive it.
In the recent Econsultancy and Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2013, a staggering 44% of companies spend between 2-8 hours on the design and content of their email, yet only 20% of those same respondents suggested that they spend a similar amount of time on strategy and planning. You can create an amazingly designed and responsive template, full of dynamic content, with all the bells and whistles, but if no one is opening it, your time and resources – both commodities in short supply – could have been better spent.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
With the above quote in mind, to improve your open rate you need to have a plan in place and dedicate some resources to implementing it. Open rates are affected by two main things:
- Sender / From Name – they instantly recognise and know who you are
- Subject Line – should be clear and create a desire to open the email
Here are four quick and easy tips to help you refine your messages for the above points, and put together a plan that will enable you to increase your open rates:
1) Use a consistent Sender / From Name - this is a straightforward but very important part of building your reputation with recipients and increasing brand recognition. By using a consistent sender name, the recipient won’t have to think about who the email is from, and will make a quick decision as to whether it is an email they wish to open. It’s important to consider whether you use your company name or an actual person; if you build your brand on a person’s name and they leave your business, you will lose that recognition when you change the sender name.
2) Subject line strategy - this is possibly the most overlooked part of any email campaign. If you don’t have a subject line strategy, it’s time to start. This is all part of the wider idea of ‘inbox branding’: having consistent, recognisable, and inticing subject lines that someone can always associate with your brand. As an example, take a look at how Ebuyer.com emails appear in my own personal inbox:
Notice their strategy with the subject line? It’s always consistently personalised with my name, along with a single product for ‘only’ a certain price plus free delivery. Because of this, I always associate Ebuyer.com with a good price and free delivery on items.
3) Set expectations to new signups – although this may not be considered by many, it’s worth planning a welcome program, or at least a welcome email, when someone does opt in or signup. By warming them with a welcome email and setting an expectation of when they can expect to hear from you (daily, weekly, monthly etc.) you’ll increase the chances that they’ll continue to open your emails in the future. By not doing this, you run the risk of the user potentially forgetting they ever signed up at all, forgetting who you are and binning, marking as spam or unsubscribing altogether. Some companies like Ebuyer.com actually state that they send their newsletters on a Monday, Thursday and Saturday, which can be good to get recipients used to expecting their emails at regular times on specific days.
4) Clean up your data - why not read my previous blog on letting go of old or inactive data? Cleaning your data and removing those from your list that haven’t engaged in over a set period of time (e.g. 12 months) will naturally boost your open rate and be a better indicator of open rate among your active recipients. As an example, if you have a list of 100k contacts with an open rate of 5% (5000 people), and 50k who haven’t opened an email in 12 months, removing the inactive contacts will naturally increase your open rate to 10%. The 50k you remove can then be targeted differently to try and re-engage them to bring them back onto your active mailing list.
The above are four very quick tips but are by no means an exhaustive list of what you can do. It’s all about standing out and being unique in the inbox to ensure your email is read first and above all others.
They say the best things come in threes, so I’ll leave you with a final quote from General Patton about adding some of your own creativity to your plan. I encourage all clients to come up with as many crazy, out-of-the-box ideas as possible for the simple reason that…
“If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking.” - General George Patton Jr.
So, spend some time this week thinking differently about your emails and how you can increase your open rate. After all, your hard work and time spent in the design of email creative and content will be rewarded by people finally seeing the fruits of your labour.
MessageFocus Updates – 27th April, 2013
Lots of good stuff in the latest round of MessageFocus enhancements, including browser compatibility, data and reporting improvements, more design options in the HTML editor, and some built-in hints to make your campaigns more effective.
Campaign Hints
This brand new addition to the campaign overview provides you with hints on how you can improve your email campaign, while you’re creating it. From hints about using some of the additional functionality that MessageFocus offers, like split-testing or social sharing links, to reminding you to add a text version, Campaign Hints help to ensure you’re making the most of the technology available to you.
Campaign hints show up just above your campaign image.
You can easily turn Campaign Hints on or off too by clicking on “show” or “hide” Campaign Hints.
Turn it on by clicking on the ‘Show Campaign Hints’ link just above your mailing list information.
Read more about this feature in the MessageFocus Help documentation
Internet Explorer 10
With the recent release of IE10, we’ve made a number of browser compatibility improvements to provide Internet Explorer 10 users with a better user experience in MessageFocus.
New HTML Editor
Based on our clients’ feedback, we have made a few design-focused improvements to the new HTML editor. These include:
- ‘Helvetica’ is now available in the list of fonts.
- The colour selector now defaults to the colour of the currently selected text, making it much quicker for you to use.
- It’s now possible to add default colours to the colour selector that match your brand and email design. To set these up, just contact the MessageFocus support team with a list of hex codes (e.g. #0000FF) that you would like to default, and we will set them up for you.
Reporting
If you’re using Conditional Content in your email campaigns, the heatmap now has an option to show how the content would look for an individual contact that you have sent to. The click data for the whole campaign is still used when displaying the heatmap.
Click the ‘Show content for contact’ button to the right of your screen, just above the Link Activity section.
You can then select a specific contact to view how their email would look in the heatmap.
Data Management
Account administrators have two new data management features available to manage the way data is accessible and visible in your MessageFocus account.
- It’s now possible to specify which workspaces a core table or data tables are available in. This means you can have a core table available in multiple workspaces and hidden from others, making data management and control easier.
- Saved filters now have the option to to be shared over the same workspaces as a core table, making it possible to have account-wide filters saving you time.
If you have any questions about the changes to MessageFocus, please contact your Account Manager or email us on clients@adestra.com.
What’s in a name? How to use domains to your advantage
What’s in a name?
Standing out from the crowd can be tricky when so many businesses are increasing their use of email marketing. So why not make it even easier for your emails to go straight to your subscribers’ inbox and ensure your messages are heard?
We initially use a sub-domain of MessageFocus (msgfocus) within emails but this can be customised to be a sub-domain of your website or brand domain instead. Sending from your own domain can ultimately improve deliverability and increase your ROI.
Why do I need one?
By using custom domains in your email marketing you can ensure your brand identity is consistent and recognisable. It has the advantages of building user trust as the email is coming from a recognisable, safe sender and reduces the risk of ending up in a junk folder.
How does it work?
There are two possible ways to use custom domains in your email marketing:
• Authenticated domains – for using a personalised from address
• Delegated domains – allow a custom domain to form the links in your emails
To use an authenticated domain to make your from address appear more friendly, you need to set up an SPF record and assign it to the specified domain. If you’re not sure about the how-tos of this, it’s something your IT team will be able to help with. This has the ultimate advantage of making your from address appear less ‘spammy’ and more personalised as it removes the tracking string before the @ sign.
For example, using Adestra as the brand, a from address without an authenticated domain might look like this:
But it could look like this with an authenticated domain:
A delegated domain can also be used to make image and link URLs more consistent across your email campaigns. MessageFocus allows you to use your own domains for hosting links and images in your campaigns. This creates additional opportunities for branding and increases user trust as recipients can verify where the email has come from.
As your email campaigns are sent via the MessageFocus sub-domain, the links may look like this when they reach the recipients’ inbox:
By adding a CNAME record to your domain which creates a delegated domain, the links in your email campaigns would instead appear like this:
These little tricks can go a long way to improving deliverability as strict firewalls will be less likely to block or red-flag your campaigns before they hit the recipient’s inbox. Building your sender reputation and increasing brand awareness are added bonuses too.
Your Account Manager will be available to discuss further dos and don’ts of domains and make sure they work for you. Or you can contact clients@adestra.com for more information. Until next time!