TopTenReviews.com has a very helpful comparison chart of email delivery service features.

I’ve managed dozens of campaigns over the years and used many systems that cost from $25/mth – $10k/month. I honestly don’t prefer any one in particular — all have quirks. If I had to choose one, I’d probably recommend Blue Sky Factory, who cost a bit more than the average DIY services. But that’s for you to decide – there are many factors to consider ranging from quantity to feature set.

It’s All About Delivery

Delivery is such a challenge because you can get flagged as spam by:

• The Internet Service Providers (ISP)
• The recipients email service
• The corporate email system
• The end-user’s own filters

So regardless of the service provider, the most important features I recommend you look at for your evaluation purposes have to do with helping you get delivered to the inbox. They include:

• Relationship with the ISPs — Critical because it can help get your messages delivered and lower the risk of hitting the junk box.
• Delivery Testing — the appearance of your HTML email can vary so dramatically in client applications (i.e. Outlook 2000 vs Outlook 2003, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, etc.) vs Web browser-based email clients (i.e. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc.). Many services offer some sort of cross platform testing so you can work out the bugs before sending to your list. It also helps to send to a seed list of your own accounts as a safety check.
• Delivery Scoring — some providers have functionality/algorithms to make you aware of concerns that could get you flagged as spam so you can fix before sending.
• Reporting — Make sure all the basics are covered: delivery, undeliverables, open rates, click stats. Integration with Google Analytics is a plus.

Obviously I could add more, but to me, these are the most critical to get delivered to the inbox – and that’s just the first half of the challenge. The next is getting your email opened and your recipient to take action. But that’s a story for another time.

Please share your experience with us.

What’s your favorite Email Marketing Service and explain why. Thanks in advance!
-Roland

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I recently helped a business owner setup staff email accounts and the owner was surprised at my recommendation to write and distribute a policy before allowing his employees to access their new accounts. Once I began to explain the potential for his employees to abuse their email accounts — even unintentionally — and put his business at risk, it became clear why some time and thought needed to be put into defining a business policy for his staff.

Your company’s email usage policy should clearly define:

• The business email account is to be used exclusively for work-related communications. It should not be used for personal messages or registering at unrelated websites.
• Email is generally insecure so avoid sharing confidential information, trade secrets, proprietary information, patient information, etc. HIPPA and COPPA guidelines normally practiced should also apply to electronic communications to prospects, customers and business partners.
• The business email account password may not be shared with anyone.
• The business email account may not be used for sending hateful, disparaging, pornographic or other inappropriate messages.
• Management has the right to review email accounts at any time.
• Punishment for violating the email usage policy.

Build these guidelines into your standard employee handbook. To help you get started, check out this guidelines for workplace emails.

I hope you find this useful. Please share any additional suggestions.
-Roland

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I was reading a thread online where the original poster questioned the effectiveness of HTML emails. “I’ve begun to minimize the graphical elements to try to minimize the big “X’s” that are displayed if a person does not download the graphics.”

A half-dozen responders affirmed/advised to steer clear of publishing HTML emails and including images.

Professionally, I disagree with that opinion and consider that a sloppy marketing approach. Why dumb down your message in the hopes of increasing reach?

In tests I’ve been involved with, HTML emails continue to have better click-thru performance than text. But admittedly in order to take into account consumers viewing email on mobile devices, we should continue to push both. A few more suggestions:

• Publish both HTML and text format so the email client can decide which to accept. A reputable email service should provide send options for HTML, text and AOL.
• Keep header images thin vertically. Nothing is more unattractive than a 600×800 pixel placeholder when image blocking is on.
• Overall, keep your design simple, put emphasis on a compelling call-to-action and minimize distractions.
• Use descriptive ALT tags and link titles.
• Push one or more tests to accounts you have on Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, etc. Then check how your messages look in webmail, Outlook, Outlook Express, Apple Safari and Thunderbird.

That’s just a short list. I’ve talked about more in my Ten Email Marketing Best Practices video.

I hope you find this useful. What’s your experience?
-Roland

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The example to the right is a typical scam email made to look like it was sent by Google about the status of our Google Adwords account. (Click on it to enlarge the image.) It seems legitimate enough at a glance. Reality is it is a typical “phishing” scam trying to entice the victim to click through to a fake page and attempt to login with their username/password. Within a busy organization it wouldn’t be far-fetched that recipients would forward to the appropriate media managers.

While you may be extremely vigilant, how aware are your colleagues?

I’m suspicious by nature. Here’s what I do to evaluate suspicious email:

• Take my email account offline. That way I can open the message and reduce the chance of sending a tracking alert back to the sender that the email was opened.
• I click on the sender information to look for obviously incorrect address, but that can be faked to look legitimate.
• I’ll view more details of the header information to determine where it was sent from.
• I’ll mouse-over (not click) the main call to action URL in the body of the email. Often that displays a URL that doesn’t match the URL displayed in the body text. I pick the main call-to-action URL because sometimes other URLs in the email are legitimate to make you think it’s a real email.
• Bad grammar and misspellings are often a tell-tale sign.

If you’re spider-sense starts tingling, do not click through – no matter how tempting it may be.

Best Practices:

• Don’t click links in emails that ask you to take an action, such as to login to change your account information.
• Bookmark the real URLs of banks and companies you do business with and always use the bookmark to visit the website. That way you can’t mistype a URL and end up at a fake site designed to look like the real one.
• Don’t click “unsubscribe” or reply back to the sender. That only verifies your email address and encourages the sender to mail more to you. You’re better off to just delete it.
• Be a good netizen and forward fake emails to the companies you do business with. (e.g. phishing@google.com, spoof@paypal.com)
• If it’s taking you longer than 20 seconds to figure out if the message is legitimate, just delete it. You have better things to do with your time.

Hope you find that useful. Be sure to teach your family and colleagues to be vigilant to such scams.

-Roland

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• How to Sell to Seniors Online
• Great Examples of Corporate Twitter Use
• Guide to Producing Your Own Electronic Newsletter
• Blockbuster Sued For Participating In Facebook’s Beacon Program — This article is a good reminder to think carefully about liability issues when experimenting with technologies and media buying. The original core issue the public was outraged about had to do with companies like Facebook have shared purchase behavior information without the user’s permission. In addition, a law specifically about movie rental information privacy protection may now hold Blockbuster accountable for participating.
• Rules Of Engagement: Time Spent And New Metrics

I hope you find this useful. Please feel free to send me links to relevant articles.

Have a great week!
-Roland

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Successful email campaigns start with careful planning, design and list management. By investing time upfront, testing and measuring, you’ll learn something new to improve the success of the next deployment.

1. Have a plan
2. Maintain targeted mailing lists
3. Send only to opt-in subscribers
4. Send only relevant messages
5. Design with users in mind
6. Custom landing pages
7. Test everything
8. Measure everything
9. Comply with CAN-SPAM act best practices
10. Have appropriate unsubscribe functionality

If you have difficulty viewing the attached video, please try here instead:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/newmedia/videos/2/

This show is proud to be part of the Blubrry Network. Check out the fine shows at:
http://www.Blubrry.com

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“E-mail marketing services firm Emma is giving away 25 free accounts to charitable groups around the world as part of its annual Emma 25 initiative.

That’s an interesting concept – give away B2B services to non-profit groups for the holidays.

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