months most popular

Showing posts with label email marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label email marketing. Show all posts

December 14, 2015

comparing click to open email by devices :mobile vs desktop vs PC


"email click to open rates by mobile vs desktop"
While mobile click-to-open (CTO) rates dipped slightly  in Q3 (to 13.7%), they remained up from the year-earlier period (12.1%) and continue to close the gap with desktop CTO rates, per Yesmail’s latest quarterly report.  mobile email  revenues also grew 2015 by 9.9% year-over-year, with smartphones accounting for 56.6% of mobile revenue, up from 41.6% a year earlier

Apple devices continue to dominate revenues derived from mobile email, accounting for 77% share this past quarter. The iPhone comprised 34% share of orders (up from 23% during Q3 2014), taking share from the iPad, which accounted for 43% of orders (down from 58% during the year-earlier period).


June 3, 2015

10 most popular email marketing software reviewed :infographic

Top Email Marketing Software reviews"

The top 20 email marketing software has been ranked  by  its installed base, the size of  their customer base  and their social following . Mailchimp, constantcontact and  vertical response has been ranked  by capterra as the top 3 based on the above parameters  while  Getresponse, Campaign monitor and  and Icontact  are among the top 10

December 30, 2013

Conversion rates of Email Marketing by Subject lines

l

Add caption
” Does email personalization have an effect on open rates? Research released earlier this year MailerMailer suggested that personalized emails tend to see higher open and click rates, although the same study last year found the opposite result. Now, new data from MailChimp supports the case that personalization can drive higher email open rates. Measuring the impact on open rate by standard deviations from the norm, MailChimp found that personalizing both the first and last name has the biggest impact, followed by personalization of last-name only and first-name only. The results varied considerably by industry.How much does ” does a click thro rate changes due to personalization ” The researchers discovered that the impact was particularly significant in a few industries, namely government (standard deviation of 0.92), creative/services agency (0.45), politics (0.3), computer and electronics (0.28) and hobbies (0.26). Personalization appeared to have had less of an influence on open rates in marketing and advertising (0.13) and business and finance (0.11), and actually was found to have a negative effect in the legal industry (-0.31).

October 13, 2013

How to increase your email open rates by 35%



‘via Blog this’
3 ways to increase your CTR on email campaigns



Infographic: Send Out-of-this-World Emails – Direct Marketing News: “According to Epsilon’s “Customer Insights Survey,” adult shoppers deem price (38%), quality (19%), and discounts or offers (8%) as some of the most important factors when deciding to purchase a product. So it’s only natural that marketers’ emails address these three primary desires

The top of the mind recall  was  based on the 3 most important factors
1) offers or coupons which can be redeemed
2)The Headline  and the  copy of the emailer
3)  The Subject of your email ..

2)In fact, respondents say that an email having a coupon (80%), containing information about something new (61%), or being customized to their interests (58%) are very or somewhat important.”

 The most important part of your email campaign is based on the fact” Users need to open your email ” inspite of the fact that on a daily average basis   around 80% of emails  are spam mails

Comparison Chart : Standard Email Services vs Bulk Emailers


 Mass emails vs Standard email comparison chart



 The chart above shows  ” a standard email mailers which most of us receive on  a daily basis. Emailers which are sent to their users  if they have 1) either subscribed  for a newsletter, Alerts, Notifications on something which you have opted in, ( This also includes  payment receipts, invitations,

Transactional Email Service :Transnational email is an expected email because it has been triggered automatically after a transaction or a specific event. Common examples of transnational email is : account opening and welcome message, order shipment confirmation, shipment tracking and purchase order status, registration via a contact form, account termination, payment confirmation, eCommerce purchase and many more. 

Bulk Emailers are used by publishers and this can be sent to a third party  which   sends you a have opted for such a service . Examples include a ” Newsletter which offer a coupon or a gift card which you can redeem (  at a store , a Holiday sales discounts, etc)

The basic difference is that while B2c users are  transnational  and sent for a service which you requested at some time by consumers

These services help you to send these emails without having to configure and manage mail servers, ensuring you to have state of the art configuration to ensure email deliverability. Your application can usually use SMTP protocol using their SMTP Relay, or use a specificAPI.

While Bulk Emailers are meant for most often that  for business or lead generation . These  emailers  are normaly send as a promotional  offer,  for  a third party. However   the veracity of these emailers  cannot be ensured, as it migh land up in  the junk box,  or the email service provider might not recognize the message

August 11, 2012

Social Web and Email Marketing CTR Rates




Adding Social Sharing buttons inside your emails when you are doing a marketing campaign (or newsletter) will boost the CTR (click-through rate) up to 115%. Unfortunately, only 18,3% of marketers use social reshare buttons in their emails. That’s the results of a study conducted by autoresponder Getresponse.

November 10, 2011

The Best Times and Worst Times For Email Marketing



viaDo you feel like you send out tons of emails but never get any responses? It might be the time of day that you’re sending out your emails that affects when they’re read and responded to. This infographic looks at the best and worst times to send out emails so you’ll never have to obsessively check your inbox ever again.

May 23, 2011

The Email Obtuiary : Past, Present, Future




Microsoft commissioned independent market research firm MarketTools to survey 1,268 professionals and students over the age of 18 to find out about their email and online communication habits. “We wanted to have an independent observation of how people were using the different communication tools at their disposal,” Microsoft Group Product Manager Paco Contreras told Mashable.

The survey found that a whopping 96% of respondents said their email load either increased (45%) or stayed the same (51%) over the last year. Ninety percent said that social media communication has increased (28%) or stayed the same (65%). The same is true for text messaging: 28% said texting has increased for them in the past year, while 65% said they have been texting at the same level over the past year.

Thirty-seven percent of MarketTools’ respondents said that they now spend half their day reading or replying to work email. While we aren’t surprised by that number, we were a bit stunned to learn that 55% believe spending time in work email increases their productivity. These people said that they prefer email communication especially when they want to send messages to multiple people at once (74%), want to have a written record of a conversation (73%) or have detailed information such as a document (65%).

As part of the study, Microsoft also released a rather lengthy infographic depicting the evolution of email since its introduction in 1965 (yes, email is nearly 50 years old). While the infographic is a little Microsoft and Outlook-heavy, it does provide a decent glimpse into the historical milestones of email, including the introduction of IBM Lotus Notes (1989), the introduction of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (1982) and even the release of You’ve Got Mail in box offices worldwide.

March 25, 2011

Statistics On “Mobile Email Consumption

Mobile Email Usage
3 Month Avg. Ending Nov. 2010 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Nov. 2009

Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers Ages 13+

Source: comScore MobiLens
  Total Mobile Audience (000)
Nov-09 Nov-10 % Change
Used email ever in month 51,639 70,105 36%
Used email almost every day 31,161 43,477 40%

According to Nov 2010 comScore data for US consumers, some 70 million mobile users accessed email through a mobile device, with 43.5 million doing so on a near-daily basis.

Mobile Email Now Mainstream 

 While web-based email has witnessed a decline over the past year, email usage via mobile devices has experienced significant growth, driven largely by increased smartphone adoption. In November 2010, 70.1 million mobile users (30 percent of all mobile subscribers) accessed email on their mobile, an increase of 36 percent from the previous year. Daily usage of email showed an even greater increase growing 40 percent as 43.5 million users turned to their mobile devices on a nearly daily basis for their email communication needs. 
 

Mobile Email Usage by Demographic Segment
3 Month Avg. Ending Nov. 2010
Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers Ages 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
  Index*
Gender  
Males 114
Females 87
Age  
Age 12-17 106
Age 18-24 146
Age 25-34 160
Age 35-44 124
Age 45-54 88
Age 55-64 50
Age 65+ 25
*Index – (% mobile email users / % mobile users)*100. Index of 100 indicates average representation

The same company’s Mobile Year in Review 2010 report revealed that personal email was the biggest content consumption category for mobile users, with more users checking personal email on a smartphone than participating even in social networks. 

 
Nielsen research on what mobile users do online showed email to be the most popular activity, accounting for 38.5% of mobile internet time. The next most popular activity was social networking (10.7%).

   Knotice tracked email opens across over 150 million emails in Q4, 2010. Mobile devices accounted for 13.36% of opens. The most popular device for reading mobile emails was the iPhone (8.74% of all opens) followed by the iPad (2%) and Android devices (1.92%).

 
n an August 2010 joint study conducted by Litmus and eROI, the average percentage of opens accounted for by mobile devices across the lists of 20 big-brand ecommerce, retail and publishing marketers was 12%. Again, the iPhone was the dominant mobile device, accounting for 9% of all opens.
 
Source :email-marketing-reports

February 5, 2011

November 24, 2007

Tips To Increase your email delivery

Ensuring that your email ultimately gets delivered to the end user or the person to whom it is intended in one of the greatest challengers for Online Media Companies. With over 60% of emails labelled as spam . Having a robust technology to beat ISP’s stringest policies and beating spam filters is a must to get a high open rate for your email campaign . Ensuring permission-based email is delivered to recipients’ inboxes requires an equal amount of effort on marketing and technical front.

1)Create a reverse DNS. Make sure your outgoing mailing IPs have valid RDNS (reverse DNS) entries set up. This ensures when a receiving email server checks who owns the IP trying to connect to it, you’ll come up as the result, passing one of the many basic checks ISPs do to deter spammer.# For delivering to AOL you need to make sure your SMTP service’s domain can be verified using a reverse DNS lookup. Check with your webmaster or host provider. For more information on this topic check out:

1. www.dnsstuff.com/info/revdns.htm
2. http://ezine-tips.com/articles/resources/20010817.shtml


2)Set up an SPF: SPF (define) is an additional step to verify an email sender’s identity. SPF adds another layer of authentication to your outgoing email and protects against phishing (define) attacks on your brand. Some ISPs, such as AOL, require SPF to be implemented to be considered for their white lists. SPF can be used to stop spam from being sent using unauthorized domain names. However, it should be noted that SPF only stops the spammer from forging the “From” field in the e-mail and does not stop the spammer from sending e-mails from a domain in which it is a member.

3.)Make only one connection. When connecting to an email server, send only one message per connection. Some systems still try to shovel as many messages through one connection as possible, akin to throwing 500 email addresses into the BCC field. ISPs frown on this technique, as spammers who want to get as many messages in before being blocked typically use this approach.

4.)Limit Email sending rate. Just because you can send a million messages per hour doesn’t mean doing so is prudent. Large spikes in traffic can be seen as dictionary (define) or denial of service (define) attacks. Though the ideal send volume depends on the list’s nature (e.g., B2C or B2B), a good rule of thumb is to limit your transmission to 150-200K messages per hour. Keep in mind you will also need to accept feedback in the form of bounced messages; your outgoing speed shouldn’t hamper your ability to receive bounces.

5)Accept bounces.: Some email systems, especially older ones, have a nasty habit of rejecting bounce messages. These “bounced bounces” arrive at the receiving ISP and can raise red flags. Nothing irks an ISP more than sending a response that a recipient doesn’t exist, only to have the notification rejected and the mailings continue.

6)Validate HTML content: One of the dirtiest tricks in a spammer’s arsenal is invalid, broken, and malicious HTML code, used to obfuscate his payload. If you use HTML in your messages, make sure your code is error-free and follows W3C HTML guidelines.

7)Avoid scripting: Security risks due to script vulnerabilities in email browsers have increased over the years. The result is most scripts, such as JavaScript and VBScript, are stripped out of messages. Some email systems reject messages outright if scripting is detected. For greatest compatibility, avoid using scripts in messages. Instead, drive your readers to your Web site, where dynamic components are easily rendered.

8) Avoid AOL 9.0 and MS 2003 image filter issues : AOL has recently released the newest version of its product, AOL 9.0. AOL is anticipating that 30 – 50% of their current customers will upgrade to 9.0 before year end. To protect users from receiving SPAM, AOL has put some measures in place that will affect how your message is received by your AOL subscribers. All graphics will be blocked from being displayed in HTML emails, and links will be deactivated for any new message sent to an AOL 9.0 inbox. When an email is received in AOL 9.0, users will have to click a link at the top of each message (Show Images & Enable Links) to view any graphics within your email. If this action is not taken, images and links will not be displayed or enabled. This is the default setting for AOL 9.0, however, the email recipient does have the ability to add the sender’s From Address into their address book (which AOL classifies as People I Know). Once this has been done, all emails received from this address in the future will automatically have images and links showing correctly.

How to ensure that your message is displayed properly?

Your recipients must add you to their address book as a sender they recognize and approve. You should add a line to the top of your email which states something like: “Attention AOL 9.0 users – please add [email protected] to your address book so that you can see all of our message.” Alternatively you can use the override feature in Broadcast to only send a text version of the message to AOL clients. For more information on this issue visit: http://library.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.cfm?CID=2455%20

MS 2003 will also filter the images. For more information visit: http://ktdcommunications.com/communications/katydid_023.htm

9)Be knowledgeable about where you are being blocked – Use a product like Blacklist Monitor to find out where you might be blacklisted. If you are blacklisted, ISPs who check these lists may not deliver your message to the recipient. You need to know where you are blacklisted and how to get delisted. AOL rejects up to 80% of the messages it receives. As many as 30% of your messages may not be delivered if you are blacklisted. Blacklist Monitor (www.blacklistmonitor.com) can tell you where and when you are listed, and provide tips on getting delisted.

10) Avoid being dumped into spam or bulk filters.

a)Use a product like Broadcast that conforms to standard protocols for message delivery
b)If you are sending a newsletter place the word “newsletter” and the date (including month) in the subject line. This reduces your spam score
c)Ensure each message contains an unsubscribe statement that links to a valid URL or a valid Mailto: link. However do not use the words “to unsubscribe” as these are now getting filtered. Use something like “to leave”
d)Do not include .exe or attachments in your message
e)Do not purchase lists
f)Do not rent lists that are not double-opt-in
g)Remind people of their relationship with you. Tell them in the message the email address that they used when they subscribed
h) Include a correct reply email address and telephone contact information in each email
i)Avoid sending long text articles
j)Do not send HTML messages without text alternatives. This can be accomplished in Broadcast by using the “Both” options and creating both a text and HTML version
k)Avoid sending messages with a large number of hotlinks
l) Do not use BCC distribution methods with more than 10 names per email. Use a product like Broadcast that creates an individual message for each email
m)Watch your email lists, heavy B2C distribution to @aol.com, @hotmail.com. @msn.com etc may be flagged
n)Avoid using words or phases that trigger spam filters. For more information on trigger words also visit: http://www.doctorebiz.com/06/021106b.htm and http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/spamfilter_phrases.htm
o) Check out the common tests that filters like Outlook and SpamAssassin use to filter your emails and try to avoid. outlook filters/SpamAssassin tests
p) Routinely check http://www.spamcop.net/ to see if you have been blacklisted unfairly. Send an email to have this rectified. They are quite responsive. To check their list enter: http://spamcop.net/bl.shtml?111.111.111.11 (where 111.111.111.11 is the IP address of your sending SMTP)
 q)Sending your delivery in small batches of 500 or less might avoid filtration. This can be accomplished easily by modifying your delivery options within Broadcast
r) A practical guide on avoiding spam filters can also be found from Marketing Sherpa

11)Distributed content filters. Several anti-spam companies help ISPs and enterprise customers cope with the influx of unsolicited email. Brightmail and Postini are two leaders in this field.

12)Using Public list. Publicly accessible blacklists and whitelists, maintained by volunteers, are often used by smaller ISPs and companies without dedicated email administrators. The most widely used lists are Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS), SpamCop, Spamhaus, and Spam Prevention Early Warning System (SPE)WS. SPEWS.org – www.spews.org/ ORDB.org – Open Relay Database – www.ordb.org/Listing criteria can be reliable or near capricious, depending on the list owner’s preferences. Administrators select the lists that most closely match their company’s policy.

A Guide To Email marketing Process :Part 1

Email marketing is probably the most effective form of marketing your business online . However email marketing has over the years undergone a huge change . From mass mailers to customised emails , email marketing scores over traditional marketing in a variety of ways

Simply defined email marketing is a process by which companies can reach out to their global audiences by offering a service or a product , or can it can also be used as a toll for retaining their customers

Email Marketing’s main strength is that it takes advantage of a customer’s most prolific touch point with the Internet… their inbox.

Although spam mail has done a great deal to discredit the Email Marketing industry,and over the years even ethical marketers who practises the best email marketing principles has got their name tainted by spammers.

However the benefits are still apparent and substantiated by the fact that in February, 2006,
a JupiterResearch report concluded that spending on Email Marketing will rise from $885 million in 2005 to $1.1 billion in 2010.The most apparent logic that makes email marketing such a killer application is that unlike many other marketing tools, Email marketing can be measured and ROI can be analyzed.other benefits of email marketing are

1) reaches out to diverse audiences and makes your bussiness truly global
2) Low cost as compared to traditional forms of marketing
3)Measurable, can be tracked to the nth degree
4)Can be customized
5) Allows more selective targeting , segmentation and Positioning of your products and services

Step 1 : Email Marketing Planning

Email marketing campaigns require that you create and plan the campaign, execute the delivery, and analyze the results. For most organizations who in-source, none of these activities can be done without significant involvement of IT staff. Whether it’s…
  • Extracting a targeted list of recipients
  • Creating a template for the email
  • Testing the email for potential spam-blocking
  • Sending the email at specific date and time
  • Seeing the results of the delivery after the fact or in real-time
  • Analyzing the results and taking corrective actions
Email marketing can be divided into two types 1) promotional mails that includes offers or promotional tools where the subscribers is encouraged to either purchase something or sign up for some offers .2) Emails that focus on customer retention in the form of a newsletter that provides subscribers with either weekly updates or latest happenings pertaining to the industry verticals which focuses on creating a long term relationship with the user.

Step 2:List Building of Your Database:

Email marketing requires you to have a list of your potential prospects that are interested in your products and services . In short they are our audience that have shown a genuine desire to know more about what you have to offer and have given their explicit permission to receive emails from you at theur mailbox . This is also know as permission based marketing . Further you should have an opt- in and opt- our feature to allow people to subscribe or unsubscribe your emails anytime they want. Many companies source the entire email list from other Emarketing companies . However this might be a problem are for some since you may not know the process by which they have gained access to the database .

Tips for an effective List Building

1)Leverage all existing Touchpoints:

Use all media you have at your disposal to entice people to come you your sign up page . Your website is the first interaction point for your visitors , ensure that you have the sign up page at all your important landing pages as well as some of the most trafficked internal pages.Similarly, include a link to your sign-up page wherever your company is listed on a partner or affiliate site. Place a PC displaying your sign-up page in your trade show booth. Radio ads should refer listeners to your website. The key is to get them to your website’s sign-up page. When your use a Press Release and provide a link to your newsletter page .

Make it easy to Opt in and opt Out ; provide clear instructions on opting in and more importantly opting out

3) Know your Target Audience

When someone opts-in, you should request a limited number of demographic questions such as: company name, industry and physical location. You can also include a survey to gauge interests directly within your emails. Understand where people are coming from so you can make adjustments as needed for future communications or promotions. One of the best resources for helping you expand your opt-in list is your existing opt-in list. Take advantage of it. Use the feature : Foward this mail Option , to get the viral effect started .

4) Consider the 4 Cs

Clear. Concise. Compelling. Customer-centric. When you write an email, put yourself in the reader’s shoes and think, “Why shouldn’t I hit the delete key right now?” Your readers are not opting in because they want to hear a sales pitch. They need to save time, money or effort, and always, to improve productivity and success. Your message must be compelling enough to convince people to sign-up, valuable enough to keep them wanting more, and useful enough to pass along.


Step 3: Deciding the email Format : HTML vs Plain text : While HTML scores over plain text in terms of look and feel and design capabilties .Many Email Clients blocks HTML images that gives ur users the impression that your emails look incomplete and uncool.

Studies show that marketing emails sent in HTML format get much better response rates and far fewer unsubscribes than those sent in plain text. The reasons for this are many, but perhaps the biggest reason can be summed up this way: HTML messages look cooler.

The great thing about HTML is all your recipients will be able to see it. The problem is that you can’t always predict just how it will look. Users with older or outdated email programs will likely see the message as text, and some will even see all that ugly HTML coding. Those using newer versions of Outlook or Outlook Express, Eudora, or Netscape Communicator will likely see the HTML as it was intended, at least partial.

Of all the bulk email management programs available, very few allow you to format text and HTML separately, thus making your message universal. One program in particular, called Broadcast, not only offers this cutting-edge capability, but also provides several list management and marketing tools. For more information on Broadcast HTML, and how you can download a free, fully-functional 10-day trial, see www.mailworkz.com.

Step 4:Creative Execution and usability Design:

The design of a mailer is one of the most important issue for the designers.Some common problems are the:
length of the email
disorganised structure of information
readability of text

Interactive emails are best constructed with lightweight HTML capability allowing the email to open quickly in order to grab the user’s attention before he/she moves on.The structure must allow people to scan and navigate the email without too much complication. The length of paragraphs, emphasis through bolding and colours as well as sectioning information with bullets and borders all contribute to a well structured email.

Any good designer will test their email on a variety of current, most used email clients.(E.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, Eudora etc). This process is called platform testing and ensures that the email will display correctly in as many email clients as possible. Sometimes it is not possible to ensure exact consistency on every email client; however the variations can be minimised through following best international practice and staying abreast of new developments in email clients.

Email Deployment and Spam Filters:You can either use a third party email delivery platform like Ybrant’s Zentyl, which is a bulk emaling software that is highly scalable which cans end bulk emails ( more than a million/billiion) in a short time. It provides creating of email campaigns,email list management , campaign tracking and reporting email campaign.

Step 5)Getting Your Email To Your Users mailboxes: How to avoid Blacklisting

We all know email is probably today’s most popular way to advertise. Every day our inboxes are filled with messages from people who want our business – whether we asked for the contact or not. Email is today’s biggest communication factor; but why shouldn’t it be? It’s all but free to use, and it’s almost instantaneous.

But there is one problem with advertising via email that you may not think of very often: blacklisting. All it takes is one complaint, and your ISP or domain name can be put on someone’s blacklist. If you’re on the blacklist, your emails are not getting through – and neither is your advertising message.

So how big of a problem is this? AOL, one of the world’s biggest Internet service providers, blocks a whopping 80% of messages to its subscribers due to blacklising. Your email could be the most legitimate message ever sent, but if one person forgets they signed up or decides to complain, you could be blacklisted. And for your business, the resulting slump in sales can be devastating.

What is a blacklist exactly? A blacklist is a database of known Internet addresses (or IPs) used by individuals or companies sending spam. Various ISPs and bandwidth providers subscribe to these blacklist databases to filter out spam sent across their network or to their subscribers. Companies like AOL, MSN, and Yahoo all have very strict policies on spam, so many well-intended, legitimate emails never get through.

So how can you be sure you haven’t been blacklisted? Unfortunately, you really can’t be 100% sure. You may be on someone’s blacklist and not even know it, and can be added to and removed from blacklists at the drop of a hat. The only way to prevent being blacklisted unfairly is to use today’s technology to keep track of it all. There is cutting-edge software technology available that checks all the major blacklists like Spamcop, MAPS, and SPAMHaus, to ensure your domain or ISP hasn’t been added.