OnYourMark, LLC Blog

This month‘s Pro is Keith Klein, President of OnYourMark, LLC and author of WebForging - A practical guide to the art of forging your web presence. The following excerpt is taken from Chapter 6 - Hosting.

Multipart Emails
Ideally, your direct marketing emails should look like your website. To get around the problem of email clients that don’t read graphics, eSponse sends emails as multipart forms. This means that any email client that can’t read a graphical email gets a text version with a link at the top of it that says, “Click here to see a web page version of this newsletter.” That link takes the viewer to a corresponding web page that was automatically created by eSponse to match the graphical email. It is important to note that one should only click on the kinds of links we’re discussing if these links are from trusted sources.

Graphical emails are ideal because they allow you to build-in your web presence navigation - to mimic your web presence. We use a relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use web page (and graphical email page) generator by Macromedia called Contribute. You can create a graphical template with Contribute that includes elements (such as the ‘look and feel’ and navigation links) of your web presence, then ‘lock’ the template. From this locked template anyone can do a “Save As” and create the next edition of your e-newsletter without messing up the web coding embedded in the original.

Flexibility in List Management
Good direct marketing email programs allow one to easily upload lists from spreadsheets, email programs, and contact management programs to the emailing program for delivery to a particular set - or subset - of contacts. It is important that you be able to import, export and massage (with individual additions and deletions) your online direct marketing email list(s).

It is important to be systematic in your approach because lists can grow quickly. If your list cannot be imported, exported and merged and purged via your CRM program, you’ll find yourself with divergent and difficult-to-maintain lists.

Trackability
Some of the real beauty in a good direct marketing email program is in the trackability. For example, when using eSponse one can tell:

• How many emails were sent
• How many - and which ones, exactly - were received (bounced emails can be tracked so one can get updated contact information for the intended recipients)
• How many - and which emails, by recipient - were opened
• Of those emails that were opened, to a person, who clicked on what link within the email! This provides an astonishing amount of feedback regarding exactly who was interested in precisely what information that was contained within the email.

Opt-out Features
It is imperative that you give recipients the opportunity to opt-out of the list at any time with minimal effort. Opt-out should take place with one simple click. That click on the email launches a web page (with complete contact information, links to the rest of your site and to your Privacy Statement) that says something to the effect of, “Sorry to see you go. The email address, yourname@yourdomain.com has been removed from our list. If this was in error, or you’d like to add another email address, please do so here: (link).”

With eSponse, we go a step further. In accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act, if someone opts-out of getting emails this program remembers the opt-out. Even if you upload that recipient’s email address again via another list, eSponse has that recipient’s address in memory and will not allow another direct marketing email to go to the person who opted out. (You can do a manual override to get the person back on the list, though, in case they change their mind.)

Regular and Consistent Messaging
When you start a direct marketing email program, take the time to establish a solid format and work ahead a few issues. Once again, make sure your email looks like your web presence, that it has a consistent ‘look and feel.’ CAN-SPAM requires that you include complete contact information, including mailing address, with every email you send.

Consistent formatting is important, right down to the subject line and the ‘from’ address. Consistency is important for these because many of your recipients are likely to use email filtering to set up an email box that your messages are automatically forwarded to. Don’t screw up their filtering by arbitrarily changing your ‘from’ address or your subject.

Links Mentioned in this Article:

- www.esponse.com
- www.macromedia.com/software/contribute

What would you like to ask the pro? Email your questions to askthepro@OnYourMark.com!