MindComet

Target Misses the Mark

I’ve never bought anything from target.com. So why would they think this email would apply to me?

This seems to be a botched, misdirected send, doesn’t it? The entire message simply does not apply to me. From the copy “click on the item below” to the absence of any items to the missing related products, this email was an undeniable misfire. I should not have received this email. Period.

I can’t tell if this was a system generated hiccup or a manual mishandling. Either way, a corporation like Target with their breadth of resources should not be experiencing issues like this. Although, they did recently run into some hot water about an offensive costume for sale in their online store. Seems like they need to re-evaluate some things and get their ducks in a row.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Oct. 28, 2009

Emails Like This Make People Like Me Opt Out From Your List

Let me start with a rhetorical question. If you saw this email, would you consider it spam?

Well, if you’re anything like me, you thought it was spam and opted out immediately. There’s nothing here that screams “legitimacy”, even if it actually is a legit message (which this is).

And as you can see, even with the images “on” it still doesn’t do much to defend itself.

Another telling reason why I thought this was spam is because I never opted in to ever receive emails from Nation’s Restaurant News. It was most likely because I accidentally opted into a partner network of email lists. Shame on me for not paying better attention.

I think it would be wise if all 3rd-party emails had a disclaimer above the fold, warning the user that the email they’re receiving may not be of interest to them. This verbiage would also have a prevalent opt out link next to it.

Another thing I’d like to note is that the email wasn’t from Nation’s Restaurant News, it was from Ellen Koteff. Ellen, I don’t know you and I surely don’t want emails from you. If the email is from a company, it should be FROM the company. No excuses.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Oct. 27, 2009

WordPress Unveils Email Service

Bloggers who’ve struggled with implementing an email newsletter into their blog can rest easy. Wordpress—with assistance from Feedburner—have developed a plug-in for their users that allows them to set-up and send emails from the convenience of their dashboard. It works exactly how you’d imagine… The newsletters take posts & snippets of content from their blogs and update their users via the inbox. The service also provides access to statistics like click through rates, open rates and the like.

Granted, there are competing email services specifically for blog, but aren’t free. The other service providers have many more capabilities than what Wordpress is offering at the moment. For right now this is a bare-bones method of delivering updates straight to the subscribed users. Although, I’m sure the developers at Wordpress will continue to improve this feature over time, especially if the majority of their users adopt it.

An announcement like this won’t overwhelmingly effect top-tier ESPs, but I have to imagine that this will definitely impact their acquisition of small businesses. And something like this should be seen as a threat to those ESPs who specialize in small businesses or individuals for the majority of their revenue stream. With such pro-active solutions as this, it’s no doubt that Wordpress is one of the biggest blog platform providers out there. A free service like this will only help maintain their dominance in the blogware market.

If you have a Wordpress blog, you can find out more on implementing your newsletter here.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Oct. 09, 2009

Body Background Images Can Add Depth To Your Email

If you’ve followed this blog for the past couple of years, you know that I’m a big proponent for the removal of background images in email design. This is all due to the popularity of unsupported clients such as Outlook ‘07 and even Gmail to a certain extent. Although, sometimes a series of events will take place that will lead you to change your whole perspective on things.

In this case, that perspective-altering event was visiting Dylan Boyd’s killer Email Wars blog. The post that really piqued my interest included a screenshot of a BEEEAUTIFUL email from Columbia. The forest-landscape background totally threw me for a loop. As far as background images go, they usually consist of a gradient or repeating image, but rarely do I ever see photo-realisitc backgrounds in the bodies of emails. It caught my attention to say the least.

I then remembered that the geniuses at CampaignMonitor discovered a method of getting background images to display in the body of an email. So even this email could be displayed as intended in Outlook ‘07. Win.

I think this should be an example for creative online marketing and advertising departments to stretch their email designs out a bit. Try incorporating big, sweeping background images. I think most B2C email campaigns could benefit from at least testing this.

Have you seen any other brands using photo-realistic background images in the body of their emails? Provide examples in the comments.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Oct. 07, 2009

List Rentals Are Not the Answer

Ahh list rentals… If you ask me they’re a sign of desperation that usually stems from an out-of-touch marketing department who “demand results”. Well guess what? As far as I can tell, utilizing a list rental service is not the way to go if you want results.

But if you do ultimately decide that renting a list will help you reach your goals, then you should keep a few things in mind. If you are going to rent a list, know what to look for in a vendor. From reading this article on clickz, they point out a few things to look out for when choosing a legitimate vendor.

1) Look at their prices. If there’s a sliding scale for the amount of email addresses your message will be sent to, then you should avoid them. Know what other vendors are charging. Get an average and an idea of what you should be spending. If something seems to good to be true, then… well, you know the rest.

2) If the vendor gives you the addresses to send to, then they’re bunk. They’re an asset to the vendor and they should treated it as such. If they’re handing them out willy-nilly then you should be alarmed and not do business with them.

3) Make sure if the list is double opt in. Double opt in lists traditionally make for better results, but this is usually applied to house lists. This is difficult (nearly impossible) for a vendor to prove without giving you their list. Also, if they insist their contacts are opted in, the question remains, “opted-in to what?“

4) If the vendor doesn’t give you their IP address, then don’t do business with them. Period. If they do provide you with an origin IP, take it as a sign of confidence on their part. You can check their sending IP at the following sites: Senderbase.org, ReputationAuthority, and BarracudaCentral.org. If you don’t check the IP addresses reputation and it turns out it’s blacklisted, your brand may be perceived as spam by users and ISPs alike. Once the send is completed and you’re looking to gather up your reports to see how the send performed, do not use baselines from organically grown lists as a means of measurement. You will almost always be disappointed in your results if you do this.

All in all, list rentals seem shady to me… no matter how much the vendor pleads the lists’ legitimacy, I’d be very apprehensive to pay for it. The best way to get results is to send timely messages with relevant content to users who opted in to specifically receive your emails. It takes time, patience and attention. Again… time, patience and attention.

Has anyone ever sent a successful list-rental campaign?

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Oct. 01, 2009