MindComet

A New Challenge for Email Marketers: Gmail’s Priority Inbox

Yesterday, Gmail announced their new Priority Inbox feature. It allows users to set their inboxes to automagically sort through their emails and appropriately label them as Priority, Starred and Everything Else. The search parameters call on keywords, replies and general behavior based on the user and sender relationship.

So what does this mean to email marketers? Well, truthfully, this has the potential to lead to lower-than-usual activity rates with Gmail subscribers. If you’re not relevant in the subscriber’s mind, you will more than likely be relegated into the Everything Else box.

Now, more than ever, email marketers need to focus on relevance.

Marketers need to look at their subscriber’s behaviors and reactions to their emails. If this is done, marketers will have a better understanding in predicting how to segment their lists for future sends and hopefully earn the right to the Priorty box. This, of course, needs to be front-of-mind along with making sure you’re whitelisted as well as keeping design and code standards to an optimum.

Peep this video from Gmail below which illustrates the brass tacks of Priority Inbox:

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Aug. 31, 2010

For the Impulsive and Non-Committed: Gmail “Undo Send” Quick Tips

If you’re not already aware, Gmail offers an “undo” option after you send an email. At first, you were only allowed 5 seconds to decide whether or not your email was up to snuff, but now the Gmail team has EXTENDED the undo time limit from 5 seconds and provides 10, 20 & 30 second options.

If you’re unsure of how to turn this on, first go to the Labs icon.

Find the “Undo Send” option and enable it.

Then once you’ve saved your changes, navigate to the Settings link and select your cancellation period.

Now, whenever you hastily write an email and send it without double checking to see if you’ve attached that time-sensitive document, you’ll have up to 30 seconds to cancel, fix your mistakes and send confidently.

Another reason why Gmail is really the only web email client you should be using. No other client comes close to the amount of options and customization offered by Gmail.

Thanks to Mashable for the inspiration.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Aug. 24, 2010

Email Opt-In Fail at Fresh Market

After a quick sandwich run to The Fresh Market, I noticed this little desk next to the door:

What’s wrong with the photo above? Does anything seem a little off to you?

At first glance, it seems like a fancy little desk to fill out a comment card or sign up for a shopping spree… then I saw the SIGN UP call to action. Similarly in email, “the real world” needs CALLS TO ACTION to guide the eyes of “users”, but I digress…

Since there was a keyboard on the desk with a tiny screen attached at the top, I figured it was a very clever way to sign up for an email newsletter before you left. Especially since underneath SIGN UP, it mentioned something about email newsletters. But as I sat down to plug in my email address, I realized the keyboard was there to be used as a way to collect your information if you’re APPLYING FOR A JOB. Major fail and a missed opportunity there.

Notice the little postcards in front of the SIGN UP poster? Yeah, you need a pen or pencil to jot your name and email down. Then they’re gathered up at the end of the day and MAILED to their database headquarters only to be MANUALLY ENTERED, which then I’m assuming the cards are thrown away or at least recycled. What a waste.

To add insult to injury, there was no pen at the desk. I had to ask a cashier to borrow hers in order to sign up. This was a FAIL in every respect of the word.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Aug. 16, 2010

Override Yahoo’s Dreaded Default Link Color

Have you noticed your emails showing up with defaulted dark blue links across your emails in Yahoo Mail? Are you as annoyed as me? Yes and yes? Good.

CampaignMonitor has recently revealed what’s happening and how to prevent it.

Basically, Yahoo is adding a CSS class called “.yshortcuts” to all links within your email which includes a default color of #366388. Bummer.

But there’s an easy fix for this and there are two ways you can go about implementing it.

Within your style tag, paste the following:

<style type=&quot;text/css&quot;>
   div { color: #CCCCCC }
   a { color: #456456 }
   .yshortcuts { color: #CCCCCC } /* Body text color */
   .yshortcuts a span { color: #456456 } /* Link text color */
</style>

Then for every link, use the class “yshortcuts” within a div tag.

You can also apply this fix inline like so:

<a href=“#“ style=“color:#456456; text-decoration:none;“><span style=“color:#456456;“>Link</span></a>

This is a little repetitive, but it’s a sure-fire way of preventing your links from turning up blue in Yahoo!.

Unfortunately this will not prevent Yahoo! from adding links to physical addresses and the like (called Yahoo! Shortcuts). It will only prevent the embedded links in your email from turning blue.

Also, this is only appearing in the new Yahoo! Mail, not Yahoo! Classic.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Aug. 11, 2010

Outlook 2007 Can Now Render Background Images

For the past 3 years, designers and marketers alike have been trained to avoid implementing background images into their email’s designs. This was due to Outlook 2007’s inability to display such images. We all just kinda accepted Outlook’s faults and our collective emails designs were held back. But, alas, we will be deprived no more!

It has recently been discovered by a user of CampaignMonitor that background images can indeed display in Outlook 2007! But not without some hacking, of course.

First you have to add xmlns:v=“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml” to your html tag.

Secondly, within your style tag, add the following selector:

v\:* {
  behavior: url(#default#VML);
  display:inline-block;

Then, within your table cell, you must add:

<td width="600" height="402" valign="top" bgcolor="#000000" background="images/yourimage.gif">
  <!—[if gte mso 9]>
  <v:image id="image" style='position:absolute; height:402px; width:600px;top:0;left:0;border:0;z-index:1;' src="images/yourimage.gif"/>
  <v:shape id="text" style='position:absolute; height:402px; width:600px;top:0;left:0;border:0;z-index:2;'>
  <![endif]—>
  <p align="center" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#ffffff; font-size:18px;">This is the text in front of the background image.</p>

<!—[if gte mso 9]>
  </v:shape>
  <![endif]—>

Believe it or not, the combination of the steps above allows for background images to render in Outlook 2007. Try it out yourself. I'll be testing this all day today, if I come up with any issues, I'll be sure to update this post. If you find anything, please share them and comment below or on the original thread at Campaign Monitor.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Jul. 15, 2010

Is AskMen.com Coming On Too Strong?

As an email marketer, I am all about getting as much subscriber information as possible. Knowing who they are and knowing what is relevant to them is invaluable. Having this information makes for an ideal relationship for both the marketer and the subscriber.

But how exactly are you supposed to go about getting this information? Do you ask for as much personal and lifestyle information as possible up front? Or do you take a more lengthy approach, collecting data through responses and activity over time?

AskMen.com believes in the former.

When signing up for their newsletter, you’re given a series of options that are presented in a 4-step process.

The first step being the “List City Guides” step. Mainly, there is a pre-selected opt-in to their newsletter , the “A. List”, which covers everything “guys need to know” about. They also set expectations informing users that it arrives every Wednesday. Nicely done.

In addition to opting in to receive their general newsletter, it provides the opportunity to sign up for newsletters based on a major US, Canadian, UK or Australian city. I’m assuming this comes in handy whenever AskMen is sponsoring an event in that particular city or when a they have a lot of editorial or user-submitted content for a specific area.

The second page consists of more general demographic info—name, sex, zip, etc. The usual suspects. It also provides an option to receive BlackBerry text versions of the newsletter. Smart move, as I’d imagine a large portion of AskMen.com’s potential subscribers probably use BlackBerrys.

The third page consists of an arbitrary refer-a-friend step, which is where AskMen.com loses focus. There is no incentive for the new subscriber to invite their friends to a newsletter that they have not yet received. It comes off as being a little greedy, but I give them an A for effort.

Finally is a sports-centric page with the opportunity to sign up for newsletters on all of the major american sports.

Once this process is complete, they know what city you live in (or near), general demographic info, if you’re using a BlackBerry, who your 5 closest friends are and what your favorite sports are… and they know all of this off the bat.

So is this method of data collection overkill? Does it turn potential subscribers off from signing up? Or is it best to collect this information upon sign up and get it out of the way?

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Jul. 14, 2010

The EEC Spearhead Metric Standardization

Since the inception of email marketing, professionals have struggled to come together and agree upon a means of determining metrics. Believe it or not, there have yet to be any standards put in place.

The landscape of determining email metrics have largely consisted of rogue marketers and independent states, determining their own specific way of measuring the results for their emails.

But this is all about to change. The EEC (Email Experience Council) is stepping up and facing this problem head on by proposing industry-wide standards for metrics. The EEC has created a group of leaders in the email marketing industry, dubbed the Measurement Accuracy Roundtable. The group is focusing on ESPs (Email Service Providers) to join the movement, as they are the ones who will be implementing the reporting standards in the future.

For more information on the S.A.M.E. (Support Adoption of Metrics for Email) project, visit the EEC’s site. Once there, you should review the particularly interesting Project Guide PDF. Pay close attention to the ESP Reporting Matrix in that document… Out of 10 ESPs, each determined Delivery, Opens and Clicks differently—no wonder there’s such a huge need for standardization.

I can predict that if this gets momentum on the ESP side of things, there are going to be huge changes in email marketing. New terms and definitions popping up, completely transforming the ideas of success and failure. Hopefully for the whole, the growing pains won’t take too long to leapfrog.

MindComet will be in full support of this initiative, adopting the new standards by December 2010.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Jul. 07, 2010