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Free Email Marketing Guide
Free Email Marketing Guide
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1. Why is email marketing important? …..……………………………………..……………... 2
2. What is Fluxx and what can it do?................................................................................. 4
o rapid
o scalable
o measurable
o cost effective
When talking about email marketing, we don’t mean just sending to all your contact through
Outlook, and hoping it does something beneficial (we actually wouldn’t recommend sending
HTML emails through Outlook because your emails are not going to display correctly for
recipients who don’t use Outlook). Marketing through email involves drafting a plan, creating
purposeful content, collecting email addresses on your website, segmenting email lists based
on customer behavior, analyzing email marketing campaign reports, and a whole lot more.
On top of all that, take a look at email marketing’s cost-to-benefit ratio. How much does your
company have to put out, to get the benefit they receive? Most marketing professionals agree,
even across industries, email marketing has one of the highest cost-to-benefit ratios compared
to other marketing methods. Just think, in one working day, you can have a single person in
your organization write an HTML email newsletter, send it out to 25,000 people, and
immediately see the results via traffic on your website or calls to your sales people.
Question: How much do you think it would it cost to get the word out about Company ABC’s
new product through traditional media, such as advertising in a magazine, compared to using
email marketing? Further, how would you measure the effectiveness of the marketing
campaign to make sure you’re getting the highest possible ROI (Return on Investment)?
Answer: If Company ABC decided to advertise in a small magazine, with an average circulation
of 25,000 readers, it could easily cost them upwards of $2,000. On top of that, it would not be
easy to figure out how effective the advertisement was. However, if Company ABC used email
marketing, they could send to 25,000 highly targeted people for only $510 with Fluxx. That’s a
savings of $1,490! What’s more, it’s easy for Company ABC to see the real data behind the
campaign to measure its effectiveness via Fluxx’s robust email tracking and reporting tools.
What terms should you avoid in your email content (text) to reduce the chances
of it being marked as spam? To help everyone out, we’ve listed some tips below that will help
guide you – but remember, things always change. It’s the nature of the email industry to have
spam filters that constantly change to keep ahead of spammers. Even when you're sending an
email campaign to subscribers who opted-in, your email can still be flagged as spam by
overzealous spam filters, which seem to be getting more and more aggressive with their spam
flagging analyses.
Listed below are a number of simple tips and techniques you should consider when writing the
content for your campaigns:
1. Minimize the use of these words and phrases in the subject line, message body,
sender address, and reply-to address:
o Use of the word “free” (note: "free" tends to have more leeway than most other
trigger words), $$, XXX, sex or !!! (any excessive punctuation)
o Subject contains "Double Your", "?", "For Only" or "Free Instant".
o TOO MANY CAPS IN THE SUBJECT LINE
o Email contains at least 70 percent blank lines
o The from field appears to not contain a real name, ends in numbers or contains
the word “friend”.
2. Monitor new subscribers in your lists. Set suspicious "spamflag" addresses such
as "abuse@" or "marketerspam@" as inactive subscribers.
Ultimately, the most important thing you can do is adhere to best practices for email marketing.
Gain permission, compose relevant content, and deliver messages according to the customer's
needs, wants, and preferences.
So, how can you make those precious few words in the subject line grab your recipients’
attention, create interest, and make them want to open your campaign? Below are some
principles that work:
Keep it simple
Keep it short and simple. Write your subject line so that there are fewer than 10 words; fewer
than 5 is even better. Keeping your subject line down to a few words will make your email seem
more credible.
Your prospects are always interested in one thing: What's in it for me? Write with that in mind --
which means write about the benefits that matter to them, not features that matter to you.
You who?
While it's generally a good thing to use the word "you" in persuasive copy, it's a spam predictor
in subject lines. Few people use the word "you" in emails to colleagues; spam uses it frequently.
The closer your subject line comes to the tone of ordinary email, the more likely it is that your
message will be opened.
Don't do it!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't use exclamation points at the end of the subject line. Rarely do you see personal emails
that need that kind of "noise" to grab your attention. Do use question marks, if doing so makes
sense. Questions are much more engaging than statements.
We have been so inundated with slick sales stuff that it now is an automatic turnoff. Avoid words
like "limited time," "free," "opportunity," and "only." Doing so may hook some; it will turn off many
more.
Not every email client has a preview window, nor does everyone who has a preview have it set
to preview. The important thing to remember here, is that whether the first part of the message
is seen in a preview or when the email is first opened, it still has to grab your recipients’
attention and engage them to keep reading.
The four biggest issues with the display of text-only newsletters are:
1. Line lengths
2. Links
3. Characters
4. Justification
1. Line Lengths
Email software has a nasty habit of breaking up lines of text in inconvenient places. As a result,
your carefully written newsletter can appear like this:
The solution is to keep lines short and add hard returns at the end of each one. The consensus
is that restricting each line to 65 characters offers the greatest protection from jagged formatting
problems. When editing and formatting a text newsletter, set your editing software to a width of
65 characters with automatic hard returns.
If your software can't do this, you can simply adjust the margins of your text editor so the lines
wrap at 65 characters. Then when you're done, run the cursor or mouse down the side of the
page and hit the enter button at the start of every line not already preceded by a hard return
(pressing the enter key).
Often a newsletter will keep to a 65 character line length, only to include a URL which far
exceeds this length. Long URLs, just like long lines of text, may be broken into two lines by an
email client, so they might look like this:
http://www.yourdomain.com/cam/nova/serv45/1234
FG.3456hgrts.html
This makes the URL un-clickable, or only the first line is clickable (and takes you to the wrong
address). A big email no no. To increase the chances of long URL's being clickable, make sure:
o All URLs are written in full, for example http://www.yourdomain.com and not
www.yourdomain.com
This can mean unusual punctuation if you put a URL in brackets or at the end of a sentence, for
example:
( http://www.yourdomain.com/ ) or;
Visit http://www.yourdomain.com/ .
Under most situations however, it should be possible to rephrase the text so that this kind of odd
punctuation is not required.
If you need to include a very long URL in your email (greater than 65 characters), another
approach is to use redirects. You create a page on your website with a shorter URL. When
someone follows this short link and reaches the web page, they are automatically redirected to
the actual destination URL. For example:
This would redirect the visitor straight on to the long URL, but your link in your text email will
remain clickable.
As well as ensuring the clickability of links, the redirect approach can also smarten up a
newsletter by giving all the outbound links a consistent look.
If you don't have the time to set up redirects, you can use a free service like TinyURL.com
(http://www.tinyurl.com/), which can convert long URL's into something like http://tinyurl.com/6tu.
These links are almost always short enough to remain clickable and they never expire.
There is a downside to redirects though. Some people can get confused if you point to a certain
website, but the link appears to go to another website. Some readers will question why the end
destination URL is not revealed in the newsletter and assume some dark motive. They might
assume the newsletter is using a redirect to mask the fact that the link has been paid for, or
involves some other financial connection between the newsletter and the end destination.
3. Characters
Another problem with the display of text-only newsletters is how email clients handle "odd"
characters, which is anything outside the standard ASCII character set.
Despite the myriad of modern word processing tools available, it pays to create and edit text-
only newsletters using a simple text editor. Email clients will then faithfully reproduce any
character you can create.
o abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
o ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
o 0123456789
o "%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?_
4. Justification
Our final problem is justification, i.e. the alignment of text on the page. Most email clients display
text messages using a fixed-space font (such as Courier).
This means every space and character takes up the same amount of width. Knowing this, you
can center and right justify text using the space bar. In this example, hitting the space bar ten
times before the text centers the message between the dividers:
*********************************
Text centered
*********************************
The problem is that some email clients are set up to view text in a different font, one without
fixed spaces. Look what happens to our centered text in the Verdana font:
*********************************
Text centered
*********************************
The solution is to justify your text so that it still looks passable in other fonts. Be particularly
careful when centering or right-justifying text using the space bar.
When personalizing a recipient’s name, you can provide a fallback value which is displayed if
that field is empty for that recipient. If you would like nothing displayed when a recipient's name
field is empty, simply leave the fallback value blank (e.g. [firstname,fallback=]).
To import your contacts from Outlook (.csv file), follow these simple steps:
1. From the Outlook main menu, select File > Import and Export. This will take you to
Outlook's "Import and Export" Wizard.
2. Select Export to a file and then click Next.
3. Select Comma Separated Values (Windows) and then click Next.
4. Choose to export from the Contacts folder and then click Next.
5. Type a file name (ex: "mycontactlist") and click Browse to locate the directory where you
want to place the exported file. Then click OK to close the "Browse" dialog box.
6. Click Next, and then Finish. The new CSV file should now be in the location that you
indicated.
To import your contacts from Outlook Express (.csv file), follow these simple steps:
1. From the Outlook Express main menu, select File > Export > Address Book. This will
take you to the Address Book Export Wizard.
2. Select Text File (Comma Separated Values) and then click Export.
3. Click Browse to locate the directory where you want to place the exported file. For file
name, type in a file name of your choice and add CSV at the end (ex: mycontactlist.csv).
The Save as type: pull-down menu should display Comma Separated Values (*.csv).
Then click Save and Next.
4. In the Select the fields you wish to export section, you can select whichever fields you
want to import into your account. You will have the option to rename these column
headings later. Click Finish. The new CSV file should now be in the location that you
indicated.
To import your contacts from ACT! (.csv file), please follow these simple steps:
1. From the File menu in ACT!, select Data Exchange > Export. This will take you to the
Export Wizard.
2. From the File type drop-down list, select Text-Delimited (default choice). Click on the "..."
next to the Filename and location box.
3. At the top, in the Save in pull-down menu, select the directory where you want to place
the exported file. For file name, type in a file name and add CSV at the end (ex:
mycontactlist.csv). The Save as type pull-down menu should display Text - Delimited
(*.csv). Then click Next.
Note: If you have difficulty exporting the data from ACT!, contact ACT! support for assistance.
Note: If you have difficulty exporting the data from GoldMine, contact GoldMine support for
assistance.
To import your contacts from the Mac Address Book, you first need to create a vCard file by
following these simple steps:
1. Open the Address Book and click on the group of contacts you want to export.
2. Click File > Export Group vCard, give the file a name and export it.
Next, you'll need to convert the vCard file into .CSV format and import it into your account...
1. Go to http://labs.brotherli.ch/vcfconvert/
2. Complete the form by browsing to your vCard file, changing the format to CSV and the
delimiter to Comma. Make sure vCards with email only is checked.
3. Save the file to your computer, you now have a CSV file for all your contacts in that
group with a valid email address.
Simply click on the list you would like to create a subscribe form for in the Manage Subscribers
section, then select the “Add a subscribe form to my site” option on the right under List Options.
Next, copy the supplied HTML code and paste it into the HTML code of the web page you are
adding the form to. You can format the form in any way you like, but you must not change the
action of the form or the name of the form elements.
We also provide you with a number of simple subscribe form options you can use to extend the
functionality of your subscribe form.
1. Add an opt-in checkbox for other lists - If you have any other subscriber lists set up, you
can add checkboxes to the form allowing your subscribers to join other lists
simultaneously.
2. Subscribe Confirmation Page - You can specify your own web page that you would like
someone to be redirect to once they complete this subscribe form. If you don't specify a
page, a generic thank you page will be displayed to the subscriber.
3. Subscription Confirmation Email - You can send all new subscribers a welcome
message when their subscription is confirmed. You must tick the checkbox so you can
customize the message and for the confirmation email to be active.
If this is a double opt-in subscriber list, you have a number of further customization options,
including:
1. The Initial Confirmation Page - This page should inform the subscriber that a
confirmation email has been sent to them with a link they will need to click on to confirm
their subscription to this list.
2. The Verification Email Content - You can customize the copy used in the verification
email, the subject and the from name and email address.
3. The Secondary Confirmation Page - The web page would you like to be displayed after
the subscriber clicks the confirmation link in the verification email.
While the CAN-SPAM laws are a step in the right direction for classifying and reducing spam,
we don't feel they go far enough. Our definition of spam goes beyond the laws in most countries
and encompasses what we believe to be true permission email marketing.
Spam is any email you send to someone who hasn't given you their direct permission to
contact them on the topic of the email. But that's not enough. Permission is a fuzzy word
open to interpretation. Let's get into some specific scenarios so it's clear what does and doesn't
constitute permission.
You can only email subscribers using Fluxx if you obtained their permission in any of the
following ways.
If someone completes an offline form like a survey or enters a competition, you can only
contact them if it was explained to them that they would be contacted by email AND they
ticked a box indicating they would like to be contacted.
By making a purchase from you they have provided their permission implicitly. Feel free
to email them but at the same time, we think it's always better to ask anyway, so why not
include an opt-in checkbox as part of the checkout process.
Basically, anything outside the examples above doesn't equal permission in our eyes, but here
are some examples to make sure everything is clear.
Whether you purchased a list, were provided one by a partner or bought a bankrupt
competitor's customer list, those people never gave YOU permission to email them and
they will consider your email spam. No matter the claims of the source of this list, you
cannot email them.
• You scraped or "copy and pasted" the addresses from the Internet
Just because people publish their email address doesn't mean they want to hear from
you.
Permission doesn't age well. Even if you got their permission legitimately, they won't
remember giving it to you. If you haven't sent something to that address in the last 2
years, you can't start now.
o The subscriber has an email reader that does not display images
o A given subscriber may open some, but not all, of your emails.
Because of these reasons, you should never remove a subscriber from your list unless you
know for a fact they are no longer interested in what you're sending them.
This check means you are never charged for a duplicate subscriber email address and the
same email is never sent twice to the same email address.
Single opt in
Single opt in means that as soon as a subscriber completes a subscriber form, they are
automatically added to that Subscriber List. No additional confirmation is required.
Double opt in
Unlike single opt in, double opt in requires your subscribers to validate their email address
before being added to your subscriber list. When a new subscriber completes the subscribe
form on a web site, an email is immediately sent to the supplied address containing a
verification link. To complete their subscription, that person must click the verification link.
Listed below are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using double opt-in Subscriber
Lists:
Advantages
1. While it does not eliminate them completely, double opt in reduces the probability of
spam complaints. Related to this, you won't get people subscribing their friends to the list
without their knowledge. The confirmation process will help to ensure that people are
only subscribed with their consent.
2. You will have a cleaner list because people have to use their real email addresses in
order to confirm their subscriptions. This also eliminates misspelled addresses or those
with typos.
3. Potentially more responsive subscribers. Those who are genuinely interested enough to
confirm their subscriptions may also be more inclined to respond to your campaign or
newsletter.
1. You may lose a number of potential subscribers because people may not bother to
confirm their requests.
2. Potential subscribers who genuinely want to receive your newsletter may not understand
the confirmation process.
You can also customize the single and double opt-in process by selecting the URL of any
confirmation pages and modifying the contents of the verification email.
Your segments can be as simple or as complex as you like, and they're a breeze to build with
our step-by-step wizard. Once you create a segment, it will be available in the Define Recipients
screen when sending your next newsletter. Here's a quick overview of the process.
Click on the Manage Subscribers tab, then select the list you'd like to create a segment for.
Next, click the Manage segments link under List Options.
Click on the Create a new segment link on the right hand side.
Give the segment a recognizable name that describes the types of subscribers it will include.
30 Day Free Trial www.experiencefluxx.com 23
4. Create your first rule
Create your first rule by selecting the type of rule you want to create and click the Create Rule
button. If you have created custom fields for this list, or have previously sent a campaign to it,
you will be able to create rules based on these elements too.
Based on the type of rule you create, you'll be presented with different options, such as greater
than, equals, is provided and contains. If you've already sent a campaign to this list, you'll also
have options based on past campaign behavior, such as opening a recent newsletter or clicking
a certain link.
Once you save your segment, it will be available in Step 3 of the Create/Send process. Just like
sending to a complete subscriber list, you can select the checkbox next to your segment, and
send the campaign just to those subscribers that meet the criteria you set for that segment.
No - segments are automatically updated before you send to them, and each time you
view the segment details. They don't update 'live' because of the amount of processing
that would require.
Sorry, no. At the moment, you can only use 'Contains' and 'Does not contain' rules for
the email address.
However, even thought we’ve pretty much done all of the testing for you, it’s still a good idea to
take a look at your email campaign in a few of the email environments – just to be sure it looks
exactly how you want it to.
The quickest way to test your campaign is by using the Test Campaign tool, in the Create/Send
process. Once you've added your content and selected your recipients, you can easily send a
test version of your email to yourself or any other email address.
We monitor the total number of spam complaints for your account. If the complaints exceed an
unacceptable number (the industry average is around 1 in every 5,000 recipients - 0.05% of all
recipients), we may be forced to cancel your account.
There are a number of changes you can make to your campaign and list management practices
to almost guarantee a reduction in spam complaints, including:
1. Make sure you have explicit permission from everyone in your list to contact them
about the subject of your email.
A hard bounce is an email message that has been returned to the sender and is permanently
undeliverable. Causes include invalid addresses (domain name doesn't exist, typos, changed
address, etc.) or the email recipient's mail server has blocked your server.
We automatically move subscribers that hard bounce into a "Bounced Subscribers" category, so
they don't receive any future email campaigns from you.
Below, you’ll find a full rundown of each of the types of bounces you might see in your Bounce
Activity Report.
The email server is temporarily unable to deliver your message to the recipient email address.
Example: "Connection timed out."
The email server is temporarily unable to deliver your message to the recipient email address
because of a DNS problem.
Example: "Host is unreachable"
The email server is temporarily unable to deliver your message to the recipient email address
because the recipient's email box is full.
Example: "Mailbox over quota"
The email server could not deliver your message to the recipient because the message size is
too large.
Example: "Exceeded maximum inbound message size"
Indicates that the recipient's email server is blocking your email because it contains an
attachment.
Example: "552 Disapproved attachment"
Indicates that the recipient's email server is blocking email from our email server.
Example: "551 relaying denied"
We determined that the message was not a bounce. This could be a recipient reply, or maybe a
bounce format that we didn't recognize.
Indicates that the recipient's email server is blocking email from our email server.
Example: "550 Message REFUSED by peer"
Indicates that the recipient's email server is blocking your email because the message appears
to have content that looks like spam.
Example: "550 Possible spam detected"
If you have a significantly higher bounce rate, we recommend you re-consider your list source.
The Campaign Snapshot contains a number of important terms which explain the most recent
results for each campaign you send. Below is a quick explanation about what these figures
mean.
Opens
The opens count does not take repeat opens into account, meaning the figure represents the
total number of recipients that actually opened your campaign.
Clicks
The clicks count shows the total number of recipients that have clicked at least one link.
Unsubscribed
The unsubscribed data tells you the total number of recipients that clicked the unsubscribe link
in the campaign.
Bounced
The bounce data tells you the total number of recipients that bounced and also provides you
with the percentage of recipients that bounced.
1. The ISP is using a content filter and has determined that your email exceeds their "might
be spam" threshold. Some ISPs are stricter than others. Read our tips on avoiding spam
filters.
2. The ISP is using a blacklist which our mail servers might appear. Like all commercial
email solutions, there is a chance that our servers could be listed on a blacklist (although
this happens VERY rarely). Getting your email delivered is our number one concern, so
if we are on a blacklist, rest assured that we are working hard to be removed from that
list.
3. The subscriber has chosen tight spam controls in the email client they are using -
perhaps to block all email from unknown senders. Your email may have been delivered
but, due to tight spam controls, it may have ended up in the spam or bulk folder and the
recipient may have missed it.
o It is most often the case that your subscriber simply did open your campaign multiple
times. It is very common for people to open an email more than once - they are
interested in your email and can potentially come back to look at it many times.
o A subscriber could have a "Preview Pane" feature enabled in his or her email client. In
this case, every time the campaign email was clicked or scrolled to in the "Preview
Pane", the subscriber's address displays as having opened the campaign.
o If the subscriber uses their own email client to "forward" the email campaign, any
subsequent opens by those recipients show as another "open" by your subscriber.
So a 20% open rate would mean that of every 10 emails delivered to the inbox, 2 were actually
opened.
When each email is sent out, we automatically add a piece of code that requests a tiny, invisible
image from our web servers. So, when a reader opens the email, the image is downloaded and
we record that download as an open for that specific email.
It is important to understand that the open rate is not a 100% accurate measure. Recording an
'open' can only happen if the readers email client is capable of displaying html with images, and
that option is turned on. So if you are sending text-only emails, there is no way to record open
rates (the exception is if they actually click a link). Similarly, people reading your html email
without images showing will not be recorded as opens.
Another issue is that your readers may have a preview pane in their email client. That preview
pane might be displaying your email automatically (i.e. downloading the images) without the
reader ever having to click on it or read it.
Really, there is no typical open rate. The rate obtained for any list, or group of lists will depend
on how it was measured, when it was sent, the size of the list and a zillion other potential
variables. There is no shortage of benchmark numbers out there, but even between benchmark
figures you will find big variation in the reported open rates.
So instead of giving a specific percentage, we've come up with the chart below.
• As list size goes up, the open rate tends to fall; possibly because smaller companies are
more likely to have personal relationships with their list subscribers.
• Companies and organizations that are focusing on enthusiasts and supporters, like
churches, sport teams and non profits see higher open rates
• More specific niche topics, like some manufacturing areas also typically have higher
open rates than emails on broader topics
If you are getting an open rate between 20% and 40%, you are probably somewhere
around average.
However, don't expect to be getting 80% open rates. People are too busy, inboxes are too full
and the measurements are technically limited. If, after all that, you are still interested in seeing
specific figures, see the footer for some references you can browse through.
o Experiment with your subject lines: Try including details about the content of the email
right in the subject line, instead of using your standard subject.
o Send on a different day: Are your subscribers too busy on a Wednesday morning to read
your email, leaving it languishing down the inbox? Maybe a Friday afternoon email would
be welcomed.
o Get the important content up the top: Remember that many people will see a preview of
your email before deciding to open it or ignore it. Make sure your email is recognizable,
and that your key points are in the top third.