Category Archives: Email Marketing

Company News, Email Marketing, Social Marketing

Social Sharing Links Added to Email-2-Web Pages for All Elite Email Customers

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On Friday we released a new feature in Elite Email, which was requested by many customers. (Thanks for all the feedback, as always it is greatly appreciated!)

When an email gets sent out from Elite Email, our Email-2-Web feature kicks in and creates a web-page version of your message. You can use this URL so that you can link to past emails/newsletters from your website or from future emails. This also comes in handy if you want to show someone a past email without having to actually send them an email.

You can find all of these URLs under the EMAILS tab by clicking EMAIL-2-WEB.

Tip: You can choose to hide or display specific emails so emails that you want to stay private can, of course, stay private.

As for the new feature…

We have added social sharing links to the footer of the page.

This means your contacts (or anyone who you give the Email-2-Web link to) can easily share your email on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Stumble, Reddit, Delicious and just about every other social network you can think of.

Social Sharing Links Added to Email-2-Web

The goal is to help your email become more viral as people share the content they love getting from you, with people in their social network.

In the coming months, we will be adding many more great features to tighten the link between your email marketing and social network activity.

Company News, Email Marketing

Amazing Amount of Positive Feedback

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It has now been a couple of weeks since we pulled back the covers and released Elite Email Phoenix.

During that time we have received a tremendous amount of positive feedback. I knew our customers were passionate about Elite Email, but the amount of people who took precious time out of their day to email or call us to say how happy they are with the new version is the biggest compliment we could have imagined and incredibly inspiring.

It goes without saying that our development team worked very hard on this new version and receiving this type of response is a true confirmation that our efforts were right on target. And, as I mentioned previously, the long list of new features is really the result of all the outstanding feedback we received directly from our customers. So, a big thank you is in order to all our loyal users because had they not been so forthcoming with their ideas we could not have made this new version as feature-rich as we did. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Admittedly there were some glitches that people noticed (despite our extensive testing) and I am grateful for the fact that people reported these to us so we could fix them as quickly as possible.

One bit of feedback that we have heard from many customers is that we have not done enough to showcase all the new features. Of course, if you explore around the program you will see all sorts of new pages and buttons to press, but I do completely agree that more could have been done to really highlight some of the new things you can do to enhance your email marketing. Over the coming weeks I will do my best to showcase some of the new features here on my blog.

Just know that this release was only the first step because we have many more exciting upgrades coming down the pipeline…. Stay tuned and please keep the feedback coming!

Company News, Email Marketing

Gearing Up For The Release of Elite Email Phoenix

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Over the past several years we have been working on a brand new version of Elite Email that is scheduled to start rolling out to our customers tonight.

In my opinion, this new version was truly built by our customers. Over the years we have spent hours upon hours talking to thousands and thousands of customers. We have worked hard to learn their business and to understand how Elite Email fits into their marketing mix. We have listened closely to what they liked, what they didn’t like, and what they felt could help them take their email marketing to the next level.

We compiled all of this feedback and our development team worked tirelessly to build it all into our new state-of-the-art system. I honestly cannot express to you just how grateful I am to all the customers that shared their precious time with us to help build, guide and craft this latest version of Elite Email.

This new version of Elite Email, code named “Phoenix”, contains hundreds of new features, a sleek new interface, faster performance, and a few other surprises that I think our customers will really enjoy. The list of new additions and enhancements is so long that I couldn’t even include it here because then this post will scroll forever. But, I am confident that as our customers explore the new version of Elite Email they will stumble upon all the great new things we have worked hard to bring them in an effort to make Elite Email the best email marketing service provider.

Admittedly, Elite Email Phoenix has taken longer to release than we originally planned. I know many people have been looking forward to it for a long time, and I do apologize for the delay. While I don’t want to make excuses, I can tell you that although we probably could have released it months ago, but we instead chose to keep it in “beta” just a little bit longer so that when we did release it, we could feel confident that it was perfect. Our QA Team and beta testers poked and prodded every nook & cranny of the program to find every bug, kink, and loose end. We know how critical your email marketing is, and internally we set the bar for any of our programs at complete perfection.

While I am personally so incredibly excited to be launching Elite Email Phoenix, I am equally (if not more!) excited to hear the feedback from all of our customers.

Best of all, we have two more big upgrades following just behind, so stay tuned for even more exciting enhancements!

Company News, Email Marketing

New Feature at Elite Email > Automatically Remove Hard Bounces

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As always, at Elite Email we pride ourselves on offering industry leading deliverability that gets our customers right to the inbox.

We already employ all forms of email authentication including SPF, Sender ID, Domain Keys, and DKIM. In addition to that, we have relationships with major ISPs around the globe and have active feedback loops with any ISP that offers such a service. And, of course, wherever possible, our IPs are whitelisted or on the Trusted Sender list.

But, even with all that, we are always striving to do more and be better. After all, as soon as we sit back on our heels, we risk slipping and we never want that to happen!

One of the issues that really bothers ISPs is when you try to send to a ‘hard bounces’ address over and over again. This shows poor list hygiene and is definitely contrary to best practices.

A hard bounce is usually the result of sending to an email address that does not exist and is permanently undeliverable. So, if you put yourselves in the shoes of an ISP, you can see why receiving multiple attempts over time to a ‘hard bounces’ address is contrary to the high email marketing standards we expect from all Elite Email clients.

Up until this point, our customers have always been able to clear bounces manually. You could simply click the “Clear Bounces” button on your email’s bounce report and everything would be cleaned for you. But, many customers were forgetting to do this, which we totally understand because we know how hectic things can get!

As a result of much customer feedback and the goal of constantly improving delivery, we have released a new feature that automatically removes hard bounces from your mailing list. This feature was released over the weekend and based on preliminary reports is working well.

Keep in mind that we only remove HARD bounces, so soft bounces (which could be ‘mailbox full’ or ‘temporary server error’, etc) are kept on your mailing list unless you manually remove them. This is because there is a chance that when you re-send to a soft bounced email address that it can be successfully delivered.

Stay tuned for more great features to boost your email marketing that we have planned over the coming months!

Business Blunders, Email Marketing, Online Marketing

Email Marketing Fail by Schulich School of Business

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Lately it seems like I’m only blogging about Email Marketing Fails, but I just find them so amusing!

All day long we talk to our customers explaining them about email marketing best practices and how to conduct effective campaigns. So, when I see other people totally throwing some of the fundamental principles out the window, I can’t help but want to point it out.

This particular email marketing fail is really bad and I’m sure when they noticed it, they were really embarrassed.

Before going any further, I want to say that I am a proud graduate of the Schulich School of Business. I had a great experience and think it is a fantastic institution with an excellent student body and top-notch professors.

That being said, here is the email they recently sent out (click image for larger version):
(Note: I added the big red arrow)

Schulich Career Fairs 2010/2011 Email Fail

Yes, this school that tries to attract top talent from across the globe spelled the word “AGAIN” incorrectly.

Email Marketing Rule #1: Proof read your content!

Amendment to Rule #1: This is especially important if you’re a prestigious business school!

Business Blunders, Email Marketing

Email Fail By Sportsnet.ca

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Yesterday was a big day in Canada not only because it was Canada Day, but also because it was the first of day free agency in the NHL (…which I guess really makes it a big day for all hockey fans).

In the good ol’ days (way long ago), you’d have to be glued to your radio and TV in order to stay on top of all the wheeling’s-and-dealings. But, now with websites being updates in real-time, social networks updated in seconds, and the ability to send rapid ‘news alerts’ through email, information spreads faster than ever before.

But, it seems some sports news organizations still don’t have a full handle on all the new technologies.

There was a serious EMAIL FAIL by Sportsnet.ca.

Here are 3 unedited “Hockey Central News Alerts” sent out by Sportsnet.ca yesterday.

——Original Message——
From: SPORTSNET.CA
To: XXXXXXXX
ReplyTo: email@sportsnet.ca
Subject: Hockeycentral News Alert – SPORTSNET.CA
Sent: Jul 1, 2010 12:33 PM

New York Rangers re-sign:

Length of contract: 2 years
Average annual value: $925,000

More at sportsnet.ca.

##

——Original Message——
From: SPORTSNET.CA
To: XXXXXXXX
ReplyTo: email@sportsnet.ca
Subject: Hockeycentral News Alert – SPORTSNET.CA
Sent: Jul 1, 2010 6:24 PM

Anaheim Ducks re-sign:

Length of contract: 5 years
Average annual value: $5 million

More at sportsnet.ca.

##

——Original Message——
From: SPORTSNET.CA
To: XXXXXXXX
ReplyTo: email@sportsnet.ca
Subject: Hockeycentral News Alert – SPORTSNET.CA
Sent: Jul 1, 2010 8:08 PM

Montreal Canadiens re-sign:

Length of contract: 1 year
Average annual value: TBD

More at sportsnet.ca.

##

Are you serious?

Sportsnet blasted out emails to their entire hockey mailing list and LEFT OUT the player’s name in the email?

I wonder how many Blackberry’s were buzzing yesterday only to have people look and find out that someone signed a contract, but they were not told who. How helpful is that?

My favorite is the last email above where an unknown person signed a 1 year contract for an amount to be determined. Wow… that email is just oozing with useful information!

Lastly, take a look at the subject. Am I the only one who thinks “Hockeycentral” is actually two words and might have deserved a space in the middle?

Sheesh!

[Many thanks to David B. for forwarding these emails to me.]

Business Blunders, Email Marketing

Email Marketing Fail By TigerDirect.ca

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Everyone who knows me and who has ever spoken to me about email marketing knows that the one thing that I preach over and over again is that ‘content is king’.

It is the content that keeps people opening your email each time and it is the content that ultimately prevents people from unsubscribing because they feel like they are getting some ‘value’ by spending time reading your email.

With that being the case, it’s pretty obvious that your first few emails to a new contact are vitally important because, as they say, ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’.

None of this is earth shattering and it’s all pretty obvious, but I guess maybe it’s not obvious to everyone….read on…!

I recently made a purchase at a Tiger Direct store and got an email asking me to confirm my subscription to their mailing list. (Good job so far Tiger Direct!)

After confirming my subscription, I got an email with the subject “Welcome to the TigerDirect.ca Stores List”.

Here is a full unedited screenshot of the email:

Email From Tiger Direct

No need to check your eyes because this email is actually blank.

I’m all for brevity in a welcome email, but this seems a bit extreme!

I’d say this is an epic fail of the ‘content is king’ principal. I wonder if the next email I get will be blank, too? If it’s one thing I need more of cluttering up my inbox, it’s totally blank emails!

Email Marketing

Microsoft Upgrades Hotmail And The Changes Will Effect Marketers

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Microsoft recently released an updated version of Hotmail.

The main objective of this new release (aside from trying to gain market share from rivals Yahoo and Gmail) is to “address inbox clutter”.

Essentially, Microsoft has taken the position that although an email may not be spam, that doesn’t mean all messages are created equal.

Microsoft is trying to divide email using special filtered views that would allow you to see emails from your contacts, emails from social networks, email from company newsletters, etc, etc. They actually coined the term “graymail” to refer to email that is not spam, but also isn’t the top reading priority.

George Bilbrey wrote an excellent summary on Media Post that can be seen here. This post goes into more detail about the various changes and new features.

The key take away for marketers (aside from making sure your authentication is setup properly, which all Elite Email customers have by default) is to really focus on engagement. The goal isn’t just to get into the inbox, but rather have your email opened with some form of interaction.

This update also breaks away from the traditional model where the last message to reach a recipients’ inbox is displayed at the top. Now, with the Hotmail filters, emails are prioritized in different ways.

Business Blunders, Email Marketing, Online Marketing

Epic Email Marketing Fail > Live Nation

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I’ve been in the email marketing industry for so long and in that time I have seem both big & small companies do some amazing and some disastrous things.

But, it never ceases to amaze me when such an epic email marketing fail is brought to my attention, especially when it’s from a company I know and respect. In this case, the company who made an epic fail and proved they really don’t have a clue what’s going on is Live Nation.

Here is the story…
A Simon & Garfunkel concert was scheduled for May 12, 2010 at the Air Canada Center in Toronto.
On April 29, ticket holders were sent an email from TicketMaster saying the following:

Dear Simon & Garfunkel Fan,
Simon & Garfunkel originally scheduled on May 12th 2010, at Air Canada Centre has been rescheduled to July 19th 2010, due to a vocal strain recently sustained by Art Garfunkel.
Tickets originally purchased for May 12th, 2010 will be honored, no action is required.
Customers who wish a refund may obtain one by one of the following methods:
…etc…

So far everything in the story is fine. We are seeing a good use of email to report a very urgent and time sensitive announcement to a mass amount of people.

And then things take a turn for the worse…
This morning (May 17), Live Nation sent out an email with the subject “Thanks for attending Simon & Garfunkel at Air Canada Centre!”

This is the email content:

Live Nation Email Fail
UMMM… hey Live Nation… you didn’t realize that your concert didn’t happen?

No one thought that maybe under the circumstances (since the show was postponed) that sending out a survey asking for feedback might be a little stupid, embarrassing, silly, <insert adjective here>!

I don’t know who Live Nation uses as their Email Service Provider… and I’m not saying they should be dragged in the streets, but someone somewhere seriously screwed up because stopping an email campaign from sending is usually no more than a few clicks.

So, what’s the overall lesson: If you cancel a concert, don’t send out an email thanking people for attending and asking for feedback.

[Special thanks to my good friend Dean M. for bringing this to my attention!]

Email Marketing, Random Thoughts

Idol Gives Back and Deliverability Issues

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At every seminar, conference or industry summit that I attend, the issue of “Email Deliverability” is always a hot topic of conversation. It just seems like in the circles I run in, that is a key thing people talk about all the time (and for good reason). But, it’s not so often that I hear things in the mass media relating to email deliverability.

I bring this up because last night on Idol Gives Back (Donate Now Online), host Ryan Seacrest said that comedians Jonah Hill and Russell Brand begged and pleaded to organize a celebrity phone bank for the event.

The whole thing was a joke, of course, but when asked where all the celebrities were Hill said:

“The truth is, we emailed all those people, but the email might have gone into the spam file, because our email address is Viagraman182@gmail.com.”

I can only imagine that celebrities such as Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, etc, etc would have their spam filters set high enough to screen out ‘Viagara’ based emails… I guess celebrities really are just like the rest of us. =)

Although the whole skit was a joke, I thought it was interesting to see the issue of spam and deliverability brought up on such a highly watched show as American Idol.