The From Line

Email deliverability is the most crucial part of your marketing plan. You can have the world's most talented copywriters and the most eye catching graphic designs, but if your email ends up in the spam folder, or perpetually floating around cyberspace, your hard work is all for nothing. But how do you know that your emails are reaching their destination? Most importantly, what do you do when you find out they aren't?

According to the Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report by Return Path, “only 81% of all permission based email makes it to the world’s inboxes. Globally, one out of every five emails lands either in a spam or junk folder (7%) or simply goes missing—blocked by ISP level filtering (12%)”. Though an 81% deliverability rate is certainly respectable, over time, that 19% difference can make a big impact on your bottom line.

Consider this: if you send out 1,000 emails, that is 190 customers who will never hear your message. 190 missed opportunities to make a connection with a person who might be looking for exactly what you are selling. If you snowball this as your email lists continue to grow, you could soon be looking at thousands of lost clients.

To combat this, monitor your email deliverability closely by analyzing bounce back errors, and act to rectify the problems as they arise. If the subscriber’s mailbox doesn't exist, you can remove it from your list. However, if it is a temporary issue, the email address can continue to be monitored and sent mailings periodically. List cleansing and email verification services like LeadSpend exist to aide marketers in this.

All email list administrators know what they look like, but what do they mean? Some bounces seem to have a clear meaning, but others are cryptic enough to make any normal person tear their hair out. The way bounce codes look when they show up is not even consistent!

Sometimes they'll look like this:

Remote-MTA: dns; smtp.myemail.com [192.0.2.3]

Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 No such user here

Other times you'll see something like this:

while talking to smtp.store.example [192.0.2.3]

>>> RCPT TO:< This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >

<<< 550 No such user here

Okay. Take a step back, a deep breath and relax.

You can safely ignore most of what you see in both messages. The important part of the message is the 3 digit numerical code, 550 and the short description that follows immediately.

What do those three digit bounce codes mean? Well here's a list of the codes that matter to a mailing list manager and what they are supposed to mean:

• 550 - The requested command failed because the user’s mailbox was unavailable (such as not found)
• 551 - The recipient is not local to the server.
• 552 - The action was aborted due to exceeded storage allocation.
• 553 - The command was aborted because the mailbox name is invalid.
• 554 - The transaction failed for some unstated reason.

The code to worry about for email marketers is code 550. Usually this means that there is no mailbox for that address. At this point you would want to cull the address from your list to avoid wasting resources on mailings, but even a code 552 which means that the user has exceeded their storage allocation is important. If the mailbox is full for several mailings it might be best to remove the address from the list.

Bounce codes are a great tool for refining lists gor maximum efficiency. If you have any questions about bounce codes or about how we can help you manage your email marketing please contact us.
 

Originally created by ISP’s to help identify senders of spam email, feedback loop management can be a great way for a marketer to effectively manage their email campaigns and send their subscribers messages they want to see.

Many ISP’s provide feedback loops to email senders as a way to help proactive companies cut down on spam complaints the ISP receives. Whenever someone tells their provider they’ve received a spam email, it’s basically like a “complaint” to the ISP. While each ISP’s threshold differs, the outcome is the same with all of them. Too many complaints will have a negative effect on all of your email campaigns, making it more difficult for subscribers who actually want your information to receive it.

With more and more email messages being sent, it’s important to understand what causes recipients to flag your message as spam. Common reasons for flagging email messages as spam include:

• Irrelevant content
• Receive too many messages
• Recipient doesn’t remember opting into your list 

Even implementing email campaign best practices, you’re likely to get some subscribers who complain. While receiving some unjustified spam reports is unavoidable, there are some very practical ways you can use this information to improve your email campaigns.

List cleansing

When you review your feedback loops, you should unsubscribe any visitor who has reported your message as spam. This will make you look better in the eyes of the ISP’s and help keep your overall complaints low.

Message Testing

Feedback loops can also be used to help you identify what messages your list wants to receive and help you better target your message. Messages that receive a lot of complaints are clearly and indicator of the type of message your list does not want. The simple solution is to send more messages like what your list wants to receive and fewer of those that they don’t.

It’s easy to dismiss spam complaints as having come from unhappy people, but when used correctly, the information provided by feedback loops is invaluable for helping your refine your email marketing campaigns. For more information regarding feedback loops or any of your other email messaging needs, please contact us. Also, please feel free to check out one of our previous posts, It includes one of the most detailed FBL lists around!
 

In corporate America, where the business world is both rapidly-moving and technologically-advanced, tools to improve marketing precision and lead management are not only handy but are intrinsic to the growth and continued success of a company. Lead scoring ranks the leads in order of value by evaluating the work required to develop the lead against the profit it will potentially bring the company.

Logically a more precise, adaptable system of lead management will equal higher volume in sales which, in turn, will generate greater profit for the company as a whole.

While there are a variety of ways to score leads, a new product, designed to help identify the leads that will generate the most profit to marketing companies, is available. A write-up in the San Francisco Chronicle describes the software as a free lead scoring development matrix that operates in Microsoft Excel.

The program is called the Lead Scoring Model Designer (LSMD) and it works by employing a “system of one to five stars that are used to represent the impact of each scoring parameter on a lead's sales-readiness score. The layout organizes lead scoring parameters into three buckets that characterize demographic, behavioral, and qualification status. The 25 fields of predefined and user-entry parameters are adjustable to meet unique sales and marketing practices”.

Lead scoring models, such as this one, that are customizable and adaptable for a variety of sales techniques are foundational for business success in a modern world. Give us a ring for additional lead scoring ideas and other eMarketing strategies.
 

In the fall of 2012, CMOs who were surveyed saw social media as having the biggest impact on their email marketing strategy in the near future. This report coincides with a more recent one that placed social media as the second highest priority for email integration for 2013, falling behind mobile marketing by just one percentage point.

Online marketing is maturing to unexpected levels. There is higher demand for increased personalization thanks to social media. Likewise, email marketing campaigns continually experience greater return on investment when emails are customized to their recipients' preferences.

When combining social media and email marketing, you can achieve the highest level of personalization, second only to real-time human one-on-one communication. The challenge for any business is knowing how to convert social followers to their email marketing initiatives.

Converting Social followers to the email world:

For Facebook – add an email opt-in form on your Facebook page. Not many companies do this, so you can be a trail blazer in this area.

On Twitter – a little shameless promotion does not hurt, but of course you have to do this gracefully. You can simply ask your followers to join your email newsletter, then provide the direct link to the form. A more subtle way is to provide the opt-in form on every one of your web pages. When your followers visit your website, they can see the invitation to join your list.

LinkedIn Groups – a great way to represent your company. By creating a group in LinkedIn, you can share content and invite users to join your list.

The key to successfully carrying out a social media initiative to grow your email list is to provide incentives to your audience. Give them email teasers, have them download a free report, or invite them to a webinar. Your options are limitless.