Unfortunately most email applications, either web-based or locally installed, will not allow you to take the video’s code and embed your video right into your email message. Instead you could opt for a screenshot or frame capture of part of your movie and embed the static image into your email message. This is better than no image at all but wouldn’t it be better if you could simulate the video and engage the reader with a better chance of them clicking through to your video?

Yes, But How Do I Simulate a Video Embedded in My Email?

While flv or other web-based video file formats cannot be embedded in emails, more standardized imagery can, such as gifs and jpgs. The wonderful element of gif images is that they can be saved as animated gifs. There are many pieces of software that will allow you to create an animated gif file some paid and some for free. A simple Google search will yield many results. I’ll leave it to you to sift through and find a solution that is right for you needs. With your new animated gif capable software installed, you will need to play your video and take a screen shot/frame capture at various intervals throughout your video playback. I would suggest no more than 10. Now take your frame captures, crop them to size and add them to a time line in your gif software. (Note, for added effect, I suggest leaving the video player frame around your screen shots/frame captures so that the email reader can see that the animation is indeed a video and not some random image sequence thrown in there. Playback of your animated gif will show a somewhat jumpy sequence of your video clip, that tells the story of your video while capturing the attention of the viewer.

Now that you video is in an abbreviated format and exported as an animated gif, you can freely place the file into your email newsletter just like you would a static image. Now once in place you can set your image to link to the live version of your video on youtube or wherever you placed it, when the user clicks the image (animated gif).

Drop me a note if you have any questions or comments!

There are two key aspects of spam prevention to look at when considering email as a tool for marketing your products and services:

1. Server-side settings – These are configurations and options that need to be setup on the server where your email marketing messages will begin their journey. Your hosting provider should generally set these.
2. Email content – Your email content should be something your recipients want to read. They should also follow the requirements set by the CAN-SPAM act.

Below is a checklist of items to be implemented when composing an email for marketing purposes. By applying these, we believe that the likelihood of your email entering the SPAM folder will be greatly reduced.

Server-side Settings

1. Set up Domain Keys: Domain keys are an email authentication system designed to verify the DNS of a domain an email sender to validate integrity.
2. SPF Records: Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is fairly new method for fighting spam. An SPF record is placed within the domain DNS (Domain Name Server) settings and specifies a list of authorized hostnames and IP address that can mail from the server for the specified domain name.
3. Reverse DNS, sometimes referred to as PTR record check: This is particularly important when your domain resides on a shared server (i.e., the space is shared with other domains). The reverse DNS setting specifies the domain associated with your IP address. Some email servers perform a reverse look up to see if the domain/IP address that the domain is registered to matches the domain/IP address that the email originated from, and blocks any mismatches.
4. Secure Server: The server where your email client resides should be secure, open relay and proxy servers are highly susceptible to abuse. With an unsecured server, spammers can easily hijack your account and use your resources for spamming.
5. Segregate your email streams: If possible, it would be advisable to split up large email sends to multiple lists with multiple IP addresses assigned to them. In this instance, if one IP address or email list becomes blocked or spammed out for whatever reason, it will not have an effect on your other lists/IP addresses. Obviously your goal for ensuring good email content and best practices should remain.

Email Content

1. Adhere to the CAN-SPAM Act: First and foremost, if you follow these best practice guidelines, all of the following points will also be adhered.
   See the Official Compliance Guide for Business here: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm
2. Use Opt-in subscriptions: Only send emails to recipients who have subscribed (opted-in) to your service.
3. Regularly manage your email list: Spammers are notorious for sending mass emails and do not care about bounces etc, they just want to send in large quantities with the hope that some get delivered. Bounced email addresses and bad email addresses, not only degrade the performance of your emails, but also if you consistently try to send to these invalid and bounced email addresses, your are effectively telling their ISP that you are spamming as there’s no one managing the list. Make sure you remove bad emails right away to maintain a high quality email list.
4. Content relevancy: Your email subscribers have enlisted your email service to receive valuable content from you that should be relative to the sign up message. Make sure that you keep that message in line with your promise when they signed up. If you start sending unrelated or even less related information in your emails, you’re likely to get marked as spam.
5. Header information: Make sure that you send from a consistent email address and associated name. If you switch those settings around, your recipients will not recognize the header information and may be less likely to read your message eventually marking as spam.
6. Unsubscribes: If an email user unsubscribes to your email service, be sure to remove them right away. Most email software on the market today will unsubscribe the email addresses automatically when users unsubscribe using the relevant form, which is great, but do not neglect those that simply reply to your email asking to be removed. Make sure that you include an unsubscribe link in all of your email messages so that users can safely be removed if they want to cease receiving your emails. Otherwise they will be inclined to mark you as spam and therefore hamper your relationship with ISPs.
7. Physical address: Although emails are “virtual addresses”, be sure to include your physical address also. This will help with the validity of your message in the eyes of your recipients and also help tie in with your company recognition, that is, you are a real company.
8. Common SPAM terms: Every ISP has their own unique rules for marking a message as spam or not. These rules usually encompass the use of certain words or phrases in both the subject line and body content. The following is a list of known terms to avoid that will help you reach the inbox; Information you requested; Important information regarding; Guarantee, Guaranteed; Special Promotion; Great offer/Deal; Visit our website; Opportunity; 50% Off; Click Here; Call Now; Subscribe; Bonus; Free; All New; One time; Order Now; Amazing; Discount; Save up to; One time; Winner; Prizes.
9. URL links: Excessive use of links in your email message will almost certainly get you into the spam folder. The concept is that email marketers inserting too many links are aggressively trying to sell something and pushing it on the recipient. Although there is no hard fast rule and every ISP is different, I would suggest not exceeding 5 or 7 links per email message and would avoid placing a URL in the subject line entirely.
10. Personalization: By addressing your email messages to the individual subscriber, you are not only proving that you know more than just the recipients email address, but you have their name too. Statistics show that personalization increases open and read rates by about 600%.
11. Layout: Keep your email content clean and consistent. By using multi-sized fonts, colors and typefaces, you are creating a visual mishmash of content and won’t do you any favors when it comes to spam.
12. Attachments: Mailing an attachment to individuals or a small group of coworkers etc. is generally not a problem. However, when you start emailing an attachment to thousands of email addresses, you will likely end up in the spam folder. Instead offer the attachment for download or create a web page with the content that you’d like to share and provide the link in the email.
13. ALL CAPS: Avoid typing in all caps, even for brief sentences to highlight a point. It is much better practice to use bold or bold/italics to add emphasis to a section of your email. ALL CAPS text implies aggressiveness and a forceful approach. ISPs see this and are likely to spam your message out.

Additional Points

1. Feedback Loops (FBL): A feedback loop is an agreement you can make with ISPs where they get back to you the identity of complainers in their web mail. On your side you commit to blacklist/remove the user from your email list. You will need to provide certain information to each ISP to become enrolled in their program. A list of links to the application forms for the main ISPs can be found here:

   http://website.email-ethics.com/feedback-loops

2. Bounce handling: Soft and hard bounces should be handled appropriately. Your email software may have these capabilities built in. Typically, the standard procedure for soft bounces is to retry sending the email a number of times, if the email still bounces after these attempts, the email address will become a hard bounce. A soft bounce occurs if the mailbox is full for example. For hard bounces, i.e. a blocked email address or an address that is no longer active, the email address should automatically be removed from the list. Continually trying to send to a hard bounced email address will get you noticed by the ISP as a spammer and may result in your becoming blocked from every email address for the entire ISP.
3. Send frequency: Although you may deem your email relevant and your subscribers have opted in, if you send your emails too often your subscribers may become tired of receiving constant messages from you, which may result in you being marked as spam. If you have a lot of content that you want to send to your readers, consider a multi list strategy. Create multiple lists for your email content. Have your recipients subscribe to each of the lists for which they want to receive content for. That way, you are not blanket emailing the entire list, instead you are being specific about who you are sending your messages to.

Further Reading

• Beamond Creative article:
  10 Tips for a Successful Email Campaign and an Increased Open-Rate:
  http://www.beamondcreative.com/2009/10/enewsletter-marketing-10-tips-for-a-successful-campaign-and-increased-open-rate/
• Yahoo best practices:
  http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/basics/postmaster-15.html
• SPAM test tool:
  http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/
• Wikipedia definition of email SPAM:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam
• Blacklisted IP verification:
  Check your IP address against these verification services to see if your IP address is blacklisted. There are many more, but these are some of the more renowned services.
  http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml
  http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/
  http://www.mail-abuse.com/cgi-bin/lookup

When the form is finalized you are given a link that can be used to email or publish the form elsewhere for your audience to complete. You are even provided with the embed code to place into your own website design format.

Why do I Need a Survey?

Surveys are a great way to connect with your audience and find out user experience with your company. This particularly useful for companies doing business online, you can find out how they like the format of your online store and determine any “pain” areas for your customers. Maybe they think the checkout process is too long, or they have a hard time finding products etc… All this is great information for tweaking your website and making it a better shopping experience for your customers. At the same time you are building customer retention and reducing your site bounce rate.

A Humorous Experience With My Google Survey

Anxious to test out the new tool, I quickly developed a 5 question survey to learn about the scooter industry. I created the form and tested it to see how and where the data was stored in the spreadsheet. This worked perfectly first time without any glitches. To promote the survey and gain user feedback, I created a couple of posts within industry related groups on LinkedIn (along with a few additional sites). After posting, and as I usually do, I proceeded to go back into the live post and test the url. I kid you not, after clicking the link I received the following message:

“Warning. Suspected phishing page. According to Google’s safe browsing policy, the requested external link maybe a forgery or imitation of another website designed to trick user into sharing personal or financial information…..”.

Yes, that’s right Google has detected that its own auto-generated url is a possible phishing page! Check out the screenshot below.

Once I had recovered from the excitement, I needed to figure out a fix. The simple use of a URL shortening service like bit.ly generated a smaller alternative url that I used to post the survey across social networking sites and via email. After testing once again, I did not receive the “warning” message.

Make sure you take advantage of the great new tool from Google!

]]> http://www.internetmarketingsource.net/2010/05/google-surveys-and-some-humor/feed/ 0 http://www.internetmarketingsource.net/2009/11/join-our-linkedin-group-internet-marketing-source/ http://www.internetmarketingsource.net/2009/11/join-our-linkedin-group-internet-marketing-source/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:27:30 +0000 Sam Beamond http://www.beamondcreative.com/?p=731 Here’s a quick post to tell you about our new LinkedIn group for Internet Marketers and those interested in the field.

While there are many web developers, bloggers, email marketers, SEO, social media professionals etc. out there, these practices in themselves are not the solution to marketing a company, product or service on the web. Members of this group understand that a successful online strategy encompasses all aspects of these online channels to achieve the marketing objective. Different levels of each aspect are required depending on industry and audience. Named “Internet Marketing Source”, the group aims to bring professionals together in these marketing fields, to learn from each other, exchange ideas and share real life success stories from the field. Join today to broaden your knowledge of internet marketing, and contribute your expertise.

Follow this link to join the “Internet Marketing Source”! http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=2475645

Contact us to learn more about how Internet Marketing techniques that will grow your business.

To determine the best fit for you you should first look at the frequency of that you will be sending your newsletters AND number of recipients on the list. You can then figure out the most cost effective option. My preference, however, would be to use a license based software and not have to worry about paying ever again. You pay a couple of hundred dollars up front for the license (a little more if you want it installed on your server for you) and you are ready to go, unlimited email addresses and frequency etc. The only downside that I can forsee is the fact that you are using your own server resources for the software and mailing. Depending on the amount of site traffic and email use you currently have, this may or may not be a key factor. It has never caused me any problems in the past 5 years of using this type of software.

Ask us today about setting up an email marketing system for you.

There’s a lot of choice.

Lets get simple

Let me simplify the choice for you. There are essentially two approaches for email blasting software.

Option 1: A pay-per-use, per month or per email format

Option 2: A license-based email software format

I’m going to talk a little about each option and help you decide which format is best for you.

Option 1: Pay per usage email software

Pay-per-use email software will provide you with an online application/website where you can log in, upload email lists, create email templates and messages and blast them off. You can monitor your open rates and click-throughs (depending on package purchased) etc.

Fees for using such a system varies depending on the provider and which package you purchase.

Some examples are as follows:

1cent per email address on your list

OR

$49.95 per month with unlimited email addresses and frequency limits

OR

$9.99 per email sent, regardless or how many recipients there are

Positives

• You pay a minimal fee to use the system (maybe nothing unless you use it)
• The provider is responsible for system uptime and the general technical aspects of your online account.

Negatives

• Although generally a low cost solution, if you have thousands of email addresses on your account this could get expensive.
• In many cases you will have a mandatory icon, link or logo placed on your messages by the vendor, which effectively advertises their software and somewhat discredits your internal email credibility.

Option 2: License-based email software

License-based email software is just that, you effectively buy the software to use as and when you please with no additional fees. This type of software is installed on your server and it is your responsibility to ensure that it is maintained should there be a problem. This type of software usually includes a more comprehensive set of email tools for sending, managing and tracking email newsletters.

Positives

• You only pay once.
• The features and add-ons are generally more in depth, providing more tracking and managing capabilities.
• There are no logos or links to the email manufacturer included in your mailings.

Negatives

• The license and setup fees are more expensive than the pay per use option. Around $300 would be an appropriate estimate of cost for this.
• The software will draw on your web hosting services as and when you send mailings, at times this may exceed storage or bandwidth limits on your hosting account. Check with your hosting provider for details

We’re here to help you choose which type of email newsletter approach is right for you

Choosing the type of email newsletter software may be more involved than you first thought. There are many providers for each of the categories talked about in this article. We’re here to help. Contact us today for further information about email marketing and to determine which email solution is right for your organization. Reach us at info@beamondcreative.com or (612) 669-5985.

1. Use a catchy, funny, or interesting subject line

Your email open rates start with the subject line. Here you have a few valuable characters to entice your recipients to open you email. If you are stuck for ideas, try browsing news websites or magazines and take note of some of their titles or headers. You may be able to take these story headlines and modify them for your own product or service. For example: “Discover Obama’s secret past” could be used as “Discover our secret recipe for success”.

2. Write in short paragraphs and use headers

This applies to your website content as well as eNewsletters. Readers tend to skim content when reading. By writing in short paragraphs and including headers that highlight the key points of your article will help break up long text and enable you to get the point across to the reader even if they don’t read it all.

3. Use images but not too many

Images again help break up long portions of text and are visually engaging (if you use them appropriately). Do not use too many images though, they could become cluttered and have adverse effects on the reader.

4. HTML is nice but include a text version

Many web users and email accounts have images and html content enabled, which is great to display your high impact email. However, do not leave out those that have only text-based email capabilities. This could be a large portion of your readers that will miss out on your message if you do not include a text-only version. Most good email software applications have the feature to include a text-only version. If you do not send the text version, these readers will simply see the html code and not be able to read your content.

5. Provide a call to action

The whole point of your newsletter is to try to make a sale, generate a lead or traffic to your website. That said be sure to include links to your landing page or conversion form. These pages should be pre built and ready to link to before sending your email message. I would suggest including more that one references to your website and especially at the end of your message include a call to action. Examples are, “Click here to get your free widget” or “View more photos in our online album”. Note: Don’t include too many links here if you want to avoid the SPAM box.

6. Test your frequency

The number of emails you send per week, month or year will depend entirely on your audience. For those in a not technical field, once per month maybe sufficient. If you are dealing with a particularly savvy audience such as the software industry, you may have better conversions and customer retention with a weekly newsletter. To know for sure, run some tests with your list and monitor the results. Once you have found an optimal frequency, be consistent and meet your readers’ expectations.

7. Write content for your specific audience

Don’t blanket email. Many companies serve several industries niches. In these cases, your contact lists and newsletters should be kept separate. For example, an electronics manufacturer may have a customer list for TV’s, Hair Dryers and Dishwashers. It would be pretty pointless having these all on one mailing list, sending special offers for dishwasher maintenance to a list that included hair dryer and TV customers would not only yield minimal open rates and click throughs, but you would also be doing yourself a disservice to your customer base and may end up with losing email newsletter subscribers. In certain circumstances an email to all lists may be necessary, for example an office move notification or store-wide discount coupon. In these situations go ahead and mail them all. But keep your lists separate for specific newsletters.

8. Establish the optimal day and time for email sending

As with “frequency” of email sending, an optimal day and time is also an area for testing and different depending on your industry. Try sending your emails on different days of the week and different times day, then monitor the open rates. You’ll be surprised at the difference. As a general rule of thumb, we have found that sending emails either Monday or Friday are generally less effective than mid-week. Monday emails get lost in a full inbox from over the weekend. Friday emails are ignored as being the end of the week. That said, we suggest experimenting with Tuesday through Thursday and monitoring the results.

9. How to or tip related get a higher open rates

In general terms we have found that “How To” or “Tip” related content gets more attention than any sales-related information. Readers see more value in learning how to do something, learn to use their product better for example, than are put off by an intimidating sales pitch. Get readers to your site first and strategically place, offers and more sales related content around the how-to article and try to generate leads that way.

10. Track campaigns and act on the metrics

Finally, all of this email writing and testing is pointless unless you are tracking how effective your efforts are. Therefore, take note of which types of campaigns, days sent, time of year, number of links, images etc are in the newsletters. When you find a “winning” combination for open rates and click-throughs try to mimic the email with new information and present it in a similar way. This will not be a quick solution, it may take several emails before you start to notice winning trends.

We believe that by following these tips you will be well on your way to creating some winning email newsletters that will help you grow your business.

For more tips, ideas or suggestions for your particular organization, or for a price quote on a custom eNewsletter campaign and configuration, contact us at info@beamondcreative.com or (612) 669-5985.