I just got off the phone with a client who was very concerned about her open rates. We occasionally come across this from a new mailer and it can be hard to explain to them why they shouldn’t worry about it. The reason we provide an open rate statistic is, for the most part, because people expect it. Having been in the email marketing industry for almost 20 years, we know that open rates aren’t really an accurate way to measure the success or failure of a campaign.

At one time, open rates were an accurate and useful way to record campaign data, but starting in 2004, Microsoft began blocking images by default in their email programs. In the proceeding months and years, other email clients followed suit. Today, nearly every email client provides their users with the option to block images and most do it by default. This dramatically changes the usefulness of open rate statistics. They no longer provide accurate information about the individuals who open email. Certain situations, such as if an email happens to have no pictures, and therefor provides no incentive for your users to click the “load images” button, makes open rates appear even worse. This isn’t to say that you should include images solely for the purpose of getting your open rates up. What you should do is accept that open rates just aren’t as important or as useful as they once were.

Open rates, while no longer effective at projecting how many people have actually read your email, can sometimes be used effectively as a meter stick to compare results. Looking at the open rates of two different campaigns sent to the same list and noting how they differ can be a helpful exercise. Each list you send to will have a baseline open rate based on several factors. Those factors will include: the email habits of your recipients, what email client they are using, and how interested they are in your general message. Once you have figured out this baseline open rate, you can use it to judge the overall effectiveness of future mailings. If one promotion or newsletter performs above or below the baseline, you know you’ve either done a superior job with that content, or missed the mark.

If you want a more accurate statistic to monitor, you may want to keep a close eye on the clickthrough statistics. A clickthrough is recorded anytime someone clicks on a link in your email. This number has nothing to do with unreliable image loading and can’t be distorted by the email client. It’s simply a one to one representation of how many people have clicked the links in your email. Many of our clients are trying to drive traffic to their website, this number is actually the most crucial number for them. If you have a call to action on your email that involves clicking a link, the clickthrough statistics will give you actual numbers on how many people answered that call to action. Clicking on a link or acting on the mailing is the true test of it’s effectiveness and should be of much greater concern then open rates.

The biggest hurdle in email marketing is getting your hands on a good database. We frequently have issues with our customers who want to buy, or have already bought, an email list or database that turns out to be garbage. Buying a list is very dangerous territory. There’s a very good chance that you’ll waste your money or get yourself in a lot of trouble. We’ve been advocating organically built lists for many years. The worth of a good list is not to be underestimated, it’s a priceless commodity.

There are people out there who pay top dollar for good data. If you have built a list on your own, you have something that is more valuable than you know. An organically built list is a direct line to a consumer group with very specific interests. If you’ve collected the list through your business, the interest that they share in common is your product. People in the marketing industry dream about that kind of information.

Admail.net has the tools that allow you to build your list into an extremely valuable asset. The most important tool in doing that is our List Member Profile. The more information you can gather about your customers the better. When you create an account, you should take some time to browse the list member profile. Proper setup of your list member profile is crucial in many other aspects of the system. Make sure you include fields for all of the user information you are able to capture. With more information on each list member, you are able to produce directed marketing for specific groups within your list.

Don’t undervalue your own list. Protect it by keeping it up-to-date and maintained, and don’t be fooled by unsavory list brokers trying to sell you questionable data. There is no such thing as a quick buck in email marketing. It takes dedication, strategy, and integrity. Once you have the respect and trust of your client list, make sure that you understand the value and cherish it.

Here’s a few images captured at this year’s PPAI EXPO. We really had a great time at the conference and met so many interesting people.

As you can see in the pictures, our booth turned out fantastic. The banners that we had made and the promotional video really gave our presentation a dynamic edge and attracted lots of interested parties to our booth. Thanks to everyone who made the expo great this year!

Click on any of the pictures below for their high resolution versions.

Social media has become an integral part of online marketing strategy. It’s a fantastic way to connect with your customers through the circles that they travel rather than through traditional advertising forums.

Social media marketing is a perfect companion to email marketing. They can each promote one another to increase the effectiveness of all of your marketing strategies.

Email is an effective way to promote your social media endeavors. You can provide links to your social media locations in mailings that you send out. This will inform your list that you are active in the social media community and drive traffic to these sites. The same principle works in reverse, you can use social media to collect email addresses for your mailing list. Social Media provides you with many opportunities to get to know and interact with your possible clients and industry peers.

The most important goal of any email marketing or social media campaign is to connect with your audience. Before you start either, you should sit down with your company heads and decide on a strategy. Discover who your clients are, what the want, and craft a social media story. If you attempt to spread yourself too thin, you won’t connect with anyone. Find out what your niche is and then promote it!

The smartphone industry is absolutely booming. An increasingly large number of consumers and business owners are using these devices every day.  One of the most useful features of smartphones is their ability to check email on the go. Recent marketing surveys indicate that around 60% of business decisions makers are checking email on their mobile devices.

If you want to reach your customers on their mobile devices, you need to consider your email design philosophy. Most traditional email doesn’t translate very well to mobile, because of this email marketers must adopt some new design philosophies. We’ve just released two of our templates that have been optimized for mobile devices. We will be creating more of these templates for our users as time goes on and demand increases. Using our “optimized for mobile” templates in Email Builder makes it easy for you to send email that is readable and visually appealing for mobile users.

Our templates will take you 90% of the way in the quest of making your campaigns smartphone friendly, but there are also guidelines you’ll need to follow when laying out your content. Here are the most important guidelines to follow to ensure that your Admail.net template stays mobile friendly:

1. Keep your font sizes small. Mobile devices have small screens and fonts over 12 point take up far too much space.
2. Image file sizes should be very small (if used at all) and should be no larger than 300 pixels wide.
3. Don’t pack together clickable links. Most smartphones today use touch screen technology and if links are too close to one another they can be difficult to differentiate when selecting.

Using our mobile templates and following these guidelines will optimize your email for smartphone users. Follow these rules and avoid alienating your mobile email users!