I felt good about it because I felt like I had everyone’s attention. I really wanted to add some value to these folks and introduce them to a few things they had never seen or heard about. I was speaking to college admissions professionals which, for the most part, are expected to be jacks of all trades. Great questions were thrown out there and I was pulled aside a few times before and after by audience members which means I sparked something.

Anyways, the proof is in the pudding:

And the comments:

• This was excellent! Lots of great ideas, very concise information.
• Wow! Lots of great info (and thank you for so many outside sources that we can check out later)! I have a lot to learn.
• Great information, clearly communicated. Josh did a great job.
• Even after [bulk emailing software] webinar a lot of useful information and good resources. Informative but humorous- great job!
• Very useful for thinking about ways to make email marketing fit your needs for different purposes and how to best customize.
• A lot of good ideas.
• Would have been nice to see examples of good emails vs. ones that get spammed, landing pages that work with emails (live).
• This is so great! I’ve got tons of new ideas for our campaigns.
• Good as an overall look at email marketing, but would’ve been nice to be a little more [product] specific.
• Interesting content. Presented well. Could have been enhanced by including examples of the six questions (i.e. Good and bad examples).
• Great presenters, good info.
• Updated/learned good information.

I provided a hand-out that summarized what I covered during the presentation which is basically a summary of my two blog posts. Feel free to download it and spread it around!

Download:
“6 Questions to Ask Before Sending an Email Campaign Piece”

Related posts:

1. 3 MORE Important Questions to Ask Before Sending Company Email Marketing On Monday,
2. 3 Important Questions to Ask Before Sending an Email Campaign So you wan
3. Spam: what is it? what does it do? why am I sending it? who cares? I had an i

Google Analytics (GA) and Webmaster Tools (GWT) are used to determine the health and performance of any public website. A small snippet of code is added to the very end of each website page which reports back to GA both quantitative and qualitative data about each site visitor. GWT uses the Google search engine to test and report back errors on the site and sitemap.

Using these tools in conjunction on a regular basis provides very detailed information about the following site attributes:

• How much traffic the site is seeing
• How many errors users are experiencing
• What keywords are driving traffic to the site
• The pages on the site are performing the best/worst
• How many incoming links the site has
• Where website traffic is coming from
• Detailed information about site visitors

Without close monitoring and regular reporting, websites run the risk of losing traffic, accumulating errors, and becoming difficult to search.

Tasks to complete

1. First, the website needs to have GA installed and a sitemap created (if it was not already completed) and submitted to GWT.
2. Both tools will need a couple of weeks to gather data before any useful conclusions can be made.
3. Once GWT has enough information, the fixes will be clear. All critical errors and issues should be corrected immediately before moving on.
4. An incoming link and keyword report can be made using the information in GWT. This is information gleaned from the search engine spiders.
5. Next, GA is used to analyze the overall traffic of the site using visitor, page view, and bounce rate metrics.
6. A top content report can be pulled to show pages that are performing well (seeing a lot of traffic and directing it to other parts of the site), pages that are performing poorly (low traffic or high bounce rate), and how people are reaching these types of pages.
7. A traffic source report can be pulled to understand where visitors are coming from and how they got to the site in the first place. Traffic is divided between three categories: search engines, direct, and referrals.
8. If needed, a visitor report can be created to show a cross-section of the people who are viewing the site. This includes technology, geographic location, and language.

Additional Analysis Tasks

In addition to GA and GWT, other tools should be used to find presentation, browsing, and search engine problems.

• Sites should be scanned and optimized for loading time. This includes script minifying, image optimization, and code bloat.
• Web site code should also be validated across the site. Invalid code can lead to accessibility problems, display issues, and on-screen errors.
• Broken links on the site should be scanned for and corrected on a regular basis.
• Search engine optimization including keyword strategy, keyword placement, and meta information should be examined and reviewed on a quarterly basis.

Lost already? Contact me and we can work together to get your site up and running great!

Related posts:

1. Getting started correcting your search engine problems. Who cares?
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3. Creating a functional, useable, linkable website: write a few articles The reason

While I gained more experience over the last year, I realized my passion really centered around the web but it was more than just laying out sites and coding them. I was enthralled by how people could connect to one another, use simple tools to solve their problems, and create a name for themselves or their business in a way that was never possible before. What motivated me was how anyone could leverage fairly simple technology to reach their goals. I realized that my energy was amplified when I was talking about WEB STRATEGY.

What is Web Strategy?

For all I know, I could be stealing a term from someone else so I apologize if this has been coined in some way before. It’s important to me to know what everyone else thinks about this term as well so your comments are appreciated (but, you know, read this post first).

"Seafaring Cities and Knights of Catan" by P M M on Flickr

In one sentence, web strategy is creating a track-able, improvable, and repeatable plan to achieve a specific goal on the internet. If I could add another sentence I’d also say that this strategic plan would always seek to provide a clear return on investment and would be simple and (relatively) inexpensive to execute.

That sums the term up nicely but there are very important components to creating a plan that works for your specific situation. I’m going to give you my take on the subject and I invite you to help me come up with more components.

Web strategy … is scientific

At my core, I am a scientist. This would explain my chemistry degree but it goes beyond that. Scientists use the scientific method which is a rigid, iterative, step-by-step process:

1. Come up with a theory (hypothesis) based on existing research to explain a particular phenomenon.
2. Design an experiment to test that hypothesis (the important word here is test… not prove); a critical part of this design is data collection
3. Organize, combine, and report this data as completely as possible
4. Parse and deconstruct this data objectively and completely as it relates to you hypothesis
5. Rinse, repeat

In a perfect world (or lab), this method is driven by the desire to DISPROVE your hypothesis. Experiments are designed to find where the hypothesis fails, where the logic is flawed, and where more research needs to be conducted. If, during the course of this process, the evidence supports the hypothesis then you have a solid foundation to move your research forward.

Hopefully you’re seeing how this relates to the web but, if not, let me show you how the scientific method can be used in web strategy.

Building an effective (read: successful) website starts with a goal. Let’s start with a popular goal for people on the web – increase sales leads/inquiries. This goal can be achieved a number of different ways so let’s say we’ve decided one of the ways to increase leads is to create an easy to use contact form. So, we have our hypothesis:

Creating a simple and easy-to use form will increase sales leads.

I think you see where this is going. The experiment, in this case, is to design a simple form using suggestions from people who have done the same. You could try a few different forms and switch them out occasionally, collecting data from each one. The data is the number and quality of sales leads generated from the form and the analysis will speak to whether the form increased the number of inquires, increased the quality of inquiries, or did nothing.

Designing your plan like a scientist keeps you focused on the goal, objective about the results, and ready and willing to start over and try something new.

Web strategy … is focused on returns

I consider my aesthetic sense very pragmatic. I like looking my best as much as possible but you’ll never see me in a pair of shoes that hurt me throughout the day. I’m also a big car nut but I just wouldn’t enjoy driving a car that isn’t comfortable or one that I was filling up twice a week.

Relating this to what I do professionally, I’m always seeking to place function in front of form in all of things I produce – documents, websites, logos, etc. I start my designs in a text file mapping out the information structure and the content organization before I ever open Photoshop. An idea of how I want the site to look appears in my head very early but I don’t make that design come to life until I know what the underlying structure will be.

This all relates back to RETURNS. Spending money on any kind of web technology before you’re clear on how that technology can help you achieve your goals is wasteful and definitely not strategic.

Seeing the returns on your web investment can be difficult or easy, depending on what you’re trying to achieve. If you set out to receive more sales leads and, after a complete redesign, you are getting more leads, that’s great. If you set out to increase brand awareness, it’s a bit more difficult (but not impossible).

But it’s more than just “yay, I did it!” You need to ask yourself a few questions (using the sales lead example from before):

1. Did I increase the number of leads AND the quality or just one component?
2. Do the website leads become sales or are they just vague inquiries?
3. Am I properly set up to react to these leads or am I dropping the ball?

Spending money on a website or spending time marketing your business online is not just due diligence. Have a outcome in mind and be sure that what you’re doing online helps you reach that outcome (unless you’re just screwing around on Twitter because that’s fun sometimes).

Web strategy… makes things better, not worse.

Chores: I hate them. Washing the car, taking out the garbage, cleaning the bathroom… I just feel like I have better things to do with my time. The have-tos in life are a drag, that’s for sure. Why create more of them?

Being truly strategic on the web means that you’re not creating two hours of extra work each day. Being strategic means finding ways to automate repetitive processes and outsourcing (however that’s defined) boring or unappealing tasks. It’s also about finding time in your day by using great, online tools that make your life easier.

But I’m going to take it one step further. Web strategy is about doing new, fun things. It’s about connecting with people in and out of your industry. It’s about expressing yourself in a new way and putting yourself and your ideas out there. It’s about learning new things, sharing your domain knowledge, and getting to know your customers and clients.

The online world is a vibrant, amazing, supportive, strange, and fantastic community. Building your web presence and connecting to that world should be fun and eye-opening. If it isn’t, you’re probably doing something wrong.

Web strategy… is what I do

When I wrote this, I was on a flight back to San Diego from a visit to friends and family in Seattle. I find my trips home very restorative because of the quality time I spend with the people that are so important to me.

This trip back found me in a conversation about the web with almost everyone I saw. People wanted to know why I was on Twitter, how the web could help them promote their business, what that interesting link was that I posted on Facebook, and how my own web strategy was going.

Everyone I talked to was really energized by what I told them about what this limitless online world. One friend made me iterate through each site that I use and why I used it. My dad wanted to understand blogs, LinkedIn, and Twitter better. My mom wanted to know how we could use the web to promote this great idea she had. Another close friend was all ears as I told her about how we could increase the amount of money coming into her non-profit. No one was bored, everyone wanted to know more.

The web is one hell of a place right now and it’s poised to improve without bounds. Sure there are thieves, viruses, hackers, assholes, and problems on the web but what you can achieve and learn there is worth the effort.

If you’re excited as I am about this whole thing and just don’t know where to start, contact me and I’ll get get the gears moving!

Related posts:

1. Pleased To Announce a New Client Website Launched: EMASPro.com I’m
2. My Answers for the 7 Questions to Ask a Social Media Expert A post wit
3. Getting started correcting your search engine problems. Who cares?

During this conversation, the topic of how to market and promote the site came up. Dad has already joined LinkedIn and, with a little help, gotten his profile up and running. The site that inevitably came up after that was Twitter. I can’t say I was surprised; I saw a few articles in his pile of “things to discuss” so I knew the question was coming: “WTF is Twitter?”

In the end, Twitter is different things for different people but the information below definitely got a sincere “A-HA” out of dad.

Twitter is digital networking

When I first started this whole gig, someone told me “you have to get out there and network.” I’m a very social person but the idea of hob-gobbling with a bunch of people I didn’t know for business purposes made me queasy. Why would I talk to a stranger about a business relationship if I didn’t already know we were a good match? This is the same reason I never did well in the bar scene…

But I digress… Twitter turns this whole networking thing on its head. Making a connection with someone (by following them to see their updates or mentioning them using their name [@joshcanhelp]) is easy and non-committal. Knowing that you want to connect with them is also very easy (read their bio and check out their link). The barrier to connection is very, very low.

That doesn’t mean you can’t go a step further. You can have a short conversation with someone you’ve never met before (or may never have an opportunity to meet). This is powerful and the basis of a few off-line business relationships I’ve made. When making a connection is easy and taking the next step is just as easy, you have a powerful tool to meet relevant people and exchange ideas very efficiently.

Twitter is the best content hot off the presses

Staying on top of your industry is time-consuming to say the least. If you’re in an industry you enjoy, it’s fun too but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier (might even be harder in that case). If only there was a way to gauge content relevancy on the web…

Here’s another way I use Twitter. The people I follow are mostly people in the SEO, web design, development, business, and communication communities. Since every third tweet I see is an article, I’m getting exposed to a LOT of different articles, new pieces, blog posts, and other pages. If I see it with an “RT” in front (retweet… means that someone is reposting someone else’s tweet), that means that it’s been posted at least twice and might be worth a look.

I’ll admit that having a stream of mostly relevant, potentially engaging content is quite a time sink. Still, once you get into the swing of things, you really learn how to scan quickly, gauge your interest, and move along if it doesn’t fit. If I’m in Twitter, I read maybe 10 articles a day (maximum) compared to 50 that I click on.

Twitter is a good time

In the end, nothing you use is a great tool unless you get some kind of enjoyment out of it. Gmail, Remember the Milk, and Dropbox are all things that make my life better and are so simple to use that it’s hard not to use them.

Same goes for Twitter. It’s easy to pick up the lingo, simple to understand the interface, and hard to stay away from for longer than a day. I’ve met many, many interesting people, found paid work, and read some very useful things. The people that I’ve found and follow on Twitter spread positivity, give me feedback when I need it, and really enrich my online life. I haven’t found a BFF on there or anything but I’ve made connections that moved past just replying and retweeting.

This makes it easy for Twitter to be a pretty effective “waste” of time like anything else. I don’t spend more than 15 -30 sporadic minutes on the site in a day and if I find myself going longer I always get the feeling that my “time ROI” is going down (there are only so many interesting people you can find in a day).

If you’re still confused, feel free to contact me or, if you’re just getting started, follow me and tell me you read this post! I’ll follow you back!

No related posts.

If you were wondering where your mail went... by Chicago Sage on Flickr

By now, you should be confident about sending the email in the first place and have a measurable outcome in mind. You’ve combed through your email list, taken a close look at the images you’re sending, and feel confident about your subject line. Now, let’s move your campaign from passive to active.

Tip #4 – Are you getting your message across clearly, honestly, and effectively?

Since you have a goal in mind, make that goal the target for your whole message. Do you want people to sign up for a conference? Make sure that comes across clear as day in your email. Are you informing your existing clients to a change in your website or procedures? Be straight-forward and make sure the important stuff comes before anything extemporaneous.

Jacob Nielsen, the king of pragmatism, weighs in:

Transactional and conformational emails – Jacob Nielsen

Users frequently told us that they were too busy to deal with certain email messages, and that they considered any fluff in messages a waste of time. People just want to be done with most email, and quickly move past anything that is not absolutely essential. It has long been a strong usability guideline to be brief when writing for the Web; email writers must be even briefer.

In most cases, the From field should show a recognizable brand name… The main differentiator [between effective and ineffective subject lines] was the degree to which the subject line explicitly related to a customer-initiated transaction.

In general, you should write a message according to the users’ priorities, starting with the information they’re typically looking for.

With your goal in mind, how do you give your recipients what they need to make this happen? Don’t waste everyone’s time with fluff in your message; cut to the chase and people will remember that your emails are informative and brief. Remember Strunk and White: OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS.

Email Checklist – Seth Godin (pertaining mostly to business email but good to keep in mind for campaigns as well)

Is any portion of the email in all caps? (If so, consider changing it.) Is it in black type at a normal size? Could this email be shorter? Do I have my contact info at the bottom? If I had to pay 42 cents to send this email, would I?

Don’t write like an advertiser, write like yourself. Watch out for too many colors, too many images, and anything that detracts from your message. You have something to say so don’t dilute your message.

One more thing to think about:

3 Million Emails for $500 – Seth Godin

“Email marketing is not about what you can get away with. Email marketing is about treating people with respect so that they will listen to what you have to say. So you can build your brand. So you can tell your story.”

You’re being given the opportunity to present yourself to anyone willing to open your email. Don’t squander that permission; it’s hard to gain back once you’ve lost it.

Tip #5 – Is the next step for each email clear?

I’m not sure where I heard this first but this is one of the few sales tactics that I find very valuable and not inherently dishonest.

The best thing you can do for your business is to make the purchase decision easy to make and easy to complete. If you wanted to buy a book on Amazon and the “buy now” button was hard to find or the site asked if you were sure you wanted to buy THAT book or the purchase process was clunky and confusing, how hard would you try to buy that book? Would you look for a different way to buy it?

Same goes for your business, whatever it is. If you want people to buy your product or service, make it easy to do so. Include links to the products, make sure everyone knows what they need to do next, include a “zoom to checkout” option.

Here’s a quick case study on the king of the next step for emails, ProFlowers (take notes):

E-mail Strategies and Tactics Exposed: An Insider’s Look at Exceptional E-mail – eMarketing and Commerce

By leveraging data and customer intelligence across channels – including Web and e-mail – [ProFlowers] has built a highly effective e-mail program that drives acquisition, conversion and purchases. Here’s how:

• e-mail acknowledges a recent Web site visit and provides an additional incentive to purchase…
• offers additional recommendations to consider
• prompts a user to share the offer with a friend
• creates a sense of urgency (respond within 3 days)

People can’t buy directly from an email so you’re going to need a place for them to go: a landing page. This is a special page created for a particular campaign. It’s the page people first see on your site when they click on a link from your email. You want your click-throughs (links clicked from an email) to end up as conversions (the people who actually fulfill your goal – buy, contact, fill out a form, etc.)

Here’s a big introduction to landing pages, how to make them, and how to use them:

Landing Page Tutorials and Case Studies – Copyblogger

A landing page is any page on a website where traffic is sent specifically to prompt a certain action or result.

Read through as much of that as you can stand… your sales depend on it. Here’s one more:

5 Tips to Designing the Ultimate Landing Page – Copyblogger

Scrutinize your competition’s design and organization flow of their landing pages…Put your most critical landing page elements in the upper 300 pixels of the page…Be obvious and use standard usage conventions…Make sure your page loads quickly

No one ever said effective company email marketing was an easy job. You might create a whole template and one or two landing pages for each email you send out. That’s a lot of work but very worthwhile in the end.

Tip #6 – What else can I try?

I think five essential questions are about all anyone could take on this topic. That’s a lot of information to absorb. As such, this sixth one is more about playing around and experimenting.

I’ll say, right at the beginning of this one, if you’re not spending the bulk of your time improving your content, constructing effective landing pages, and working on your open rates, this section won’t do anything for you. If, however, you’re doing great but need MORE, take a look at a few things some people are doing.

How about animated GIFs. Did I seriously just recommend that?

Animated GIFs in Email – MailChimp

At first a thought “oh crap… please no” but I saw these creative uses and thought twice:

Most Inspired Use of Animated GIFs – The Retail Email Blog (the Land’s End campaign)

Should you use them? I’d say try them out but watch the file size. Also, make sure it’s useful or funny or interesting… but hopefully I don’t have to tell you that at this point.

How about videos in email? Not many clients will allow an actual email to be embedded (major security concerns) but there are a few options if you have a compelling video you want to share.

Video email update: can you embed them? – Email Marketing Reports

• Put the video up on a website.
• Take a screenshot of the video player in action.
• Display this screenshot image [in the email] and link it to the web page where the actual video is available.

Now, let’s get a little more ambitious. If you’re using Twitter, LinkedIn, and/or Facebook, use your email to gain more friends and followers. If your short on ideas and just want to keep in touch, this is a non-invasive way to invite people to connect even better

Using Email to Make “Friends” – Smith-Harmon

In order to receive any information on the special offer, you need to click through to Perry Ellis’s facebook or twitter pages. Once there, you are able to view a variety of special offers, including promo codes, new arrival information and more.

Last but not least, here are a few tweaks to work into your next email template. Try them out and see if your stats improve.

Enticing Subject Lines Are Not Enough – MailChimp

• Pre-header information for email previews (The very first readable text that appears in your email will also appear in the summary line in certain email programs; make sure yours is clear, informative, and useful)
• List your intentions right away, numbered list, table of contents (Have three things to say? Bullet point them at the beginning)
• Big, bold headline (have one great thing to say? SAY IT LOUD)

A few great, recurring resources for you:

http://www.mailchimp.com/blog/

http://www.retailemailblog.com/

http://www.email-standards.org/

http://smith-harmon.com/blog/

If you need help with your email marketing or want a custom template designed for your mailings, contact me!

Related posts:

1. 3 Important Questions to Ask Before Sending an Email Campaign So you wan
2. Tooting my own horn – Email marketing presentation I just rec
3. Spam: what is it? what does it do? why am I sending it? who cares? I had an i

"In the days before email" by Today is a good day on Flickr

The tips here focus on planning, strategy, and common sense but there is still work to be done. Sitting on your butt while your well-written and designed emails get redirected right to a spam folder is not proper campaigning. Follow my tips here and keep experimenting and you’ll see all your statistics go up. FYI, this is part one of two. I’ve got three more questions that I’ll post later this week.

Tip #1 – “Am I sure I want to send this email?”

Sometimes the right email to send is no email at all. Format, time between emails, and goal planning can all affect how many people your message reads. Make sure now if the right time and what you’re sending is the right message.

Ask yourself…

• What’s the goal or desired outcome of this email? Your content and links should both promote the outcome you want from this email. Do you want attendees for your workshop? Don’t include a section on where to buy your book. Dilluting your message is killing your message.
• Should this email be text or HTML? If the information in the email is important and not related to marketing or promotion, consider a plain text email. If your email sender allows for it, send your email as both formats by using MIME.
• When was the last email sent for this list? Email marketers have to always worry whether they’re sending too often… or not often enough. I would suggest erring on the side of longer time between emails but you want to retain that hard-earned mind share. Shoot for about twice a month for marketing, promotions, and newsletters.
• Is the content written already? If not, get to work. You want to have your content in-hand before you even start to think about the design. Never forget: your content is what makes your email relevant, useful, and forwardable, not the design.
• Does this email contribute to a cohesive marketing plan? If you’re sending a regular email out to a list of subscribers then you’re managing a campaign, like it or not. Your recipients are going to get a general “feeling” about you and what you have to offer. Make sure you’re contributing to the right feeling.

Tip #2 – Will my email get to the (right) recipient?

That is to say, did the email end up in your recipient’s inbox? If your list comes from sign-ups, there is little to do about bunk addresses besides combing through manually and looking for misspelled domains (htomail, gamil, yahooo, etc). If you (or someone you hired) is doing the inputting, type carefully. Beyond that, an incorrect address (hard bounce) or a rejected mail for another reason (soft bounce) is beyond your control.

The other component of deliverability is the spam rating of your email. There are many ways to avoid being spammy, some of them are common sense (avoid words like “Viagra” in your subject line) and others might suprise you.

How HTML Code Affects E-Mail Deliverability – ClickZ

“Using outdated or incorrect code is a major reason why email[s] … are blocked or delivered to bulk or junk mail folders.

“Make sure your email designer/programmer is familiar with W3C standards. Before distributing an email, run the message through an HTML validator.”

Most of these problems can be solved by validating your template code (you can copy and paste it here). Keep it simple: when I code emails I keep the elements to a minimum (html, head, body, table, tr, td, p, b, i, span, a, and img).

Most Common Span Filter Triggers – MailChimp

TYPING IN ALL CAPS = SCREAMING AND IS RUDE. Don’t type in all caps in your emails, please. Who does that?

…the rest of the detections on that list basically mean that the senders sent way, way too many images, and not enough readable text. Spam filters can’t read images. Spammers know that, so they often send spam that’s nothing but a big, ginormous image. And spam filters know that, so they in turn block email that they can’t read.

Keeping images to a minimum is an important rule of thumb. Spam checkers look for an image to text ratio (each spam checker is different). when you’re trying to keep your content concise, this means that your images must be minimal. I usually use no more than 3 images, only one of which is for the design (a simple, effective header). This keeps the email size low and the content front and center.

To check the deliverability of your email try one of the two free options below:

Fast (there are a few checkers out there, this one seemed to be the toughest): http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/
Slow (makes you save files as .eml format but could catch problems that other scanners don’t): http://www.mailingcheck.com/download-spam-checker/

Tip #3 – Will the recipient open the email?

So you made it over the first big hurdle: the spam filter. Welcome to the next challenge. Even with the most pertinent, relevant, and incredible content, unless your recipients are opening the email, all was for naught. When I first started doing email marketing, I thought I was looking for something around 75% for an open rate. Yeah right. Check out MailChimp’s list of common open and click-through rates (keeping in mind that these are for lists where the recipient has indicated that they want to receive the email):

Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry – MailChimp

As an example, let’s take Education and Training:

• Open: 21.59%
• Click: 4.77%
• Unsubscribe rate: 0.25%

This is for each campaign. You’re losing a quarter of a percent of your list for each campaign, just over a fifth even open the email, and not even 5% take action on those mails. Tough crowd, huh? This is about average, maybe a bit higher. The highest rate I saw on that list was a third…

So, how do you break the curve and get better open rates? The benchmark link above sums it up:

…don’t sell what’s inside – tell what’s inside.

Just be honest. Tell your recipients what they are getting. Being a little more specific:

Change Up Those Subject Lines – MailChimp

It’s not easy thinking of new subject lines when you’re sending daily or weekly emails. Maybe it’s impossible, and you have to save the good ones for special occasions.

You can’t win them all but that doesn’t mean you have an excuse to stop trying:

Improve Your Email Open Rates – Email Marketing Reports

Short-term efforts: subject lines and other headers; timing; frequency

Long-term efforts: improve overall strategy and approach; refine sign-up procedures and targeting; get people to add you to their address list

The answer no one wants to hear: work harder. Tweak the timing (what day and what time) and frequency (how often) while you improve your campaign with each and every email. Think scientifically: come up with an idea on how to improve your open rate, give it a try and collect data, analyze what happened, and improve on your next go-around.

Need a little more long-term strategy ideas?

Improving Your Email Open Rate – MailChimp

Poor list quality, bad content…

The only thing that really guarantees a consistently high open rate is great, relevant content.

It doesn’t get any more straight forward then that. Send out crap and expect crappy statistics.

For the record, I sign up for email lists and open emails all the time. The ones I open? Newegg sales (those bastards know exactly what to send me, I swear), Yelp newsletters (funny, entertaining, and relevant), and causes I support (I think non-profits can see excellent results with emails). The ones I delete? Causes that send me something 3 times a week, marketing emails from a company I’m not particularly interested in, and emails I know i never signed up for.

That’s it for part 1. I’d love to hear feedback from those in the know and happy to field questions from those just getting started. What are your experiences? What emails do you open? Which ones do you delete?

Coming up later this week: Is your message clear? Is there a next step for recipients to take? What else is there?

Related posts:

1. 3 MORE Important Questions to Ask Before Sending Company Email Marketing On Monday,
2. Spam: what is it? what does it do? why am I sending it? who cares? I had an i
3. Tooting my own horn – Email marketing presentation I just rec

You are an [sic] Digital Collaborator

If you are a Digital Collaborator, you use information technology to work with and share your creations with others. You are enthusiastic about how ICTs help you connect with others and confident in your ability to manage digital devices and information. For you, the digital commons can be a camp, a lab, or a theater group – places to gather with others to develop something new.

I’d say they nailed me.

Their questions were well thought out and covered a lot of ground. I told them that I feel the internet has helped me stay in better touch with people, stay more productive, and helps me learn new things.While I’m happy to share my own tendencies, I would like to see the results so far… maybe that’s a later post.

Other interesting things I learned from all over the site:

• 61% are anchored to stationary media; though many have broadband and cell phones, coping with access is often too much for them (here)
• 75% of women and 73% of men use the internet (here)
• The internet penetration increased at the greatest rate between 1995 and 1997 (here)

So, what kind of tech user are you?

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I’m a member at StumbleUpon and have only recently been using it on a regular basis. The idea of pressing a button and going to a totally random website is very entertaining and exciting. It’s also gathered me a nice trickle of traffic to this site.

Part of using any social networking or media tool is connecting with people you know. Meeting new people is great and a major feature of these sites but finding existing friends is important. The best way to do this is to use some kind of “add your friends” feature that noses into you email contacts and allows you to add them (or not). StumbleUpon calls this “Connect with Friends.”

There are two aspects to this seemingly innocuous function:

1. Finding people who already use StumbleUpon to invite them to be a part of your network
2. Inviting people who are not using StumbleUpon to join the network

There’s nothing inherently wrong with either one of these functions but they invite a social disaster. Here’s what happened to me.

I typed in my Gmail address and password (I trust them not to store this information) and was presented with two lists: one list of people who are already part of StumbleUpon and another list of email addresses corresponding to people who aren’t on the site. Both lists are checkboxed so you can “check all” and invite everyone. The first problem is that both lists are on the same page so one button is used to both invite people who already use the site and those who don’t.

For my Gmail account, none of my email addresses were checked which means 452 are not going to get spam from me asking them to join this site. This is a good thing. Many people on here have only been contacted once or twice. So, I click Connect Now, add the existing “Stumblers” to my friend list and move on.

I thought “that was easy, might as well do it for my Hotmail account.” So I did and got to the same screen as above… but is it the same? Can you spot the critical difference?

Exactly, all of my addresses are now checked off. It’s 400 less people than Gmail but it’s 57 people that I don’t want to PERSONALLY send spam to. Looking over the list, there were several people that I had not talked to in a while and this is not how I wanted to reconnect with them.

So, without thinking about it, I pressed Connect Now and noticed, right after clicking, that all those addresses were checked. Not only was I tricked into inviting all these people, there wasn’t even a “Are you sure you want to send 57 emails to a bunch of people who probably won’t join this site?” pop-up box. That sucks, plain and simple.

What happened? This came from someone close to me:

Subject: I HATE THESE F*CKING THINGS… You sent me that stupid thing about “a friend wants to share his favorite sites with you” and then it sent that same thing out to all the people on my hotmail list….  That feels so f*cking invasive.  It sent one to ____ and he was kinda weirded out by it because we haven’t talked for years and then this f*cking thing comes thru.  If you did that don’t do that anymore – if you had someelse do that – tell them to not DO THAT.

We’re fine now but this person was tricked into the same thing. I actually found three people that signed up because the email that was sent to them made it seem like I wanted them to see something and share it with them. So they sign up, see nothing, and are then, from what I gather, are faced with the same window to invite friends. Wow! That’s really, really bad.

Did any of this HAVE to happen? No. Could I have stopped everything by watching each screen closely to make sure the pattern isn’t broken? You bet; in fact I learned an important lesson, one I should have learned long ago (though this is the first time during years of using sites like this that this kind of thing ever happened).

But, guess what? StumbleUpon now has a terrible name with three people who signed up needlessly, got irritated, and then deleted their accounts. Not only that, I was tricked into breaking a social contract (no email spam from friends) that I’m typically very good at honoring.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a book or a software application or a brochure or a marketing piece or anything that you’re creating, there are ways to help people do the right thing and there are ways to make it harder. When you make it easy for people to do the right thing (most people, the vast majority, don’t want to spam their friends with your site), you’re showing that it is more important that you respect people than it is to reach your goals. When you trick people into helping you reach your goals (change a process mid-way, use dishonest language, don’t check with your users to make sure they know what they are doing), you’re telling me you don’t care about me and you don’t care about my relationships. At a company like StumbleUpon, a major social media and networking site, everyone should know what spam is and how to avoid it. Apparently, what they don’t know is how to help others do the same.

Bad form!

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The Big Three

When I explain websites to people who are new to the web, I use a house metaphor. Owning a house has three parts like a website: The address, the land it’s on, and the house itself. Without land, where does the house go? Without the house, what is the point of the land? Without an address, how does mail get to you and how do friends find you? All three pieces come together to make a place you live.

Here are the three things you need to understand about web sites if you have or are considering building a website. Ignore at your own risk.

The Domain

This is, arguably, the most critical piece of the website puzzle. Your domain name is a crucial piece of your brand and, if you’re not careful, it can be taken away from you.

Using the house metaphor, the domain name is your street address with one major difference: someone can take your address away. Think about where you live and how you use your address – mail, food deliveries, visitors, official stuff (taxes, etc). Now imagine that it could be taken away or deactivated if you didn’t register it regularly. Yikes!

There are three critical things to learn and understand about domain names:

Choosing a domain name: A lot of thought needs to go into picking a domain name. You’re not going to be able to change it (without a lot of hassle and re-work) and the right one can help you rank better in search engines. Put some thought into it before you commit (you should probably do that with everything, actually).

Owning a domain name: Once you’ve chosen the right domain name, you’re going to need to buy it and own it. Think of your domain like your car insurance – you’re going to have it for a long time and you don’t want any gaps in service. Make sure YOUR personal information is logged for your domain and buy your domain names separate from your web host if you can.

Maintain it: Owning a domain name is more than just paying $8 – 15  per year. Make sure the public information is correct and ignore ANYTHING mailed  or emailed to you about your domain unless it comes from your registrar. Also, keep your domain login information safe and set a calendar reminder for the expiration date.

The Host

Many people confuse their domain name with their web host. Though your domain and hosting might be with the same company, they are distinctly different. The domain name directs visitors to your site and your host delivers your site to these viewers.

Think about the house again. Your house can’t exist without the land it is built on. The land can owned by you or leased from someone else and you have to pay those taxes/dues or you’re in trouble.

There are three main things to understand about web hosting:

Performance is critical: You can build the greatest web site in the world but, unless it is being served quickly and without errors, there is no point in having it out there. You get what you pay for so make sure you’re not buying the cheapest.

Word of mouth is king: Unless you’ve heard from someone directly about a particular host, take care. There are many review sites out there that are jammed with great reviews from affiliates (i.e. people who make money from a particular host). Listen to friends, family, and trusted online sources.

Understand the features that matter: Unlimited everything might sound nice but make sure your host has what you need. Look for the number of FTP accounts, number of databases, the pre-installed software, and the email support. If you’re a small business with a small site, don’t worry about the storage or transfer amount; you’ll never reach those limits.

The site

The site itself is made up of at least one and potentially thousands of individual files. These files can be static (the page you’re looking at is a file that does not change unless it’s edited) or dynamic (changes can be made to the site from other on-line programs). When you hire a designer/developer like myself, you’re paying them to build these files and pass them on to the host.

Once again, back to the house metaphor. Your site is the house itself, the thing that everyone sees. Houses, like webpages, communicate something about their owners and need upkeep. You should be proud of your house and feel comfortable with it. It also doesn’t need to be the flashiest one on the block to get the job done.

A few talking points about web sites:

Be careful who you hire: I’ve seen some scary websites over the years. Though much of this comes from designers who don’t care or don’t know better, it’s up to you to pick the right one. Ask about valid code (I do it), ask if they use CSS (I use it), and ask them what they think about web standards (a great idea but nothing is perfect). If they look at you funny, run away.

Flashy doesn’t mean effective: For as many awful sites as I’ve seen, I’ve also seen a lot of very cool ones that aren’t doing anything. Paying $10K for a cutting edge, beautiful site doesn’t mean anything is going to come of it. Be clear on your goals and make sure the visuals contribute to them.

Make sure the outcome feels right: There are design conventions, colors that work well together, and typography rules-of-thumb but none of these mean anything if your site doesn’t feel like your own. As you’re working through a design plan, make sure that the product represents you and your business. If you don’t like it at any step, never be afraid to speak up. Also, ask others for their opinion.

Hope this helps! Look forward to a post about each of the above topics in the near future. If you need help with any of this stuff or don’t even know where to start, contact me, I’d be happy to help!

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The goal of this site

The website team set out with a few goals in mind (listed in order):

1. Increase sales leads

2. Claim a better position in search engine ranking pages (SERPs)

3. Create a better landing page for email campaigns and conference leads

To this end, the design and content of the site serves to drive visitors towards the Contact Us form (aka the request a demo form). The software being sold on this site is a large, campus-wide relationship management tool so the option to pay and download does not exist. Our goal is to convince people that we’re worth the time to check out, drive home a few salient points, and get them to call or email for a demonstration.

Information architecture to assist our sales lead goal

Since the goal was to funnel visitors towards the contact form, the site needed to avoid navigation confusion and always have the option to jump right to a contact form. Here’s what was done to achieve that goal:

• At the top of every page is an attractive button that leads to the demo request form. Studies show that page elements that look like things people can touch in real life get the most clicks. There’s no missing the button and no mistake what it does.
  
• Content resides only one or two levels deep. This means it takes only one or two clicks to get to the main content. Portal pages were created for topics with more than one page to create an index and a good landing spot for general links like the clients we support and our main selling points.
  
• Appropriate headlines and link text was used to both inform and entice. Whenever possible, long pieces of content were broken into sections and/or lists to make it easy to scan.

Other features

A lot of time, energy, and planning went into building this site. This is easily the most well-planned, fully designed site I’ve ever built. A few things I’m really psyched about:

• The whole thing is completely valid XHTML and CSS written by hand from scratch. It is served through PHP to make it easier to add pages and make changes. In the future, I’ll have certain pieces of content served up through XML (or CSV) so other members of the marketing team can switch around the content.
  
• We created a general keyword strategy for the site which is miles apart from what existed before. On the old site, we were accidentally ranking for a few different words. This new site is optimized for those words and a few others.
• Navigation at the top and the site map in the footer at the bottom make sure people don’t get lost in any particular section. I also added a dynamic breadcrumb function just below the header that keeps track of where people are in the site.
  
• The sidebar modules are just that – modules. They all reside in the same PHP file and can be changed in one place to affect each instance on the site. The content within each box is served up based on the page being viewed.
  
• The forms go to different mailboxes depending on the option that is selected. A special CSS-based anti-spam measure was added to replace the original idea of using a reCATCHA.
  

What’s next?

The site is not quite complete but needed to be launched. Here’s what’s just around the corner:

• Drop-down navigation for certain options
• Pages specific to each product (remove the annoying PDF documents)
• A little better linking in between pages
• Tighten up the keywords used for each page
• A few more design touches here and there (pull quotes, a little more texture on the sidebar, etc)
• More context for the Contact Us box (or, potentially, remove it completely).

Hope you like it! If you’re interested in something similar for your business, please don’t hesitate to contact me for an estimate!

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