A bookmark is a link in one section of an email that links to another section of that same email. For instance, you’re likely to see these bookmarks in a table of contents at the top of the email.
 
A table of contents contains all the different topics covered in your email.  That’s why it holds the perfect opportunity to get more people engaged with your message. It allows recipients to find items that interest them without having to scroll and scan the entire email message. And as you know, the more scanable and readable your email is, the more likely readers will get your message and/or take action.

You may provide the greatest product in the world with the best service in the industry, but if it doesn’t work for the customer, they are not going to be happy. After all, customer success is what customer satisfaction is built upon.

There is a relatively easy way to boost customer satisfaction. Consider starting an email newsletter that provides your customers with best practice advice and case studies. It’s an ideal medium to share product knowledge that will help customers get the most out of your product or service. In addition to that, email also makes it easy for recipients to forward your message to a friend. And rest assured: satisfied customers will forward your message, expanding your brand reach considerably.

The worldwide use of mobile internet is spreading like a wildfire. However reading email on mobile phones isn’t always that easy. That’s an issue you’d best keep in mind when drawing out your email campaigns.

But how exactly do you go about keeping this important user group satisfied? For starters, you could shorten and clearly describe your URLs. That will prevent them from being cut halfway, making them useless.
Also keep an eye on the weight of your images and optimize rendering when images or html are turned off. And it’s always a clever idea to add a link to view the message in its full glory on your website.

Mobile email usage will keep on growing as smartphones and mobile web devices become standard. Make sure your email communication is optimized for this mobile (r)evolution.

On June 9 the first Belgian email marketing benchmarks will be revealed.

These benchmark is the work of the Belgian IAB email marketing taskforce. They brought all major ESP’s and publishers together and convinced them to share their data. The key findings of this work will be presented @ an IAB breakfast event.

If you don’t want to miss it, you can subscribe here:
Dutch registration
French registration

As from the 1st of July there is a new opt-in legislation regarding B2B communication.
Gone are the days that companies could approach each other via generic email addresses (e.g. info@) to promote product or services.

From now on electronic B2B communication will have the same restrictions as B2C communication.

In short

- Explicit consent is needed before sending a commercial email to a company
- Even for existing databases you will need this consent (opt-inning your old databases)
- Your company’s identity must be very clear on each communication
- A free unsubscribe link has to be provided and respected

The exception

You don’t need explicit consent when mailing to clients, but:
- The communication has to be related to the bought product or service
- The costumer must have the possibility to deny this type of communication when becoming a new client
- A free unsubscribe link has to be provided and respected

Not only email!

This new legislation does not only regulate email marketing, but all electronic communication.
So also SMS/MMS marketing and fax are bound to the same rules.

The paradox

While electronic communication is very well regulated, as it should be, print communication is not. So basically, there is no problem of you want to send people personal addressed post by regular postal mail!

Is it just me or is there something wrong in this world? Every day when opening my (postal) mailbox I have to throw away tons of papers and nobody cares.

IMPORTANT: The new legislation is postponed until October the 1st.

Kenny Van Beeck

One thing’s for sure: a readable URL reinforces branding. Keep dashes, slashes and numbers out of URLs whenever possible. It helps improve your visitors’ recognition that the landing page is related to the product or company it represents. Needless to say this adds to the trustworthiness of the content it contains.

And what’s more:  landing page URLs with easy-to-read (and easy-to-type) addresses are perfect to encourage prospects to check out online offerings through offline channels, like direct mail or print advertising.

Still, a Silverpop study found that few companies create readable URLs for their landing pages. Barely 3 out of 10 landing pages evaluated in the study had simple, easy-to-read and well-branded URLs. While one-third (33%) of BtoC companies used straightforward and well-branded URLs for landing pages, less than one-fourth of the BtoB companies (23%) did.

A single email can make or break a valuable customer relationship.

That makes us wonder why 89 % of marketers still send low-value, one-off broadcast email campaigns. Take the time to plan strategically and execute high-value individualized lifecycle marketing programs. Because it makes perfect sense: if you allow them, your customers will help you keep your email dialogues personal, relevant and dynamic.

A JupiterResearch study found that, despite the extra costs, engaging your audiences in more relevant communications increases net profits by an average of 18 times more than broadcast mailings. Stunning, isn’t it?

We start this tip with an essential statement in email marketing: your first email will affect how they think about you and your brand or company. It can even determine whether they’ll continue to do business with you.

The email relationship can start when someone signs up to receive promotional email or newsletters. But be aware that it could also be something as generic as an order confirmation or account registration.

All those messages offer a perfect opportunity to engage with your customers. They allow you to open or extend the email relationship with your customers or subscribers. And what about the chance to answer ‘hot’ questions or to cross-sell or up-sell your products or services… You wouldn’t want to waste that, would you?

Today EmailGarage is proud to be a part of the Relationship Marketing Congress, organised by Stichting Marketing. This yearly congress is all about relevant marketing cases and presentations that touched the audience or built a unique conversation.

Visitors can attend presentations about customer targeting, audience participation, online behavioural targeting, B2B customer relationship building, combined with interactive marketing bars. And the keynote speaker just spoke about how brands can plan and measure an effective social media strategy.

All these topics and discussions focus on direct and relevant messaging, which is one of EmailGarage’s true beliefs.

Future customer communication challenges will be based on three essential parts: marketing, social interaction and technology. EmailGarage acts in all these elements. Our platform is a technology tool we try to enhance and optimize day after day. Our customers use it to build efficient customer dialogues, and our project team is ready to tackle all your marketing challenges, such as campaign management and optimization, email strategy consulting, etc.

Feel free to visit our booth in the afternoon, we will be happy to tell you more about what we can do for you and your customers.

Jelle Quirynen

In the battle against spam, ISP’s came up with strong spamfilters. Due to this spam filtering process some legitimate emails were also blocked, known as false positives. To avoid this kind of email deliverability problems, a process of whitelisting was implemented, certainly not the easiest method. Why would an ISP whitelist a sender if it isn’t of any interest for him. But anyway, whitelisting procedures are almost over. The new standard is Reputation Management.

The reputation of your sender IP address is more and more becoming most important factor of whether or not your email will end up getting blocked by the spam filter. The reputation scoring mechanism is looking to several factors of your email communication:
- What is the volume of emails that you are sending?
- How often are you sending emails?
- Do you have a high bounce rate on your email campaigns?
- Do people complain about your emails by hitting the spam button?

This new way of working brings up a whole new perspective on your email communication. The opinion or perception of the receiver has a higher value than just the local legislation or any other spam filter rule.

So here is your to do list:
- Start working with a clean opt-in list
- Make your communication relevant to your contacts
- Work on your bounce management (pay attention to
delete your bounces on the list).

Using a scoring system such as the EmailGarage EmailHealthScore makes it easier to maintain the quality of your list (e.g. everything below 3/10 should be removed or blocked). Indeed the Email Service Provider can manage the technical infrastructure and make it as clean as possible, but you can be of great help to maintain a good SenderScore by deleting your bounces.

Kenny Van Beeck