Ask the Expert: Do you have some simple tips for making my email more effective?

May/June 2005

Answer: by David Crooke, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Convio

The Internet landscape for email marketing is constantly changing. Email marketers have to contend not only with collateral damage from the war on spam, but also with increasingly common privacy features in consumer email software which also have side effects on email campaigns. Here are some simple, easy-to-implement tactics that e-marketers can use to improve their email marketing effectiveness.

Consistency
Even with the best filters, everyone's in-box is flooded with spam these days, so it is vital that legitimate email stands out from the barrage. An important part of this is making sure readers are expecting email and can recognize it:

Always use the same "from" address, in both the display and email address parts. This helps readers recognize the organization as the source of the email, and helps them to easily add you to their "accept email from this source" list.
Deliver regular emails at the same time of day on the same day of the week, so readers know when to expect them.
Use a relevant and consistent "subject" line so that it is easy to spot in a crowded inbox.

Image Blockers
The proportion of email clients that block images in HTML emails is growing faster than ever. Outlook 2003, Outlook Express XP, and AOL 9.0 all allow for this. Google's new Gmail does not even offer users the choice to turn this feature off (Google is paid by ad subscribers and doesn't want HTML emails to steer eyes away from their links).

It is important to ensure that emails are designed to cope with this latest development. Some tips:

Format the content so that if images are suppressed, the message still displays well. This technique also is a good practice for low-capability HTML clients such as Lotus Notes and AOL.

Include a link at the top of each message where recipients can go to view the contents on a Web page (Convio's email marketing tool has built-in capability for this).

Spend some effort on polishing the text version of the email, since more people will be seeing it than ever before.

It's SPF Time
The past year saw competing standards for verifying the identity of an email sender. Sender Policy Framework (SPF), which was the simplest and most effective design, won the battle for public opinion over Microsoft's proprietary alternative, Email Caller ID and other proposed standards. There are now two ways in which SPF can be used.

The first SPF concept requires the email marketer to publish SPF records to authenticate email senders via email "envelope" addresses. Your email service provider should take care of this for you (Convio includes this as part of its system).

SPF's version 2 allows Internet domain owners to define which servers are allowed to use that domain in the user-visible "from" address line, known as the Purported Responsible Authority (PRA) domain. With major ISPs starting to adopt SPF checks as part of their email handling and spam filtering, email marketers should consider asking their IT colleagues to publish an SPF 2.0 PRA record for their domain(s). Note that when doing this, it is essential to include your email service provider as an authorized source of your email, or you will block your own email. To be safe, ask your vendor to check your proposed PRA record before you publish it.

Conclusion
Managing mass email communications can be complex, so be sure to ask your email service provider to keep you informed about major changes in the landscape. In addition to reading Convio Connection, also consider subscribing to newsletters from organizations like the DMA Nonprofit Federation and Marketing Sherpa to stay informed.

Note: If you are a Convio customer, and would like more information about how Convio handles SPF, please visit the Customer Center at http://customer.convio.com/whatisspf.

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