What the heck is 7-BIT ASCII?
Many of you seasoned email marketers may already know this but many email services will not properly read some standard punctuation marks and other symbols. (This is one of the simple, but very important little tips I am learning as a result of using Responsys for the NextStudent email campaigns.) For example, if you use only a typed apostrophe when typing the word you’re – your customers may actually see a little square in place of where the apostrophe should be. To ensure this doesn’t occur, I highly recommend using 7-bit ascii. What is this? This is basically a symbol/number combination that is used within the HTML of any text to represent a symbol.
If you use Dreamweaver to create your emails, you can simply type an “&” in place of your punctuation mark and a list of all of the ascii strings will be provided for you. Just make sure you are doing this within the code view and not the design view. Just a warning, this list is a bit long and it can be a little tedious at times trying to find the correct symbol. For an easier solution, W3Schools has a great reference page listing all the standard symbols.
Email Marketing Miracle
I took a very long hiatus from not just this blog but blogging altogether. I had realized that it was proving very difficult to find the time to post truly relevant topics and like you, I am very much aware that most of what is posted “out there” on a daily basis is completely irrelevant to 99.9% of us. Unfortunately for you, my return to the blogging world will not be marked with a post of such substance that the world at large will bow down at my electronic feet and praise me for my intelligence and insight. It is however very significant to me and I hope to at least one or two others out there.
For the past month, I have been very extremely busy at NextStudent assisting in the implementation of a new email marketing management program. This program was chosen long before I came onto the scene and long before I new the difference between a bad and truly superior program. My desire to bestow heaps of praise upon this glorious program is what brings me back to the blogging world!
The email marketing process has grown significantly at NextStudent within the past year and our previous email program (which I will be polite enough NOT to mention by name) was not even close to what we required to be successful. Our new program, Responsys (which I obviously have no problem at all mentioning by name) is like the Rolls Royce of email management programs in comparison. It is very user friendly, is quick and unbelievably easy to use, has great reporting capabilities and makes the management of a mid to large sized email campaign ever so easy!
If you are not yet using it, I highly recommend that you check it out.
New Overture Sponsored Search
I do some of the daily PPC reporting for my company – collecting data from a variety of sources, including Google Adwords and Overture Sponsored Search. NextStudent recently upgraded to Overture’s new (and thankfully improved) Sponsored Search analytics tool. I wanted to give Yahoo “props” on finally making their tool more user friendly! At this point, I’ve only used the Reporting section of the upgraded tool but I have to say that it is far superior to the old program. The old system constantly gave me errors of all sorts when I tried to run even the simplest of reports. The new system is both quick and user friendly! My only complaint thus far is that you are not able to customize the reports shown on the dashboard. Or at least, I have not yet found a way to do so.
If anyone has found a way to do this, I would very much appreciate some assistance. For example, I use the Performance report most frequently and the only thing it does not provide is Avg. Position. If I could find a way to add this data to the report I would be a very “happy camper” indeed!
Wii Will Rock You!
My company recently published an article about How to Throw the Ultimate College Wii Party! I was totally unaware of what Wii was before this article was written (I’ve seen a few commercials about it but like many of the drug commercials out now, you can be aware of the product name without having a clue about what the product actually is)! Funny enough though, I went to a house-warming party this weekend expecting a normal, rather dull gathering, and instead stumbled upon a bunch of people playing the coolest video games! Turns out..they were using the infamous Wii! Though we didn’t follow all of the sage advice provided by NextStudent, we all had a great time! I highly recommend getting one!
Email Subject Lines
Just a quick post – the end of my weekend is drawing close and I want to try and enjoy what’s left! I tried a few of my new subject lines last week and I’m very happy to report that they worked out very well. With one email, the open rate was almost 10% higher – which is outstanding in my world. The others did better as well though not quite as well! I will report to you all the methods I used next week!
I also wanted to thank the person who commented on my original email subject line post – he gave me a link to collection of great articles that proved very valuable.
Could You Be Haunted by your Blog?
I just read an article by Gerry McGovern that caused me to go back and read the posts on both of my blogs. The basic premise of the article is this – Could my blog posts and comments come back to haunt me in the future? Could my current employer or any future employers use something that I have written against me? Will my future run for presidency be affected by something I am saying now? Like Mr. McGovern so aptly pointed out…a blog is NOT a conversation. It may seem like a conversation – many times you are posting on true conversations that took place in the past, things you have seen or heard, or simply imparting your opinion – but unlike most conversations, a blog post is a permanent record that could very well be used against you far into the future.
So next time you post, think about these things first: Could your comments be taken out of context? Is it something you would want your grandmother, mother, or future potential employer to see? Is it an impulse post or have you put some thought into it? Do you have your facts straight? Do you have something to say and are you saying it well??
Do this and you will never have to worry about being haunted by your blog!
Advertising Inquest
I was looking at some competitor emails the other day (a practice which I highly recommend for any company by the way) and came across one which was too horrible to describe! It was by a competitor (who I won’t name) that is huge compared to my company and a true name within the industry. I was amazed that they could distribute a marketing piece that was so poorly done. After I thought about it a bit though, I realized that because of their history, and because they are practically a household name within the industry, that they didn’t necessarily need to rely as much on their marketing skills. Though I obviously don’t know this for sure, I would imagine that they rely a great deal on the fact that their name is known by almost everyone (especially as my industry is one in which trust is very important). Given the choice between a known name and anonymous Company B, most consumers would probably go with the familiar. This is obviously the reason why “brand” should always be a part of any marketing campaign.
I did have a second though that maybe some of you could help me with. If you agree with the concept above, why do companies like Coke for example, who are one of the biggest household names in the world, still spend billions of dollars on advertising (did anyone see their very creative commercials shown during the Superbowl?) I would think that there is no way they can increase their brand recognition at this point. If you are Coke fan, you will probably always be a Coke fan and chose Coke over Pepsi forever. The product does not change, so why market to such a degree? Do they create these great ads simply so that their advertising executives can show off their talents??
I would love some input on this, and please feel free to tell me if I’m wrong!
Tips for Good E-Mail Creative
There have been hundreds of articles written on the subject of good email creative, however just in case you didn’t actually read any of those articles, I’ve decided to share a few of the basic ones with you.
- Keep it simple! People generally do not read full sentences so why force them to do so within your emails. Create your copy based on the premise that half of your readers will spend less than 5 seconds reading your email and the other will want to spend a bit more time reading in order to really understand your message. This means using clear and concise bullet points, having clear call to actions and only including information that is truly useful to your reader.
- Use an eye catching layout! Both color choices and layout design need to focus on guiding the customers eyes to your “call to action”. You don’t need to be blatant about it (like using arrows), just put a bit of thought into your use of colors and images. You can use contrasting colors but make sure that they aren’t so bright that your text is lost. Don’t use colors and images where none are needed as this will detract from your main message. Also, keep in mind how your color scheme will look within the uers’s email interface. Most email programs already have an abundance of color (not to mention the other 3 or 4 ads flashing on the screen).
- Reinforce your “call to action.” Don’t just tell them that they can save X%, show them how! Use buttons, larger fonts and colors to highlight what it is you really want your customer to do and make sure you put that call to action at the top. Forcing them to read a full page email before you tell them what they need to do to “save” will not result in many conversions.
These are just a few of the basic principles I’ve learned over the years. If you have any others you feel are essential, I would love to hear them!
Spam Bam Thank you Ma’am
DIY Naturally brought up a great point in response to my post about HTML – that correct email configuration can affect how email providers view you. If your emails contain certain HTML errors, you could be tagged as a spammer. All of my posts thus far can relate to this. Subject lines, HTML, email templates, and email content can all cause your company to be labeled as one of the “dreaded” spammers! Should this occur, you could actually get banned from sending emails to all of your clients who use that email provider. Imagine not being able to send emails to anyone who uses Yahoo, or AOL, or Outlook. Proper email configuration is definitely not just about open rates and click through rates. Those can’t occur if your email never gets into the clients inbox.
How to Create an Effective Marketing Email Subject Line
One of my many tasks this week at NextStudent is to come up with a few new subject lines for our existing marketing emails. I do have some experience with this, but plan to do as much research as I can in the next few days. Rather than posting on the little information I have now, I plan to thoroughly research the subject and the share all I know and have learned with you all! So, stayed tuned for that post next week!
Oh, and if anyone has any good resources for this subject…please share them!
Musings of the eMarketing Maven 
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