The Whitelist

Image blocking within the Preview Pane can be so frustrating, it should probably be called the Preview Pain.  But that pain reminds us that that there’s something important going on up there.

That Pane/Pain is a precious piece of on-screen real estate that needs a lot of attention paid to it.  After all, after the From address and the subject line, the Preview Pane is the third most important element you have to get people to open your emails.

And if your emails don’t get opened, you won’t have any conversions, so what’s the point of having a great deliverability rate if your emails don’t make money? 

The Preview Pane is limited in size, it might be horizontal or vertical, it appears differently in different email clients, it might or might not allow images…and you have to pay attention to it. Period.

For more on this topic, download our latest whitepaper on driving ROI after you get into the inbox.

…Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports gives us email marketing people a great article warning of the pitfalls of ‘alt’ tags.  As he points out, different email clients handle blocked images different ways.  For one thing, it’s not just about the alt text, although many email marketers focus on that. You have to be careful about attributes too. That means beyond alternative words to display when images are blocked, you must set attributes like height and width too.

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Email marketing has many moving parts to it…often more than those in charge of email marketing are even aware.

It is a truism that for many companies, the email marketing department is either under-staffed or under-trained. Email marketing therefore tends to be a job that people fall into rather than train for and seek out.

But part of our task as an email marketing service provider is to educate. Hence this blog, and our newly launched email newsletter. And our recent whitepaper.  After the jump, an excerpt from the whitepaper on avoiding tags that invite disaster…

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Savvy email marketers know there’s a wealth of information to be gleaned from their email service provider’s (ESP’s) reporting tools. But despite the depth of that data, you’re not learning anything new. If your open rate is 32%, for example, then that’s your open rate. It might be higher or lower than your last campaign, but you won’t know why.

Unless you test.

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Below is a quick overview of some of the many pieces each of your email marketing messages should include, or not, to up your email marketing ROI. We’ve drawn this list from our newest ClickMail Marketing whitepaper: You’ve made it to the inbox. Now what? Definitely download the email marketing whitepaper to get more details about each of these components. But for now, here’s a high-level list to get you thinking-and checking. Because email marketing and design are much more complicated than some marketers realize! And checklists can help make our jobs just a little bit easier…

To get your email opened, include:

• A From address that is recognizable to the recipient
• A clear, compelling subject line
• As much personalization as is appropriate and possible
• A quick, to-the-point hook

To get your email acted upon, include:

• A professionally crafted description of your offer/message right at the beginning
• A reason to act right away
• A simple and easy way to respond
• 3 to 5 instances of your call-to-action

To follow best practices and please your recipients, include:

• A “view as web page” link
• A straight-forward unsubscribe to opt-out
• A link to a profile center or preferences page

To organically grow your in-house email marketing list, include:

• A FTF/FTC (forward to a friend, forward to a colleague) link

To increase your email marketing ROI even more, do not include:

• Competing links in a campaign email; include only one action

Like I said, this is just a summary, but can at least get you started double-checking your email marketing and design. For more details about these email marketing components, and many others that will help you maximize your email marketing ROI, download the email marketing whitepaper at http://www.clickmailmarketing.com/resources/whitepapers.html.