SAE INSTITUTE, 15 October, Sidney De Koning Email Newsletters Cross Media Communication & Production

Introduction ✤ Who are you? ✤ Who am i?

Sidney de Koning ✤ Love coding ✤ Blogger: O’Reilly, FITC, FFDM, Funky Monkey, Culinerd ✤ Writer: Automating Actionscript Projects. ✤ Business owner - Mobile: Mannetje de Koning / Appcouture ✤ www.funky-monkey.nl ✤ www.culinerd.nl ✤ www.mannetjedekoning.nl

Overview ✤ Email Marketing Basics ✤ Finding an email delivery service ✤ MailChimp

Email Marketing Basics ✤ Spam! Or what not to do ✤ Legal issues with permission-based emails ✤ Building an address list ✤ Planning email campaign ✤ Free templates / Creating content for campaigns ✤ Understanding design constraints of HTML email

Finding an Email Delivery Service ✤ Why choose a Email delivery service? ✤ Their policies - Spamming, blacklist, whitelist ✤ What about their pricing? ✤ Do they offer support? ✤ Do they have references? ✤ Ease of use - Dashboard, interface and reporting tools ✤ Who to choose? MailChimp, SendGrid, Postmark

MailChimp ✤ Signup ✤ Dashboard ✤ Explore interface - just click around. ✤ Sending an email ✤ Create a list ✤ Create a campaign ✤ Publishing / scheduling email delivery

Spam! Or what not to do ✤ What is spam? And where does it come from? ✤ DON’TS: ✤ Don’t attach large files to newsletters ✤ Don’t change your email, pick one and stay with it. ✤ Don’t change your name, be consistent with the senders name. ✤ Avoid writing like a used car sales man.

Spam! How spam filters think. ✤ Going crazy with exclamation points!!!!!! ✤ USING ALL CAPS--IT'S LIKE YELLING IN EMAIL. ✤ Coding sloppy HTML (usually from pasting a Microsoft Word file to HTML) ✤ Coloring fonts bright red or green ✤ Using the word "test" in the subject line ✤ Creating an HTML email that’s nothing but one big image, with little or no text

Spam! Or what not to do

Spam! Lawsuits ✤ Subject lines ✤ False promises ✤ Dumping address books / buying lists ✤ More info at: ✤ https://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/ spam-lawsuits/ “C’mon, it’s just an email. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Permission-based email marketing ✤ People give you their emails. They “ask” to be on your list. ✤ Don’t think one night stand, think relationship and trust. ✤ Don’t go with these rules - blacklisted, marked as spam. ✤ Users are ruthless and will not easily forgive you. ✤ Turn it around - How would you react?

Building an email list ✤ How do you get people on you list? You ask, politely. ✤ Offering free stuff - ebooks, expert tips, tricks, downloads, mp3’s, software etc. ✤ Subscriptions - news, updates, etc.

Planning an email campaign ✤ Send regularly - if you promise once a week, keep it ✤ Best days are tuesday, wednesday and thursday, 2 to 5 PM ✤ If you use a date - check it! In title’s headers, etc. ✤ Use a tagline - [My Newsletter] Topics for this week are... ✤ Avoid complex HTML structures / Use inline CSS. ✤ Test your newsletter. Via Free Content Checker, SpamCheck, Contactology

Planning an email campaign

Planning an email campaign

Free! HTML Templates ✤ Most EDM sites offer free templates for free to use with their service. ✤ MailChimp: http://mailchimp.com/features/email-templates/ ✤ Campaign Monitor: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/templates/

Understanding design constraints of HTML email

Understanding design constraints of HTML email

✤ Email likes it dirty: ✤ Inline CSS ✤ Table layout. No CSS Positioning. Not only that, but… ✤ Embedded Tables (gasp!) Shim-GIFs (double gasp!) ✤ Videos, Flash, ActionScript, DHTML, JavaScript, and all that other fancyschmancy stuff is not going to work. Most anti-virus software block them from working inside email apps. ✤ Learn To Fall. Gracefully. Turn off CSS. Turn off images Understanding design constraints of HTML email

Questions? ✤ Thank you!