Category: Email

Email etiquette tips for the office
How do you handle the following scenarios?
1. Your co-worker is on vacation, and you just started a project that you have a question about, what do you do? Do you craft that quick email message and hit send, knowing that it will sit in your co-worker’s inbox while they are out? Or do you wait until they return?
2. Your co-worker is on vacation, and you have some general information/update about something they are interested, do you forward?
3. Your co-worker is on vacation, and you have an emergency question, do you send them an email?
At my place of work, these are all scenarios we deal with regularly as members of a large team that relies heavily upon email to communicate. But how we handle each of the above can set the tone for our relationships and respect for one another.

In our example (1) above, if the co-worker is the only one who can answer your question, why bother sending the message if it will just sit in the in-box? Respect your fellow team member, and wait to send the message. Simply draft it up, hit save, and hang on to it. You may also find that while they are out, you were able to answer the question by asking someone else, or figuring it out on your own – thus never needing to send the message in the first place. Learn to be resourceful. By sending someone an email (that isn’t too important), while you know they are out, it’s saying to that person that you really don’t care they are on vacation. It also makes it difficult for your co-worker to check their email while they are out, because they have too many messages and don’t know if there are any that are important.

But what about example (2)… your message isn’t important… so don’t send it. Wait. You can craft a message that says, “I wanted to wait to send this to you until you returned, so as to not bother you while you are out.” A message like that goes a long way to earning the mutual respect of your teammate.

But it’s an emergency! Example (3) may be the rare exception… so ask yourself this, “is it such an emergency that it warrants a phone call or text message?” If that’s the case, then it may be suitable for you to send the message after all… but in reality, if it is a true emergency, it may be time to pick up the phone and call your co-worker who’s drinking Peña Coladas on a sandy beach somewhere. Be careful, as you’re crossing into difficult territory, so phrase your inquiry with caution and apologize for the interruption.

Your co-workers earned this time off, just as you did. If they are out sick, don’t bother them unless they are simply working remote to quarantine themselves… after all, they are sick and need to recover.

But above all, you need to KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER. By this, I mean that if you are working with someone who genuinely wants to be included on every last thread and expects to be included, even while they are out – then forget about the above – and honor their wishes…

Happy emailing… or not emailing… chose carefully.
More on Gmail tabs

Yesterday I wrote about the interesting results of several studies on the effect of Gmail’s new “tab” features, specifically is it pertains to mobile/small-screen devices. Today, a great analysis of the 3-million user ReturnPath study came through to my own inbox by way of Ayaz Nanji at MarketingProfs.com.

Not surprisingly, fewer marketing messages were tagged as spam; instead being tagged as promotional. While that’s a slight improvement, the real victory is getting to the inbox – which now requires end-user action (setting a particular vendor’s messages as inbox-worthy).

The report also goes on to indicate that very few people message around with their tabs – demonstrating the lack of understanding of this feature among users. The whole purpose is to customize how you consume email; but users seem to be content with what Gmail defaults to – great market research by Google (probably); but also a growing gap in knowledge among consumers as gmail becomes pervasive.
Gmail promotions tab doesn’t spell death for marketers afterall

When Gmail rolled out it’s tabs for email organization, it defaulted most promotional material to the “Promotions” tab. If users were only passively engaging with brands sending that were sending them emails, chances are that those emails are going to this new tab and not the true “inbox”.

Then came the studies… were users opening messages still? Were they clicking messages? What were they doing?

I’ve seen a lot of mixed reports, some spelled doom, others not so much.

Laurie Sullivan, for MediaPost reports:

“Gmail tabs affect the click performance of marketing campaigns — creating what Epsilon calls an out of site, out of mind scenario, reducing the effectiveness of email marketing programs.

The study suggests that consumers viewing Gmail emails on a smartphone could put a major strain on marketing programs, according to the study. I disagree. Promotions will have a better chance of earning clicks and conversions when viewed on a smartphone. You’re much more likely to view all the emails because they are not segregated within Gmail tabs.”

This is an important point. The majority of all email is now consumed on a mobile device; split between a tablet and a smartphone (unequally). Both of these devices create a hybrid view of email, combining it all (versus completely separate tabs on a desktop). So on these mobile/small screens, a marketing message is more likely to be viewed even if it gets categorized as a promotion.

Another point I’d like to make is that Yahoo and Hotmail are legacy free systems dating back to the early 90’s… users of those accounts from “way back then” may tend (I have no data other than my own experience and some anecdotal stories from friends/colleagues) get more spam to those accounts than newer, Gmail accounts. And, many people switched from Yahoo/Hotmail to Gmail as a way to reduce spam and start anew. So, I would opine that it’s possible folks using Gmail get less spam on average, and are more engaged with brands from the start (because they are more selective). This may wear off over time…

Regardless… it still means that it’s worth educating your customers that they can add you to their gmail inbox so all messages go there instead of the promo tab. My University emailed all gmail-based student accounts with instructions on how to do this (students are our customers) – we included step-by-step instructions and screenshots.

But it also doesn’t change the fact that you’ve got to send high quality, meaningful content.

And, you’ve got to track more than just opens and clicks – but actually the call-to-action (how many things you sold, or signups you got from the link). Use that as your data point to compare campaigns. If you haven’t set up link tracking, here’s an instructional video I did for MarketingProfs on the topic.

And finally, when’s the last time you peaked at your spam/bulk folder? I know for me it was yesterday. I think all scan these folders regularly because they still contain messages that get caught in the filters (false positives). So I have to check or I miss important (or at least semi-important) messages. My reply may just be a day or two delayed.
Think twice before sending that email

I just read a fantastic article by Anna Papadopoulos that should serve as a good checklist for determining when it’s appropriate to send an email. I always caution employees to be careful about email and to never put anything in an email that they wouldn’t want their boss/mother/CEO/etc. to read. Things get forwarded, printed out, shared, etc. You just never know where your email will end up once you click send.

Here’s Anna’s article which sums it up well:

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2291155/dont-let-an-email-ruin-your-career-or-weekend

Here are some more of my thoughts on email etiquette.
Do not reply to this email (is bad for business)

I want you to start thinking about your email messaging differently moving forward.

Do not send a message if you don’t want to accept replies from your [customers/clients/readers].

Why? Well, unless you have a really darn good reason that you don’t want to hear from people, messaging and engaging your email recipients should be a two way street. And yes, I’m even talking about special offers, weekly discount newsletters, and so on. Don’t send an email if you don’t want a reply.

We live in an increasingly connected world that is held together loosely by the connections we make with businesses and customers. Enabling those connections to flow freely and enabling conversations will help your business understand problems before they get too big among a myriad of other benefits.

You should want to hear from the people that keep you in business. Give them an opportunity to reply to your message, even if it’s a simple receipt. Don’t turn them away.

I’m not saying you have to reply to everyone, either. This is important to note. Set up an auto-reply that let’s people know you received their message, it will be reviewed, not all messages will be returned, etc… Figure out what works best for your business.

Here’s a great article for further reading on the subject: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1695743/do-not-reply-this-email
Marketo User Summit – San Francisco – May 2012

I will be presenting at the 2012 Marketo User Summit in San Francisco from May 22 – 24.

The topic will be, “Social Media Content That Delivers Results” and I will be co-presenting with Adam Metz.

The main focus of our presentation will be leveraging Marketo’s marketing automation platform to create emails, landing pages and marketing campaigns that have an integrated social media component. We’ll discuss the importance of social media integration and highlight some real-world case studies of how to achieve success in this category.
Designing Emails for the Mobile World
If you are an email marketer, you need to be thinking about how people are now consuming email. This activity has been taken for granted for many years, but it has changed dramatically in the past few years with the proliferation of smart phones that can render HTML properly.

So, forget text messages. Make your emails mobile friendly. This is easy, here are the key ingredients:
1. Start with a good, brief subject. This really hasn’t changed and remains to be hugely important. Your subject should compel the reader to open the email instead of pressing delete. Keep it short… think 60 characters…
2. Pre-headers… many email marketers still don’t do this. Don’t create a fancy email with images, tables, and formatting without first inserting a plain text sentence before everything. This loads first and will display as the preview text on many devices (and in many web browsers, AND in MS Outlook. Keep this to the length of your average tweet… and it should include your purpose or call to action. don’t repeat your subject.
3. Links… your links should go to mobile-friendly pages. If they don’t, stop email marketing and start focusing on designing mobile friendly web pages. It’s the future people, get on board.
4. Images… think back to 1999… small, light weight emails were important then, and they are still important now. They open quickly on mobile devices and people don’t want to wait for your images to load.
5. Be brief. Most people don’t want to read 1,000 word emails on their phones. Say what you need to say in 100 words or less. If you have more to say, include catchy headers and hooks and then link to the text.
6. Phone numbers people can click are a real boon to business. Do it.
7. Let people reply. Stop sending messages from unattended email boxes. Why wouldn’t you want someone to reply to you? Isn’t that why you’re emailing them?
Want some more advice? Here’s a great article from ClickZ on email marketing for the mobile world by Melinda Krueger.
Email Disasters: 13 Step Prep Checklist

Pretty much every marketer has managed an outbound email campaign that has at one time or another sent out an email with an error. That’s why it’s good practice to have a solid quality assurance and review procedure prior to sending any message out. But what happens one an error slips through the cracks?

The first thing you need to do is assess the damage.

Do you really need to send another email to correct the mistake? This is the most important question you’ll need to answer, and quickly. Was it a simple typo such as “there” instead of “their”? Was it the wrong date? The wrong price? Did you misspell something really poorly such as “pubic” instead of “public”?

Many times sending out another email will annoy your marketing list, so decide carefully. If the error was offensive or material to the message, then you may need to send out a correction.

Here’s a great checklist with 13 steps to follow when you are considering a correction email, by Loren McDonald.
Keep Email Nurture Messages Short

A great (short!) post by MarketingProfs on keeping the length of nurture emails short.

I agree 100%. Nurture emails should be short and too the point. You’ve already collected the prospect’s information; now, you need to understand their interests. Provide them with brief, consumable interactions and you will be rewarded with open rates and engagement rates that exceed your expectations.

Read more: http://www.marketingprofs.com/short-articles/2304/what-you-need-to-know-about-lead-nurturing-messages#ixzz1OnIBAmum
How to Get Started with Email Nurturing

I conduct a lot of training and education helping companies learn how to perform basic email nurture marketing. If you are using email and not performing nurturing as your email list members “digitally age”, then your campaign is outdated.

Amanda Gagnon penned a great article on the basics for getting started, along with some easy-to-follow advice and tips.

Bottom line: you should send different messages/offers/content to different segments of your customer list. Segment your list by type of customer, past behaviors (purchases, etc.) or length of time on your list. These are easy segmentations. You don’t even need special software to get started if your lists are small enough and don’t change that frequently (beyond adding new members and unsubscribing others).

When you’re really ready to get things going, you’ll want to invest in bulk emailing solution (such as MadMimi, Constant Contact, Exact Target, Vertical Response, and so on)… and then when you are REALLY ready to perform behavioral-based nurturing, you’ll want something like Eloqua or Marketo.