It is true that almost every email that goes out is sent with an accompanying HTML one but I do not go fancy with it. Not like these:

Must admit sometimes it is tempting to get creative like that. They look so nice.

This week, I thought I’d buck the trend a little and send out a nicely formatted email. Before doing that though I decided to find out if I could use HTML5 in my emails. From experience, I know that email clients are still not as sophisticated as browsers when it comes to HTML display. There are some snazzy stuff that you can’t do, external stylesheets don’t work (as of time of writing) and positioning stuff  in your design is still best done using tables – yes, you read that right. Tables.

In short, there is some art and science to coding HTML emails. Those of us familiar with web design need to step back a little bit when it comes to HTML emails while HTML doesn’t change, but just like working with different browsers, HTML clients can be picky.

Well, I found a ton of good information, much of it new to me. What I liked most – there’s a lot more good information out there on HTML in emails. Best of all, to save me a boat load of time figuring out what I can or can’t do in my HTML email, I found boiler plates freely downloadable and ready to use so all I did was pump in my content, edit out the HTML parts I didn’t need and made adjustments. The result was great.

Here’s a short list of what I found. If you’re thinking of creating HTML emails and want to make sure they are coded the right way, start with these first.

• HTML Boilerplate
• Emailology
• Mailchimp HTML Blueprints

The great thing about many mailing lists (we use Aweber) is the ability to include other lists in your broadcast. We love that feature and use it regularly.

There is a down side. You see, we have a habit of pre-pending our subject lines with the list or site name. Example: [TechBased] For us at least, we get fewer spam complaints that way. It’s not fool proof and may not be true for everyone. Just something we noticed in the history of our opens, click-throughs and spam reports. As you can imagine, we usually use different branding for different lists.

When we do that for multiple lists – this sometimes triggers spam complaints because some people are so used to seeing emails a certain way. After some brain storming, here’s the solution we came up with.

Use Global Text Snippets

Global text snippets are like merge codes.  You set the text snippet and can change them any time from one place instead of in each message. In this case, I would create a global text snippet named Branding for each list. Then in the subject line, instead of pre-pending my subject line with [TechBased], I would pre-pend it with {!global branding}

That should do the trick

Learn more about Aweber and check out their blog for fantastic email marketing ideas.

What is the Confirmation Success Page?

This is a page you can send people to after they confirm subscription to your mailing list. This is extremely useful for freebie delivery. Without this option, you will have to deliver your freebie via email as the first autoresponder message. The down side, this email can easily get lost/buried/spam-boxed. Using this page, people won’t have to check their email again, making the overall freebie delivery process smoother.

What is the Already Subscribed Page?

This is a page you can send subscribers to if they are already on the list. When delivering a freebie via the confirmation success page, you also want to make it easy on the off chance, people who are already on that list, forgetting that they are on it (People do it all the time – me included), re-subscribes to get the freebie. Why not use the Confirmation Success Page as the Already Subscribed Page?

Because the Already Subscribed Page is clearly visible in the form code. This means, anyone can just view source or view your Javascript source code and see the already subscribed URL to get your freebie without subscribing or confirming to your list.

So… why not use a different page for Already Subscribed people? Because these people have access to the freebie and they won’t be asked to confirm again since they are already on the list.

Phew! That’s a long explanation.

Solved!

After thinking about it, I figured out a way to resolve this problem. I created a PHP page with special coding for the Already Subscribed page. Here’s how it works.

1. If the page is accessed directly, they will get an error message, maybe asking if they are really subscribed or not.
2. If the page is accessed as a result of someone submitting the subscription form, they will get the freebie download.

Pretty neat huh? And let me tell you it is oh so simple too! I will be updating have updated our Little Personalization, Big Impact training course so those students will have access to this example and code. If you want to know how and get the code, check out the training. It is very affordable. Pro members can use their points so there will be zero out of pocket cost.

Image by Michal Zacharzewski

Well, you know how you can enter the “From” email address when you set up your email account? You entered the right address – your own but spammers enter your address. Because the default behavior for emails is to return undelivered to the “from” address, that’s why you are receiving the bounces even though you didn’t send it. It’s a lot like sending someone a letter via snail mail and using someone else’s address instead of your own as the return address.

Isn’t there a way to tell if this is in fact a hijacking and not something you’re doing wrong on your end?

Yes. It involves checking the email headers. Email headers tell a lot. They have information on who – or rather which computer initiated the email. So it is a simple matter to prove you are not the one sending the email. But by then, the damage is often done .

How do you prevent it?

For long time, there was little you could do about it. But now, it is easy to reduce the chances of hijacking if not eliminating them. If your web host supports Sender Policy Framework (SPF), turning it on will be a big step towards blocking people from hijacking your email address.

How does it work?

Quite simple really. It is a checkpoint that will only allow email to be sent from your own domain. When the recipient’s email server receives an email from you and tries to check if the email is legit, it will check the origins of the email. If it came from your domain, the email goes through. If it didn’t, then the server rejects the email. The result, the target of the spammer never receives the spam and your ‘reputation’ is intact.

How do you set it up?

On cPanel hosts it’s pretty easy. Just log in, look for an icon that says Email Authentication. Simply enable or disable SPF. If you are using Gmail or Google Apps to read and receive your emails, then you need to add Google on to the list of allowed domains. Under the spot where it says “Additional Hosts that send mail for your domains (A):”, click Add then enter aspmx.googlemail.com. Save and all is good.

Please be sure to test sending and receiving once you turn it on to ensure your emails are getting delivered to you and from you to the recipient. Last thing we want is to totally disable your emailing ability .

If it is about using a subscriber’s name or pet’s name in the subject or greeting – then you need to upgrade your thinking. This list of 10 new, tech-powered methods of email personalization is bound to make your heart skip a little faster and totally excited about personalizing your emails again.

1. Send specially crafted emails to only those who clicked a link or opened your last email.


Image by Rob Owen-Wahl

2. Send reminders or follow ups to those who didn’t click or open your last email.
3. Send to those who clicked on the link but didn’t take action e.g. download the freebie or order your product.
4. Send a special email to those who subscribed through a specific page.
5. Let those who opened your last email be automatically entered into a contest/drawing.
6. Send a special offer to those who clicked on a specific link.
7. Followup with those who have not opened or clicked your messages in a while
8. Reward those who are long time subscribers e.g. 6 months to over a year for being a loyal reader
9. Email only those prospects who are referred by affiliates and help out your affiliates by using their URLs in your messages
10. Delivering offers based on where subscriber is located – create holiday offers that are relevant to their user’s own country

Your next question to me is probably how to achieve all that. It is easy, if you have an Aweber account. If you have recently signed up or are under the new pricing structure, this is already available to you. All you need is to use it. Not sure where to get started? Check out their documentation. Their blog also has a ton of great email personalization examples and ideas.

If you are still using the old Aweber account, you will have to upgrade – depending on your list numbers, this could cost you more – it usually will but if it can help increase your sales or affiliate recommendations (it should), it is a worthwhile investment.

Still trying to decide which mailing list provider you should go with? This capability in Aweber should seal the deal for you.

You will first need to create a new custom field in your list. This is achieved by going to the list >> My Lists >> Custom Fields. Add a field there, name it something that is easy for you to remember what it is. For example in the screen shot below, I have two custom fields, affiliate and product.

Now you need to create or update your subscription form so that it records which group people who subscribe belong to. Visit the Web Forms area, create a new form or click the form you want to edit. In the 2nd step of web form creation, you’re provided with several fields you can add to your form. You should see the new fields you have just created. Add the field to your form, enter a default value if you prefer. Update the code on your site and now your site is ready to collect information that would segment your list.

To start sending specific emails to each segment, you need to first create a custom search. Here’s how.

Go to Subscribers >> Search. How you do the next steps depends on what you want to segment the list by for example, if you want to segment the list by type of product purchased, then you under select the custom field select the field ‘product’ that you just created, next, select ‘contains’ and the third field enter your product name. Click search.

This actually performs a search. You’ll need to save this search. Right under the search boxes, you’ll find this Save Segment field. Type in a name you will understand e.g. “product name buyers” then save.

Next time you go to send a broadcast email to your list, under “Send To Segment” you should see your saved search in the drop down list

What if you want to make the form more interactive/intuitive? Make sure you’re subscribed to our RSS feed or signed up to receive email notices for an update.