How long do you have to snag your reader’s attention before you lose them? Say it with me: ten seconds or less. We’ve had this drilled into our heads, and great designers know what keeps people reading and what doesn’t. But what hasn’t been learned nearly so well is that your customer’s online attention is not only short, but also very narrow.

Usability guru, Jack Nielson, explains in a recent Alertbox Column that most users focus only on what interests them or what they expect will give them the answers that they need while ignoring the other content. Known as “Tunnel Vision,” this phenomenon can make the difference between click-throughs and deleted messages.

Let’s consider an example. You design a newsletter advertising your website’s 20 percent off sale. You include a headline, an image, a block of text that includes a coupon code, and a call to action that says “Shop Now.” Nielson’s usability research suggests that if you haven’t stated the coupon code in the headline or included it as part of the call to action, many subscribers won’t see it. It’s a phenomenon similar to banner blindness, where readers ignore portions of the screen that they think aren’t essential to the overall message. If the coupon code is necessary in order to receive the savings, you’ll need to follow a few design tips in order to keep it within your subscribers’ field of vision.

• Put important elements near each other.
  If your image shows sale items and information, try putting the coupon code within the image or as the image caption. If subscribers must read through a block of text in order to find the coupon code, they may miss it altogether.

• Include essential info in the link.
  People tend to focus on click-able elements within an email design. Your call to action button and any nearby links should contain the essential information you’re trying to communicate. So instead of using a call to action that says “Shop Now,” try “Save 20% with coupon code FALL2012.”

• Test with actual users.
  Designers have difficulty recognizing usability problems with their designs because they already know where the important information is and their eyes gravitate toward it. They might not recognize where tunnel vision might occur for the average subscriber. Creating simple A/B split tests can point out problems that keep your readers from noticing the important stuff amongst everything else.

Tunnel vision means that users often don’t see things that are right in front of them. By grouping important elements together and putting essential information where readers tend to look anyway, you can boost your click-through rates and ultimately, your conversions.

Your email campaign’s delivery rate refers to the number of emails sent that reach their destination.  For most email service providers (ESP’s), this rate hovers between 80% and 90%.  eConnect Email’s delivery rate averages 95%-98%, well above the norm, kudos to our delivery team!  Don’t be deceived by that statistic though.  Just because we successfully deliver your email campaigns doesn’t necessary mean viewers actually see them.  If you’re not careful, your company’s emails could be misdirected to the spam/ junk folder, out of sight of your subscriber.  Here are a few tips to help ensure your email successfully reaches the inbox:

• Use Double Opt-ins

Double opt-ins require a subscriber to click a link you send them through email after they have registered on your site in order to begin receiving messages from you. This way, you know that the correct email address was entered and that the person legitimately wants to receive emails from you. You can use eConnect Email’s list management tools to ensure that only the people who want to receive your messages make it onto your list.

• Be Smart About Subject Lines

Spam filters watch for certain characteristics in subject lines. While it’s impossible to know exactly what the filters are looking for, you can bet that subjects in all caps or those with lots of exclamation points are more likely to be flagged as spam than a clear, concise subject line. Strive to communicate your message in as few words as possible and without using gimmicks to grab the reader’s attention.

• Avoid Spammer Behavior

Purchasing an email list is one of the top ways to get your sender address blocked by spam filters. These lists often consist of outdated addresses that will earn a high bounce rate, making a filter more likely to blacklist your sending IP’s (just know using purchased lists is never a good idea, trust us on this one).

• Avoid Spammer Content

Using spammy phrases such as “free,” “sale,” or “buy now” sends up red flags for the spam filter. You should also avoid using a single image as the body of your email with no headers, text versions, or alt tags.  A good rule of thumb for email newsletters is to incorporate one or two well-placed images alongside informative text within the body of each email you send. eConnect Email can help you custom design a template for your emails that will make sure as many of your subscribers as possible get to view your message.

By putting some thought into your email creation and taking advantage of the expert assistance available from eConnect Email, you can ensure a successful email campaign with not only high delivery rates, but also a higher percentage of messages that make it to the email inbox!

Cathie Dodd from Tears Of Joy video did this simple but effective video on list building ethics.

Since our launch, we have encountered many potential spammers who tried their luck at using eConnect Email as their spam tool.  This post is dedicated to talk about these users and how we are very intolerant towards this kind of behavior in eConnect Email.

First of all, let me be very clear here.  eConnect Email is a permission-based email marketing system.  We have checks in place to ensure eConnect Email does not fall prey to spammers who send out spam emails, or as some call them in a less negative way, “unsolicited emails”, although we still prefer to call them spam anyhow – a rose is a rose is a rose.

We tell all our customers that all batch imports of subscriber lists will be manually approved by our delivery team, and we really walk the talk.  We have real humans looking through the lists to spot out any tell-tale signs of unacceptable lists and perform checks on their email practices.  Admittedly, this is a very tedious (and at times inconvenient) process but is a necessary evil in order to ensure that the system is not being abused and that those marketers using eConnect Email who practice permissible email marketing are protected.  This is a very important aspect for us to be able to maintain a high reputation of our service.

That said, we have also encountered users who tried different methods to circumvent the checking process that we have in place.  One prime example is signing up as paid customers and demanding that we approve the lists regardless of the sources, simply on the mere basis that they have already paid up.  Guess what?  That’s not the way we function.  We clearly state in our Terms of Use and our Anti-Spam Policy that we will monitor and stop any suspicious spamming activities.  So it’s just wishful thinking that we will let your lists through as long as you have paid.  Sure, signing up as a paid customer does in itself show a certain level of commitment on the part of the customer that his/her email marketing practices are acceptable by eConnect Email, but there are still many factors in our approval process that will look at the overall picture, rather than just the fact that he/she has paid up.

Now, some would-be customers might start to worry that if their lists do not get approved after they have signed up for our paid plans, they stand to lose their subscription fees.  To these customers, we would like to assure that as long as you have proof that you have obtained your list under acceptable conditions as stated in our policies, chances are your list will get approved.  In any case, we always advise that you test drive eConnect Email first by signing up for a Trial account, importing your lists, and testing out the functions before making the jump.  That way, not only can you be certain that your list has been approved, but you also get to check out the rest of eConnect Email to see if we are a good fit to your email marketing needs.

I’m going to end this post off with an actual case we had with a paid customer whom we found to have uploaded a subscriber list that showed characteristics of a bought, rented or “scraped” list. Instead of offering information on the source of the list, he counter-questioned “But you are not a US-based company, why should you be worried about spam?”

Our reply to this is that regardless of where you may be based, we believe permission-based email marketing is the only really healthy way to run your email marketing campaigns.  This may come across as being a handicap rather than a feature for many marketers who are still clueless about why respect for their subscribers is of utmost importance, but this is one aspect of eConnect Email that we are proud of and will not budge; we would rather have fewer customers than have too many spammers abusing the system.

I don’t know if I should pity Bob Richards, but I guess if you play with fire, you might get burnt.  Anyway, Bob Richards purchased a list from a company called EmailAppenders and paid some $14,000… Yes, you see that right: $14,000 for 100,000 supposedly targeted email addresses.

The story goes that after being pleased with himself for getting such a good list, cleaning it up and doing the sending, he got 85,000 bounces and his server got locked up.  The company that helped him send out his emails got its account canceled, and now Richards believes he has been ripped off and is hell-bent on getting back at EmailAppenders.

Full story here.

Do not, I can’t emphasize this enough, do not ever purchase a list from anyone, even if they claim they have permission for every single email address in the list.  These email addresses are usually taken without the owner’s knowledge or permission.  Yes, the sellers can claim they called the owners and verified the emails, but do you know what they actually asked them?  Do you think they called them and said this:

“Hello Mr. So and So, I’m calling from a company that sells your email address to people who are stupid enough to buy it.  Can you verify if this is your email address so that I can sell it and make money out of it? And yes, your email account will be flooded with spam.”

And do you think the email address owner would say:

1) “Oh yes, that is my email address, please sell it and give me the spam.  Don’t worry, I think my free anti-spam software can block those spam emails.”

or

2) “How the %#%* did you get that email address?  If you use it, I’m going to sue you!”

Anyone want to make a guess?

I just can’t think of anyone in the right state of mind who would give you his email address so you could profit from it.

Would you?

Loren McDonald posted an article at Deliverability.com, about lessons we can learn from an unsolicited B2B email she received.  (The article is available at http://blog.deliverability.com/2008/07/lessons-from-an.html).  She listed some obvious facts that many marketers or salespersons either forget about, or simply choose to ignore.

Her point 4.

No Unsubscribe – The email, which was “sent” from a salesperson “Lori M….”, did not include any instructions or means to unsubscribe.  Perhaps she thought this was a “1 to 1″ email and didn’t require an unsubscribe mechanism or she was just a salesperson that ran amok without involving marketing.  The fact that this email was professionally designed though suggests she was not a lone gunman.  What boggles the mind is how does a legit company send out a broadcast email in the year 2008 without an unsubscribe mechanism?

This is something that will never happen at eConnect Email, because in the first place, we require all our customers to practice permission-based email marketing.

Reading the article reminded me of an upcoming conference that we were asked to sponsor in return for free booth space.  In the sponsor brochure, it was explicitly stated that all sponsors would get the contact information of the conference participants.  Well, that’s nice but no thanks.