Using Email to Promote Your Webcasts

July 2009

Agenda – Using Email to Promote Your Webcasts• Role of Email in Your Webcast Program

• List Building/Opt-in Forms

• Deliverability

• Design/Content Approaches

• Email Tools/Features

• Measurement/Testing

• Q & A

Role of Email/Samples

Role of Email to Support Webcasts• Drive registrations

• Increase attendance (live Webinars)

• Distribute presentation/archived versions

• Lead nurture content

• On-going Webinar interest

Webinar Emails - Types

• Invitation

• Confirmation

• Reminder

• Follow-Up

• Lead Nurturing

• Webinar “Channel”

Invitation

Confirmation

Reminder

Follow-Up – Thanks for Attending

Nurture Email – Incorporate Webinars

List Building/Opt-in Forms

Drive People to Your Opt-in Page

Registration Form

Web Site

Banner Ads

BlogSponsored Emails

Newsletter

SEO/PPC

Web Site Promotion

Webinar Pages

Promote With Blog Posts

Sponsored Emails

Your Regular Newsletter

Create Webinar/WP Email Channel

Registration Forms

• Don’t ask for too much, too soon

• Think progressive

• Ask for what you need and what you will use

• But plan for lead scoring/nurturing

Deliverability

The Report Spam Button

Deliverability Questions

• Are your emails authenticated?

• Are you maintaining a good sender reputation?

• Do you have good list hygiene practices?

• Are you monitoring blacklists?

• Are you minimizing design, coding and content

issues?

3 Main Types of Authentication• Sender Policy Framework (SPF)

– Compares the sending mail server's IP address to the list of authorized sending IP addresses published by the sender domain's owner

• SenderID– Attempts to verify that the from domain allows email

from a specific IP or IPs

• Domain Key Identified Mail (DKIM)– Uses keys to encrypt / decrypt a part of the header

Authentication By ISP

ISP SPF Sender ID DomainKeys DKIM Action

AOL       X N

Bell Canada X X X

Earthlink X X

Gmail X X X  X Unk

RoadRunner X

Hotmail   X     Y

Yahoo     X X Y

Comcast     X X Unk

Cox       Testing n/a

USA.net X     X Unk

Sympatico.ca   X     Unk

Telus.ca X       Unk

Reputation - How do ISPs perceive your mailing habits?

• Do you honor the ISPs technical requirements?– The number of messages per

day/hour/minute?

• List hygiene– Complaints

• What do you do with them?

– Bad addresses • How many times do you send to

addresses that don’t exist?

– Spam Traps• “Honeypot” – old addresses

• Avoid content that looks or sounds “spammy”• Don’t over mail! Stick to the frequency you promised

at opt-in• Don’t send email that recipients didn’t explicitly

request• Choose your sender name carefully—use your most

recognized and expected brand• Have an “Update Preferences” link in every email to

make it easy for recipients to update their preferences

• Make your unsubscribe process easy, obvious and trustworthy

• A good rule of thumb is to stay below 0.3% for each ISP

Reducing SPAM Complaints – Deliverability Job #1

Blacklists

• There are HUNDREDS of blacklists

• Three basic types– IP based– Domain based– URL based

• Your ESP should monitor for you

• Monitoring tools– Pivotal Veracity, Return

Path

SpamAssassin Rules – Use as a “Guide”

http://spamassassin.apache.org/tests.html

A Few HTML/Content Don’ts

• Don’t’ forget to create the text version– Not including the text part of the message can

cause some filters to treat your email as spam.

• Don’t have HTML errors:– Most common HTML errors come from not

having a closing </FONT> tag or having open <TD> or <TR> tags in the HTML

• Don’t go overboard with large fonts, exclamation points – anything that looks spammy

Design & Content

From Names – Simple & Recognized

• Who are Brian McDonald and Celia Brown?

• Use simple, most recognized brand name

• Publishers, others should establish Webinar/events brand

- eMarketer FYI- ClickZ Events

Subject Lines – Simple & Clear

• Core title should be 50 characters or less

• Be creative• Feel free to use

a slightly different title

• Think “subject line” when determining Webcast title

• Use date for short notice

• Brand with Webinar/Webcast

Watch Subject Line Length

• Are “Live” or “Invitation to…” critical?

• Core title should be 50 characters or less

• “The 7 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid When Running”

Simple Personalization

Attend versus “sorry you were unable to attend”

First name

Multiple Calls to Action

text

text

Image button

• Share this

• Send 2 Friend

• Additional resources

Social Sharing

Good layout

• 2-column

• Font colors

• Font size

• At-a-glance

• Takeaways

• Use of bullets

With Images Blocked

Feels Squished• Speakers

are hidden

• Copy is squished together

• Recording reminder is good

• Footer font is too small

• Weak title

• Photo is nice touch, but poorly executed

• “Questions” is good approach

• Takeaways

• About the presenter

• Related white paper

BlackBerry Email & Browser Experience

Browser Version

BlackBerry Browser

Email Version

BlackBerry IS installed email client

Original Email

Cross-Platform Design Tips

Timing/Cadence• Day of Week/Time of Day

– Tues to Thursday generally best– Mornings generally best

• Invites– 2-6 weeks out

• Reminders– 1-2 weeks out– 1-2 days out– Day of

• Follow-up– Within 1-3 days

Email Technology Features

Email Technology Features - Basic• Personalization

• Forward to A Friend

• View Web Version

• Trigger-based emails

• Dedicated IP

• Deliverability/ISP Relations Staff

Email Technology Features – More Advanced

• Survey Integration

• Share to Social Feature

• Rendering/Deliverability Monitoring

• CRM/SFA Integration

• Lead Scoring/Lead Nurturing

Measurement & Improvement

Measuring Success – Process Metrics

• Open rate

• Click-through rate

• Delivery/Bounce rate

• Spam complaint rate

• Unsubscribe rate

• Share rate

Measuring Success – Output Metrics

• List size/Growth

• Registration rate

• Attendance rate

• Downloads/Views

• Leads generated

• Sales qualified leads

Test, Test, Test - Examples

• Subject line approach

• Layout

• Personalization

• Copy style

• Social sharing

• Form fields - # and type

• Frequency and timing

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