Online Marketing Business Blog

Why You Need Email Authentication

Email is essential to our daily business lives. And for an email marketeer or any design/communication agency providing email marketing services, it is their livelihood. Email has been a convenient and cost-effective way for us to communicate, be it through peers, work or engaging our clients. Unfortunately, email is also very easily forged.

Email authentication proves the authenticity of your email and its source.

And the great thing is, its starting to grow in popularity amongst the large ISPs and corporate email servers in their effort to control incoming spam. This gives legitimate email marketeers and opportunity to differentiate themselves from spammers, and aids in better deliverability.

Authentication Methods

There are a number of popular authentication methods currently being used at the moment. SPF and SenderID looks for a file on your server that they can cross-reference with.This helps prove that the "From" address is legitimate according to your website domain. SPF and SenderID are easy to implement as it requires you to add a few extra lines to your domain records.

The 2 other popular methods, Domain Keys and DKIM, embeds code directly in the email itself. These methods make it much tougher to forge emails, but can also be tougher to implement for the sender, and the receiver.

Due to the various methods being used currently, empoaying all authentication types would perhaps be the safest method until a certain authentication standard has been reached and widely accepted among all the major ISPs. 

The Email Sender and Provider Coalition has provided a handy checklist for major ISPs and their authentication methods.

BlinkCampaign's Support for Email Authentication

To help your email campaigns look more reputable, and thereby increasing deliverability (not to mention aiding our server's sender reputation) BlinkCampaign supports multiple authentication methods to cover all bases:

SPF is automatically setup for all client accounts in BlinkCampaign. You can, however start to setup the DomainKeys / DKIM and Sender ID authentication methods for all your client's email campaigns.

To setup authentication, under your Agency Console, simple edit any of your client's account info. Look  for the Sending Domains Authentication box on the right. Provide the domain of the "From" email address that your client is using to send their email campaigns, and follow the next few simple steps to add those records in to the DNS records.

Official Authentication Standards

• DKIM.org
• DomainKey Library and Implementor's Tools
• Sender ID by Microsoft
• Sender Policy Framework (SPF)

Online Marketing For Web Designers: Its Getting Implicit

As the web matures in sophistication, the technical demands from web designers have been increasing rapidly. Back in 2000 when most of us designers were simply concentrating on HTML and some javascript, its hard to ignore the demands of our clients for other services such as implementation of Content Management Systems (CMS), Blogs, Forums and other web applications and platforms. Of course, SEO and online marketing have become the norm in many web projects as well.

Stemming from the creative circle, I tended to shy away from such requests and instead, left the research and work to web developers, who were in a much better position than myself to be dabbling in such technologies.

So what's the big deal to web designers now? Loads when you have to seriously consider the advent of technologies like AJAX, and factor functionalities into your design. Its not just pure aesthetics (and should've never been in the first place, though many of my industry colleagues in the advertising field would beg to differ) anymore.

Getting into the game

Though we're trained designers by profession, that shouldn't stop anyone from upping their game and improving their net worth. Understanding the quirks and fundamentals of online marketing can seriously put you ahead over the next freelancer (or web agency). We are in the business of the web after all.

Thankfully for us less tech-savvy and mildly experimental sort, there are tons of web applications out there that have greatly aided us creative people in further pushing the envelope and delivering solutions, not just designs, to our clients. Incidentally, the easiest and most relate-able service we can provide to our clients is online marketing.

How One Agency Is Making Good Money From An Email Marketing Business Model

I'm using a fictional name and agency for the post below as requested by the interviewee. He has agreed to share his story on the basis that I do not use his actual company's name for strategic business reasons.

I've recently noticed a flurry of activity on our BlinkCampaign logs from a particular region. New accounts were being setup once every 2 -3 weeks and all were using a different email from a same domain. I Googled the domain a bit, came up with the agency's website and got in touch with Dan Riker, a professional web designer and now business owner of SpeakOut Communications.

We exchanged a few emails and finally, had a chat over MSN to talk about how his agency has been using BlinkCampaign to grow his online marketing services. Why I was really interested in his story was that not only did he use BlinkCampaign as a platform to sell email broadcasting services, he was actually selling the entire platform to companies, who's individual regional marketing departments wanted the convenience of setting up and sending their own email campaigns. Each instance of Dan's platform went out to the companies at a cool five figure rate and "license" renewable on an annual basis. Read on to find out how he's been doing it.

Co-Branding To Enhance Your Agency's Awareness

If you've tried other ESPs (Email Service Providers) previously, you might've notice some ESPs slap on their logo at the end of your email campaign. It usually looks something like "powered by [ESP Logo]" or "sent using [ESP logo]".

Coming from an ESP's point of view, this is a great form of viral marketing and getting the ESP's brand and service across to every single recipient that receives an email campaign from the ESP's system.

At BlinkCampaign, we've opted-out of doing this as we pride ourselves at being a white-labeled solution. However, this doesn't stop you, as an agency from doing your own viral marketing when developing and sending email campaigns out for your clients. This not only generates great awareness for your agency, brand and services, it reaches out to everyone on all your client's mailing lists. And done so legally as well.

Naturally, the toughest part is seeking permission from your client. You could offer your client one of 2 options:

1. Co-branding

Explain to your client that your basic email marketing and delivery services comes with a small footnote about your agency. Tell them about option 2 if they're not too keen on having your agency's logo on their email campaigns.

2. No agency branding

Conduct email campaigns and delivery them without your own agency's logo at the footer of the email. You might want to charge your client a slightly higher premium for this. Explain to them that the default pricing and package comes with a small footnote about your agency and its email marketing services.

If option 1 is available to you, go ahead and market your agency's services. Do exercise discretion of course, as the email campaign is still for and about your client.

We're always looking out for great tips and ideas for generating more revenue with BlinkCampaign. If you've got a tip on how BlinkCampaign has helped you or your agency generate more revenue through email marketing, we'd love to hear about it!

Blink Campaign's Guide For New Users

Recently, we've had some request from our agency users for a quick "How-to" guide to get their own clients started on using Blink Campaign themselves.

Well, we've slowly consolidated all the information from our support section and compiled them in a simple word document which you can then edit, brand and re-send to your own clients.

Blink Campaign was always meant to be a white-label solution for agencies to leverage upon and sell their online marketing services while we concentrate on the technical nitty gritty, deliverability, and all the other stuff which you really shouldn't be bothered with.

If you're interested to learn more about Blink Campaign or sign-up for a free account, do drop us an email as we're working on getting our website and online registration up.

Download the Blink Campaign New User Guide (Word Doc, 250kb)

Should You Outsource Email Delivery?

If you've been doing email marketing for some time now, this question always pops up at one time or another: "Can't my email software do that? I could use the same email program to do email marketing just like sending ordinary emails.". At this juncture, we normally bite our lower lip for a moment, and proceed on with the following anecdote.

Your email campaigns are like poster ads. You could either start going around town yourself and sticking them up on walls and bus stops, or get a proper distribution team to do the legwork for you.

At which moment, the usual response from them would be some silence.

Who's Your Daddy? Your Client's Domain May Be At Ransom

The web has been recently abuzz when some light was shed on web registrar, GoDaddy.com, on abuse complaints stemming from email marketing. And its a real BIG DEAL to legitimate email marketeers and email service providers like Blink Campaign (Heck, our domain is registered with GoDaddy!).

So what's the big deal? For a start, GoDaddy is one of the premiere domain registrars for the web. A good bunch of our own clients are on GoDaddy. Now get this:

• Your client has their domain registered with GoDaddy
• Your client uses a third party email marketing service (namely you, the external online marketing/design agency) to advertise their GoDaddy registered site.
• IF there are any spam complaints from any campaign sent that go to GoDaddy, Go Daddy will charge you a "spam complaint management fee" of a whopping $200!
• AND if due to the above, your client decides to leave GoDaddy for another registrar, GoDaddy will hold your domain ransom until a "release fee" of $75 is paid off to them!

Oops... Re-Sending An Erroneous Campaign

Just this month, one of our clients made a rather big mistake. He was sending his company's regular monthly email newsletter when he accidentally selected the wrong contents to be sent out. This resulted in his recipients receiving the base template with the default "lorem ipsum" text instead of the actual content that he had prepared beforehand. Hey, we're only human and make mistakes from time to time. We too are guilty of sending out a campaign with the wrong hyperlink, typos and other embarrassing mistakes.

Due to this, a number of things went wrong:

1. The content looked like spam due to the mash of unrecognizable words
2. The open rate was way lower as the preview pane of most email clients simply showed the gibberish text
3. Needless to say, click rate was 0
4. Unsubscribes spiked a little as recipients weren't sure where this email was coming from

The newsletter was really important to this company because they only get in touch with their recipients once a month. So they took a clever step and made a decision to re-send the campaign again, but with a little tongue-in-cheek humor. At the top where the main feature story usually is, he added another post:

Selling Email Marketing Services

Email marketing is slowly becoming part of the core of many design and marketing agencies around the world. Its grown in the recent years to be widely accepted as a standard business service from agencies and vendors. Now with Blink Campaign as your primary tool for conducting and providing email marketing services, we'd like to share some ideas with you on how you can pitch your service to your clients and prospects.

Tangible benefits and ROI

E-mail drove $7.7 billion in consumer sales and $8.8 billion in business-to-business sales in 2005. Both those numbers will rise by roughly $1 billion in 2006, and by 2011 should be well above $37 billion combined.
- Direct Marketing Association

I won't elaborate much here on how and why email marketing works. There's tons of articles and statistics on the web about email marketing and its benefits. And its precisely this fact that's probably the single biggest selling point for you. Email marketing works, with tangible results and much more cost-effective than traditional advertising mediums.

With email, you further bridge the gap between your client and their customers. Direct marketing ensures that customers don't need to remember your client's last on-air ad or something from the print medium. Together with personalisation through proper segmentation, you can send targeted campaigns for your client, which is far more effective than a generic brochure.

Also email, comparatively to its print counterparts and other offline communications, has the highest ROI ratio.

You can "tune-up" your campaigns

If you're speaking to your client's marketing department, they would understand, and agree, that traditional marketing activities have frequently been costly trial and errors. In fact, its sometimes difficult to tell exactly which area the costly error was in.

Leveraging on an email marketing service like Blink Campaign, show your clients the detailed campaign reports generated. Advise them on how easy it is to identify and tweak something that's not working. Show them how easy and fast it is. Saving your client time and money will definitely get you in their good books.

Once bitten, twice shy

For clients who've tried email marketing previously and dropped it, try to understand why. did they have a high unsubscribe rate? Poor bounce management? Ask them permission to share some of their campaigns and reports to help them pinpoint the failure of their campaigns. Naturally, offer them your automated solution for this. You can provide them with automated processes such as one-click unsubscribes, flag and manage bounces, topped with your own email marketing expertise and knowledge.

Creative people, get creative

The flexibility of the web has opened countless creative and effective possibilities of communication. Leverage on the same flexibility to tailor ideas and solutions that are specific for your client's marketing campaigns. Jump from promotional mailers to product updates to bi-monthly newsletters in a Blink (sorry, we couldn't resist).

Get creative. Devise integrated campaigns to generate interest. Teasers, Hollywood style. Get back in touch with customers who may have let slip your client's name. Ask your client for input, get them involved. Get them excited! If you get your client thinking and considering the possibilities, they may even come up with something brilliant themselves and get you to execute it.

Integrate with your client's website

Show your client working examples of synergies between their website, and perhaps an email design. Show them how you can reinforce their branding from the web, to the inbox. Even better, go one up and conduct a campaign directly to your client. If you're using Blink Campaign, any campaigns you conduct to a subscriber list of 5 or less is free! So go ahead, knock their socks off, and start building your email marketing services.

Tip For The Day: Helping Your Clients Gather Email Addresses

I was just catching up with a few of my customers today on how they've been doing in their online marketing venture. From the ground, it seems that everyone's keen and is fully aware of the benefits of email marketing. However, the greatest stumbling block always seems to be:

My client is keen to get on with email marketing. But they don't have a database of subscribers.

At Blink Campaign, we frown upon bought or rented lists. Not only is it unethical and intrusive, it could get us into a lot of trouble with ISPs around the world. Not to mention cause all our customers great inconvenience.

So how can I grow my list legally?

We always start with the website. Either you are most likely collecting the email addresses of site visitors on your webpages, or need to do something to that tune. Not to get into anything too technical, your client's website should have a simple means for users to leave their email address to join your client's mailing list. Don't forget to remind the users the benefits of them signing up.

You'll be glad to know that Blink Campaign will also be releasing a simple API soon to allow you to copy and paste the code into your client's website, thus allowing new signups to be directly updated into your client's Blink Campaign master list.

Besides your client's website, there are multiple ways to collect email addresses offline at every possible point of customer contact:

• Request for people to sign your guestbook at corporate functions and events (product launches, showcases, etc)
• Ask for an email address whenever there is a customer service or support call
• Leave a field for email address in invoices, brochures, customer surveys and feedback forms
• Put a fishbowl for business cards at retail outlets, booths and other trade fares and events.

Lastly, ask your client to have a "Join Our Mailing List" call-to-action type button in their email signature. The mechanics of this can be as simple as a mailto with something like "Sign me up" in the subject line.

Build Customer Value for Your Clients

Branding 101: Through strong branding, we build a base of customers who will keep coming back year after year. However, the truth of the fact is: all these branding and marketing tactics usually end up with a one-time sale, only benefiting a short-term revenue. To truly achieve the objective, you, as the online marketing guru in your client's eye, have to help your client build true customer value. Consider too, that each campaign requires more involvement from the end recipient. And thankfully, there are benchmarks which you can use to help your client measure each of these forms - Revenue, Loyalty, and Advocacy.

Email Surveys, & Why Blink Campaign Isn't Getting Into It Just Yet

Requests to include email surveys in Blink Campaign is probably the most frequently requested feature.

Many agencies have asked us if they can embed surveys into their campaigns, as well as include a survey creation tool in Blink Campaign. My reply to them was always "Yeah, that would be great! But..."

First, let's take a quick look at what online surveys are. Online surveys is essentially made up of web forms. And if you've ever coded HTML email, you'd know that basic HTML markup isn't so great in email, let alone, web forms. The most I would ever get into from a HTML email perspective, is a single field box suchs as "Search" or "Comments". Anything more complicated, you'd need some technical know-how, code level hacking and perhaps some server setup as well.

How To Charge Your Client for Email Marketing Services

As designers and communication agencies, there's countless services that we can offer our clients. And there are many different ways to charge your clients for email marketing. Stemming from a design agency background, we at Blink Campaign have been (and still are) in the exact same position each day. Through the years, we've adopted a number of charge methods, each tailoring to our client's needs accordingly.

This issue has led our Blink Campaign customers and agencies looking to us for advice on how they should charge their clients for their services. Well honestly, there is no hard and fast way to doing this. However, I would like to present you with some of these options and let you work out which method best suits you and your client, in both budget and scope.

Email Marketing: The Usual Suspects

Its not just about newsletters or promotional eDMs. To many people, email marketing is synonymous with sales. However, email communication is in essence, far more sophisticated. Using the correct form of email communication can contribute to your client's bottom line in many other advantageous ways.