E-mail Campaigns

thanks for explaining things and for being pro-active, Sean.




(um....any hope re return of all comments,pleeeeeease?)

Thanks Sean, will add that to my knowledgebase here

For any new that join could that be a noted on the form they fill out that they

will be coming marked that way? Having the heads up on that would seem to

make them more aware so they don't just hit the Spam or trash button

depending on where it lands on their email not looking closer as to what it is.

This sounds great Sean ... thank you. I had been using my Yahoo! Mail but with a custom domain .... and you have a good solution to save the expense of that domain.

The other thing I've been testing and may do is move to GMX mail, which reminds me a lot of the Yahoo from a year or two ago before all the changes, but more savvy. Their sister webmail, mail.com , gives you a custom domain of sorts for free, example: photographer.net or artist.com or something like that ... in case any of you are looking to get away from the issues of the big guys ( yahoo, gmail, aol, etc. ).. mail.com also has a wonderful iOS app.

Um ... looking at that domain -- donotreply- at - fineartamerica.com --- makes me wonder once the dust settles with Pixels.com if it might be smart to give us artist email addresses with the domain? Example: johnsmith@pixels.com . this would not only serve with the email campaign but also with replying to inquiries when people email us, which I get a few time per month. Just a thought to post here, but not intended to make a discussion of it. Because that's not the topic of this thread.

Thank you, Sean. I will try again tomorrow.

Thanks for the update

Yes, thank you Sean. I'll try again too.
--mary ellen anderson

For what it's worth, here is a statement from Mail Chimp ( I use that too for my nonprofit ) for the same issue. They say for now its with yahoo addresses but could affect others in the future. They also tell their customers to use a custom domain, which makes the solution Sean provided more economical. Thanks again Sean for caring !!

http://blog.mailchimp.com/yahoo-changes-may-affect-your-deliverability/

Thank you very much Sean for fixing this out and for the explanations!
It works now for me. :)

Just a follow up -- I sent an email campaign today and everything works just like you said it would. I even had three recipients send me an email reply and it came right to me as usual. Excellent tool here even more so now, because nobody sees my address ( only the donotreply ) unless they send a reply !! Thank you so much Sean !!

Seems to be working :-)

Just an update, wondering if any of you are seeing this, I have a number of recipients now who normally open my email to them not opening??

I'm wondering if the new send FROM address - "donoreply- at - fineartamerica.com" - is registering with my recipients email accounts and sending it to spam ... because when they subscribed it was a different address before Sean changed it?? They opened two weeks ago, but not anymore.

I did a manual test email today to my yahoo account ( from my GMX account ) and it went to spam. So I hit the "Not Spam" button in Yahoo and then sent it a new email. That one went to spam. I know that I'm sending to a Yahoo address, but the issue that Sean mentioned in the OP is when you send FROM a Yahoo address ... and this update address was to fix that. Until now ... for me.

Also, I had one recipient send a direct email to me from my Pixels page stating they didn't reply to my campaign email because the address was "DONOTREPLY- at - fineartamerica.com". I'm wondering if you think this should be tweaked?? The buyer found me, so it's not big deal ... just a thought to make things simple for the buyer.

I sent out an email-campaign on Sept 3, 2014 to 124 people in one of my accounts and only 16 people opened up the email or 13% however you look at it I would say almost 90% of the mail went straight to the trash then but that is kind of normal with direct mail marketing stuff when you consider most of the time less than 1% is opened!

I just sent out an e-mail campaign last week. The two prior had high opened rates. This one only 40% open. Also, 16 never went out with the original campaign. I had to send them separately.

Here's the thing: I e-mailed all my family and friends from a personal account and told them to expect an e-mail from me but from my kathy@keppenart.com address (that's how the last two went out and that is still what it is saying on the campaign page in Behind The Scenes!). I hadn't seen or read this ahead of time or I would have given them the heads up about the address.

"This one only 40% open"

I used to do direct snail mail campaigns in the range of 10,000 to 50,000 (and higher) of pieces per month for a maker of production golf clubs. I would have killed for a 40% open rate.

I do email nearly every moth and I would kill for 40% open rate. I do mailers in the thousands of emails range. Open rate in the 20-30% range on average.

The key to direct mail, snail mail or email is what the refer to as the "unique selling offer" what they used to call "the hook".

On a snail mail piece it can be printed right on the outside so people have to see it. Little trickier on email, it has to be in the subject line. Words like free, discount, sale, giveaway and a few others are all the most commonly used. But for art, especially from FAA, that is a bit tricky too.

I do not use the FAA system but maybe every once in a while. Not my favorite. Constant Contact is the best, pricey but they are real good.

Floyd -- I'm in the picture postcard business still ... its not the same since technology and email marketing took over, but I average for my clients a 50% response rate.

The thing about email marketing is that it is permission based, and when you have the right offer - value, trust, buyer confidence - to sign up then you get people who want to hear what you have to say.

Kathy -- I'm thinking of dong the same as you. Use the same email address my subscribers singed up with, before Sean made the change of the sent from address, and ask them to check their spam folders ... and white-list the 'new' address.

Anyone else having this problem?

When composing a new Email Campaign, the bottom image along the right border cannot be changed as there is no drop down menu bar beneath it. The top three all have drop down menues but not the bottom image. It remains. This has never happened before. I have tried composing emails in my artist websites, Pixels and Fine Art America with the same glitch. I can change the top three images but there is no provision to change the bottom image. No drop down menu to choose a new and different image.

What is the solution?

Frank,
What does "white-list the 'new' address." mean?
Thanks,
Kathy

Kathy -- E-mail addresses on your Whitelist will bypass Spam filtering.

Activating Spam Protection will mark all e-mails from e-mail addresses or domains (eg: yahoo.com, gmail.com, mail.com) on this list as “trusted” and will automatically deliver them to the Inbox.

Thanks, Frank.

Well, it looks like what the link says in Sean's OP about Yahoo is now going on with gmail. Here is a link:

https://wordtothewise.com/2014/05/thoughts-gmail-inbox/


I came upon this because it seemed like many of the gmail addresses on my subscriber list, which makes up 40% of the list, were not opened. This includes comcast.net addresses as well. For your information, I don't know the emails we send if the recipient accounts read the default address from FAA or our own address but, short of the long, I was sending from my GMX Mail address and found out that gmail throws emails from GMX / Mail.com into the recipients Spam folder. Shortly after Sean made the announcement with this thread about Yahoo addresses I switched sending from my Yahoo Mail address to sending from my GMX Mail address. So today I switched back to my Yahoo address and sent an email campaign informing everyone to put the FAA default address into their email contact list. Would you believe a majority of those gmail address clicked open!! However, a majority of the yahoo addresses have not opened now. So, I may have to switch back to the GMX address and then send another campaign asking that recipants add the FAA default to their email contacts.

Testing --- I added the present FAA default address to my contacts in both yahoo and gmail. Then sending an email campaign, which has as you know the present default FAA address, to both my yahoo and gmail (sending from each my yahoo address and then my gmx address through FAA email campaign ) works like it should... goes straight to the inbox. So this confirms the key is getting our recipients to add the FAA address to their contacts / white list. Hope this is helpful information to all of you.

Thanks, Frank for sharing the testing and results. It is helpful information.

Kyrie eleison.

HA ... you make me smile Anita.

lol, Frank, it's a lot. I seriously have to question myself and wonder if I would rather die a pauper than put in the effort to understand all this. I admire your research and your purity. I wish you much success. Personally, I am still trying to justify to others why I don't have a smart phone, which seems to make me worthy of suspicion.

Anita -- I had a cell phone, then dumped it for an iPad. However, I have found that the time I put into email marketing ( and WordPress ) bring way more buyers than social media ever did ... for me.

yes, I agree at least about the blogging (no experience with the me-pad, and I am on blogger, not wordpress). Every time I blog I have a sale. However, good blogging is blood, sweat. and tears, and I can only do so much of it. It literally wipes me out. But I def agree it is the key. It is the most personal thing we do, if we do it well. That is, if we have content we are willing to share. Sharing your content is like giving your heart and soul to people who may not even like you. But that is why they value it so much. They want you to give it all. That's the money shot.

You are so right, Anita, I don't want to go off topic with this thread ( talking about blogs and not email campaign ) but just want to share this quote regarding your last statement: "Differentiate with value, or die with price." . -- Jeffery Gitomer ... Like you say, it works!!

Agreed! Cheers Frank, I think I am going to join your email list. :) Maybe it will help me understand all these things you are talking about! and you can always ask me what folder it ended up in. Best wishes.

I was wondering why my folks weren't getting my emails. Thanks. I'll be sending one again soon.

Jani -- Glad this information is useful to you!

Note to Sean: May I suggest, as Andee did at the top of this thread, to add a sentence on the email campaign sign-up page for subscribers to add "donoreply- at - fineartamerica.com" to their email contact list. .... since this is now the universal sent from address. I'm finding that I can tell those on my list that have added this, and they open emails I send more often than not.

Thank you in advance so much!!

Just went straight into my inbox, Frank, at gmail. ;)

Good to hear, Anita, thanks!

Since this is your first email from me to a gmail account, I have reason to believe what email provider we send FROM has a lot to do with it reaching the inbox ... unless the receiver puts the default address found in the OP of this thread in their contact list. In other words, I created a new address from my att.net account, because I suspect it works more like a domain name instead of a free email name, and so far the gmail addresses are opening again. Last email campaign I sent from Mail.com and those gmail.com and comcast.net addresses didn't open. The only ones that open every time no matter what address sent from are those gmail and comcast addresses I know have the default address in their contact list. Thanks again, Anita, for your feedback.

you are welcome, Frank. also it was professional, and I was impressed.

Thank you, Anita, I appreciate your feedback. You are very kind.

It looks like Gmail now has a "promotions" tab, which could be the culprit I thought was bringing emails to the junk folder. Here is a solution and the link to the text ( read the comment from Mary at the bottom of this page ) >>>

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The primary tab is intended for family and friends. I think any email address that’s not clearly a personal email address may be bound for the promotions tab. Plus, Gmail can tell that your emails are being sent from an email service provider (in this case, Mad Mimi). Gmail’s algorithms probably also monitor the content of emails to determine whether it’s promotional in case.

What you CAN do is ask your subscribers to move your emails to their primary tabs. They can literally drag your email from one tab to another. Gmail will ask them if they want to handle all emails from you in this manner, and they can click “yes.” A welcome drip campaign is a great way to tell your new subscribers about this. When people first opt in, you can send them an autoresponder that covers (1) what to expect from your newsletters and (2) how to ensure that they get your emails.

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http://blog.madmimi.com/beyond-open-rates/