Email Newsletters: 6 Mistakes to Avoid

In April 2008 I gave a presentation to the Vancouver League of Drupalers (the Vancouver Drupal users group). My presentation, Email Newsletters: WTF?, is a general overview of the issues involved with managing an email newsletter and 6 mistakes to avoid.

These Show Notes were kindly pulled together by Dale McGladdery.

Introduction
00:00 Email Newsletters: WTF? Opening Credits
00:05 Monique Trottier introduces her talk

Monique’s List of Mistakes to avoid
01:50 Mistake 1: Don’t treat Email HTML like Web HTML, they’re different
04:50 Mistake 2: Forgetting to design for Preview Panes
09:53 Mistake 3: Assuming your images are going to work
13:10 Mistake 4: Too many images, not enough text
16:12 Mistake 5: Not testing in different email programs
19:45 Mistake 6: Do not neglect your footer

Questions
23:35 Campaign Monitor
25:36 Email vs RSS
28:00 Newsletter Focus
30:30 Email Delivery Systems
33:50 What kinds of stats do you want to see from a delivery system

Discussion of handling bounces/unsubscribes
37:10 ISP Blacklisting
37:35 More points on newsletter forwarding
38:47 Getting content into Campaign Monitor
41:00 Outlook 2007 especially problematic
41:40 Recommendations of time/frequency/length
44:54 Jacob Neilson eye tracking study
46:48 What kind of stuff gets forwarded?
47:18 Embedding images, objects, and landing pages

You may also find this blog post interesting (Monique on Lab with Leo talking about Email Marketing): More Email Marketing Tips

References
Boxcar Marketing Website: http://www.boxcarmarketing.com
Constant Contact: http://www.constantcontact.com
Campaign Monitor: http://www.campaignmonitor.com
MailChimp: http://www.mailchimp.com