Multi-Use Content

Creating quality content takes time and as marketers we understand that time is always of the essence. In a rapidly changing industry where new technology brings about new ideas, products, offerings in shorter and shorter periods it is important to present relevant content to the user across multiple channels.

Taking the time to draw a roadmap of your digital marketing strategy equipped with an outline of business offerings, target markets, and company goals will help make your content moldable to work for you in numerous outlets.  With basic content draw up all you have to do is analyze the posting location and make it work for that specific outlet.

Let’s look at Social Media channels as a perfect example. If you read an interesting article that you want to share don’t just post the link on your website and be done with it. Write a blog which incorporates aspects of the article while keeping your company’s bottom line in mind. After posting the blog manipulate its content to turn it into an informational mailer for loyal customers. Tweeting about the article or wall post in a creative manner would always be great multiuse examples of one piece of content.

When creating quality content think of ways to use it across all digital media outlets and for multiple purposes in an attempt to save time and maximize benefit.  

Social Media and Email Marketing – It Doesn’t Have to Be One or the Other

Incorporating social media efforts into your email marketing campaigns is an effective way to increase brand exposure and drive traffic to your company website. The union of these two marketing heavyweights can help to create dialogue with consumers, drive content, and ultimately point your future email campaigns in the right direction.

Linking your social media to emails can create a cycle of give and take – consumers have the ability to ask questions, tell you what they want (and what they don’t want), and you have the ability to respond. As the marketer you have the means to formulate your marketing strategy around user opinions and use this cycle to create positive conversation and successful future campaigns.

With the vast sea of information floating over the intertubes recipient appetite for quality content suited to their needs is growing exponentially. Logically, the users actively searching for information, and the ones that are linked up to multiple social media outlets, are the ones who ultimately receive, open, respond, and forward information – these are your most influential users. Making email a one stop shop for all virtual outlets is the most effective way to engage these recipients and encourage them to engage others.

Here at KobeMail we encourage our clients to utilize smart channel connections to increase web traffic and improve brand recognition. We understand the importance of keeping up with a changing marketplace and adapting to new marketing practices in order to provide our partners with the best results possible.

The direct correlation between heavy email consumers and social media engagement proves that if you listen and allow customers to have a say – they will notice. Email marketing is no longer a one way street, so move over and make some room for social media.

Keep an eye out next week for “Social Media and Email Marketing- Ways to Connect”

Author: Caitlin Durand
Editor: Roopal Rawani

How To Analyze Bounces

Bounce rates are, in relation to emails, the number of email that do not get delivered and returns to the sender. There are many different reasons why an email fails deliverability. They can be divided into four different categories, which are:

1. Hard Bounce – Emails that are permanently undeliverable. Example; bad email addresses.

2. Soft Bounce – May not have a permanent reason for why the email is not going through. Example; full inbox, server is down or message is too large. Tip to keep in mind is to remove users after the 3rd soft bounce to avoid bad ISP reputation.

3. Blocks – Internet service providers reject emails due to spam filters. This can be due to black listed domains or when users manually mark domains as spam.

4. Other – Non-verified/Inactive accounts.

Usually when inquiring a bounce message you will receive some information to help the sender understand why your email was not delivered. Message may include:

• Date and time of bounce


• Identity of the mail server that bounced your email (example@example.com)


• A reason/ error message (mailbox full or unknown user)


• Header of the bounce message and some of the email content

If you are experiencing high bounce rate, a good step to keep in mind is to first clean your email list. Having a rate of 20% bounced emails is considered high. It is important to cleanse your mailing list and remove all email addresses that are misspelled, have bad domains and that are inactive. The more bad emails you have the higher the chances of having spam filters red flag you as using stolen or bought list leading to a higher spam score causing more bounces.

Having a low bounce rate is good only when you are satisfied with the size of your email list and when you know your message is actually delivered. There can also be the issue of having email testing as a false-positive (when your email is not rejected, but is directly filtered to Trash). Analyze your low bounce rate by checking in your major ISPs for open and click-through rates. This will help you uncover any underlying problem in misreading the reports of your low bounce rate.


Author: Adeline Zeledon
Editor: Yasifur Rahman

Emails a 2 Billion Dollar Industry by 2013 ... Sweet!

A very interesting article by Gavin O'Malley @ Media Post. Talks about how Direct Mail is on the verge of doom and budgets being redirected to online email efforts. According to the article ... "Borrell credits the rise of coupons online with the demise of direct mail"

You can read the complete article @ http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=106491

Happy Emailing ....

Outlook 2007 Rendering Issue

Over the past year most of our clients using Outlook 2003 have upgraded to Outlook 2007 as their email client. Various rendering issues have Creatives that had previously looked perfect on all ISPs and Oulook 2003 now look completely different/broken when tested. This post will be an on going post of any issues that arise with rendering in Outolook 2007. What has changed? ...

Background Images – Background image no longer render in Outlook 2007. Although background colors still work.

Background Colors - Simple table background colors render. Complications occur and renders incorrectly when nested tables are used.

Font Styles has to be defined in each table - If you want the correct font to display make sure you that you have it defined within content table inline styles. Otherwise it will automatically default to "Times New Roman".

No flash or animated gif's - We never advised using Flash in your creatives but now animated gifs are out too...

CSS floats and positions a no no - Do not use them if you want your creative to render correctly on Outlook 2007. Use tables instead

To be continued...

Revival of the Blog...

I have been meaning to update the blog on a more regular basis but higher level priorities has been taking precedence. Apologies to all readers for such a long silence (close to year and a half to be exact).

It has been a strong 2008 for KobeMail which has taken up much of my time in development and building strategic relationships. I look forward to posting on a much more regular basis.

"You-Centric" vs. "Me-Centric"

KobeMail would like to wish all of you Happy Holidays. Here are a couple of tips to wrap up this year which maybe helpful for the coming year -- especially around the holiday season. As always, I hope you find the suggestions useful and they help to bring in a successful New Year.

Historically, during the holiday season the frequency of campaigns sent increases drastically. It is a time of spending, and advertising products becomes a necessity for revenue generation. While increasing your communication may seem like a good idea, for more visibility of your products and services, it may affect you adversely if the campaigns sent are spaced out incorrectly. Our recommendation to you -- allow at least seven to ten days between each campaign. Frequent emails within a short period can actually prove to be counter productive.

Users are less likely to open emails if they are sent too frequently. Like you, your users are busy with their family, buying gifts and planning out their Christmas/New Years Eve parties and are not checking mail as often. Increasing the frequency of emails may result in multiple emails from you waiting in their Inbox. This may rub some of your users the wrong way. Just because someone is a customer does not mean they want your emails all the time, especially when it becomes pushy. The chances of emails being deleted unread increases drastically which hurts your reputation. This may also result in increases in SPAM complaints or increase attrition to your database due to unsubscribes.

From a performance standpoint, you see a decrease in click through rates and from an ISP's perspective an increase in unopened emails generated from your domain/IP. ISPs have ad space within each email. They monitor the opens and non-opens, along with spam complaints on emails. If users do not open emails ISPs assume users are uninterested in your communication which can lower your reputation. The open rates on emails are just as important to ISPs as they are to you.

Planning early can mitigate the need for increasing the frequency of emails sent during the holiday season. Send campaigns in November reminding users of shipping deadlines. Remind them to try and avoid shipping delays due to the rush during the holiday season. This is beneficial to you because it may also help your company generate revenues prior to the shopping season and help your users avoid the stress and plan ahead during the holidays.

I have tried to touch on what you can do to ensure your emails are opened and have click throughs, but you should also be thinking of what your emails can do for your users. Make your emails more “You-centric” than “Me-centric”.

There are steps you can take to ensure your customers want to open your emails. Make sure you brand yourself throughout the year, so they will open the creative based on your "From Name". Build a relationship with them. Test your subject lines. Go through historical data to review which creatives had more click throughs and why. These are important details you need to keep in mind for the coming year, if you have not already.

In the spirit of giving, give back to your users. Instead of giving compelling reasons to buy your product, making your emails look “Me-centric,” take the additional effort to make your emails “You-centric.” Write about the customer benefits and what you can do for them. Instead of thinking “How can I write this email to make sales for my company” you should think along the lines of “What would my customers find useful in this email?” Don’t use pushy sales line and ALL CAPS, which can raise SPAM scores.. Create emails that have useful information and make the user want to read what is inside of them.

I will discuss this in more detail in the next blog. Have a safe and happy holiday season!