We all know that image blocking by ISPs and email clients can wreak havoc with your HTML emails and affect click-throughs and conversions.

This is particularly a critical issue with image-based call-to-action (CTA) buttons. But all hope is not lost.

In our recent Webinar, "Using Innovations in Email Creative to Drive Increased Engagement," Aaron Smith and Lisa Harmon of the email creative agency Smith-Harmon outlined a great technique that enables email marketers to use image-based buttons but still convey the CTA if images are blocked.

Here is Smith-Harmon's "bullet-proof" button approach:

This technique uses the BACKGROUND attribute in HTML to place a graphic beneath font or link tags. For optimum results, also using a background color (with the use of the BGCOLOR attribute) will ensure the area still shows up as a color block even without images enabled.

It also will render in Outlook 2007 when images are disabled, either by purpose or without changing the default images-off setting.

Aaron and Lisa said they've tested this technique many times against purely graphical buttons. The vast majority of results come out in favor of the bulletproof button technique.

Here's what the HTML code looks like. In this example, "View the Catalog" is the text block that will appear even when images are disabled:

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr>     
<td align="center" width="118" height="21" background="http://www.smith-harmon.com/downloads/btn.gif" bgcolor="#e1792e">        
<a href="" style="color: #ffffff; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none;">View the Catalog</a>
</td> </tr> </table>

One final caveat: The width and height of the container object (in the example above, the TD tag around the link with "View the Catalog" text) should match the dimensions of the image being used.

Otherwise, if the container happens to be bigger, the background image will repeat in a tiled fashion (much like old Windows 3.1 wallpaper patterns).

If you or your email designers would like more tips and advice on creative innovations in email, download the hour-long recorded presentation and the slideshow.

Posted by Loren McDonald at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sharing email messages on social networks can increase your reach by exposing your messages to large audiences beyond your subscribers in ways forwarding to friends can't match.

That's one finding revealed in Silverpop's new study, "Emails Gone Viral: Measuring 'Share to Social' Performance," now available as a free report.

This new study analyzes key aspects of social sharing and uses a new series of benchmark metrics we created to report our findings. Leverage these benchmarks to assess the performance of your own social-sharing program or to forecast what you might expect before launching a campaign.

study report also presents a detailed set of best-practice recommendations and a comprehensive list of additional resources to help you maximize the benefit of your email social-sharing initiatives.

5 Key Study Findings

1. Share-to-Social significantly outperforms FTAF. Even though social sharing is still new to email marketing and consumers in general, it is already outperforming that old standard, forward to a friend. We found that organic social sharing rates (done without an incentive or reward) average 0.5 percent, compared to an estimated 0.1 percent or less when sharing via forward-to-a-friend links. Based on an average overall click-through-rate of approximately 5 percent, this means that 1 out of 10 clicks is on a social sharing link.

2. Share-to-Social's biggest return may be its extended reach. With the average number of social network friends in the 100-200 range, the promise of social sharing to greatly expand exposure to email messages is strong. To understand this additional reach, we developed a model as part of this study, which estimates that social sharing delivered an average 24.3 percent increase in reach. On top of that, the shared messages generated on average another 1 percent of message opens.

3. Facebook rules, but … All the email messages we studied included a link to share the email on Facebook, and Facebook, along with MySpace and Twitter, accounted for the majority of messages shared to networks. However, links shared to Bebo, Delicious and LinkedIn actually drew a higher percentage of clicks.

4. Brands in subject lines tend to beat offers. While specific creative elements did not seem to factor heavily into an email's shareability, we found that the emails most frequently shared were more likely to feature a brand or product name in the subject line rather than a specific offer.

5. Sharing activity lasts about one week. As with email in the inbox, the majority of opens and clicks of shared emails occur in the first couple of days following posting on a social site. On average, the last click on a shared email messages occurs about seven days after the initial share, with activity ranging from 1 to 44 days.

Download Study and Additional Resources

Following is the link to register and download the study, and additional related articles and resources:

• "Emails Gone Viral: New Measurement of 'Share to Social' Performance"

• "Email Marketing Goes Social: What It Takes to Make Email Sharing Work" (Webinar recording)

• Silverpop's "Share-to-Social" Feature (video)

• Posts from Silverpop's Engagement Marketing blog with advice, tips and tactics for incorporating email into social networks

We welcome your comments and questions on the study, our recommendations and other aspects of social sharing. Post them the comments section below, and look for our response in future blog posts.

Posted by Loren McDonald at 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Email done quite well
Is loved by ISPs
And subscribers too

Okay, so I'm not the Shakespeare of the haiku world yet. If you can do better, your creativity could win you a one-year membership in the Email Experience Council, a $399 value and a great way to connect with your fellow email marketers, download resources and improve your email skills.

To say nothing, of course, of the thrill of seeing your content entry displayed on the EEC site for the world to appreciate and envy (more on that later).

It all started when a group of self-described "email snobs" started talking via Twitter and blog posts/comments about the language we use to talk about email marketing. Some of the conversation was inspired in part by my latest Email Insider column, "Warning: Blasting May Be Harmful to 'Our' Health."

On an email discussion list, someone posted a response to the conversation about language in the form of a haiku, which begat more haikus and eventually drew the EEC into the fray. Now the EEC is sponsoring the (sort of) official 2009 Haiku Slam, with EEC members voting on the winners.

We're still working out the details, including the page at the EEC site where you can view other entries. In the meantime, you can track various fun and serious discussions on email marketing via the hashtag #emailsnob - or Twitter search. Follow me - @LorenMcDonald – and @Silverpop and other participants, and we'll pass on the particulars as they become available. Feel free to contribute to the discussion, too.

Once you have crafted your contest entries, send them to aswerdlow at the-dma.org. Post 'em in the comments section here, too, if you're especially proud of them.

Here is another of my planned entries that might inspire your own creativity or your competitive spirit:

Blasts are from the past
And relevance they will kill
ROI, think not

Also, in an upcoming blog post I will go into more depth about why I think the language we use to talk about email marketing is so important and where the real threat to email's future is coming from, so watch this space.

Now, put down that coffee cup and start haiku-ing!

Posted by Loren McDonald at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)