If you use 3rd party email lists for marketing your events, you should expect to pay less for them going forward, according to an article in DM News as summarized in MarketingVox
As of this month, permission-based B2B email lists, the highest-priced category, dipped by $8, to $281/M, compared with July 2004. Permission-based B2C email, the second-highest-priced category, also decreased by $8 to $175/M.
Of course, if you read the whole article you should also expect to get fewer opens since more and more HTML emails will be refused at the door.
In the next 12 months, Microsoft will release a new version of Outlook that filters out HTML graphics by default, decreasing delivery rates for corporate addresses, according to Worldata, and consumer ISPs are already filtering out graphics in HTML emails unless users opt to view graphics.
Wish I had some encouraging words here, but I don't. I design the TSMR newsletter specifically for HTML and while I try to be sensitive to text-only preferences, my own newsletter is pretty ugly and unweildy in text.
To date I haven't done anything about it because it's been a non-issue. Almost all of the emails I've done for clients are also designed for HTML in order to extend the branding and influence what links get clicked.
To redesign the emails I do to text requires a total rethinking of content, emphasis and usability. Not something I'm looking forward to. If you have any sage advice with some examples or stats, TSMR readers would appreciate hearing about it, so please share. Thanks.
Kevin,
This is one of those "practice what you preach" areas... and I almost always tell clients to make sure their text versions are readable and user-friendly. But my newsletter is different because I HAVE TO DO THE WORK (emphasis my own).
My first email campaigns were to engineers, an audience that was violently anti-HTML in the 90s, so all I used to do was text. But I've fallen into the bad habit of creating a story through the images I select for my own newsletter - and like any form of "art" (loose definition) it's difficult to divorce the process from the result.
To me, the HTML version is the "real" newsletter that reflects what I'm thinking. The text version is well... a diulted afterthought. Which, come to think of it, should be viewed in your RSS reader, not Outlook! (Why didn't I think of that before?)
From what I've seen via people commenting back to me, I believe my HTML to text ratio is about 9:1 or even higher. Another reason I haven't felt the urgency to change things.
I fully recognize that's what I'm doing vis a vis text versions is not customer-focused yet I rationalize that by telling myself I'm not getting paid for this anyway, so why add to the task?
So yeah, I have to fix that. But I'm not looking forward to it. Anyway, thanks for the input.
Posted by: Rich | July 08, 2005 at 02:14 PM
Rich,
It will be a nice change to talk about something practical instead of theorizing about the future of associations :) so here are my thoughts:
First, you should already be providing both a text and HTML version of your newsletter. I'm not sure how you send it out -- if you use an external service like Constant Contact or internal software -- but make sure you are using a system that allows you to send both (so that the email client used by the recipient opens the version that the client prefers). I haven't seen any systems that don't offer this option.
Second, create the text-only version yourself rather than letting the system you're using create a version of its own. It's highly important that the text version be readable in and of itself and not just a text dump of HTML code. This means writing your newsletter in two formats.
No doubt, it's a pain in the @$$. But the reason it's important is that there is already a significant percentage of your readership getting the text-only format whether you can tell or not. (Our organization's email newsletter goes out to about 5,000 recipients and around 20-25%, as near as I can tell, get the text version.)
An ugly text newsletter filled with code or gaps will not be read.
And one note regarding the Outlook changes: last year there were lots of "sky-is-falling" articles in email marketing circles on this same topic, having to do not only with MS but, in particular, a new version of AOL that strips out images and links. As far as AOL is concerned, the problem didn't live up to the hype. The AOL upgrade actually made it very easy to view images and links (a simple link at the top of every affected email). So as long as you have a solid opt-in subscription list and a regular publication schedule there should not be too many problems. Here's hoping MS does the same thing.
Nothing changes more quickly in the online world than email marketing because of the rapidly-shifting spam filters, email clients, standards, etc. But even with all those headaches I remain committed to direct email newsletters as a marketing outlet because my metrics show that they remain highly profitable.
Posted by: Kevin Holland | July 08, 2005 at 01:50 PM