Quotable Quotes
Seen in a tweet: “Think about why you open an email in your inbox. Consider that when creating your next email campaign, would you open your email?” That’s a great question: Would you bother to open your own mail if you had a choice, or would you toss it out with the rest of your…
A CAN-SPAM Checklist
Today we’re going to create a checklist of things required for CAN-SPAM compliance. So, you want to make sure that you actually comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and not just say that you do. This post isn’t for you. You might learn something here and if you do, that’s great. But, instead, this…
When web experts opine about email…
you get incredibly dumb statements like this one: Like promotional e-mail, transactional e-mail by nature bypasses search engines. Uh? What? My car also by nature bypasses search engines (although it does, in fact, have an engine of its own, thus providing at least as much linkage to search engines as transactional email has). Maria Krueger is…
Email is about relationships
Did you know that it’s entirely possible to learn the wrong lessons? Well, it is. I use Zemanta to suggest possible links for blog posts. As I was writing yesterday’s blog post, a suggested link came up dealing with CAN-SPAM and the definition of “spam”. That post by Roger Bauer shows how some people just…
Video in email
I am asked about embedding Flash or Windows Media files in email on a fairly regular basis. I always advise against it. It never seems to deliver well and it also suffers from degradation in service. That is to say that it doesn’t seem to get where you want it as often, and when it…
Bad Advice
The hallmark of bad advice is the “there are very clear guideline” statement which appears without an actual reference to the “very clear guideline”. A great example of this is an Email Insider article entitled: “Transactional Email.” CAN-SPAM. There are very clear guidelines on how much marketing content is acceptable in a transactional email (no more…
Sending email to wireless domains?
One question that I get asked a lot has to do with sending email to wireless domains. So, I’ll lay out the answer here for all the world to see: No unsolicited messages may be sent to a recipient on a mobile domain for any reason, period. Here’s the general rule from the FCC’s Order…
The Spock Trap
I’ll admit it, I’m a policy wonk. I have a bachelors degree in Government. And, I read the Dipnote, the US State Department’s blog. It’s in my non-work blog feeds in Thunderbird. So, sue me. Today, John Matel writes a post titled: “Hidden Prosperity and the Banana Index in Iraq.” In it he mentions “the…