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Segmentation
» “Segmentation” is a mechanism used in email marketing to reach the target audience effectively.
» Segmentation involves splitting the email databases into different groups. Each segment consists of email addresses of people categorized according to specific criteria such as age, demographics, income level, past email activity etc.
» Email segmentation assures that the emails are going to the right audience. This results in cost-savings and effective returns on investment.
Signature
» “Signature” in email depicts your individual identity or your brand’s identity. Most email clients have a signature functionality using which senders can set their signatures for all the outgoing emails.
» A consistent email signature is very important to maintain the brand identity of an organization.
» An email signature should be brief. As a general rule of thumb, an ideal signature is 4-6 lines in length. The components that should be included in the email signatures are Name, Title, Organization name, Phone number and Web address.
Single Opt-In
» “Single Opt-In” is a email newsletter sign up process in which there is no confirmation mail sent to the subscribers. That means, when a person enters the details such as name and email etc., s/he gets automatically subscribed without any confirmation mail being sent to the inbox.
» Although the single opt-in procedure is good for fast subscription, but this is not a viable method to create quality email database.
»The chances of spamming are more in the single opt-in process. Therefore, the double opt-in process is more preferred.
Spam/UCE
» “Spam/Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE)” are the messages which are sent to different recipients without their ample permission.
» The unsolicited commercial emails violate the CAN-SPAM act. Spammers harvest the email addresses from different sources and send spam bulk emails.
» Internet service providers use different anti-spam techniques in order to restrict the unsolicited commercial emails from entering the inbox of the recipients.
Spam Trap
» “Spam Trap” are the specific email addresses that are activated with the sole aim to identify the unauthorized email addresses and stop their endeavors of circulating spam emails.
» Spam traps can be activated by putting certain email addresses in the websites that will not subscribe to any emails.
» The spammers who harvest emails will take these emails and send the intended mails. Consequently, the addresses from which emails are coming can be referred to as spammers.
SPF Record
» SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. “SPF record” is a Domain Name Service (DNS) record associated with the email sender’s domain name and its function is to tell the email clients that the sender is authenticated to send emails.
» In case, a sender is sending email campaigns without a set SPF record, the emails may end up in the spam or can be caught up in the bulk mail filters.
» The mail services check the sender’s SPF record to assure that the mail from a specific domain is sent by verified host.
Spoofing
» “Spoofing” is a phenomenon used by the spammers to falsely persuade the recipients to open and reply to the emails.
» In email spoofing, the sender pretends to be known to the recipient and requests them to provide information.
» Different types of email spoofing include spam, phishing and viruses.
» The ISPs or email service providers implement certain anti-spoofing mechanisms in order to reduce the number of such emails.
Subject Line
» “Subject Line” is the first impression that the email campaigns make in the minds of the subscribers. This is the first thing that email clients show for the incoming emails in the inbox.
» An effective subject line clearly depicts what the email is all about and, persuades the recipients to open and read it.
» As a general rule, the length of subject line should be kept to 50 characters or fewer. Subject lines have a significant impact on the open rates of any email campaign.
Suppression File
» A “suppression file” or a suppression list is the list of email addresses of recipients who have unsubscribed themselves. This file is used by the email senders to suppress the future email messages to these particular email addresses.
» Email senders use the suppression list to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act 2003.
» The CAN-SPAM Act mandates that email senders provide an opt-out mechanism for the subscribers, so that they can unsubscribe from the commercial emails at any time.