MustangList.com Blog

The subject line of your email is the main thing (other than who the sender is) that will prompt a subscriber to open an email. So you need to make sure that you’re writing winners every time. A good way to choose the best subject line is to let your readers decide. Test a couple different subject lines the day before sending your email; the email that gets the most clicks is the winner.

Here’s how:

• Take a portion of your list and create two categories for your test groups. You won’t want to do this if you use Mustang List’s Subscriber Update link because these categories will appear on the Subscriber Update Page if you enable categories. Another option would be to create two small test lists. If you go this route, make sure that these members are not also on the main list, or they’ll get your emails a second time after you choose the winning subject line and send the final version to the main list. You probably want your total test group to be 10-20 percent of your list size. So each of the two test groups or categories (or lists) should have 5-10 percent of the subscribers on your list.

• Create your email. You’ll want to test your subject line one or two days before you’d like to send the final email. Send the email to one test category with one of your proposed subject lines. Send the email with the other proposed subject line to the other test category. If you created 2 small test lists, you’ll need to copy and paste the email message into those lists for sending the tests. Over the next 12-24 hours, monitor the open rate. The subject line with the most opens is the winner. Prepare the final email. If you created two small test lists, then you’ll need to put the final email in the list you’ll ultimately send to. Be sure that the members in your test lists do not also appear in the main email list or they’ll get the email a second time. If you created test categories within the same main list, it’s easy to exclude the test categories from the final mailing: just click to exclude your test categories under Advanced Sending Options when sending the final version.

• You can also use your test groups (or lists) for split copy (parallel testing) testing of other aspects of your emails. Test the wording of your offer: send one offer worded one way, and send the same offer worded another way to the other test group. Try different offers by wording them the same way, and putting them in the same design, making the only variance the actual offer: free shipping versus 10% off, for example. The offer that gets the most clicks wins. You can also test design this way. Make sure the subject, the offer and the copy are the same and change up different design elements (test these one at a time): the layout, color, call to action buttons vs. hyperlinked text, etc. The design that yields the most responses (gets the most clicks) wins.

The amount of testing you do will depend on the size of your list, your mailing frequency, and your response rates. Steady response rates might not warrant frequent testing and changes, but slipping response rates can be boosted by testing and implementing small changes. You can test subject lines every mailing or every other mailing; while you could test design every 6 months to one year. Test offers whenever you have two viable offer ideas or when you are relying on the email to pick up sagging sales numbers on your website at the end of the month. And don’t forget to revisit your results. List trends change—just because a certain tactic tested favorably at one time, doesn’t mean that the other tactic won’t be effective down the road. Retest from time to time to check in with your subscribers and see if their behavior is trending differently.

You want to start sending targeted emails, but don’t have a complete plan yet? Have an idea of an email to send to a specific region, but not the other regions? Have a category you want to send a special email to, but don’t know what to send the other categories?

Start by doing what you can. There’s nothing wrong with emailing a targeted message to a small part of your list and a generic newsletter to the rest—you’ve got to start somewhere and there’s no better time than now.

You can start targeting by using a category, or a region, such as state. Begin by making sure you have email addresses added to the category to which you’d like to send the targeted email. If you will be sending the email to a specific region, ensure you have some addresses to mail to in that region.

Let’s say you run a non-profit organization and you send out a monthly email newsletter. For your July newsletter, you realize you could target a message to your donors in the Chicago area. First, we’re assuming that you’ve been collecting city and state as well as other information. You either import this information with the email addresses, or you collect the information on your sign up form.

Create your regular generic email newsletter and create the newsletter for your Chicago recipients. Test each email by sending it to your personal email address(es).  When it’s time to send your message, send the targeted message first. From the Send Message screen, you’ll want to show the Advanced Sending Options. For this example, we’ll target the list by region by selecting IL or Illinois (or both) from the drop down list for state. It’s a little broader in reach than Chicago, but it’s considerably more narrowed down than sending to your whole list. Send your message. It will go only to the members on your selected list that have the state IL in their profile.

How do you send the generic message to the rest of the list? From the send message screen show the Advanced Sending Options. This time you want to choose all states except IL. An easy way to do this is to CTRL click or Shift click to select all states and then CTRL click on IL to “de-select” it. Ensure that every state except the state(s) you already mailed to (IL) is selected. Because your subscribers can only have one state in their profile, you don’t need to worry about the message going to the recipients who received the first message. This message will only go to everyone that you selected and not to the recipients of your first message—the subscribers with IL in their profile.

Or, say you have a Category set up for people interested in donating their time to your organization. Set up the generic email and the email targeted to the subscribers interested in volunteering. When sending the message, show the Advanced Sending Options. Send the targeted message first and select the category that you want to include (the category for volunteers). Send the message. To send the generic message, you exclude the subscribers who got the first message by excluding the volunteer category—click the category for volunteers under the heading Exclude these Categories. This way, subscribers receiving the first message (those in the volunteer category) are excluded and won’t get the second message, but everyone else on your list will.

Even this very simple targeting can be a great enhancement to your email program. The important thing is to just start—get your feet wet and more targeting ideas will come forth in no time. Also, watch your open rates and click rates to the targeted groups rise—seeing real, tangible results might give you just the boost you need to think of more ways to target your subscribers.

APIs are the secret to automating many manual tasks and streamlining your work flow. API stands for “application programming interface” and is a method by which one process or program can pass information to another process or program. If you have access to a programmer, they could use Mustang List’s APIs to write little programs to automate your system and integrate it with Mustang List.

Here are some things you can do using APIs:

• Put a sign-up box on your homepage and have the email sign-ups go directly to Mustang List
• Deploy a welcome message instantly upon sign up
• Create a Customer Preference Center where customers to subscribe to and unsubscribe from multiple newsletters
• Maintain a CRM database and sync it with Mustang List for sending emails
• Integrate third party software systems to Mustang List (for example, you can intake an email address at the point of sale on your POS system and have the email address sent to Mustang List automatically—no need to manually export the addresses and import them to Mustang List)

You can use your own programmers to integrate your systems with Mustang List using the APIs, or you can use Mustang List’s custom programming services to customize your site to talk to Mustang List via the API.

You know you can use Mustang List to send your email newsletter and other promotional emails, but have you considered the system’s transactional applications? You probably already send a confirmation email that is auto-generated from your website when a customer makes a purchase. But what if you want to contact that customer later to find out how their shopping experience was? What if you want to send them a small series of questions or a survey so you can find out how you’re doing? Mustang List’s Response Form and Recurring Message features can combine to create a powerful customer communication management tool. Find out how you’re doing by sending an email that includes a link to a short survey a few days after your online sale. This is not a confirmation email, this is an email that you can send a few days after the sale to stay in front of the customer and solicit feedback. Here’s how:

1. When a purchase is made on your website, use the API to have the purchaser added to a list in Mustang List. You’ll probably want to create a list like “web purchasers” for this purpose. You cannot add these customers’ email addresses to your regular newsletter list unless you explicitly asked for and received permission. Be sure to carefully manage this new list to avoid mailing them marketing emails.
2. Set up a survey of the questions you’d like to ask the customer using Mustang List’s Response Forms.
3. Set up a Recurring Message to send a fixed number of days after the Sign Up date (the Sign Up date being the date they were added to the list by the API, the date of purchase). You should already be sending a confirmation email immediately upon purchasing, so give the customer a few days’ break before you send this email. Depending on the types of questions you ask, you might want to anticipate the number of days it would normally take for the item to ship and send the survey after the customer would most likely have received the item.
4. After the purchaser is added to the list, the clock will start ticking on your recurring message and X number of days after the date they were added to the list, the email with the link to the survey will be sent.
5. After you receive your first response, you can view the responses online in Mustang List or export the responses to a CSV file for viewing in MS excel and other applications. You can also view the bounce, open, and click rate data in Mustang List (something you can’t do with web-generated emails).

Keep in mind:

• You can absolutely send an email to a customer that’s transactional in nature, but DON’T market to them as they might consider the communication unsolicited commercial email (aka SPAM).
• DO carefully manage your list of web purchasers list and purge it occasionally to avoid accidentally sending marketing emails to these customers.
• DO include a shout out and link to sign up for your newsletter. Sending a “How are we doing” email and survey is a great way to build your email list if you properly solicit and receive permission.

With Mustang List’s easy to use Response form tool, you can collect registration information from your subscribers for your next event or seminar. Imagine the ease of an online sign up process and the ability to send a confirmation and reminder email all within one system. Here’s how:

1. Set up a Response form in Mustang List. This will be your event registration page. When the form is complete, a url will be generated for your new form that you’ll copy and paste into your email creative or onto your website.
2. You want to make sure that you have all the information for the event on this page: event, date, place, and time. Use descriptive text for the button to submit the form: “click here to register,” or something similar.
3. The Response form should include the fields you’d like to collect for the sign up, for example: Email Address, First Name, Last Name, Company, Title, and Phone Number.
4. When you create the Response form, you’ll also create a Thank You page. Use this page to confirm the registration was received and thank your customer. You might also reconfirm the date, place, and time of the event in case the customer chooses to print the confirmation page.
5. When the Response Form and Thank You page are complete, save the form.  A url will be generated that you can copy and paste into your email creative or put on your website that will take customers to your registration page.
6. Once you begin to receive registrations, you can view the responses online. You can also export the responses to a CSV file making it easy to share the final list of attendees with others involved in the event. If you need to snail mail the registrants, or if you need to prepare collateral before the event like name tags, you can easily import the CSV into other applications.
7. Although you cannot add your recipients to your normal email list (unless you explicitly requested and received an opt-in), you can email the recipients to confirm their registration and the event details. Use the CSV file of registrants’ email addresses and import them into a separate list in Mustang List.
8. Email the recipients once again a week or a few days before the event as a courtesy reminder of the date, place, time, and other relevant details. This (and the confirmation email) is a transactional email and you need not have an opt-in to send this type of email. Include a link in these emails so they can sign up for your email list. You might also include a note that the bottom explaining that the email is sent to event participants as a reminder. Be sure to keep this list separate and purge it after the event to avoid accidentally mailing it marketing email.

Detailed instructions for how-to set up Response Forms are in the Mustang List Knowledge Base.

The From Address is the name and email address that will appear in the From line of the email header when your subscribers receive your email. It is important that this email address clearly indicate your company name (the sender) to increase the likelihood of your subscribers opening your email. People are less likely to open emails from senders they don’t recognize.

A From Address will have a format similar to the following:

My Name <myname@mydomain.com>

Note that the two parts of the From Address in the example above that say “My Name” do not need to be the same. You could have the “name” of the publication be the part before the < as in:

My Company’s Weekly Deals <mycompany@mydomain.com>

Often, the part in the < > doesn’t show in the recipient’s inbox From line. You’ll want to be sure that you include your company name in the portion before the < so that your recipient knows who the sender is. In our example above the portion before the < is “My Company’s Weekly Deals” and not just “Weekly Deals” for this reason: “Weekly Deals” does not tell the recipient who the sender of the email is. Alternatively, you could set up the email address as:

My Company <weeklydeals@mydomain.com >

Many companies also set up their From Address as an email only, with no name. This format looks like:

myname@mydomain.com

In this case, they don’t add a name in front of the email address and so they don’t enclose the email address in the <>. When you enter your From Address this way, the actual email address (myname@mydomain.com) is what will appear in the recipient’s From line on the email header.

If your company name changes, you need to carefully handle the name change in the From Address. Subscribers need to be eased into the new company name or your open rates might suffer as they might not recognize the new name as the company whose email they subscribed to. Start with an email sent from the old company name announcing the name change in the subject line. Then for a couple months send mail displaying a From Address with both company names, until eventually you eliminate the old company name. If you need to change the actual email address and domain that’s sending the email, again, move slowly; try and get your subscribers to add the new domain to their address book and be prepared for a dip in open rates. Depending on the subcribers’ settings, the messages from the new email address could go to junk mail until the subscriber notices and adjusts their settings.

Whatever method you choose for your From Address, it is recommended that you authenticate your From Address domain name with Domain Keys and SPF. Having these records will help your email deliverability and can also help your domain from being spoofed or forged. If Mustang List hosts your domain, this is set up for you. If Mustang List does not host your domain, then consult with Mustang List or contact your domain service provider for assistance.

Have you seen the link in Mustang List for Response forms? Ever wondered what they are? A Response form is a way to collect information from your subscribers; it is a form that will accept responses from your readers. With Mustang List’s easy to use tool, you can create a webform and a thank you confirmation page. You link customers to the online form you’ve created with a url you paste into your creative and you can view the responses in Mustang List.

Here are two ideas you can implement with Response Forms:

Run a Survey. Find out what your customers are thinking.

• Want to know what you can do better?
• Do you know what your customers like, what you’re doing right?
• Want feedback on new email creative or an updated website?

Opening lines of communication with your customers is always a good thing. Create a survey with up to 12 questions or fields, paste the link into an email or onto your website and wait for the responses to come in. You might consider offering an incentive in exchange for your customers’ feedback. Offer a free service or gift card for the first ten surveys received. Or enter all of the respondents in a drawing for a free product. If you try this approach, make sure that one of the survey fields is an email address so that you can contact the respondent with the special incentive you offered them. Alternatively, if you do not provide contact information fields in the response form, the respondent is anonymous when you review the responses, which could also be useful.

Hold a Contest. If the prize is good, your customers will target their friends and family and do your marketing for you.

• Offer a prize for a new name for your e-Newsletter.
• Generate hype for a new product by giving it away in a contest.
• Build your email list by asking for an opt-in to your e-Newsletter on the entry form.

Contests are a fun way to promote your company or brand and increase name recognition. The Response Form can double as an online contest entry form. Ask for contact information in the 12 fields as well as anything else you want to know—for the contest or otherwise. Be sure to list the contest rules in the Message Content or in the Footer. Use Enter Now! or similar text for the Submit Button Text so that’s it’s clear that clicking the button is required to submit the form and enter the contest. When you randomly choose a winner, double check whether or not the entry form was filled out completely and correctly and qualifies to win. If not, randomly choose again until the submission drawn fits the entry criteria.

Detailed instructions for how-to set up Response Forms are in the Mustang List Knowledge Base.

1. Decide what kind of mailing you want to send. Do you want to send email based on the sign-up date, or do you want to send a birthday email? An anniversary email? Make sure you have dates in your subscriber data.
2. Create a Recurring Message.
3. Schedule the Recurring Message and make it Active.
4. Date fields you can use as triggers for mailing in Mustang List are Sign-up, Birthday, and Anniversary. You can send 0-13 days Before, On, or After these dates.
5. To send a test of the message to yourself before the message is Active and sending, enter a test email in the field provided.
6. Once the recurring message is scheduled and Active, the email will send automatically to all new and old subscribers who fit the “rules” of the schedule.

Please see the Mustang List Knowledge Base for detailed instructions.

How do you strengthen your relationship with your customer by speaking to them one-on-one? How do you send them the right message at the right time? How do you increase your brand value in the eyes of your customer? One way is with Date-Triggered Mailings. A date-triggered mailing is an email that sends itself automatically based on a specified date in the customer profile. It’s an easy way to target your customers with a relevant message.

Life-cycle emails.
Life cycle marketing exploits the idea of timing in order to reach customers in a more personalized manner. It’s about communicating with your customers one at a time. It takes into account an action and sends an email to the customer based on that action. For example, using the sign-up date as the trigger (or action), you can send a welcome email the day after the sign-up date to your new subscribers.

In fact, based on the sign-up date, you can send a series of emails to new subscribers while they’re new and their interest in your company is high. Within a few days or a week after the sign up you could send: an email asking for updated profile information (especially if you collect sign-ups through a sign up box); an email with more information about your company; or an incentive email to make a first purchase on your website or to take some action to become more engaged with your company.

Birthday and Anniversary emails.
Special events in your customers’ lives are a great opportunity for you to stay in touch, send a relevant and well-timed email, and offer a special discount or incentive you might not be able to send list-wide. One often sees “birthday clubs” in the food service industry where members are sent a coupon for a free item in participating restaurants. Birthday clubs can also be very effective for building your list, too—signing up to the email list can be incentivized by the promise of a birthday “gift.” If a birthday club doesn’t fit into your business model, think about all the other events that can trigger a mailing, for example: anniversaries, graduation dates, the expiration of a membership, or the closing date of a new home purchase.

For birthdays and anniversaries, you might want to send an email on the actual date or even a few days in advance if you’re including a special offer to help celebrate the event. You might have a series of emails around a graduation date where you send before and after the event offering both congratulations as well as relevant deals.

For time-sensitive dates, such as expirations, you’ll want to send a notification email before the date passes. And some events, such as mailing on the anniversary of the purchase of a new home, might just be used to stay in touch and say hello.

Date-triggered mailing is a great addition to your email enterprise. It’s also one of the easy to use features of Mustang List—all you need are some subscribers and dates, and you can get started right away.

Anchor tags can serve as a sort of table of contents your readers can use to jump down to the information that interests them.

To set up anchor tags, you need to do two things. You need to insert the anchor next to the content you want to link to (the Anchor Point) and you need to create the links that go to the Anchor Points.

1. You add the anchor tags when you are creating a message or adding a message. In the workspace for where you create or paste your message, you’ll see the WYSIWYG html editor.
2. Go to the portion of the email where the content you want to link to begins. For example, if you have a “This Month’s Features” table of contents box in the upper portion of your email, you might have a “Tip of the Month” section that you want to link to from the “table of contents.” Scroll down your email and go to the beginning of the tip. Place your cursor at the beginning of the paragraph or sentence you want to link to (where the tip begins, in this example).
3. Click on the icon that looks like a boat anchor.
4. A pop-up screen will appear for you to “Insert/edit anchor” with a field for you to enter the Anchor name. Enter the name for the anchor: for example, you could enter “tip” as the name of the anchor for the “Tip of the Month” section. You cannot have two anchors with the same name—they must be unique. Click Insert.
5. You will now see a tiny box with an anchor in it in your email where you placed your cursor. This is the Anchor Point your link will go to when clicked. Don’t worry, this icon is not visible in the final email.
6. Now you need to create the link that will go to this anchor point. Highlight, or select, the words you want to be the link. For example, highlight “Tip of the Month” in the “This Month’s Features” table of contents.
7. After highlighting your text, click on the icon for creating a hyperlink (it looks like a piece of chain). If it is not clickable, try highlighting your text again—the icon is only clickable if text is highlighted.
8. After clicking the hyperlink icon, a pop up box for “Insert/edit link” will appear with a field for you to enter the Link URL. Enter the name of the anchor point you created in step 4 above with a # in front of it: for example, you would enter #tip. Be careful to enter the name of the anchor exactly as you created it. It is case sensitive. Do not change the option “open link in same window.” Click Insert.
9. You will see that the text you had highlighted is now hyperlinked: it’s blue and underlined.

Create other anchor points and tags as described in steps 2-8 above. After creating your anchor tags, click Save Changes and Preview. When the Preview screen opens, test your anchor tag links and make sure they go to the right places in your text.