Top 20 Email Marketing Terms You Should Know - Part Two

by Michelle Keegan, Constant Contact Email Marketing Diva®

Long time readers of Hints & Tips, or those of you who have visited the Hints & Tips archives may remember an issue entitled "Top 20 Email Marketing Terms You Should Know."

In today's issue, you will find 20 additional terms to expand your email marketing vocabulary. Learn these, and your coworkers may deem you an email marketing Guru or Diva (well, it is kind of a catchy title).

  1. Affirmative Consent - another word for permission. The recipient of your email has been clearly and fully notified of the collection and use of his email address and has consented prior to such collection and use. Affirmative consent is not only a best practice; it is required by all reputable email marketing services.
  2. Auto Responder (a.k.a. auto-response or auto-reply) - a program or a script that automatically sends a response when someone sends a message to its address. The most common uses of auto responders are for subscribe and unsubscribe confirmations, welcome emails and customer-support questions.
  3. Campaign - an email marketing message or a series of messages designed to accomplish an overall goal.
  4. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 - Federal anti-spam legislation passed in 2003 that requires the following in each email: a legitimate header, a valid "From" address, a straightforward "Subject" line, an unsubscribe/opt-out link and/or instructions and a physical address. It also requires that all unsubscribes are processed within ten days of receipt.
  5. Challenge Response - an automated message triggered by the receipt of an email for the purpose of identifying the sender as a trusted source. The challenge is a message to the sender of the email with instructions on how to validate themselves. If the sender provides a valid response, his email address is added to the recipient's list of trusted senders and his message is passed along to the recipient.
  6. Confirmed Opt-In (a.k.a. double opt-in) - a more stringent method of obtaining permission to send email campaigns. Confirmed opt-in adds an additional step to the opt-in process. It requires the subscriber to respond to a confirmation email, either by clicking on a confirmation link, or by replying to the email to confirm their subscription. Only those subscribers who take this additional step are added to your list.
  7. E-zine - an ezine is an electronic magazine emailed to a list of subscribers. Advertisers pay to have their ad (text, HTML or both depending on the publication) inserted into the body of the email. Buying ad space in an e-zine or email newsletter, or sponsoring a specific article or series of articles allow advertisers to reach a targeted audience driving traffic to a website, store or office, signups to a newsletter or sales of a product or service.
  8. False Positive - legitimate permission-based email that is erroneously blocked due to the limitations of current email blocking and filtering techniques. False positives are an industry wide problem. Currently, 17% of permission-based email is erroneously blocked.
  9. From Line or sender line - the from line has two parts: part one is the "From Name" - such as "Constant Contact's Email Marketing Diva, Michelle Keegan." Part two is the "From Address" - the electronic address including "@" such as, "tips@constantcontact.com." Your recipients may see just the from name, just the from address, or both depending on the configuration of their email client.
  10. Landing Page - a web page that is linked to an email for the purpose of providing additional information directly related to products or services promoted in the email.
  11. Links - text links, hyperlinks, graphics or images that, when clicked or when pasted into a browser, send the prospect to another online location (e.g. a landing page or other pages of a website). A link in an email is a call-to-action. To be most effective in motivating action, links should be visible, clear and compelling.
  12. Phishing (pronounced "fishing") - refers to email scams whose purpose is identity theft. Identity thieves send fraudulent email messages with return addresses, links, and branding that appear to come from credit card companies, banks and some of the Web's most well known sites including eBay, PayPal, MSN, Yahoo, and AOL. These messages are designed to "phish" for personal and financial information (e.g. passwords, usernames, social security numbers, credit card numbers, mother's maiden name, etc.) from the recipient. For examples, see www.anti-phishing.org

  13. Preexisting Business Relationship - the recipient of your email has made a purchase, requested information, responded to a questionnaire or a survey, or had offline contact with you.

    Important note: Federal law recognizes your right to send email to people with whom you have a preexisting business relationship provided that you include a working unsubscribe link or instructions, however, be aware of the difference between your legal rights and best practices. Blasting off an email campaign to all of your past customers will likely engender bad will and get you a high complaint, or abuse, rate. First, forget about the customers who are more than one year old if you haven't emailed them before. To your remaining list, you may want to send a permission letter that reminds customers of their relationship with you. Then, encourage them to unsubscribe if they do not want to receive your future mailings. Your permission letter reassures your customers that you care about their permission, minimizes complaints and starts you off with a cleaner list.
  14. Segmentation - dividing your email list based on interest categories, purchasing behavior, demographics and more for the purpose of targeting specific email campaigns to the audience most likely to respond to your messaging or offer. Your list segmentation and targeting efforts pay off in higher open and click-through rates.
  15. Single Opt-In (with a subscriber acknowledgement email) - the most widely accepted and routinely used method of obtaining email addresses and permission. A single opt-in list is created by inviting visitors and customers to subscribe to your email list. When you use a signup tag on your website, a message immediately goes out to the subscriber acknowledging the subscription (this is often accomplished using an auto-responder). This message should reiterate what the subscriber has signed up for, and provide an immediate way for the subscriber to edit her interests or opt-out.
  16. Spoofing - the falsification of an email header so that the email appears to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Illegitimate marketers use spoofing to disguise their identity in an attempt to commit fraud and avoid prosecution for sending UCE or spam. Federal law prohibits spoofing, however, until sender identity can be established, spammers will continue to escape the law.
  17. Subject line - the short line of type in an email that indicates what the message is about. Your subject line should be short (30 - 40 characters including spaces, or 5-8 words), and it should include a specific benefit that accurately reflects your offer in order to be effective. Federal law prohibits the use of misleading subject lines.
  18. Suppression list (a.k.a. opt-out list) - a list of email addresses whose owners have asked to be removed from an email list so that they longer receive email regarding an advertiser's products or services. A reputable email marketing service makes this process automatic, however, if you use multiple email products, or have multiple databases from which you send emails, you should use a suppression list to process all unsubscribe requests across all lists.
  19. USP or Unique Selling Proposition - your USP is the unique attribute(s) of your business that makes your company, product or service the best solution to a problem, the best way to fulfill a need or desire or the best way to achieve a goal. Your USP answers the prospect's question: "Why should I do business with you instead of someone else?"
  20. WIIFM or "What's In It For Me?" - the question at the forefront of every email recipient's mind when making a decision to open, read and take action on your email (e.g. click on a link, call for an appointment, visit an office or retail location).
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