Yesterday was my 20th wedding anniversary. Wow. Two decades of marriage. I’m very lucky to have Paul as a partner in life, parenting and silliness. Yes, I’m up for many more! I just hope he can handle me!

• What books do people proselytize about?
• 10 steps to get your e-mail inbox to zero every day [Link: Aliza Sherman]
• How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live: I watched #tonys on Twitter last Sunday and it was quite an experience different than what I am used to on Twitter.
• Social Networking Medial ROI Calculator

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 40 Fantastic Sand Sculptures
• How to Plan a Vacation Using Social Media: Note to self… remember this when I finally manage to plan one.
• Guess the Logo: Love these games.
• 8 Weird and Wacky Items Sold on Amazon.com

Due to skier’s thumb, I can’t type long notes, articles, or blog entries. I’ve used the opportunity to clean up my email box since it only involves the mouse (which I’ve become adept at with my left hand though I’m a lefty, I use the right hand for mousing business) and a finger or two instead of both hands.

I use filters to file emails from certain companies and email addresses into specific folders. I keep the inbox as empty as possible. It rarely reaches 10 emails after a review. You’ve probably read most of these tips at some place or another, but it never hurts to have a refresher.

Here’s a list of things to do to clean up email boxes with details following.

• Notice which newsletters you never read or always delete and take the following action:
  1. Unsubscribe.
  2. Change email options to help you receive fewer messages from the sender. Some companies have multiple options or let you control the frequency (daily, weekly, monthly) as well as individual vs. digest (all the individual emails combined into one daily digest).
  3. Create or edit the filter to file it away or delete it.
• Take instant action on emails that won’t take longer than five minutes. For example, someone asking for canned food donations? Get up, grab a few cans, put in bag, and put by door or inside car. As soon as that’s done, delete or file the email.
• Create a folder for things you like to read (newsletters), but they don’t require action or instant reading. That way, when you get a break or need a break, you just jump to the newsletter or reads folder and read away.
• Create a folder for current work. This helps me ensure I keep my inbox as clean as possible while keeping current work in an easy to find place. Once I finish the project or assignment, I file the email into its permanent folder.
• Create a folder for other email accounts. For example, I’m a big PTA volunteer and have PTA email addresses. Those all go into my PTA folder instead of my main inbox. When I take care of the PTA item, I file the email into the specific PTA folder (elementary school, high school, or city PTA) out of the main PTA folder. The main PTA folder acts like my inbox for PTA stuff.
• Create a folder for follow up. These items have no time constraints and low priority. Or you can treat the folder that you check once a week or else the emails will stay there for too long.

Sometimes we forget to change things up. For instance, I’d delete the same newsletters that came into my inbox daily. So I started paying attention to these deletions. As a result, I’ve either unsubscribed to the newsletter or change the filter to send it to the delete folder or other folder out of my way.

I don’t want to unsubscribe to all of them because some do still have gems. Either it may not be what I need on a daily basis or they send too many promotional emails between newsletters with valuable content.

Gmail handles most of my newsletter subscriptions. So I can always search if I need something. I rarely enter Gmail’s trash folder beyond searching for items. With my desktop email, I’d delete trashed emails a couple of times a week. It used to be every day. Gmail helped me curb that wasteful habit. I never delete trash in Gmail.

In essence, Gmail helped become less obsessive with email cleaning. I added Gmail into Thunderbird (my email client) as an account using IMAP. Gmail has instructions for doing this. The Gmail folders in Thunderbird reflect those in Gmail. I can create a new folder in Thunderbird for Gmail and it appears on Gmail, too.

I moved a lot of my Thunderbird filed emails into Gmail. Three reasons:

1. Access the messages from any computer, anywhere.
2. Better backup solution than my computer’s backup.
3. Keep local inbox lightweight as attachments go into Gmail or elsewhere.

I don’t file everything into Gmail because I like the faster and offline access to the emails on my computer. That’s a personal preference. I also moved many of my newsletter subscriptions from my desktop account to Gmail.

Only habit I haven’t broken is checking email less often. But email is my “phone” that I hear from school and elsewhere needing instant addressing (like to pick up my sick kid from school). What tips do you have for better email management?

I believe I’m a resourceful person. I try to find answers on my own through support pages, FAQ, research, search engines, and other resources.

But we can’t find everything we need. We may need to contact people who have the information or the knowledge stored in their brain cells or on the computer’s hard drive.

A Story… a Story…

I visited several large sites in need of reaching someone. They had no contact information whatsoever. At best, they’d have “info@”, “sales@”, or “support@.” I found an email address like this that worked for one of my contact needs.

It bounced.

… And it bounced the next day (just in case the server was hiccupping).

… … And it bounced again more times than Tigger.

So I went to the mother ship site and looked for a contact there. Hey, I was determined to serve my client well! Found a generic email address (info@) and within 30 minutes, I received a reply from the head executive along with two others!

The executive cc’d others and provided the contact’s name and email address. That person had the info I need. Another person asked where I had found the original email (the Tigger one) address as it wasn’t supposed to be a valid one. It was in a few press releases from this year as well as on a web page somewhere.

Why Didn’t You Figure out the Email Address?

It only took about a week to land the right contact. Oh sure, I know how to figure out email addresses and have done it many times. In this case, the only name I had was a big shot and I didn’t want to bug him.

I remember once emailing someone and received the response of “How did you get my email address? It wasn’t public knowledge and only insiders know it. You must work here.” Yikes.

Make It Easy to Reach You

Amazon is massive. Yet, I never had trouble contacting the company when needed. The company does a good job with its customer service emails. Other companies like T-Mobile have an awful script that sounds condescending, over-sugary, and provides more wasteful content than helpful.

No one should have to work hard to find out how to contact you. What if it’s a PR opportunity? Potential customer? You just never know.

Ensure people can find you with these in mind:

• Include Contact in your main or global navigation.
• List contact information on every page. What kind of information depends on your business and your customers. Local businesses probably should list the street address along with a link to an interactive map so people can figure out how to get there with minimal work. Bonus points for listing hours of operation. Smart retailers include a toll free number on the top of every web page and any place where it’s logical to have contact information.
• Consider your visitors’ contact preference. Some call. Some email. Some even fax. You may not use the method much, but unless you want to cut yourself off from potential business — be open to what the person contacting you wants.
• List an email address. You might have a form (like I do) to avoid spammers. Some forms, however, have too many fields and turn off the visitor.

No company is “too big” or “too much of a hot shot” for people to contact them. We’re not asking for the email addresses for the likes of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.

One more bit of advice: Even if it takes time for you to find the answer to someone’s question or you can’t respond in full within a day or two, respond to the person and let them know you’re on the case. We should all apply this habit in every aspect of our lives.

A friend wanted to know the status of her order as many of us had received ours. She received no response in over four days. Yet, I received a reply within a day (my order was missing one thing).

Yes, technology compels us to expect responses within two days. We just have to make do and it only takes a moment to say, “Got your message. I’ll get back to you within a week or so.”

“Gaily bedight

A gallant knight,

In sunshine and shadow,

Had journeyed long,

Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.”

– Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe

Businesses don’t have to journey long to find Eldorado of marketing. Most companies start right by establishing a Web site. However, some don’t make the most of having a Web site or build it without considering the requirements for building successful Web sites.

Some build Web sites more like elaborate brochures touting the company’s many qualities and competencies. A few companies, like Amazon.com, and retail giant L.L. Bean, have turned these online retail brochures into success stories. Many try to replicate this success with uneven results.

Web pages tend to require prospects to find them. Then, if the customers find them, they forget about it when they need something.

A few businesses counter these problems by complementing direct email offers with their Web sites. For example, a reader visits Amazon.com to look at the latest fiction releases. Later, the reader starts receiving emails Amazon announcing new releases of fiction, and some accompanied with a discount. These emails contain links taking the reader to the Web page.

Mining Internet for Prospects

Almost three-quarters of American adults are online with half of those having a high speed internet connection at home according to Pew Internet. They still use the Internet for two primary purposes, email (93 percent) and research to find information or driving directions (over 85 percent).

A JupiterResearch report indicates that over 40 percent of email users say that email compelled them to make at least one online or offline purchase. The report also emphasizes the importance of delivering relevant information in emails. Combine email marketing efforts with social networking to have the greatest impact. JupiterResearch also reports over half of business professionals with decision making power say that advertisers have the best chance of reaching them by internet and email.

A successful online marketing plan takes advantage of all online marketing tools including emails and social network sites. A newsletter should contain links to the company’s blogs, RSS feeds and social network identities and vice versa.

A Return Path study states that 85 percent of business people sign up for emails. Furthermore, marketers can reach them on the go as an Exact Target study in 2007 reports one-third of business professionals read emails on mobile devices on a regular basis. In 2007, Wall Street Journal writes that 81 percent of American executives subscribe to business-related email newsletters for product and business information.

What do all of these numbers say? The scream email and internet are important marketing tools.

Compel Readers to Read the Newsletter

Business professionals get over 50 emails a day with plenty surpassing the 100 emails mark. When opening their email, they have three thoughts in mind:

• Which do I read?
• Which I save to read later?
• Which do I delete without opening?

Rule number one: send your newsletter to people who want it, so encourage readers to opt-in to your newsletter.

Rule number two: provide value in your newsletter so they continue subscribing, opening, reading, and acting on your emails.

Most marketers want to thump the company’s chest by talking about great new products or amazing services, touting recent awards, or announcing new hires or mergers. However, the better strategy focuses on the newsletter’s content.

Pull rather than to push with your content by offering articles that explore issues, open dialogue, and solve problems your readers face. Do you care about Company ABC blowing its horn? Americans receive too much email, so they trash anything smacking of a pitch.

Keep your newsletter in the “read and saved” by making sure your content meets the following criteria:

• Relevant: The content speaks to the customer’s interests and not your company’s.
• Anticipated: Distribute on a regular basis so people expect your newsletter to arrive around a specific time, but don’t publish so often they tire of hearing from you.
• Monitored: One of the best online marketing channels benefits is reporting. Monitor how readers are looking at your newsletter and alter it to conform to their interests.

Email newsletters with timely, interesting articles have a greater likelihood of readers forwarding them to others, which increases the number of readers with time. Everyone who reads the newsletter and decides to opt-in to a company’s turns into a qualified lead. Business to business newsletters remain an Eldorado in a Web 2.0 world.

As the Edgar Allan Poe poem ends with one modification…

Down the Valley of the Shadow,

“‘Ride, boldly ride,’

The marketer replied-

‘If you seek for Eldorado!’”

Yvonne Russell rustles up a great discussion about email subject lines. Though email has become a standard tool in our communications box, I still see subject lines (or lack thereof) that could easily send a person’s email into the spam or junk folder. So here’s a list of bad subject lines (or good if you don’t want the person to read the email):

1. [blank]: Many people scan their inbox by reviewing the subject lines. Seeing nothing in the subject line doesn’t make always them more curious. Instead, they skip it because they figure it’s not important or it’s spam. Sure, they might recognize the sender’s name, but they might not look in that column first.
2. Hi, Hey, Hello, How are you?: Spammy spammy spammy. Even a catch up email needs a better subject line. Capture the main subject of the email. If it’s small talk and catch up, then use “Catch up” or “Checking in.”
3. Today: But I might not see the email until tomorrow and then I’ll be confused. This applies to “tomorrow,” “Tuesday,” “Next week.”
4. [First line of message]: Some people start their email in the subject line and finish it in the first line of the email. It doesn’t work well because they still have to look at the body of the email. Put the main point of the email for later scanning. People save emails and scan them by looking at the subject line. Who wants to open every email until finding the right one?
5. [Name of newsletter or company]: Actually, it’s good to start a newsletter or company email with the name because many people set filters to send such emails into the right folders. Don’t stop there, though. Add the topic of the email after the name (you can filter by the first part) so if someone recalls an email covering ABC and wants to find it — it’ll be in the subject line.
6. FW: Re: [Old subject line]: After a couple of back and forths about one topic, an email conversation can easily take on a new direction. I’m guilty of this when I get absorbed in the discussion, but then I catch myself and change the subject line. I don’t think it’s necessary to write “Re: [New topic] Was [old topic].”
7. Check this out, I think you’ll like this or some variation: I had to break this habit. When I find a web site to share with someone, I would put this in. But now, it’s turned into a spammy line. Instead, put the topic of the resource.

Anything else? Add yours.

I love Gmail. I don’t know what it is about Gmail that compels me to keep Gmail active at all times in my browser. Though I’ve used other services, none had me checking emails on a regular basis like Gmail. As a Thunderbird user, moving emails into Gmail was a breeze.

The following steps using Thunderbird as the example should work similarly for other email clients — the biggest difference would be in setting up the IMAP part. I know Outlook can do it.

Step 1. Turn on IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol — techie stuff, we won’t dive into that) in Gmail. Google explains how to get started with IMAP in Gmail. To turn on IMAP from within Gmail:

1. Click Settings.
2. Select Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
3. Select Enable IMAP button.

Step 2. Set up IMAP in your email client. In Thunderbird, I created a new IMAP account in for Gmail (don’t use the Gmail option in Thunderbird’s Account Wizard).

Step 3. Select emails and move them into the Gmail folder just like you move any files into another folder. If a folder contains hundreds of emails, do a few at a time as it takes time for the email client to process and move them. Beware that this process MOVES the files not COPIES them, so they won’t be in Thunderbird once you move them.

Remember to comment on this week’s post if you want a chance to win prizes. Seth Godin’s DVD set worth $800 is up for grabs!

• Should you sign your blog comments? Or is it redundant?
• “A Small Sheik Escaped” and other Editing Exercises to Energize Your Writing
• 7 Essential Ways to Build Trust in Your Business: I think great service goes a long way. Usually those who care about their customers also do good work.
• Blogger Relations: I don’t need a new best friend.
• Writing the Farewell Symphony: Though I took a break from blogging, I still had to manage the prizes and intros. But what would happen if this place went silent for two weeks?
• The Future of the Future: Good-bye knowledge worker… Hello, knowledge entrepreneur [Link: My sister]
• A Guide to CSS Support in Email: Still difficult to make all email clients happy.
• Newsmap: Visually captures the Google News news aggregator in a treemap.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Ordinary Online Store… Or is it…? (other than not being in English)
• Mind Bluff: Optical illusions, mind games, puzzles, brain teasers, etc.
• 10 Funniest Apple-Ad Parodies
• Office OFFline Web Comic: Funny!

• Add Spark to Your Writing with These 3 Simple Tweaks: I shy away from sentences where I use repeating words even though a comma separates them. This convinced me otherwise.
• So You Want to Become a Freelance Writer? Four part article with advice from the pros.
• Best Pro-Blogging Sentence in 2008: Wonderful quote from a CEO on why blogging matters in business.
• Disposable Email Addresses: Want something? Not sure if you can trust a source asking for your email?
• The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks: Love this. I’ve got friends who do this in email plus add unnecessary apostrophes. Nice to laugh instead of cringe for a change.
• Idea Seeds for Successful Articles and Posts: Creative approach to finding ideas.
• Searching for Mr. (Pardon, Mrs. and Ms., too) Good Host: A guest post of mine over at my guest blogger’s site

And for fun… because we’re allowed…

• Speak LOL Cat [Link: Peter Shankman]
• Bored at work, but don’t want to get caught reading fiction or poetry? How about reading this stuff in PowerPoint? This takes work to figure out — but you log in as a user and click the folders. Start Here.

Taking cue from The One Minute Manager, Zapp!, Fish! and Who Moved My Cheese?, The Hamster Revolution uses a parable to show how to better manage and organize e-mail and information. The hamster represents people endlessly running on the wheel of e-mail. Right away, I start using concepts from the 90-minute book. Considering I’m an organized person, that says something.

In the story, Harold the Hamster receives a visit from an information coach to help him with e-mail and information management. Harold is a person who turned into a hamster because e-mail and information trapped him on a figurative hamster wheel.

Harold and his coach think aloud as they explore his e-mail habits and inbox to find the problem areas. The banter between the two gives the reader insight into why something doesn’t work and how to fix it. Their comments mirror what many of us think when we’re drowning in messages. Though cheesy at times, the story quickly explains the how, what, and why without confusing readers with dry writing.

I was eager to discover the secret of COTA, the concept for creating folders named Clients, Output, Teams and Administration. COTA also represents the order of priority. The Clients folder receives top honors on the hierarchy than Output. Administration gets thrown to the bottom of the pile where it belongs. But this concept isn’t as foolproof as the authors make it sound.

They state that you won’t run into a situation when an email or document belongs in two folders. However, if that should happen — then the document belongs in the one higher up on the COTA ladder. Furthermore, the system serves departments and teams best.

COTA won’t work well for personal use (the authors apparently have another system for this, but information isn’t available yet) or a small business like mine where I’m a freelancer working on a computer that houses both business and personal information.

Furthermore, not everyone will know what some things mean such as EOM (end of message) or NRN (no reply needed). These require teaching others and a team setting would adapt to that better than a lone person who must explain it in many individuals. EOM and NRN should become as standard as smilies, but they’re far from there.

Some advice might sound common sense or old news to some people, but the authors share lesser known or new concepts. The book has had positive impact on my e-mail habits, and for what it is worth, that opinion comes from a long-time e-mail user (the days of BBSes — pre-Internet).

• Title: The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You
• Author: Mike Song, Vicki Halsey & Tim Burress
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• ISBN: 1576754375
• Date: January 2007
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 128
• Cover Price:12pt”> USD: $19.95 Amazon: $13.57

Recently, a client who supported Web standards worked to design her newsletters to use cascading style sheets (CSS) for layouts instead of tables. Designers cheered. Readers jeered. One problem with this approach: email clients.

Outlook may dominate, but how many of us have second or third email accounts with Web-based email clients like Yahoo!, Hotmail, GMail and so on? Then you have email applications on handheld devices, and those on corporate networks using applications like LotusNotes. Some people use their Web host’s Web-based email client so they can check email from any computer, typically with one of three: SquirrelMail, Horde or NeoMail.

Then there are those who opt to use different computer-based software like Thunderbird, Mozilla, Eudora, PocoMail, The Bat! and Pegasus.

The problem

With only a handful of email clients, newsletters come across perfectly; when using the majority of email clients, newsletters are readable but not perfect; with other email clients, newsletters render a mess. To understand why this happens means understanding hypertext markup language (HTML) and CSS.

Instead of going into tech-speak, think of the DVD player. Any DVD can work in any DVD player, for the most part. True, all DVDs may not be compatible with every type of player, but let’s just say: DVD players look different and have their unique features, but they all do the same thing — play DVDs. Think of email clients as DVD players and emails as DVDs. Also, think of Web browsers as DVD players and Web sites as DVDs.

To continue the analogy, HTML is the language that enables different DVD players to play the same DVD. In a newsletter, it specifies how the design should look. The CSS tells the DVD player how to present the images, sound and titles. In a newsletter, CSS defines how the content appears in the newsletter complete with colors, fonts and layout.

The way email clients and Web browsers work is that the “DVDs” play, but not the same way. One might play email or Web site in grayscale. Another translates the text into a different language. Another doesn’t play images.

See Figures 1 and 2. Figure 1 is what the newsletter is supposed to look like. Figure 2 is how it “gets read” by GMail, a Web-based email client. The images have been pixilated out of respect for the publication — as the poor readability is not the fault of the publisher.

[Click images to view larger in a new window]

The options

What can you do to have your newsletters be easily read? Keep the HTML design as simple as possible. The more bells and whistles, the more different it will appear than the original design. The first thing to do is accept that your newsletter will not look identical to every subscriber. Once you let go of the concept of a perfect layout, you’ll feel more at ease and know your newsletter’s style will vary.

When designing an HTML-based newsletter, you have three approaches to take:

1. Plain HTML: Use only HTML to style every item in the newsletter and no CSS.

2. Internal CSS: The CSS appears in the head of the newsletter’s HTML template.

3. External CSS: The CSS appears in a separate file that lives on a Web server. If the user is not connected to the Internet, the styles won’t appear.

As reported by E-Zine Tips, Lyris conducted a test and discovered that inline HTML had the best render rate at 94 percent. In the test, Lyris used three items with 36 email clients, both Web-based and computer-based. These results aren’t surprising.

Therefore, an external CSS is strongly advised against because it relies on a live Internet connection and the Web server working. You never know when readers view your emails, especially if they save old issues. If you delete the external CSS from the server and they try to read an old newsletter, it’s going to get messy.

Internal CSS don’t have the Web server problem. However, many email clients don’t correctly translate CSS based on W3C recommendations. And there’s the problem of when users update their software-based email clients, since updating software in companies isn’t usually an easy and smooth process.

The compromise

How do you ensure your newsletter comes across well? The ideal way is to offer HTML and text versions of your newsletter. Also, having online newsletter archives works great. When you have archives, potential readers can check out your newsletter to see if they want to subscribe.

Another work around is to include a text line at the VERY TOP of the newsletter that says, “Having trouble reading this? Read it online” and include the link to the online version of the newsletter.

If offering a choice of HTML and text isn’t possible, a simple newsletter created with clean HTML should work fine. Again, the newsletter may not look identical to all your readers, but the important thing is that the content is there and readable.