The Email Wars

So I want to start by saying that I love video and I love email. What I don’t love is when you combine them and it not only does not work, but it looks like the below image (fished out of my Junk folder)

Let’s start at the top at the jump >>

1. Headers : If you can’t test you can’t tell if it will get there let alone get to the inbox.
Example headers:
Received: from unknown (HELO avimail-sender2) (67.51.210.148) by mailscan0.——–s.com with SMTP; 3 Apr 2008 18:20:03 -0000
X-Spam-Flag: YES
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.2 (2007-07-23) on mailscan0.0——–.com
X-Spam-Level: ***********
X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=11.0 required=5.0 tests=DOS_OE_TO_MX, FORGED_OUTLOOK_HTML,FORGED_OUTLOOK_TAGS,HTML_EMBEDS,HTML_IMAGE_RATIO_02, HTML_MESSAGE,MIME_HTML_ONLY,WHOIS_PRIVPROT,XMAILER_MIMEOLE_OL_1ECD5 autolearn=no version=3.2.2
X-Spam-Report: * 0.6 HTML_IMAGE_RATIO_02 BODY: HTML has a low ratio of text to image area * 0.4 HTML_EMBEDS BODY: HTML with embedded plugin object * 0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message * 1.7 MIME_HTML_ONLY BODY: Message only has text/html MIME parts * 2.8 WHOIS_PRIVPROT URL registered to WHOIS Privacy Protection * [URIs: avimailer1.com] * 2.8 XMAILER_MIMEOLE_OL_1ECD5 XMAILER_MIMEOLE_OL_1ECD5 * 0.0 FORGED_OUTLOOK_TAGS Outlook can’t send HTML in this format * 0.0 FORGED_OUTLOOK_HTML Outlook can’t send HTML message only * 2.8 DOS_OE_TO_MX Delivered direct to MX with OE headers
Message-Id:
Organization: AVI Communications
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=”us-ascii”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-Msmail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1081
X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1081
X-Spam-Prev-Subject: Heidi Foglesong Talks Video Email

2. Rendering: If you don’t test if it will render don’t send it. I mean not only video BUT this entire email is images. Really images? Come on man you are targeting ESPs, email marketers, and brand marketers. We all know best practices so if you are going to sell to us… follow them.

View image

3. Who the hell is Heidi Foglesong? And why should I care in email?
Really do you know who she is? Unless you live in AZ and watch the local news you have no clue.
I had to google her to even get an idea of why I should care, Ask yourself if your target audience would go to this length. Time’s Up… Answer is NOPE.

So I turned on the images to see, but would others even take this step? Please code your emails in HTML and not ALL images and ALT tag your images.

View image

So I will go on record that I do not HATE video in email (but I do like the team at AVI) and everyone is all over it lately in all the email marketing industry articles, BUT I have yet to see a campaign that worked 100% everywhere and one that has compelled me to buy. I know others will argue this, so bring it on. Show me the data, the creative, and the results.

Sell me.