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In the United States and in many other countries, there are legal requirements for including certain text in every commercial email that is sent. To insure that the language and content of this text is consistent and conforms to the legal requirements, email marketers may want to create a custom content block to add to their mailings. In this post, I'll describe how you can set that up.

1. Define the Compliance Token

Create a content block file named CanSpamTokenFile.txt (you can use whatever name you like, but make it easily recognizable) with a token called CAN-SPAM (again, you can name the token anything you like, but try to select a token name that is unique and recognizable) and upload it into the Content Block section of the Content Library in Message Studio. You can create the content block file off line using the text editor of your choice or just write it in the text box of the CREATE CONTENT BLOCK screen.

Here is an example of the text you could use in the content block:

CAN-SPAM {
##First_Name##, you are receiving this message because you visited the ##Company_Name## website and signed up to receive information from us. If you would prefer not to receive future communications, click or copy/paste the following URL into your browser: ##Unsubscribe_Link##  to be removed from this mailing list. All Mailings are provided by ##Company_Name##. Our address is ##Company_Address##.
}

NOTE: This is the format for creating tokens in content block files. You can learn more about tokens and content block files in this posting or in the Message Studio product documentation.

This example has tokens that references additional profile data from the target data source. If those token values do not exist in the target data source (First_Name, Company_Name, Unsubscribe_Email and Company_Address), the content block will not populate the values correctly.

To avoid having to put all of those values in every data source, you could create another content block file with tokens for Company_Address, Company_Name, Company_Address and Unsubscribe_Link, since those are not likely to change very often. Another option would be to eliminate the personalization within the content block.

2. Associate the Content Block File with a Template

After you have uploaded your template, scroll to the bottom of the EDIT MESSAGE TEMPLATE screen and click on the + icon next to Content Blocks. You will see the section expand and a shuttle control. The list on the left is all of the uploaded content block files. If you want to use a content block file with the template, select it with your cursor and then click on the right-facing arrow, which should move the selected content block file(s) to the list on the right. Then click on the SAVE button.

3. Insert the Token

Place the token into the email by inserting ##CAN-SPAM## at the appropriate location in the message template. You can do this in the template before you upload it, by manually typing it into the template via the Message Studio online editors or by using the personalization wizard. When the email is assembled, the token will be replaced by the contents of the content block file.

That's it. Now you have a compliance text block that you don't have to write in every version of your email. And you can use the content block in multiple templates, so it's always consistent, both in content and functionality.

Despite it being April Fool's Day, this is no joke. It's 4.1 on 4/1.

StrongMail EAS and Message Studio 4.1 are now available for download. These latest releases of the StrongMail software have a lot a great new features that will appeal to a wide range of users. Customers using Message Studio 3.2.x will be especially interested in the new Migration Tool that we have included which will make the transition from version 3 to version 4 a snap!

Here's a quick breakdown of some of the new features in each version--

StrongMail EAS 4.1

• Overflow to Disk
  Customers can now configure their injecting applications to send SMTP messages to a StrongMail server at a high sustained rate. The StrongMail server buffers the incoming messages to disk to avoid sending server busy messages back to the injecting application. There are two modes, Memory Queue and Disk Queue, that users can choose based on their business requirements.
  

• Pause/Resume Message Assembly API
  StrongMail has added the ability for applications to request that message assembly be paused temporarily but still allow the StrongMail server to continue to accept transactional mailing SEND requests and queue them up until a resume request is received. This enables users to make changes to the transactional mailing without having to shut down the entire transactional messaging process.
  

Message Studio 4.1

• Transactional Mailings
  Customers now have the ability to create, manage, and test transactional mailings through the Message Studio user interface.
  

• User-Defined Asset Lists
  Most menu categories now support user-defined lists. Users can select items and either right-click or drag-and-drop items into the list to create your a custom collection for browsing and organizing data.
  

• Expanded External Data Sources
  This release introduces support for connecting to the following external databases: PostgreSQL, Sybase, IBM DB/2.
  

• Automated Web Analytics Tags
  The Add Tracking Tags screen has been enhanced to allow users to easily add parameters to the tracking URLs that are utilized by web analytics applications. Users can create their own tags or modify the default tags for the following products: Omniture, Coremetrics, and Google Analytics. This feature works with any link-based web analytics software.
  

• Target Editor Enhancements
  The Target Query editor now supports grouping terms with parentheses and allows the of deleting specific terms from a query. Additionally, a data preview button allows users to browse the values contained in a database column and select the value into the query.
  

• Migration Tool
  A new migration tool enables the migration of data from existing Message Studio installations from versions 3.2.3 and 3.2.4 to version 4.1 (upgrades from 4.0 do not need to migrate any data). The migration utility is automatically invoked when you run the setup script for Message Studio 4.1 using the upgrade mode.
  

These are just the highlights. There's much more in each of these releases than I have room to list. If you are a current StrongMail customer, visit the Support Portal today or contact StrongMail Support to get ready for Version 4.1! If you are not a current StrongMail customer and want more information about version 4.1, contact our Sales team to learn more.

When I travel to visit customers or get on calls with prospects, I am often asked about how to aggregate the report details for multiple mailings in Message Studio. Rolling up mailing data this way is key to evaluating how your different mailing types or mailing programs are performing at a global level or over time.

In Message Studio 4.x, there is a feature that makes it easy to roll up mailings into campaigns, which allows you to view mailing response data holistically. Setting the campaign field is not required when setting up and launching mailings, but if you would like to use it, here's how--

1. Go to ADMINISTRATION tab in the left navigation panel
2. Click on CAMPAIGNS
3. Click on CREATE button
4. Enter a CAMPAIGN NAME and click SAVE
5. Click FINISH (or close the CREATE CAMPAIGN tab)
6. Repeat as necessary

Now when you set up any type of mailing in Message Studio, you can select a campaign from the CAMPAIGN drop down menu. When you want to run the campaign-level reports, just go to the REPORTS tab in the left navigation panel and select CAMPAIGNS. You can select an individual campaign or multiple campaigns to be included in the report.

The Campaign report looks similar to the Mailing report, but allows you to view the both the aggregate information and the individual mailing data. If you see something interesting at the mailing level, you can easily jump to the report for that individual mailing just by clicking on the name of the mailing. You also have ready access to the failure details for each mailing within the campaign by clicking on the failure data in the campaign report.

Campaign reports are just another way you can look at your mailing data and with Message Studio, it is easy to group mailings together in a logical way to see the macro trends instead of just reviewing each mailing in isolation.

In Message Studio 4.0, users now have the ability to easily upload all of their HTML and image files all at once. The new Media Server feature will unpack the zipped files and automatically publish all of the images to StrongMail media servers or third-party servers so that when recipients get a message, the images will be served from the specified location.

The HTML template can also contain absolute (src="http://www.myserver.com/images/2008/picture.gif") or relative (src="images/picture.gif") paths for images. When the template is uploaded, Message Studio will scan the code for all image references. For any images that have relative paths, Message Studio will automatically convert the path to point to the specified image server.

To get started with using the media server in Message Studio 4.0, all you have to do is go to the Administration module in the left navigation panel and create connections to internal or external media servers. You can leverage the StrongMail tracking server (either on-board or off-board) as a media server or you can use a third-party server to host your images. In addition, you can set up a group of servers as a single media server for use with a load balancer.

When you set up a media server, you can designate the server as either writable or read-only. With a writable media server, when you upload a zip file with the HTML and images in it, Message Studio will upload the images into a temporary folder until you specify the media server. If you create a connection to a read-only media server, you must upload images directly to the media server outside of the Message Studio interface. If the media server configuration includes multiple servers, Message Studio will upload the file to each server.

Once you’ve set up a media server configuration in Message Studio, you can upload a zip file (containing images and a single HTML template) or an HTML template that includes image references on the Template import screen. Once you specify the media server the template should use, Message Studio will automatically update any relative image links within your HTML template to reflect the media server URL that you specified during set up.

That's it.

Now, when you preview the email template during mailing setup or when you launch the mailing and recipients view the email, the images in the template will be served by the media server.

Some emailers have the luxury of having an entire month (or longer) to setup and execute their mailings. They have weeks to plan, collect, and execute. But for many StrongMail customers, there is a constant barrage of mailings happening and the staff responsible for executing them can't wait until the last minute to get all of the pieces together and hit the Launch button.

Another scenario is that emailers want the mailing to start at a particular time, but won't necessarily be at their desk (or awake) to hit the Launch button at the desired time. For folks in these two situations (and maybe you, too), the Message Studio scheduler is just what you need.

Fortunately, using the Message Studio scheduler is a breeze. Any standard or A/B split mailing can be a scheduled mailing with only a few extra clicks. For standard mailings, the work flow is identical right up until the last step, so you don't need to do anything different as you setup the mailing. For A/B split mailings, scheduling is one of the components of the mailing that you can test, so you have the opportunity to schedule the splits together or individually.

Here are some screen shots of how you can set a standard mailing and an A/B Split mailing to be a scheduled launch:

Standard Mailings

When you get to the Launch screen in the Mailings work flow, just select "Scheduled" as the Launch Type and you will be presented with a Date and Time entry field to set when to launch the mailing.

A/B Split Mailings

When you get to the Launch screen in the A/B Test Mailings work flow, just select "Scheduled" as the Launch Type for one, multiple or all of the test splits and you will be presented with a Date and Time entry field to set when to launch the mailing. For A/B Test Mailings, you can select any combination of scheduled and launch now across the splits.

It's just that easy. You may even want to use the A/B split feature of Message Studio to determine if your current send schedule is optimal for your audience. As your audience grows, the most effective day or time of launch may change so it's a good idea to check it every once in a while.

For most of our customers, email is a mission critical component of their business. Along with that status comes the need for security. StrongMail is designed with security in mind, utilizing the HTTPS protocol for accessing the system.

However, utilizing HTTPS requires that users install 3rd party SSL certificates from a Certificate Authority (CA) to validate the secure installation. The use of HTTPS and SSL certificates enables the system to negotiate a stateful connection. This process insures that the originating system is who it says it is and creates a secure connection between the server and user's browser.

SSL certificates are not free and if an organization feels that their StrongMail system has been implemented with sufficient security through architecture and procedures, they may opt not to purchase an SSL certificate from a CA.

In this case, users will be presented with warnings (see example below) from their browser that the certificate is either missing or does not match the system that they are attempting to connect to. Most users find these SSL warnings to be a nuisance. There is also the possibility that some users may be confused by the warnings, which can generate unnecessary Help Desk calls.

There is no harm in using the default certificates, but many users complain about them. Additionally, some browsers make it difficult to navigate to a site with a questionable certificate. Your IT team may want to replace the default certificate with their own, to provide a more comfortable security experience to their users.

The following procedures should be used for creating and installing a self-signed certificate for the StrongMail UI, and importing that certificate into Internet Explorer 7 to eliminate the certificate errors.

1.) Login to your StrongMail Server as root, change directory to /tmp

$ cd /tmp

======= Generating the SSL Certificate =======

2. Create a private key:


$ openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024
Generating RSA private key, 1024 bit long modulus
....++++++
....++++++
e is 65537 (0x10001)
Enter pass phrase for server.key:
Verifying - Enter pass phrase for server.key:


Create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). You will be prompted to input information for key generation. The Common Name you use must match the hostname you use to connect to the StrongMail UI


******
This example has generic information, you will need to replace with your own site specific details.
******


$ openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
Enter pass phrase for server.key:
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request. What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:State
Locality Name (eg, city) [Newbury]:City
Organization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]:Business Inc.
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Support
Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:hostname.domain.com
Email Address []:userid@domain.com

Please enter the following 'extra' attributes to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:
An optional company name []:


******
NOTE: This is an example from one of the StrongMail Inc, test systems.
******


$ openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
Enter pass phrase for server.key:
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request. What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:California
Locality Name (eg, city) [Newbury]:Redwood Shores
Organization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]:StrongMail Systems Inc.
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Support
Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:sup5.strongmailsystems.com
Email Address []:support@strongmailsystems.com


3.) Make a copy of your private key before you remove the pass phrase:


$ cp server.key server.key.org


4.) Remove the pass phrase from the private key:


$ openssl rsa -in server.key.org -out server.key
Enter pass phrase for server.key.org:
writing RSA key


5.) Generate the self-signed certificate:



$ openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
Signature ok
subject=/C=US/ST=State/L=City/O=Business Inc./OU=Support/CN=hostname.domain.com/emailAddress=userid@domain.com
Getting Private key


===== Installing the Self-Signed Certificate into StrongMail =====


6.) Backup the original private key and certificate:


$ cd /data1/strongmail/thirdparty/httpd/conf/ssl/
$ cp server.key server.key.old
$ cp server.crt server.crt.old


7.) Replace the private key and certificate with the files recently created:


$ cp /tmp/server.crt .
cp: overwrite `./server.crt'? y
$ cp /tmp/server.key .
cp: overwrite `./server.key'? y


8.) Restart the StrongMail UI:


$ cd /data1/strongmail/strongmail-ui
$ ./sm-ui stop
$ ./sm-ui start


====== Installing the Certificate into Internet Explorer =======


9.) Launch Internet Explorer


10.) Browse to the StrongMail UI in Internet Explorer 7


11.) Select 'Continue to this website' when you receive the Certificate error. You should see a red Certificate Error to the right of the address bar. Click the Certificate error and select 'View certificates.'


12.) Click 'Install certificate,' then click 'Next' on the Welcome window of the Certificate Import Wizard.


13.) Click 'Next' on Certificate Store, leave the radio button on 'Automatically select...'


14.) Click 'Finish,' you may receive a pop-up to confirm that you wish to import the certificate, if so, click 'Yes'


15.) 'OK' the complete notification, and the Certificate window.


16.) Restart IE, browse to the StrongMail UI, and you should no longer receive the Certificate error. 

A common question that we get from customers is "How do I calculate the bandwidth that StrongMail is using or requires when sending messages? They typically want to see how much bandwidth is being used or are
planning to expand their email programs and want to know how much bandwidth will be needed to accommodate their new mailing volumes and schedule.

For starters, here's the formula for computing bandwidth:

Bandwidth in bits per second = [ (msgs/hr) x (msg size in bits) ] /
(secs/hr)

If the average size of a message is 4kb and you want to send 250K messages per hour, then the required outbound message bandwidth could be calculated as follows:

[ 250,000 msgs/hr x (4 x 1024 x 8) bits ]/ 3600 sec = 2275600 bits/sec
= 2.28 Mbps

So if you have an average message size of 4kb, you would require 2.28 Mbps of bandwidth in order to send without being constrained by your pipe.

If you want to determine how many messages you can send given the size of your current pipe, you can use the following formula to figure out the maximum number of messages that can be sent per hour. In the example
below, we will be using an available outbound pipe of 24Mbps, and the average message size is 24kb

[X msgs/hr x (24 x 1024 x 8)bits] / (3,600 sec/hr) = 24Mbps

X = [ 24 x 1024 x 1024 x 3600 ] / [24 x 1024 x 8]

X = 468,000 msgs/hr

With an average message size of 24kb and available bandwidth of 24Mbps, a maximum of 468,000 messages per hour would be expected output in an ideal scenario.

Notice that I said, "In an ideal scenario." When making these types of calculations, the formulas mentioned above assume 100% availability of the pipe, which in reality doesn't happen. To account for overhead and
network congestion, you should lop off 10-15% of the bandwidth figure (or more if your pipe is shared with other functions besides email sending) you get from the calculations in order to get a more realistic number.

Here's a handy Excel spreadsheet that can help you determine sending times with a variety of different standard pipe sizes. You just plug in the size of the message, number of messages and the utilization factor and the spreadsheet does the rest!

Bandwidth_Calc.xls

Special thanks go out to the StrongMail Support team and Luis Rojas for their assistance with this posting.

While email is obviously a mission-critical channel for all StrongMail customers, it typically is not the only channel that they use to market to customers and prospects. Online ads, affiliate programs, partner programs, and their own website are just a few examples of other methods that marketers use to communicate with subscribers, customers, prospects and the public at large.

As with StrongMail EAS and Message Studio, each of these other channels provides some level of reporting data. For the marketer, that can mean a lot of work to aggregate, view and analyze all of that data in a coherent and holistic way. Enter the web analytics products.

There are several web analytics products out there. The one's that we hear about most frequently are Omniture, Coremetrics, Google, and WebTrends, but there are others out there. For the most part, all of these products work in the same way--by attaching tracking variables to the URL that are passed to the web analytics engine when a link is clicked. That allows the click data to be captured both by the originating system and the web analytics system.

You can set up analytic tags in StrongMail or Message Studio by creating a content block file that contains the appropriate information for the analytics tag. Here are two examples:

OMNITAG {
cid=##SERIAL_NUMBER##&rid=##USERID##
}

GOOGTAG {
utm_source=email&utm_campaign=##segment##
}

In the first example, there are two parameters that would be included based on StrongMail system tokens--Serial Number and User ID. In the second example, the campaign parameter is passed a value from the mailer's data source.

Next, you just need to append the analytics tag token to each link you want track in your mailing. Here's an example:

http://www.domain.com?##OMNITAG##

If you want to include the StrongMail click tracking, you could set up the URLs like this:

##CLICKTAG##http://www.domain.com?##OMNITAG##

You can do this manually when you are creating the content or add the StrongMail clicktag token(s) automatically in Message Studio using the Add Clicktags feature. Now you will be able to see the click data in your web analytics dashboard, along with other metrics from all of the other streams that you tag. Gathering and analyzing the data in this fashion can reveal patterns and segments that may not be readily apparent when viewing the metrics of an individual stream.

To make the process of adding web analytics tracking tags even easier for Message Studio users, we are adding the ability to manage web analytics tags within the UI in an upcoming release. Message Studio users will be able to configure the system with default tracking tags, as well as have the option to utilize unique analytic tracking tags. Users will be able to select the default parameters and apply them individually or globally to all of the links in an mailing or modify the parameters for special cases (promotions, partnerships, etc) on the fly (as seen in the screen shot below)

Here's a sneak peek at the new Add Clicktags screen in Message Studio 4.1:





























Within the Add Clicktags screen, you can now apply pre-configured web analytics tags to individual or all links within the template. Message Studio also provides a way to modify the web analytics tag just for a particular link in the message. Business users now will have a flexible, easy-to-use method for inserting the appropriate tags in their email tracking links.
 

In my last post, I introduced the concept of using StrongMail's token capabilities as a way to add relevance to your messages. But as I alluded to in that post, tokens are versatile tools that in addition to inserting personalization data, can also aid in managing and modifying your content with minimal effort.

I'm going to illustrate two ways that you can use tokens, along with content blocks to minimize the amount of work you need to do to get your mailings out each time. The first one involves locking down the template and just editing the copy. The second one makes certain parts of the template reusable across multiple mailings.

METHOD 1: Locking Down the Template

Many of you out there have invested heavily in your email template(s). You've had designers re-do the layout and spent countless hours and dollars getting the design just the way you want it. All that remains for each mailing is plugging in the content specific to each mailing.

Now, you can edit the whole template for each mailing, which can introduce rendering issues and/or template breakage or you can identify which parts of the template change for each mailing and tokenize them. Then all you have to do is upload the part that has changed as a content block and reference it using tokens.

This keeps the layout HTML stable while letting you or your copy editors fiddle with the copy as much as you want. When you are done, just upload the content block file and send a test email to see how it all gets assembled. Using this method, you could even have multiple people working on different parts of the copy without having to worry about one person over-writing another.

This method does take a little extra effort to compartmentalize the template and set up the token/content block schema, but that's a one-time cost and moving to this method can greatly improve your content editing process, especially if your template has a lot of moving parts.

METHOD 2: Reusable Pieces

Maybe you don't have a single template that you use for all of your mailings, but you do have parts that get re-used over and over in different mailing. Things like the mast head or side bar or unsubscribe text. If that's the case, you can start tokenizing the elements that get reused from mailing to mailing.

There are two ways to approach tokenizing the content elements. The first involves creating a single content block file that has all of the reusable elements in it. This option has the benefit of keeping things simple; there's only one one file to keep track of and everything is all in one place. The trade-off is that when a change needs to be made to one element in the content block, you have to edit the file that has ALL of the elements, which could increase the risk of unintentionally modifying one of the other elements.

The second option involves putting each reusable element into its own content block file. Going this route protects you against accidentally corrupting other elements and also lets you use the individual files as building blocks, but it also means keeping track of more files for each mailing.

Once you select how you want to manage the reusable elements, you can easily call those assets from the content block(s) using tokens and then, as in method 1 above, focus on the parts of the email template that change from mailing to mailing.

Whichever method you use, the goal is to make executing your mailings easier, while providing flexibility and control over your content. If you need more information about how to use tokens and content blocks, take a look at Chapter 6, Customizing a Mailing, in the StrongMail System Administrator's Manual.

In a previous post, I talked about how important it is to send the right message to the right recipient at the right time and how you can use the Business rules editor in Message Studio to create that right message. One of the most powerful features of email marketing is the ability to easily personalize the message to individual recipient.

The Business rules editor is great for the emailer who wants to easily manage complex dynamic content, but it might be overkill for the emailer who just wants to include some profile data in their messages. For emailers who just want some basic personalization, StrongMail's tokens are a simple tool that makes it easy to insert dynamic content from your database (you can also do the same thing with reusable content, like a header, footer or legal text). Read on to learn how you can easily insert relevant content into your emails to make them more appealing to recipients.

The first step is to determine what information you have or what you want to collect to use in the content. The most obvious (and common) is profile information:

• Name
• Address
• Preferences
• Membership level
• Subscription settings
• Favorite topics
  

Most mailers collect some additional information besides just email address when a subscriber registers. It may just be basic contact information or detailed preferences. Even if you don't collect anything except an email address at sign up, you can use your mailings to encourage recipients to provide more information about themselves.

Once you have some collected the information that you want to use in your email, you just have to decide where in email message you want to put it. Many mailers use the recipients first name to insert a personalized salutation (e.g., Dear Ivan), but you could also write the body copy to incorporate the recipient's name (Ivan, we noticed that you purchased our document kit, but have not downloaded it from the website yet).

To accomplish either of these, all you would have to do determine the name of the field that contains the first name and add that to the template with a token. For demonstration purposes, I will pretend that the field in my data source is called first_name. My token would look like this:

##first_name##

To create the salutation, I just insert the token in the copy like this:

Dear ##first_name##,

This can be done manually when creating the email copy or by using the personalization wizard in Message Studio:

Now, most emailers know that you don't always have the necessary profile data in every single record and you certainly don't want recipients to see a message that says, "Dear ," as the salutation. Luckily, StrongMail's token capabilities include the ability to add a default value if there is no value in the data source. So rather than than inserting, "Dear ,", you would get something like "Dear Product Talk Subscriber," which, while somewhat formulaic, doesn't look like your message is broken.

Default values can be inserted using the personalization wizard in Message Studio or the following manual notation:

Dear ##first_name[Product Talk Subscriber]##,

This would insert the value of the first_name field if there was one and if the field was empty or null, it would insert "Product Talk Subscriber". Pretty nifty, eh?

There are lots of things you can do with tokens. They can be used in both the body of the email and the envelope, so there are a lot of options on what, how, and where to use them. As I mentioned earlier, you can even use tokens to insert content blocks into a template (or even a section or whole email template). You can even use them as a look up variable to get other data or content (that's a more advanced topic that you will see discussed later).

For now, try out simple tokenization and see how they can improve the value of your message and increase response rates.