Listrak Email Marketing

Get those whitelisting instructions back up there!
Yahoo! (Note that the exclamation point here is intended to be read with emphasis, not as in “Yippee” but as in a scolding.) Listrak’s Product Manager, Brent Shroyer, has notified me that a recent Yahoo Mail interface change has increased the importance of requesting whitelisting from subscribers on your list.

Yes, just when we were so excited to use that valuable, above-the-fold geography of the preheader to promote our call-to-action, we once again need to use this space for whitelisting instructions. That’s right, it is again a best practice to include whitelisting instructions in your preheader, especially if Yahoo accounts for a large percentage of your list.

Yahoo Mail’s new “view from” feature enables users to view e-mail only from their Contacts lists (all the addresses they’ve whitelisted by clicking the “Add Sender to Contacts” icon in the header field) or their “Connections” (a new social-networking feature based on the Contacts list) lists. This feature is definitely user friendly, and you can expect that Yahoo Mail users will use it to organize their inboxes and prioritize the mail they read. So, get working on modifying your preheader today.

Be Creative With Space
Consider placing the whitelisting instructions on the second line of the preheader, continuing to use the very first line for your call-to-action. And, by all means, keep the whitelisting instructions in the footer as well for people who may have missed them in the preheader but were interested enough in your message to read through to the footer.

The Gift of Whitelisting
Remember that once a subscriber has whitelisted you, most email clients will then automatically display the images in your email even if images are turned off by default. That makes it worth putting the whitelisting instructions back in the preheader.

To learn more about email marketing strategies, contact one of Listrak’s email marketing experts today.