Lots of us use video conferencing, either to catch up with friends, or when being interviewed for a job. But how do you invite people to a video conference over email? This week, Matthew Hughes explores just that.
A Reader Asks:
I work as a recruitment consultant. Part of my job sees me conduct preliminary face-to-face interviews with potential clients, before referring them to the companies I work with. When that’s not possible, I do it over the phone.
I’m curious, is there a way to start a video conference over email? I use Windows as my day-to-day operating system. We have a self-hosted email server which we access over Outlook. My browser is Chrome.
Matthew’s Reply:
Once upon a time, if you wanted to do a video conference, your options were limited.
Businesses that were cash-rich could invest in a professional-grade video conferencing system like Polycom or Citrix. The advantages of these was that the video and audio tended to be of a relatively high quality, and came with companion hardware that could accommodate an entire boardroom full of participants.
Consumers had to make do with Skype. Although at the time it was nothing short of revolutionary, it was hamstrung by relying on a client that was unreliable, was rife with security vulnerabilities and didn’t offer feature parity for Mac and Linux users. There were other competitors (like ooVoo), but few matched Skype in terms of user base and maturity.
Things are much better now. For starters, we’re no longer dependent on installing a client. It’s now possible to start an HD-quality conference call in the browser. Quite often you don’t need to create an account, either.
Rabb.it
You mentioned you’re a recruitment consultant, so I’m going to lead with the service I think you’ll find the most exciting.
Because, let’s face it: if you’re a recruitment consultant, odds are good you’re going to be asking some technical questions. If you’re hiring for the role of a developer, you’re going to want to get the potential candidate to write some code, and see how they process problems.
Rabb.it allows you to start a video conference with up to fifteen different people. You don’t need to create a login (although you certainly can). You don’t even need to install a client or a plugin. Rabbit runs in the browser, and uses WebRTC; a HTLM5 API used to do in-browser real-time communication. The only pre-requisite is that both you and the other participants are using a modern version of either Firefox, Opera or Chrome.
But what’s most exciting is that you can share a browser window, which can be used in real-time, and control handed over to any participant at any point.
Since my fiancé lives overseas, I use this feature to watch movies with her. It’s fast enough to play Netflix in high-definition, and sound and video is generally synchronized well. For you, I can see you using a web-based IDE — such as IDEOne, or Codenvy, which we reviewed in 2013 — to test the skills of potential clients and see if they know their Fibonacci numbers from their for loops.
When you need to invite someone to a chat, you just need to copy the URL of your Rabbit room, and paste it into an IM window or email client. There’s even an iPhone app.
What could be easier?
Appear.in
We first covered appear.in early last year. We were impressed with how delightfully simple it was to create a room, and its pioneering use of WebRTC. Two years later, I still have a bit of a soft spot for it.
Appear.in has a lot of similarities with Rabbit.
You don’t need to install a client or a plugin. You do need to run a newer version of Chrome, Firefox, or Opera. You can invite people to conference calls by simply sending them a link, which you create yourself.
There are some differences though. While Rabbit will actually host a browser window for you, Appear.in only lets you share control of your screen. Appear.in also comes with some compelling features that set it apart from the pack.
For starters, it’s really easy to embed an Appear.in room into an existing web page or blog post, and there’s an API (an Application Programming Interface) for developers to use.
There’s also free applications for both iOS and Android. Although I haven’t used these personally, I know a lot of people who have. If you’re using iOS, you can only use Appear.in with the app, since Safari (like Internet Explorer) doesn’t support WebRTC.
Skype
Finally, let’s touch on Skype. There’s two main ways to invite somebody to a Skype chat. Perhaps the easiest is by directly linking to your Skype profile.
Either in your email body, or in the header, add an anchor tag, with the href attribute being “skype:yourskypename”. So, this would read like:
<a href="skype:yourskypename"> Skype me!</a>
If you need a reminder when it comes to HTML, check out this piece from Ryan Dube.
There’s another way, too. In the homepage of the Windows, Mac, or Web version of Skype, click the plus icon. This will create a new chat window. You’ll also be given a unique (and customizable) link to that chat window. To invite people to the chat window, you’ll need to share that link with them. You can also send it via-email through the Skype app.
It’s worth noting that if they’re using the browser version, they’ll need to download the Skype plugin to make voice or video calls. The plugin is not required if you’re only using the instant messaging functionality.
Wrapping Up
In short, there are three incredible options here. Skype is, of course, the established option. Then there’s the upstarts, Rabbit and Appear.in. I’m inclined to suggest you use these products, simply because they offer the most fluid and streamlined service. The downside of this is that calls only work when all parties are using a compatible web browser.
For more inspiration, check out this list of nine awesome video conferencing apps.
We Can Help You!
We helped this reader. We can help you, too. Got a burning question, or a tech problem you need solved? Just click the button above! And, of course, please leave any feedback or comments in the comments below!
Email signatures are powerful tools to communicate important information about you. The right signature has relevant contact info — too much or too little text could turn someone off.
If you use Outlook, you can benefit from having multiple email signatures depending on the type of email you’re sending. Head to File > Options in Outlook and under the Mail tab on the left, click the Signatures… button to open the Signatures dialogue.
Here, you can create multiple signatures using the New button. Each one will add a new entry to the above box. On the right, you’ll find the New Messages and Replies/Forwards dialogue boxes. These allow you to assign a specific signature for these types of messages.
For example, you might want to have your full contact info for all new messages, but for replies you could include only your name and title. This means that your replies will add less clutter to the email chain, and let’s face it, sending a two-word response with a seven-line signature looks pretty bad.
Tweak your signatures as you see fit. You can create several without applying them, so don’t be afraid to experiment. This tool lets you communicate the right information to the right people, and helps make your emails more professional.
Now that you’ve got the right signature for each situation, make sure they aren’t giving the wrong impression.
What changes have you made to your email signatures? Have you seen any signature faux pas lately? Tell us about it below!
Late last night, Skype sent me an email letting me know that they had successfully changed my email address to thegeek@cock.li and I should visit my account to review my changes. Except I didn’t change anything. And What?
UPDATE!
Thanks entirely to the amazing Jon Galloway who contacted people on my behalf, I was able to get back into my Skype account. We still have a lot of work to do securing everything else, because one victory isn’t going to stop these hackers from coming after us.
While this conclusion is really great for HTG, I do feel bad for all the people who reached out to me about their hacked accounts and don’t have a well-known website. To help prevent this from happening to you, make sure that you enable two-factor authentication for all of your accounts, and that you use strong passwords as well.
The rest of the story continues below…
I happened to wake up in the middle of the night because our baby is teething, and checked my email before going back to bed and saw this. The first thing I tried was logging into Skype… no such luck. Couldn’t log in. The password had been changed, and I couldn’t recover the password because the email had also been changed.
The account isn’t mine anymore, it’s now owned by some hacker.
My Skype account was protected with a very long, unique password. So how did the hacker get access to the account and then change my email address to something else to lock me out?
The only logical way we can think of: Skype support gave the account away.
I don’t have any proof that Skype gave the account away, but I still control the original email address, and it had a unique and very long password that was only for that account. There are no traces of a password reset email or anything else like that. So how would they have gotten access otherwise?
It’s worth noting that Skype does have two-factor authentication, if you use a Microsoft account. This Skype account was so old that it didn’t have a Microsoft account behind it.
The Hacker Tries to Use More Social Engineering to Get To Our Servers
After waking up and trying to get the account back, I started getting strange messages on Slack from our writers about conversations I never had with them. The hacker was (well, is, because I still don’t have my account back) trying to use social engineering to trick HTG writers into giving up the SSH accounts to the servers, or give them access to WordPress.
This isn’t new, we’ve had a bunch of threats in the last year, and a lot of hacking attempts. So far we’ve been able to hold them off, and this is the first time they’ve managed to get access to something.
The conversation above went on and on, but thankfully Chris Stobing is a smart guy, and didn’t fall for it. They were pretty convincing though, and everybody in my list got a similar message from them.
And Now, Skype Won’t Fix the Problem and Give the Account Back
I don’t know how much more clear it needs to be that the account was hacked than “thegeek@cock.li” as the address they changed it to, but I went through the long process of filling out the form on the Skype website to get my account back and reverse the changes.
And then I got an email saying they can’t verify my identity and so they won’t even “check the status” of my account.
The account was created years ago – I still have the original email that I got when I created the account. I’ve got the exact date, and a bunch of other details, but I don’t use Skype enough to have a credit card on file. And more importantly, I still have access to the original email account that was used to sign up for the account! Why would Skype allow this to happen? Why can’t I get my account back?
Dear Skype support: Is this enough verification?
So, bottom line: The official How-To Geek Skype account is now owned by hackers because as far as we can tell, Skype support gave it away and now won’t even look into it to give it back.
If you send a lot of emails with Outlook, you can speed up your email creation in a huge way by trimming down your workflow with this one little trick that we’re going to show you today.
If you’re working on something in Word, for example, and you want to send a bit of the document in question to a coworker to make sure they like it, you can actually create an item in Outlook right from the clipboard. This means you can send a snippet of text from any document in just a couple of seconds.
Here’s what you need to know to make it happen!
To start, copy the text you want to send. It can be from Word, Notepad, or anywhere else in which you’d write text. From there, click the section in which you want to create the Outlook item. If you want to create a new email from the text, click Mail. If you want a new Calendar event, click Calendar.
Once you have the section open, just press CTRL-V. Outlook will create a new item from the pasted text. Sticking with the email example, the text will be pasted in the body, and you’ll just need to add the recipient and subject. It’s the quickest way to go from text to email if Outlook is your email app of choice!
Do you use Outlook? Know any other useful tricks for it? Hit the comments and let us know!
Email is the preferred method of communicating with businesses for 72% of adults in the United States, according to a recent study conducted by MarketingSherpa. Like any other marketing initiative, email requires a strategy to inspire your audience and grab their attention. When used correctly, email has proven to be the most influential and cost-effective marketing platform.
The goal is not to get your message into that crowded inbox. Your goal is to have your subscribers open your message, and it is the content’s job to reel them in and complete that call to action.
The standard open rate for a marketing email message is 11-15%, with a click-through-rate of just 2-5%, laid out in an infographic by MarketingProfs. If you’re falling behind the curve, you need to fine-tune your strategy, adding personalized and humanization to your campaigns.
To increase open rates, you need to inspire your customers to click your message. Half of all emails will be opened within the first six hours after delivery. As emails pile up, make sure yours doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.
Once the email is opened, you need to grab their attention with valuable information like a promotional offer or image. Customize your subscribers, understand what they’re looking for, and tell your story in a unique fashion. Your first impression has to hit home to keep your customer engaging with every email you send.
Marketing is all about testing and trying to find a strategy that leads to success. You can’t talk about conversions when your emails aren’t being opened. If you’re encountering a low open rate, test and try these strategies to improve your deliverability and increase open rates.
Subject Lines
A presentation by Jay Baer entitled “What Your Customers Really Think of Your Email Program,” revealed that 35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone.
The subject line will make or break or open rate. Personalize the subject lines and make them descriptive so your subscriber has a reason to open. Subject lines must be inspiring, strong, and eye-catching to stand apart from the crowd of emails your customers are staring at and weeding through.
Concise
The most effective emails are those with short subject lines. A recent study by SendGrid found that three-word subject lines have the highest engagement rates (21.2%) although just 1.6% of emails are that concise. Make sure your subject is well-crafted and descriptive without overwhelming your reader with buzzwords.
Avoid “Spammy” Buzzwords
Although you might think that your reader will want to take advantage of your “sale” or “reminder,” MailChimp advises you to avoid those terms. Having words like “free,” “x% off,” “guaranteed,” or “click here” can negatively affect your campaign and open rate.
If you’re consistently using these buzzwords in your subject lines, many subscribers won’t see your messages as they’ll be directed to spam folders in their inbox. Even if your message lands in the inbox, spammy words often deter readers from your campaign.
It’s okay to promote a sense of urgency if a sale is ending or the time to register for an event is closing. An example like “Sale ends tomorrow at midnight!” shows a user that action is required immediately.
Personalization
If you can add a custom field into your message, and speak directly to your subscriber, the open rate will increase significantly. MailChimp offers you tools to strategize your customization to see what is most effective in your campaign.
Spelling and Grammar
Always remember to use proper grammar and spelling. Punctuation is an essential component of your message, but don’t come off as too salesy or speak too urgently.
A subject in all capital letters, one that includes misspelling, or uses unnecessary exclamation detracts from your message. Asking your users a question and ending the subject in a question mark has a 44% higher open rate than exclamations about your promotion, according to a study found on ClickZ.
One of the biggest factors that influences open rates is to test multiple subject lines with various strategies. Evoke emotion and reel in your audience.
Inspire them to open your message by asking a question that you will answer in the email. Keep it personal, keep it casual, and speak to your customers directly.
List Segmentation
List segments help you further personalize and narrow your audience. You can choose the subscribers on your list that you want to receive a particular message. Segment based on custom fields to utilize your message more effectively.
Occupation
Location
Interests
Industry
Date Subscribed
Purchase/Conversion History
Gender
Age
Plus, take it a step further and think about the topics and content that your subscribers have engaged with in the past. Be as personable as possible. When your subscribers provide you with information that makes it easier to target your messages, use the data to your advantage.
Look at your list, and analyze the metrics to see the content that your subscribers have opened in the past. Move away from mass email blasts that deliver the same message to hundreds and thousands of people. Econsultancy shows how important this tactic is for numerous industries that group their email list.
Learn the program you’re using, and access the list segmentation options to break down your subscribers. You’ll see that some segments have a better response and open rate than others. Build on the data you’re experiencing through segmentation for a high-performing campaign.
When you’re not segmenting your list to deliver personalized messages, you can’t craft relevant subject lines for your audience. Segment your lists, offering unique content that addresses demands. The better your segmentation, the more effective your email marketing will become.
Split Testing
What aspects can you test to get the most out of your campaign? Try variations and tests on your subject lines, body text, call to action, personalization, or the design of your email. Send different versions of the same message to different portions of your list.
Tools like MailChimp and Active Campaign offer support for simplified A/B Testing, or you can split up your subscribers manually to test your campaigns. The initial goal is to get your subscribers to open the email. If you do not see the improvement you anticipated with two versions of the email, try additional versions to see what your audience responds to.
Every aspect of an email affects your conversions. Your open rate is affected by the quality of the subject line. Look at your overall campaign and determine how you want to improve. Experiment with different styles of headlines and personalization.
Variations of split testing include:
Send Time (Morning vs. Evening or Morning vs. Afternoon)
Sender/From Name (noreply@example.com or Joe from Example)
Length/Terms in Subject Line
Personalization in Subject Line
When you’re testing different strategies, keep to a minimum sample size of around 100 subscribers. Accurate testing will help you figure out which strategy leads to higher engagement. Get to know your list and watch how a small difference in your strategy impacts the performance of your campaign.
The unsubscribe rate for every email sent is between .11 and .2%. For every email that is unengaging and feels like you’re pushing your products or services will result in unsubscribes from your campaign.
Test engagements for multiple emails with the same overall message. Your email marketing platform should allow you to test factors and differences in your message quickly and efficiently.
Mobile Mindset with Responsive Design
Your email has to have a responsive design. Maintain a consistent user experience no matter the device they’re using by optimizing your campaigns for a mobile-first environment.
Mobile devices account for 51% of all emails opened, per a recent study by Constant Contact, and over 75% of subscribers will delete your email if they can’t read it on a mobile device.
It’s best to assume your audience is viewing your message on a smart phone. Make sure your entire subject line will display on a standard smart phone screen. While your customers are on in a meeting, waiting for coffee, or on the train, they’re screening their emails from their mobile inbox.
If your open rates have dipped in the last year, mobile screening could be a leading factor. Follow the behavior of your audience with a mobile responsive email campaign. Increase the open rate by using the words in your subject line more effectively (keep it around 30-40 characters), and design the layout for mobile.
Even if your user opens the message, can they read it? Does the width respond to the display? Do the images take too long to load? Are there multiple columns that force a scroll? Simplify and modify your design.
Send Frequency
The frequency in which you contact your subscribers presents numerous challenges. Should you be contacting your list just once a month, as much as once per week, or every quarter of the year? The answer varies across industries.
Keep in mind, your customers are receptive of your communications and messages, but they don’t like untimely messages that are irrelevant. There is no perfect frequency, but there are risks associated with sending too many or too few emails.
According to the DMA’s National Email Client Report in 2015, email marketers are becoming strategic with their approach, contacting their audience less. Most companies are now sending between five and eight emails per month.
You want to stay relevant to your audience without overwhelming them. You can get a better grasp of how often to send messages to your subscribers by testing and segmenting your audience. What works for one brand will fail miserably for another.
Marketing Sherpa published a study asking consumers how often they’d like to receive promotional emails from companies. They found 91% of Americans want to receive your emails, but only 15% like to receive them daily.
For the 85% that want an email at least monthly, where is your middle ground?
Give customers an option to sign up for their desired frequency.
Reduce frequencies automatically for subscribers that aren’t opening your message.
Change the frequency for various segments in your campaign.
Change the tone to provide useful information instead of promotional materials.
Send active subscribers more frequent emails, and cut back communication with those who haven’t been interacting or opening your material.
If you’re overwhelming your customers, they’ll delete your message before they read what you have to say or see what you’re offering. Test your list to determine how they interact with your brand. Once you get to know your customers, you’ll see the open rate of your email campaign increase through an appropriate frequency of messages.
Time Sent
As your marketing campaign is under way, track your data and click-through-rate to determine your engagement patterns. Timing is everything when it comes to your open rate. WordStream goes into great detail about the best times to get your audience to open your emails.
According to WordStream, weekends have low open rates, as well as Mondays and Fridays during the beginning and end of the work week. Tuesdays through Thursdays during business hours (1-3 pm) is the optimal time to ensure your email’s open rate is increased.
You must know your target audience and the message you’re sending. Understand the time of day that your subscribers are typically checking their emails and the device in which they’re using. Still, it’s the subject line and the words in your message that make the most impact. Make them count.
Update Your List and Keep it Fresh
Your open rate suffers when you have a list of outdated email addresses or inactive subscribers.
Companies go out of business and employees leave company email addresses behind. Accounts are abandoned as new ones are created. If you have the same list from five years ago, you’re losing money by sending emails to abandoned inboxes.
To improve your results and leads to increased sales, a clean email list leads to better deliverability.
Take the time to look over your subscribers to ensure everything is in order. If you see a misspelling like “@gmal.com” instead of “@gmail.com,” fix it. Don’t waste marketing efforts sending to an email address that won’t receive your message.
Here are a few more ways to update your list:
Eliminate Duplicated Addresses
Check for Accuracy
Reconfirmation Campaign
Update Details & Change of Information from Contacts
Think about what updating your list means to your bottom line. Make sure your message gets delivered. If your deliverability rate is low based on your list, email service providers will mark your messages as spam.
Many platforms such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, iContact, and AWeber help manage your list to avoid duplicate accounts and check for accurate addresses. Setting up your campaign with a reliable platform gives you access to plugins and API’s that allow signups to your email marketing campaigns directly from your site.
Update your segmented lists and place all subscribers that haven’t opened your messages in the past few months into one list. Send a customized message with a subject line tailored to them.
Reintroduce your brand to their lives. Surprise them with a bonus offer and give them a fantastic customer experience.
Keeping your email list fresh presents your brand to interested consumers. If you keep your messages relevant and list updated, your open rates will grow, and your audience will maintain its engagement.
Conclusion
Don’t be afraid to try new techniques and approaches. Steer away from the same bland approach to your subject lines and newsletter content. Even if your message appeals with images, videos, GIFs, and a unique design, the campaign is failing when your subscribers are just moving your message to the trash.
Customize your strategy to jump-start your marketing efforts and reach your goal of an increased open rate. Email is core to your business. Answer questions your subscribers have, continue testing, and get creative.
When your message arrives in a crowded inbox, how are you enticing your user to open that message and click-through to your next goal?
Deliver your audience a thought-provoking subject line and segment campaigns to deliver relevant messages to every subscriber on your list. Effective email marketing will increase your bottom line and engage new customers in a cost-effective manner.
What is holding back your email marketing campaign? As your subscribers grow, so too should your sales. Make sure your message is heard. Keep testing and keep trying new techniques to meet your goals.
Image Credits
Featured Image: Image by Gabrielle Frake. Used with permission. In-post Photos: Image by Gabrielle Frake. Used with permission.
You may find yourself sending the same replies to text messages over and over again. There are built-in, canned responses available for text and email messages so you can send a quick reply using your Apple Watch.
Several common phrases are included on your Apple Watch, such as “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m on my way”. However, if you want to use a word or phrase that’s not on the list of default replies, you can change any of the replies to include ones you need. We’ll show you how to edit default replies available on your Apple Watch for both text and email messages.
The default replies cannot be customized on your watch. You must use your phone. To customize the default replies, tap the “Watch” icon on the Home screen.
Make sure the “My Watch” screen is active. If not, tap the “My Watch” icon at the bottom of the screen.
On the “My Watch” screen, tap “Messages”.
Scroll down and tap “Default Replies” on the “Messages” screen.
The list of “Default Replies” list displays. To change one, tap on it.
A cursor displays in the field.
Type the reply you want. Tap the back arrow at the top of the screen to go back to the previous screen. Or, you can simply press the Home button to return to the Home screen.
You can also customize the default replies for the Mail app. On the “My Watch” screen, tap “Mail”.
On the “Mail” screen, tap “Default Replies”.
Edit the default replies to include custom replies, just as you did for text messages.
NOTE: You can also use these default replies when creating new text messages using your watch.
There are also default text messages you can send as replies to phone calls if you can’t answer the calls and these replies can be customized.