« January 2007 | Main | March 2007 »
February 28, 2007
New Email Community Site
I came across a new email marketing community site that is bringing a lot of different data into one place. It does not have the chops and resources of the EEC, yet, but it is another good place to reference as you are searching for more data to help with your email marketing plans.
Looks to be built by Gold Lasso, an ESP.
Dot Email is an online community for email marketers to share ideas, keep up with news, learn tricks of the trade and complain about the vexing issues that hurt the industry. Just as anything communal, you get out of it what you put into it.DotEmail
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:03 AM | Permalink
February 27, 2007
Newsletter VS One-Off Emails
We often get approached by client looking to just do a newsletter for their business. Now there is nothing wrong with the newsletter, but why do companies and brands often overlook the One-Off email. The One-Off, as I refer to it is the campaign email. The one that is focused and targeted to engage to make someone move to take action. It is not a resource laden email and really gives one path to action. Sometimes we see two paths, but really to be true to the idea, you need to focus on just hitting the goals of the campaign.
Wine.com does a good job of illustrating this with these two examples:
The Newsletter
Note that there are so many things to chose from and it is the email format that is to educate, steer and channel the behavior of your subscriber. The most important part of the newsletter is to actually organize the content in a clear, concise format. If you miss that mark, then you will see a low click through and conversion rate.
The One-Off (aka Campaign Email)
Focused offers make the best ROI in the campaign email. Strike the value proposition as the lead item and drive them to conversion. I actually bought some from this email and I am not one that really acts immediately from offers. Maybe I am just a little jaded with the medium at times. I typically tuck them away, re-read them and go direct to the site to hunt.
This post is really just to get you thinking about what you are doing. If you really want to sell and not educate, focus on the One-Off campaign.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:38 AM | Permalink
February 26, 2007
eROI Wins Web Campaign Award
Well the votes came in Thursday night last week and we had some tough competition. But turns out that we WON for the Kettle Foods Passport To Flavor Campaign. It was a great win for us and for our client Kettle Foods. Special thanks to Maxwell PR as well for all the brand work, PR and blog outreach they did for the campaign. Stellar job by all and so happy to have a big win under our belt.
Looking forward to some new site launches this week for the new Konami American Idol Video Community and as well many others. This is going to be a long week for the whole eROI team.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:54 PM | Permalink
eROI Adds New Footer
We have been hard at work adding new features, code, XML API Updates, Additional IPs, Servers, and new Feedback loops with ISPs. On top of all of the hard coding work, we are changing out some of our default template settings for clients. We spent a few months looking at all the footers out there with the other ESPs, testing the rendering and deliverability impact of our change, and just this last Friday moved it live to all of our clients.
Now this might seem like a subtle, why are you telling me this --- change, but trust me, it has an impact. Everything has an impact in email.
Let us know what you think or how do you feel about the footer as opposed to a header?
Comments (2) | Posted by dylan at 11:31 AM | Permalink
Germans, Dutch eye stricter Web laws
What if it was illegal to actually set up or represent your email address with false information? This is an interesting law finding traction in Europe. I am not quite sure how this would be policed, but it sure would help email marketers from having bad lists and email false positive rates with the ISPs. Just how many of you are barraged with false email addresses at sign up each day? And how many of you have to constantly monitor your lists to keep them clean?
Some European countries are proposing outlawing the use of fake information to open e-mail accounts or set up Web sites, a move intended to help terror investigations but which could face resistance on a privacy-conscious continent.The German and Dutch governments have taken the lead on the proposals, crafting legislation that would make it illegal to provide false information to Internet service providers and require phone companies to save detailed records on customer usage.
The aim, analysts say, is to make it easier for law enforcement to access information when they investigate crimes or terrorist attacks. But Europeans have long cherished their privacy, railing against measures that would see personal information stored for commercial use or government examination.
Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 5:59 AM | Permalink
February 23, 2007
Has the FTC Gone Silent?
I was thinking about the FTC today and wondering where they are with any changes, updates or filings for the Can Spam laws. It seems to me that it was so loud some time ago (like 2 years) and then all the noise has died off from them If I am wrong and you know something else, let me know.
I took a few moments to check the site and see if I have been asleep at the wheel, but nothing since January 12th, 2005. At that time they had this notice posted and nothing since. The release cites a 60 day review time line but then nothing.
Do you think that they FTC policy is going to change at all this year? Will we see any new filings? Or just actions against more companies under this act? We have seen a few in the past and many hunts after some of the more prolific spammers, but no real change to how legitimate email marketers are doing business. Are we as an industry doing better at self policing?
It really makes me wonder as we are all seeing and hearing about the increases in spam and the new techniques that the nefarious black hats are using everyday. I wake up to 100 plus junk emails each AM and I have not really seen a reduction in the crap myself.
Love to hear your thoughts on this?
Comments (2) | Posted by dylan at 5:11 AM | Permalink
February 22, 2007
Just a Few Days Left to Submit Your Email Campaign
Our Creativity Journal Contest is nearing an end on February 28th. If you are still interested in getting your creative into the mix, send it on to create AT eroi.com.
This past holiday season, we put together a creative journal and send it out to some of our select customers. These journals were a hit, finding their way into the hearts of all who received them. Thank you emails rolled into our inboxes, many asking, "Can I get one more for a co-worker?" Well due to the love of these Creativity Journals, and the fact that we have a few boxes of them left, we wanted to hold a contest with our subscribers to send us their BEST email campaign creative. Now this is open to eROI customers and subscribers alike, so no pressure as everyone has a chance to get a journal. The only requisite: the creative must ROCK.
To enter, simply send us your email creative in HTML, JPG, or PDF format by February 21st, 2007 and we will hold an internal review by our entire team to choose 10 winners. These winners will have their work featured on ReturnOnSubscriber once they are chosen and our comments will follow on this blog. Please make sure to attach your name, company, email address and 100 - 250 words describing what the campaign was for, the target audience and what time of year it was sent. Also important is the Subject Line, or lines if you did an A/B list split by Subject Line.
We look forward to your submissions and if you have any questions, reach out and touch us at "create AT eROI.com"
Submit Your Campaign By Feb 28th
Comments (2) | Posted by dylan at 5:35 AM | Permalink
February 21, 2007
Use A Link Above the Fold
I can tell you that the site actually is much better than the email. It is not that this email is poor, but the layout is challenging to the inbox. The reason I say this is that they action is way below the fold and they have only used one link. I was clicking away on the top red image as well as the "See The Winning Designs" copy, thinking that would be the link. Right? But no it was buried down in the body copy and used the old "here" link.
Just my thoughts that you want to place something actionable higher up in the body of the email instead of making people search for it.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:00 AM | Permalink
February 20, 2007
eROI Up for AMA Max Award
Well the votes were cast and the finalists narrowed down for the 2007 American Marketing Association MAX Awards. We are honored to have one of our campaigns up for one of the Awards. It is for the work we did with Kettle Foods and Maxwell PR for the 2007 People Choice Campaign, Passport to Flavor. This has been an ongoing collective effort for 3 years now and this year we really tried to push it past the norm and deliver a full force flash driven campaign site and custom email send to a friend postcards to leverage the viral aspects of the vote. It was nice to have Fast Company write a full page on the campaign this month as well as a featured story on MarketingSherpa.
We will see what comes of it and if nothing else are honored to make the list of finalists.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:30 PM | Permalink
Bud.tv Tells Why to Opt In
Interesting new site from Budweiser. The intro video gives you a quick idea of why you should opt in and what they are and aren't going to do with your info. Interesting way to use video to bait the hook and prove the value.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:00 AM | Permalink
February 19, 2007
Selling is Hard. Harder Than You May Ever Realize
This came from Seth Godin and I think can apply directly to email marketing. Let me show you how after each line....
1.Selling is hard. Harder than you may ever realize. So, if I seem stressed, cut me some slack.
Email Marketers never have a "standard" day. There are things happening that impact their decisions in real time and things that they cannot anticipate at times. Learn to roll with the punches.
2. Selling is personal. When I make a promise, I have to keep it. If you force me to break that promise (by changing processes, features or a rollout schedule) I will never forgive you.
When you get an offer in email, you need to live up to it. If you are sending out offers based on behavior, you better know exactly what each subscriber has done or will do. I have seen campaigns that send a discount code AFTER the purchase as they are not changing customer lifecycle campaigns in real time and that created buyers remorse.
3. Selling is interpersonal. I am not moving bits, I'm trying to change people's minds, one person at a time. So, no, I can't tell you when the sale will close. No one knows, especially the prospect.
Will they buy now when they get the email in the inbox? Or will they sit on it to use it later on? Will that offer still be valid or will you lose the purchase?
4. I love selling. I particularly love selling great stuff, well marketed. Don't let me down. Don't ask me to sell lousy stuff.
If you are going to place a product infront of someone, you better make sure that it is something you would buy yourself. If not, prepare for the calls after the sale.
5. I'm extremely focused on the reward half of the equation. Salespeople love to keep score, and that's how I keep score. So don't change the rules in the middle, please.
Campaigns have goals. If you or someone in your organization changes goals as campaigns shape up, be prepared to defend your original goals. Do not flip flop on why you are reaching out.
6. I have no earthly idea what really works. I don't know if it's lunch or that powerpoint or the Christmas card I sent last year. But you know what? You have no clue what works either. I'll keep experimenting if you will.
People are fickle. It would be nice if we always knew what impacted the action or purchase. But you will not always know. Buying is a combination of actions and touch points that shape a relationship.
7. There is no comparison, NONE, between an inbound call (one that you created with marketing) and a cold call (one that you instructed me to create with a phone book.) Your job is to make it so I never need to make a cold call.
Your job is to capture and nuture the lead to the goal. If you are running your program correctly you will have more people coming to you. It is not email alone. It is Pay for Click, SEO, SEM, events, offline, and word of mouth that can build your funnel. If you are doing it right, they keep coming to you on their own and you are not looking to buy more lists, which can have a negative impact on your brand in my opinion.
8. Usually, customers lie when they turn me down. They make up reasons. But every once in a while, I actually learn something in the field. Ask!
If you aren't listening, you aren't learning. So many people just send, send, send and never listen or ASK. When is the last time you sent a survey, created a focus group of fans and haters? Open up the dialogue to a two way street and not your current one-way.
9. I know you'd like to get rid of me and just take orders on the web. But that's always going to be the low-hanging fruit. The game-changing sales, at least for now, come from real people interacting with real people.
One to One communicatons and dynamic data emails that TALK to the subscriber make the impact. Simply "BLASTING" another "e-blast" (I hate it when I hear this term) will not get the business. It takes someone watching, measuring and sending targeted communications. You cannot automate everything. If you could, why are you still here.
10. (a bonus, switching points of view for a moment): I know that selling is hard and unpredictable. But if you're going to be in sales, you've got to be prepared to measure and predict and plan. You need to give me sales reports and call lists and summaries. It does neither of us any good to keep your day a secret. If you don't plan and organize, I can't do my job of marketing.
Email is not an ART. People will argue this one left and right. It is a science. It is numbers, metrics and reports. It is crunching data and looking for trends. It is taking the right action, sticking to a plan and executing flawlessly.
11. (and bonus number two): The two worst pieces of feedback you can give me (because neither is really actionable or especially effective): a. lower the price and b. make our product just like our competitors.
You need to stand out in the inbox. So many people in the online space (and ESPs) want to undercut pricing left and right. Why are you taking the value out of your brand and creating a commodity? If you continue down this path in sales you will eventually kill your own brand and your value to the consumer or customer. Think different, like Apple, see how you can position your product or service as something people want and are willing to pay for, or you could just be another widget maker with lack luster sales who fights for every dollar.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:00 AM | Permalink
February 16, 2007
Improvisation and Email Marketing
One of our Sales and Strategy team (Alex Williams) wrote a nice entry on one of our blogs this past week. Sheds an interesting take on email marketing.
Watched a great Miles Davis DVD this weekend (Electric Miles) and afterwards started thinking....How does improvisation relate to marketing?
In a jazz composition, there is a basic melody and chord structure, after the melody is played the rest is mainly improvised. Much of the excitement in seeing live jazz is watching the players taking chances within the context of the song. Sometimes it fails, but sometimes it is perfect and magical. Taking a risk can be scary and may not work, but it can also be very exciting and lead to great things.
My question to you is...Are you taking chances?
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:02 AM | Permalink
February 15, 2007
Return Path Sheds the Light in Seatle
I was fortunate to join Return Path's presentation last week in Seattle. It is the first in a traveling local series of events that they will be putting on across the US this year. I highly encourage you to attend if is comes near you. We were a quick 3 hour trip away up I-5 so we jumped in the car and took a drive.
Our CEO, Ryan Buchanan, summarized his take aways on his blog this week.
I attended Return Path's Seattle Workshop yesterday and learned a lot more about "Email Strategies that Increase Deliverability and Response" than I expected. They even had a guest speaker from Microsoft Hotmail (now branded Windows LiveMail) - Product Planner Brian Holdsworth who shed light on Microsoft's deliverability strategies. Apparently, over 50% of email browser use is MS Outlook, so maybe we should listen to what he has to say.Here are my notes from the event (Return Path speaker):
Large ISPs getting significantly more email volume each day - recently showing 7.4billion emails per day.What is Email Reputation?
1. Complaints (Informal)
2. High Unknown Users (unclean list)
3. Spam Traps (spamcop.com and other types of spam-catching email addresses)
4. Sending Infrastructure (IP address must be clean)
5. Sending Consistency (similar daily email volume)
You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:54 AM | Permalink
Get Inspired With Our Creativity Journal
This past holiday season, we put together a creative journal and send it out to some of our select customers. These journals were a hit, finding their way into the hearts of all who received them. Thank you emails rolled into our inboxes, many asking, "Can I get one more for a co-worker?" Well due to the love of these Creativity Journals, and the fact that we have a few boxes of them left, we wanted to hold a contest with our subscribers to send us their BEST email campaign creative. Now this is open to eROI customers and subscribers alike, so no pressure as everyone has a chance to get a journal. The only requisite: the creative must ROCK. Send to "create AT eROI.com"
To enter, simply send us your email creative in HTML, JPG, or PDF format by February 21st, 2007 and we will hold an internal review by our entire team to choose 10 winners. These winners will have their work featured on ReturnOnSubscriber once they are chosen and our comments will follow on this blog. Please make sure to attach your name, company, email address and 100 - 250 words describing what the campaign was for, the target audience and what time of year it was sent. Also important is the Subject Line, or lines if you did an A/B list split by Subject Line.
We look forward to your submissions and if you have any questions, reach out and touch us at "create AT eROI.com"
Submit Your Campaign By Feb 28th
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
February 14, 2007
What is Text and HTML?
I was reviewing one of my favorite email marketers Alaska Airlines the past week and they had a nice feature in the subscription area. This made me think for all of the time that we ask people "Text or HTML" when they choose how they want to get email. Are we assuming that everyone knows what this means? What if we are all wrong as we have been living in the world for too long? When was the last time you asked someone to explain what that means? It sounds simple enough right? But how do you know for sure if your audience or subscriber really knows what the differnce is.
What also comes to mind is many of us don't even ask 90% of the time and just rely on sending multiparts (now go ask your mom if she can tell you what that means) so that we can decide for them or for their email client.
Although this is not a game changer, it is a nice way to help educate your audience. Thanks for flying with us today at eROI.
The Opt in:
The HTML example:
The Text Example:
Now does your audience know or should you show them?
Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 5:00 AM | Permalink
February 13, 2007
Another Version of a Bad Text Email
Now I am a big fan of Lucy.com but when I get emails that look like this when they are delivered to my BlackBerry, I have to wonder if it is the marketer or the ESP that is causing this. Remember, TEST TEST TEST and then broadcast. Don't just do it for me, but do it for the others that are on your lists.
-----Original Message-----
From: lucy activewear
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:38:01
To:XXX@XXXX.com
Subject: energize your workouts with new styles from lucy
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1zqvccuifkjb0j7ij87ahl62f3g0psg1n568jn308>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1zib8kl40m0u29pn6fav45shs7op463rf3npdiejg>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1zmnbu2rohc2aue08juk65d2jc3cltrj5nnrk25i8>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1zfoirb7mqbqf3jjm6cerf8lmt1f8h041hjim53j8>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1z069ifn6c7d4sa82aietc69f70tpbob8dfhqon28>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1zip0ga1fhboo5osn0tem08jcjauepj7hup9006t0>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1z96uveu15mlae2e9gahmptqndhvs2rk8es173t70>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1z4tje24ile47g7n5ui3i6pfkijn6qe9tl2phfq80> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/W311_Jan_New_Arrivals_Em-10.jpg>
http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/W311_Jan_New_Arrivals_Em-11.jpg>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1zl0a4b39sirkc5v1en6ean0a738l165u6b06stbo>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1z3oemicemte59irfg2un83riasteslmshcjk9h3o>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/f2f/9z1zsej3rldb7u95uc54p1p4h8bmps84fqgna2lsl60>
: http://lucy.ip07.com/rd/9z1zkp7nb9dmf4k85btjfatqfqb6s1fs61l2h9spu00>
http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/W311_Jan_New_Arrivals_Em-16.jpg>
We are sending you this email because we believe you have given us permission to communicate with you periodically about promotions and special events. To ensure you receive these emails from lucy, please add XXX@lucy.com to your address book.
If you prefer not to receive promotional email messages from us,
http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/W311_Jan_New_Arrivals_Em-18.jpg>
http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif> http://img.ipost.com/client/l/lucy/07/01/running/spacer.gif>
Comments (2) | Posted by dylan at 5:01 AM | Permalink
February 12, 2007
Is Your Campaign Worthy of Our Creativity Journal?
This past holiday season, we put together a creative journal and send it out to some of our select customers. These journals were a hit, finding their way into the hearts of all who received them. Thank you emails rolled into our inboxes, many asking, "Can I get one more for a co-worker?" Well due to the love of these Creativity Journals, and the fact that we have a few boxes of them left, we wanted to hold a contest with our subscribers to send us their BEST email campaign creative. Now this is open to eROI customers and subscribers alike, so no pressure as everyone has a chance to get a journal. The only requisite: the creative must ROCK.
To enter, simply send us your email creative in HTML, JPG, or PDF format by February 21st, 2007 and we will hold an internal review by our entire team to choose 10 winners. These winners will have their work featured on ReturnOnSubscriber once they are chosen and our comments will follow on this blog. Please make sure to attach your name, company, email address and 100 - 250 words describing what the campaign was for, the target audience and what time of year it was sent. Also important is the Subject Line, or lines if you did an A/B list split by Subject Line.
We look forward to your submissions and if you have any questions, reach out and touch us at "create AT eROI.com"
Submit Your Campaign By Feb 28th
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:13 AM | Permalink
February Worst Of Email
Taking a peak through our inboxes, we found some examples of campaigns that fell short that for a few reasons. What stood out are many things from poor deisgn, too much copy, rendering, etc.
1. Design: You have 2-3 seconds to make an impact, what was the impact besides me wanting to trash it?
2. Calls to Action: They are mixed in and typically below the fold in the preview pane or hidden.
3. Concise: Too much copy confuses the recipient to know what you want them to do.
4. Organization: What the heck am I supposed to do with these? Where do you want me to go and what is the value?
See the Campaigns at the Jump
Baby Phat:
Where am I supposed to click? Why is the whole thing images? And what impact does Kimora Lee have on me wanting to be like her? This email, though not horribly designed, misses the mark on how to make me do something. I would be that this email ends up as one or two big broken or suppressed images in most email clients. Use some text, give me some buttons or links that pop.
Ben and Jerrys:
I know you are socially progressive and down to earth, but this email in no way reflects the care and design that your packaging shows me in the frozen food asile. It does reflect the site, but I won't even go there now. The font is odd and might render differently in email clients. I would hope that they look at a new layout sometime in the future to really give us something that makes me want to head to the local store and pick up a pint.
Budget Travel:
This email feels like it was knocked out on a budget. One that allows for a bus trip to Fresno from LA and not a good trip for a good price. They could benefit from some color that helps to separate the copy, images that are not broken (see the top right box) and maybe some images conveying why I want to book a trip today.
Cingular:
Although the design is not horrible and the button is placed well, I just get lost in all the copy. Maybe some bullet points that are easy to read, give me the value prop in less words and shrinking the length of the overall email down to why I need to do this and how it impacts me with the button a little larger and moved up and to the right would win me over.
Frommers:
It was hard to decide if this email was good or bad, but in the end it went to the dark side. For reason like the titles and copy really did not deliver like the header image and top nav. They could use that RED to define the areas better and not leave so much of the right side bar empty.
Garnett Hill:
You might argue this one with me, but the reason for me not liking this was the color of the link text in the right box. The light blue really hides the actions against the background. And the use of that space could have been better suited to text that flushed it out not leaving so much unused area.
Microsoft:
Why are you right justifying this text? It really makes it hard for the eye to follow it and reads poor. They could have used some of the blue to break out the content of this newsletter even with the right justified text. And do I really care about Bill? Is he going to make an impact on why I choose to take action? Bill?
North Face:
Now we all love North Face gear but this email was so top heavy that the actual product they wanted me to check out was way below the fold. I think that they could have minimzed that header image to move some product up higher. I am also confused as to why they could not align the products to use that box area evenly instead of left justifying them. Might be the template they use, but would present so much better. Unless you really care about summitting Denali then this use of the image really falls short. I know that this is the brand, but don't you see most people walking through the city or hitting the slopes in North Face and not living in a tent on a moutain?
Perfume Center:
AAAAHHH, I see if you keep it simple and make EVERYTHING and image you have better odds on what again? Not having it render? Having a higher score in Spam filtering system for images and HTML with no text? What? And not to beat this one up too much, but there are so many colors going on that don't work well with one another that it is hurting my eyes.
PETA:
We all love animals and doing the right thing, but how about doing the right thing in my inbox? Start there and maybe we can talk more. The images are aligned poorly, the copy is crammed to the sides of the boxes and the text is centered (for what reason?). Help me help you.
Red Cross:
I'm going to start on this UnNatural Disaster sharing the fact that this email was OVER 1000 pixels wide. Who are they trying to reach with this? When was the last time you heard that designing that wide was a good thing? Even with some studies showing that slimmer is better, you should be using your web metrics to see what the average width is of your visitors. I would think that between 500 pixels and 760 pixels is the norm and best for most people. Remember that the preview pane is different in every client and most times (even if your web metrics tell you that your audience is all wide screen) the email windows are not open to the full screen. And then they actually have folders, adds and other things all around them. Keep your emails slimmer. And the centering of the font, no separation between text, and the images that are shoved to the left are making me cry. Not crying to donate, but crying to help the Red Cross with their emails.
Reno Tahoe:
Have you heard of padding? This email is so stuffed in areas and then so empty in others. Maybe it was due to my email client, but heck, test it. And the colors and images had ZERO symetry in my opinion. Maybe this is why Reno is Reno and Vegas is Vegas.
View image
Silicon Valley: Yahoo:
Comments (2)
| Posted by dylan at 7:00 AM | Permalink
Taking a peak through our inboxes, we found some examples of great campaigns that are featured for a few reasons. What stood out in what we chose was that almost all of these are consumer focused campaigns. Is this a flaw in B to B email design? 1. Design: You have 2-3 seconds to make an impact, make sure your creative pops. See the Campaigns at the Jump Abercrombie: AdCritic: Adobe Edge: BestCo: Banana Republic/PiperLime: Cerulean Jet: Clark Lewis: Cooking.com Dell Small Business: FedEx: H2O SkinCare: Hallamark: The Henry Ford: EA Sports: Nike:
Comments (2)
| Posted by dylan at 7:00 AM | Permalink
It makes me cringe when I get emails from people I like and they render a TEXT version with NO copy. I know that this message was meant to have an image and HTML in it (as I got it in my inbox) but when it rendered on my BlackBerry, it should have been set to give me TEXT. Instead I got this. ------Original Message------ To no longer receive our emails, click to unsubscribehttp://ui.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?p=un&m=1101134456030&ea=XXXXXX@XXXXX&se=10722&t=1101517810107&lang=en&reason=F Wouldn't it have been better to test your email first in order to see how the text version is sent? I know we make sure to do this and coach our clients to do so as well. REMINDER: Take the time to test send an email campaign to multiple email clients before sending it out. Create a list in your email marketing platform so you can do this as a step everytime.
Comments (0)
| Posted by dylan at 4:53 AM | Permalink
We rely on WebEx all day long to bring clients across the globe together for demos, tranings, webinars and other events where we cannot sit side by side due to time or distance. What we have seen recently is that they WebEx Meeting reminders are actually being caught in our junk box. Most importantly not our Junk Box but I would assume those of our clients as well. We brought it to their attention last week, but the purpose of this post is to let you know that there are so many things out of the control with each email sent (heck I had emails delayed in my MSN Live Mail box last week up to 6 hours - that I needed on my PC). Many of the things found in the headers of this email explained to us why this was happening. Easy things to fix, but you need to be aware of EVERY detail when sending a campaign.
Comments (1)
| Posted by dylan at 5:48 AM | Permalink
Sent to me by Return Path. Thought that Return Path’s annual holiday email consumer survey would be of interest to you. Recently posted to their Web site, it shows how consumers are becoming more email savvy and emarketers are continuing to ignore this fact. While consumers say that they were “glad to hear about all the holiday special offers”, emarketers use of tactics such as more messages, outdated contact lists, and loose unsubscribe practices, has prompted consumers to more actively manage their inboxes. 54% of respondents “even go to the trouble of setting up filters to block out email from specific senders.” The full survey can be found here: http://www.returnpath.biz/pdf/holidaySurvey06.pdf
Comments (0)
| Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
I was forwarded this email from a co-worker that he found on Campaign Monitors site. They do a good job of producing content and studies in their blog. So I wanted to make sure to give them props. This chart should ONLY be used as a light reference, as everyone has different rates. We produce studies like this as well each quarter (look for the Q4 2006 to be released soon) and make sure to tell people that this should be read with an idea that these studies are combined industry measurements and may not be reflective of your own campaigns.
Comments (0)
| Posted by dylan at 5:00 AM | Permalink
Remember that Outlook 2007 has dropped IE as it's HMTL email manager. Meaning that when HTML email is sent, it is using the Word 2007 HTML engine, which has very limited CSS support. Imagine designing websites in Word (what a set back for email) and that is what you are going to get in this new release. There will be a lot of these type errors with HTML email rendering as people start upgrading to the new Office 2007. Fortunately from our test machine we have set up we found that MANY PCs are not going to have the power (RAM, Ethernet Cards, 1 GIG memory) to actually install the full version of Vista. But they are going to be able to upgrade to Outlook 2007 by itself. So we are going to be hard at work testing what does and does not work. Reminds me of how hard it is to get HTML emails to render exactly as sent to Lotus Notes. Looks like background images do not render or colors in this test. From one of our clients that sent this example: Some of you have been waiting to see what the difference is for rendering between new Outlook and old. Attached is an email that went to clients new Outlook along w/ a screen shot (they look the same to me) and an email to Outlook before upgrade.
Tell me how many fonts and sizes you see here? And does that baby blue really stand out against the black? Nope. I lost count on the font sizes. I would think that the brain trust in the Valley could do better than this and make sure not to have broken images in the email. (See the Red X). Maybe this was fed from a web page or RSS feed, but if so, set some CSS style sheets around your template to address those for you. 
Does this remind you of looking at Yahoo through the WayBack Machine? This email is so choppy with text and images that I am afraid when I see one of the largest media properties ruining email for the rest of us. I had the pleasure of working on some email deisgn projects last summer for Yahoo and I had hoped that some of the dialogue and work we put in would have made an impact. But with a machine as large as Yahoo, seems many people aren't talking to one another. 
February Best Of Email
2. Calls to Action: They are clear and typically above the fold in the preview pane.
3. Concise: We all love to read, but many times too much copy confuses the recipient to know what you want them to do.
4. Organization: Look at how they organize copy, images and navigation to understand why they are tops of this month's list.
Well this was the first in a while that really focused on the clothes and not on the sex appeal of the people wearing the clothes. I like it as it was small enough to capture the preview pane, and gave me just one main thing to do. Buy clothes.
They are normally a little TEXT heavy, but they are expected to deliver a recap of what is going on each week. What I find that I like is the use of the video on the right with the fake play buttons. Most of us know that video does not work in the email client for most people (prove me wrong) and this button makes me think that I can watch them right there. 
After reading this for a few years, it was good to see the change of formats. They went to a simple image driven with a read more link to drive me to click through. I think that this highlights a little philosophy of you have to give to get. I would wager that their click through rates went up but I would also wager that Vista is going to destroy this back ground. 
Alaska Airlines:
Now I have been a fan of the relevant content that Alaska sends to me each week. I would not say that they are a favorite due to design. They could really clean this up with more color separations with the content and some more imagery. But the fact that it is relevant to me each and every week due to the content, scores it high and keeps me subscibed.
Now not being a shopper of BestCo, but a subscriber, I find that these retail type emails keep it clean and easy to make up my mind of what I think I might want to do. I would not say that they are always relevant (actually really general) but they do present well and tell me what my next action is IF I am interested in the email offer.
This one is special as it is one sister company using the list of another. I find that when I see this happen, I appreciate the header at the top keeping me understanding of where they are really being sent from. So cheers to you. The creative at Piper Lime is always great, clean and simple. And the name of the newsletter was par for the course, Fresh Juice. 
Now we aren't high rolling corporate jet fliers at eROI, but we do appreciate a well positioned business email. It gives me enough text to understand the value proposition, shows me the card system that helps me to understand how it works (would love one of those cards in my wallet), and give me a clear call to action. 
We see so many poor Restaurant emails. I am not sure why so many are just text and contest emails. Is that what you think drives your patrons to your doors? I think it is the food. And Clark Lewis is all about the food. This email is always simple, clean and shows me why I want to go back before I dig in to read about what is going on. The way the text is lined up I would typically say bothers me, but this is the style of the whole experience so it works. MMMMM (and that is not because I just ate there last week).
If you are a chef or just like to cook, you like to know where your tools are at all times. This email does a good job of looking organized and ready to help you cook that next meal. The ecom layout of some brands can be challenging, but when you keep the look like the shopping experience your subscribers are used to, it works. If you just would have shown me one item, I might have passed, but this one helps to appeal to what I might need or an impulse buy.
My first impression of this email is, Thanks for the color separations. They really help me to understand where to go. When you arrange alot of text with images and actions, it is nice to find a way to section the items either with color or even lines.
Why does a black or white background make colors pop? Not quite sure but the use of orange in this email shows me exactly what I can do. It guides the eye to the actionable areas. The use of the images bring out the emotional impact of why I love photos so much when you only have 2-3 seconds to get my attention (ask the team at eROi about that). 
When you are going to need to use the "word" free in your campaign, many people are afraid of it. You really don't need to worry about that as much if you have a good IP, good reputation and you have good content. But when you want to make it pop, add it to the image area for good measure. This email is good with the color balance they chose for this time of year, but I would be afraid for it with images suppressed. I like it, but worry for it. 
I am going to go on record here and state that I am a fan of the 3 column layout. It makes best use of the window, keeps the copy and images to a good length, and drives me to read down. The detail work on this email is nice but I would be concerned on how it stays together in some of the "culprit" email clients like Lotus Notes, old AOL, and Entourage. The header video is very nicely laid out and the titles of each article pull the creative together. And notice that this email is not really driving me to buy a card to mail at the store, but driving me online to take action.
Great Re-opt in campaign. Clear value statement, a what's in it for me, and the form clearly tells me what they are looking from me to get before I click through to complete it. Now the form may not work in every email client, but it illustrates for me what I need to do in order to participate. Set the value, define the action and make me know what I need to do... homerun.
The annual BDay email campaign needs to reward. That is exactly what they did. They drove a personalized campaign to me, gave me the code dynamically in the email and let me get a benefit of being on the email. I am a sucker for these emails whether it is a Bday, anniversary or annual recognition of me joining the list. I would wager that this campaign is one of theirs and others best performing ecom email campaigns. Do you have an anniversary date with your subscribers you can use? 
The follow up email helps to set the stage for a relationship. Nike had a series of January campaigns prodding people to make a commitment and stick to it. This one circles back to see where you are in your goals and how you are doing. If only a reminder, it is a well designed and simple campaign that makes it personal without being personal. 
February 9, 2007
Verify Your Test Versions of HTML Emails
From: XXXXX
To: XXXXX@XXXX.com
ReplyTo: team@XXXX.com
Sent: Jan 19, 2007 11:11 AM
Subject: Mary J. Blige- Who will be our next winner?
You are receiving this email from XXXXX XXXXX because you registered on our website. To ensure that you continue to receive emails from us, add team@XXXX.com to your address book today. February 8, 2007
When WebEx Reminders Can't be Delivered
X-Spam-Report:
* 1.0 NO_REAL_NAME From: does not include a real name
* 0.0 UNPARSEABLE_RELAY Informational: message has unparseable relay
* lines
* 0.4 HTML_30_40 BODY: Message is 30% to 40% HTML
* 0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
* 0.2 MIME_BASE64_NO_NAME RAW: base64 attachment does not have a file
* name
* 1.9 MIME_BASE64_TEXT RAW: Message text disguised using base64 encoding
February 7, 2007
If You Have Not Read the Return Path Study
February 6, 2007
Basic Chart of Open Rates
February 5, 2007
How Vista and Office 2007 Will Impact HTML Emails
Hi guys,
First email is the actual design.
Then in the New Outlook 2007
What will be different?
For a quick overview of the highlights, read below. (Note that many of these changes affect HTML-level elements in your email design.)
No background images in DIV tags and TABLE cells.
No nested background colors. A background color in a DIV or TABLE cell displays fine. However, if you nest another TABLE or DIV within the element, the background color vanishes.
No FLOAT or POSITION attribute in DIV tags. In other words, CSS-based layouts won't work in Outlook 2007. Tables only going forward.
No FORM tags. Quite simply, embedded email surveys will not work in Outlook 2007. What’s even worse, Outlook 2007 actually strips out the form elements, so your recipients will not be able to tell if a form was there to begin with. (We suggest mitigating this with a "Problems with the survey? Complete it online." link at the top of your message.)
No animated .gif files or Flash content. Animated .gif files just won’t animate. With Flash, you’ll just get a big red X.
Comments (2) | Posted by dylan at 5:00 AM | Permalink
February 3, 2007
The Internet is a Series of Tubes
I had been searching for this the other day and found it on WikiPedia. Thanks to our new client SplashCastMedia.com for the remix in one of their channels created by a producer from Engadget.
Having people like Sen. Ted Stevens (who obiviously knows nothing about the internet NOR email) making speeches like this scares me.
Series of tubes was a metaphor used by United States Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), to describe the Internet in a Wednesday, June 28, 2006 speech about network neutrality, possibly confusing it with networking terms like "pipes" or "tunnels". Stevens was criticizing a proposed amendment to a bill in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation which would have prohibited Internet service providers from charging fees to give some companies higher priority access to their networks or their customers. The metaphor became emblematic of the speech (and Stevens's seemingly poor understanding of the Internet) despite Stevens making several other odd comparisons and references.
Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially. [...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 3:05 PM | Permalink
February 2, 2007
Full Service Email Marketing a Rarity? Or the New Black?
I was surprised to read this morning that Vertical Response is rolling out a "new" FULL Service email marketing service. http://verticalresponse.blogs.com/verticalresponse_blog/2007/01/vr_now_offers_f.html They referred to it like this, " Yep, we're going back in time to the days where your gas is pumped for ya." Heck maybe since we are in Oregon (One of Two states in the US where it is illegal to pump your own gas) that we have always offered this service. We simply refer to what they are promoting as customer service and support.
Now not to discount what they are offering, but it really should not be thought of as new or a WOW factor. Getting back to customer service and helping clients with email campaigns should be a focus. We do it day in and day out. It is interesting how they have set costs against it as flat fees, which could be good, but it could also be a loss leader once they get down the road with this. It might just be a hook to get more accounts and in the end they might get run over with the "3-5 Business Days" if too many clients take advantage of it. I mean charging for something that they promote in their footer tagline as "Create a Campaign in minutes" makes me wonder why people need to pay for help with this ESP.
In closing, remember the customer deserves support, training, assistance and guidance and just give it to them. That is what we do at eROI and why we have customers with great impactful email campaigns.
Let me know how it goes VR. Cheers.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:25 AM | Permalink
February 1, 2007
In Email Marketing Limbo
I wanted to appologize for not being as verbose this past week. I typically like to post everyday and had things to share, but I have been working with so many clients on current and new projects this week that I have barely had time to surface for air, eat lunch or write. I will be getting back into the groove this coming week.
I hope you had time to read some of the past entries this week and look forward to writing more.
If you need other resources in my absence:
http://www.emailexperience.org (Look for a new design this coming week) Great resources and studies. Opt in for the newsletter and join 1000s of email marketers across the world here.
http://www.returnpath.biz/ I turn t o them everyday to help with our reputation management, client email rendering and ISP deliverability audits.
http://retailemail.blogspot.com/ If you are after email news on Retail Email, this is the spot.
http://www.b2bemailmarketing.com/ Tamara Gielen from eBay Belgium wraps up the world wide news in email.
http://www.returnonsubscriber.com/ Good Insight on how to best reach the subscriber and thoughts around good (and bad) email marketing.
Talk to you next week.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:51 PM | Permalink
Syndicate this site (XML)
