The Whitelist » Email marketing and design

Preview Pane, or Preview Pain?

Sharon — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:14:15 +0000

Image blocking within the Preview Pane can be so frustrating, it should probably be called the Preview Pain. But that pain reminds us that that there’s something important going on up there.

That Pane/Pain is a precious piece of on-screen real estate that needs a lot of attention paid to it. After all, after the From address and the subject line, the Preview Pane is the third most important element you have to get people to open your emails.

And if your emails don’t get opened, you won’t have any conversions, so what’s the point of having a great deliverability rate if your emails don’t make money?

The Preview Pane is limited in size, it might be horizontal or vertical, it appears differently in different email clients, it might or might not allow images…and you have to pay attention to it. Period.

For more on this topic, download our latest whitepaper on driving ROI after you get into the inbox.

Just When You Thought You Had ‘alt’ Tags Figured Out…

Sharon — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:40:36 +0000

…Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports gives us email marketing people a great article warning of the pitfalls of ‘alt’ tags. As he points out, different email clients handle blocked images different ways. For one thing, it’s not just about the alt text, although many email marketers focus on that. You have to be careful about attributes too. That means beyond alternative words to display when images are blocked, you must set attributes like height and width too.

The article is easy to read with plenty of samples to illustrate his points. It’s a little scary too, I confess. Even as a seasoned email marketer, I’m constantly amazed at how different results can be in different email clients! This article illustrates that point really well.

It’s also yet another reminder that the only way to ensure your emails look and act the way you intend them to once you send your email marketing campaign is to test, test and test.

Think of it this way: If you don’t test, you don’t need to worry about your email marketing ROI, because there won’t be any to speak of or point to when it’s time to argue for next year’s budget!

Avoid eMail Design Disasters By Avoiding These Tags

Sharon — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:12:16 +0000

Email marketing has many moving parts to it…often more than those in charge of email marketing are even aware.

It is a truism that for many companies, the email marketing department is either under-staffed or under-trained. Email marketing therefore tends to be a job that people fall into rather than train for and seek out.

But part of our task as an email marketing service provider is to educate. Hence this blog, and our newly launched email newsletter. And our recent whitepaper. After the jump, an excerpt from the whitepaper on avoiding tags that invite disaster…

Below is a snippet from the whitepaper, illustrating a critical and often overlooked aspect of email marketing and design: email html is not the same as the html you use for a Web site. If your email marketing design is built as if it’s a Web page, be careful.

For example, there are several tags you want to avoid in your email design because they don’t function in all email clients. Some will even get your email flagged as spam or kept out by an ISP. These tags can affect rendering, but really your first goal is to get your email delivered, so just don’t use them. The risky tags are:

elements meaning background color on a page or setting page margins because it’s ripped out in Web clients: the open and close body tags are ripped out
Page margins “0″
Background images, whether for the page, a table, a cell; none of these are supported. You can use background colors for tables and cells but not images
Layers are a fun way to control some functionality as well as layout, but they don’t work in email, so don’t use them
Rollovers, at mouse state; these don’t work because they’re dictated with JavaScript, which you’re not using in your email, remember?
Forms
; if you have a post or even a get form method, it won’t work

For more email marketing and design information, download the whitepaper.

eMarketing A/B Split Tests = eMarketing ROI Improvements

Sharon — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:48:55 +0000

Savvy email marketers know there’s a wealth of information to be gleaned from their email service provider’s (ESP’s) reporting tools. But despite the depth of that data, you’re not learning anything new. If your open rate is 32%, for example, then that’s your open rate. It might be higher or lower than your last campaign, but you won’t know why.

Unless you test.

It’s only by testing that you can continue refining your email marketing campaigns, improving open rates, conversion rates…and ultimately email marketing ROI, right?

The easiest way to test email marketing campaigns is with an A/B split test. An A/B split test means splitting your list into two, then trying two different things with it (like two different subject lines). Whichever one performs better tells you something. Maybe a shorter, more promotional subject line performs better than a longer, dryer one. That tells you your audience might prefer the shorter, more sales-y subject lines, and you can use that knowledge going forward for your next email marketing campaign.

You can test pretty much any email marketing and design component in your email campaigns:

From names
Subject lines
Personalization
Offers
Calls to action
Images
Delivery days or times
Click throughs
Amount of copy
Type of content
Html vs. text
Frequency
Layout

To do an A/B split test, divide your list into two groups: one is A, one is B. Now change one, just one, thing about the emails between them. (If you have more than one variable, you can’t accurately measure your results.) Then send out your emails to both groups at the same time (to avoid the time variable). Finally, compare your results and learn. That’s all there is to it.

You can either do an A/B test to your entire list (if it’s small), or you can do an A/B to a statistically significant size portion of your list. Your email test group should be at least 10,000 email addresses to be statistically significant.

Wait, there is one more step: Keep on testing. Make it a habit. If you do, you’ll keep on learning, improving, and increasing that email marketing ROI.

What to include in your email marketing…and what to leave out

Sharon — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:08:10 +0000

Below is a quick overview of some of the many pieces each of your email marketing messages should include, or not, to up your email marketing ROI. We’ve drawn this list from our newest ClickMail Marketing whitepaper: You’ve made it to the inbox. Now what? Definitely download the email marketing whitepaper to get more details about each of these components. But for now, here’s a high-level list to get you thinking-and checking. Because email marketing and design are much more complicated than some marketers realize! And checklists can help make our jobs just a little bit easier…

To get your email opened, include:

A From address that is recognizable to the recipient
A clear, compelling subject line
As much personalization as is appropriate and possible
A quick, to-the-point hook

To get your email acted upon, include:

A professionally crafted description of your offer/message right at the beginning
A reason to act right away
A simple and easy way to respond
3 to 5 instances of your call-to-action

To follow best practices and please your recipients, include:

A “view as web page” link
A straight-forward unsubscribe to opt-out
A link to a profile center or preferences page

To organically grow your in-house email marketing list, include:

A FTF/FTC (forward to a friend, forward to a colleague) link

To increase your email marketing ROI even more, do not include:

Competing links in a campaign email; include only one action

Like I said, this is just a summary, but can at least get you started double-checking your email marketing and design. For more details about these email marketing components, and many others that will help you maximize your email marketing ROI, download the email marketing whitepaper at http://www.clickmailmarketing.com/resources/whitepapers.html.