by Michele Shubert | December 15th, 2011
The world of email marketing is one of constant change. As spammers find ways to circumvent spam filters, the filters become smarter and more sophisticated. And email marketers who want their messages to make it to recipients’ inboxes have to stay up-to-date and make constant adjustments to their email marketing program.
There’s an email in my inbox from a company name I recognize. It’s from a large company, a national brand, one I have not given permission to email me. Studying marketing messages we receive from other companies and analyzing our personal reactions to them can help us learn and improve our own email marketing practices.
Let’s take a look at the email.
Here’s the subject line: “Connect 2012 – 5 Reasons to Connect.” Not super enticing, but there’s a smidgeon of interest. It’s from a Fortune 500 company, so I’m inclined to open it. But since I never signed up to receive emails from this sender, there’s hesitation. It’s probably spam. Spammers are smart like that.
Tip: Even though your recipients know who you are, if you send to them without their permission, they may think you’re a spammer. Read More »
by Cynthia Fedor | December 9th, 2011
Any communication from a business, including emails, is an extension of brand. The tone set by email design represents part of the brand’s story. It conveys a great deal about an email’s sender and the email’s purpose before any content is read by the recipient. Additionally, design affects how email platforms filter, categorize and display messages. Therefore, understanding design in these terms will help marketers improve deliverability and ROI.
Here are some best practices to follow for effective email design.
Understanding the objective of an email
Understanding the main purpose and goal of an email communication is critical to developing effective email design. The design strategy will change based upon the objective and intended goal. For example, newsletters should have a different design and layout than a sales email or brand-building email. This is because recipients look for visual cues to guide them through the email’s content and to determine how it should be read.
The main goal of an email message is also important to understand prior to developing design because it helps designate where to place different elements such as call-to-action buttons, links, phone numbers and images within the email.
Anatomy of an email
Email design is not solely confined within the main body of a message. Good design starts before a recipient even opens and views the content contained within an email message. Following are the five parts on an email as viewed by the recipient:
THE ‘FROM’ NAME
The ‘From’ of an email tells the recipient about the sender. Typically, it’s also the first field recipients see when viewing all the emails collected in their inbox. Having a clear and recognizable name will prevent an email from being immediately deleted by the recipient. The Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC), reports that 73% of opted-in recipients delete email or report it as spam based on the information in the ‘From’ field. So, by using a company name, the name of a familiar associate or product name in the ‘From’ field, marketers may cut down on the rate at which recipients delete or report emails as spam. Read More »
by Cynthia Fedor | November 14th, 2011
I’m sure you’ve heard these two statements before: 1) It takes more time, effort, and money to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. 2) Eighty percent of your business comes from twenty percent of your customers (the Pareto principle or 80–20 rule).
These are common principles to hear in business marketing. They suggest that if a marketer simply focuses on improving customer retention and loyalty, they can maintain revenue or even increase revenue over time. As Fred Reichheld states in his book, The Loyalty Effect, “a five percent improvement in customer retention rates will yield between a 25 to 100% increase in profits across a wide range of industries.” Keeping this in mind, why do many small businesses seem to ignore easy opportunities to ask for repeat business from existing customers?
I’m asking because just recently I realized that it had been over three years since my last eye exam, just under a year since my last hair cut, and a really long time since I had someone clean out my home’s air ducts. Receiving an email communication or direct mail postcard from my providers could not only act as a reminder for me to schedule an appointment but would also let me know that they’re thinking of me; that they want my repeat business. Read More »
by Michele Shubert | October 10th, 2011
Uh-oh. You sent the email. And then you noticed the mistake. Oops! Now what?!
Mistake emails happen to all digital marketers. Even well-known, experienced marketers mess up. Of course, we don’t plan to make mistakes. But when a mistake happens (and it will), what is most important is how you respond — and how quickly you respond — after you realize the email is wrong.
Not long ago, I sent an email to a freshly uploaded list and noticed several replies come in within minutes after the email was deployed. The first was from Robert asking why his email salutation was to Stephanie. Another was from Victoria, wondering why she was being addressed as Anthony. Uh-oh. After checking the data, I realized what had happened — the entire list had been incorrectly sorted and the uploaded data was mismatched. Wait! Undo!
There’s no undo when it comes to email marketing. You can’t take it back. You can, however, apologize. And if you do it right, you can make it work in your favor.
Soon after discovering what had happened, the recipients of the blundered email received a follow-up with an apology explaining that the mistake was due to our (my) human error. What amazed me were the replies we received after sending the apology. One said, “At least now I know you’re human!” Another recipient admitted, “I didn’t open the first email you sent. But when I saw a second email from you with ‘correction’ in the subject line, I opened and read the message and was impressed by your honesty.”
What you do after a mistake is made is what matters. First, decide whether your mistake merits an apology. I mean, do you really want to send a second email because of a tiny typo that most subscribers will overlook? If the mistake is not a big one, it might be better to avoid pointing it out.
Here are some tips on sending an effective apology email:
- Send the apology as soon as possible after you discover the mistake.
- Indicate it’s an apology/correction in the subject line.
- You may only need to add a paragraph at the beginning of your original email content; more serious mistakes may call for a dedicated apology.
- Be sincere and true to your brand. You can use humor to poke fun at yourself or make light of your goof. Or, if that doesn’t fit your brand’s personality or the seriousness of the error, just be honest and admit you messed up.
- Keep it simple. You don’t need to go into detail about what went wrong.
- If the mistake inconvenienced your subscribers, make it up to them by including an offer.
- Make sure your apology email is free of mistakes!
Have you found yourself needing to apologize for an email mistake? How did you handle it? Please comment with advice or tips you think might help other email marketers.
by Luis Paez | September 15th, 2011
Email marketers all over the world are pulling their hair out A/B testing subject lines & images within email versions to try to increase open rates & CTR but 95% of them aren’t thinking a more basic element of marketing: Coordination. I just received this email from a company that I evaluated last year, and because I get 100+ emails daily, I normally would have scanned the email and moved on to the next marketing email in my inbox, but something resonated with me about this email. I suddenly realized that I received a mailed flyer yesterday from the same company, and it was still hanging around on my desk. I took the time to both look through the direct mail piece which had an intriguing gift card offer, and the complementary email with the same imagery and branding, and realized that I was thinking very critically about the value of their software. In other words, the email worked!
The email was extremely effective because it was paired with another marketing touch AND the timing was coordinated so that the email hit my inbox at the approximate time that I had received the direct mail piece. These days, with intelligent mail & digital printing it’s Read More »
