One of the great assets of Html email is its ability to present images - images which help sell the message of your email.
Images help break up, and consequently complement and illustrate content A good pic replaces a 1000 words. In fact, the pics, if done well, dictate the content - which should say only what the image cannot say.
The temptation, of course, is to load your email with images - but the consequence is either excessive overall file size, or poor quality images. Neither is very helpful.
So balancing the image equation is essential - get it right, and sales could go through the roof. Get it wrong, and deliverability and rendering issues, or simply poor presentation will lower response rates dramatically.
You do not need to be a professional photographer to get good images - digicams allow for lots of experimentation, and a little imagination goes a long way in making a pic look both attractive and artistic. Think location and context, background and angles.
Get your pictures right and people will read your text - and then you are a long way down the track to getting your message across, and appropriate action taken.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
I like bouncing
We are about to undertake an interesting exercise - testing our bounce reporting mechanisms.
Every email deployment results with a number of bounces, and our mailing software duly lists a variety of reasons for why messages have bounced. Do we trust them?
I guess the answer is no - which is why we are going to strip out all the bounced emails and send them a special message asking if they receive them or not. If not, then we will cull them, but I bet there will be some who say yes.
If I am right, does this throw up the whole issue of how accurate email metrics are?
My gut feel is that they are inaccurate, but consistently so - which is why we always encourage clients to look at trends rather than actual numbers when assessing campaign metrics. Trends are more valuable anyway.
We recently established a really good upwards trend for a new client by making a series of improvements over a period of weeks - opening rates, responses and orders have all grown consistently. Historically the client, with a DIY email set-up, had little faith in the medium. Now they love it!
We'll report back shortly on the bounce test results - could be interesting!
Every email deployment results with a number of bounces, and our mailing software duly lists a variety of reasons for why messages have bounced. Do we trust them?
I guess the answer is no - which is why we are going to strip out all the bounced emails and send them a special message asking if they receive them or not. If not, then we will cull them, but I bet there will be some who say yes.
If I am right, does this throw up the whole issue of how accurate email metrics are?
My gut feel is that they are inaccurate, but consistently so - which is why we always encourage clients to look at trends rather than actual numbers when assessing campaign metrics. Trends are more valuable anyway.
We recently established a really good upwards trend for a new client by making a series of improvements over a period of weeks - opening rates, responses and orders have all grown consistently. Historically the client, with a DIY email set-up, had little faith in the medium. Now they love it!
We'll report back shortly on the bounce test results - could be interesting!
Monday, April 13, 2009
All gone quiet over here
Has anyone else noticed the recent decline in the volume of email marketing received?
Over the last 4 weeks I have observed a marked decrease in the number of messages urging me to buy something. I think I know why.
It is because, as I have been saying for so long, few marketers really understand email - they see it as an extension of the web or worse still, other media.
By pursuing this erroneous belief, companies have failed to engage their email audiences. Poor results lead to disenchantment, and in tough times, a disappointing medium of marketing, however cheap, suddenly becomes negatively cost effective - and gets the chop.
It is disappointing from a number of perspectives - for the company who hoped email would prove a success, for the audiences who signed up in the hope that email would give them access to great deals, and for the industry as a whole - being buried by its own incompetence.
It is also a reflection of the fact that email as a budgetary item is normally included in the web spend - rather than as a standalone item. When the web budget gets cut (and don't get me started on why NZ companies are doing poorly with the online retail by and large), then so does the email.
Email marketing in NZ needs to reinvent itself in order to prosper - that means knowledge acquisition, followed by planning and smart delivery. Kiwis will usually give someone a second chance, but are quick to condemn repetitive mistakes. So the next, probably post recessionary wave of email marketing needs to be better.
Will it be? Well, I hope so, but sadly I doubt it.
Over the last 4 weeks I have observed a marked decrease in the number of messages urging me to buy something. I think I know why.
It is because, as I have been saying for so long, few marketers really understand email - they see it as an extension of the web or worse still, other media.
By pursuing this erroneous belief, companies have failed to engage their email audiences. Poor results lead to disenchantment, and in tough times, a disappointing medium of marketing, however cheap, suddenly becomes negatively cost effective - and gets the chop.
It is disappointing from a number of perspectives - for the company who hoped email would prove a success, for the audiences who signed up in the hope that email would give them access to great deals, and for the industry as a whole - being buried by its own incompetence.
It is also a reflection of the fact that email as a budgetary item is normally included in the web spend - rather than as a standalone item. When the web budget gets cut (and don't get me started on why NZ companies are doing poorly with the online retail by and large), then so does the email.
Email marketing in NZ needs to reinvent itself in order to prosper - that means knowledge acquisition, followed by planning and smart delivery. Kiwis will usually give someone a second chance, but are quick to condemn repetitive mistakes. So the next, probably post recessionary wave of email marketing needs to be better.
Will it be? Well, I hope so, but sadly I doubt it.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Most email marketers pouring money and databases down the drain
Yes, we are in recession. Yes, it will get worse, and yes, more companies are turning to email to market their way out of it.
Is it working?
Well, based on the stuff that hits my inbox, probably not for most of them.
There is still a fundamental lack of understanding amongst many so called email marketers about how best to use the medium. Email advertising doesn't work per se, yet it remains the staple format of what is being sent out.
To make email work as a marketing medium, there are some golden rules that need to be applied:
1. Email is a unique medium that offers a uniquely direct and personal form of communication - so make your offers unique to email - show the value in communicating by email.
2. Be clear about what you want recipients to do, and how to do it. Drowning a sales message in a whirlpool of unnecessary marketing fluff simply disguises your message.
3. Limited offers in limited numbers is a formula that works. Few people will buy all 20 of your special offers in one go, but if they are only offered 2, they might buy one, which leaves 18 more to make similar impact over the next 9 weeks.
4. Most companies use marketing to sell what they want to sell, but you must remember to give buyers reasons to buy. Demand comes from a number of factors - need, availability, price - underline these so a buying decision is an easy one. Emails that simply say here are our cheap offerings this week are treated as companies trying to shift the unsellable.
Understanding the basic principles of email marketing is not rocket science. Getting them right does require a little more thought and intuition, but ignoring them is simply wasting time and money, and right now that seems to be what the majority are doing. What a shame.
Is it working?
Well, based on the stuff that hits my inbox, probably not for most of them.
There is still a fundamental lack of understanding amongst many so called email marketers about how best to use the medium. Email advertising doesn't work per se, yet it remains the staple format of what is being sent out.
To make email work as a marketing medium, there are some golden rules that need to be applied:
1. Email is a unique medium that offers a uniquely direct and personal form of communication - so make your offers unique to email - show the value in communicating by email.
2. Be clear about what you want recipients to do, and how to do it. Drowning a sales message in a whirlpool of unnecessary marketing fluff simply disguises your message.
3. Limited offers in limited numbers is a formula that works. Few people will buy all 20 of your special offers in one go, but if they are only offered 2, they might buy one, which leaves 18 more to make similar impact over the next 9 weeks.
4. Most companies use marketing to sell what they want to sell, but you must remember to give buyers reasons to buy. Demand comes from a number of factors - need, availability, price - underline these so a buying decision is an easy one. Emails that simply say here are our cheap offerings this week are treated as companies trying to shift the unsellable.
Understanding the basic principles of email marketing is not rocket science. Getting them right does require a little more thought and intuition, but ignoring them is simply wasting time and money, and right now that seems to be what the majority are doing. What a shame.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Not a good look?
What makes a great email design? It is an increasingly complicated question. So many different email clients with different rendering protocols. So many different approaches – do you replicate printed media designs, optimise for email or what?
When designing a template for a client, it is important to explain that you cannot please all of the people all of the time – if you want to, then forget Html, use plain text.
We use Html because it enhances branding, it creates a visually appealing environment for your copy and because it allows us to gather metrics.
The golden rule is simplicity. Let your content lead your design, not vice versa. Unless you don’t care about 40% of your audience. That’s the harsh reality of it. Some marketers are happy to sacrifice nearly half their recipients in order to send a print style design through to the remaining 60% - big images with overlaid text everywhere, usually unsupported by Alt text. Or with the most pitiful stuff behind it (image of fish etc).
I believe that people respond to email because of what they read. But images can be a factor in deciding whether to read it or not. So can rich text. So Inbox always lets copy lead design.
But until the impossible dream of standardisation occurs, the design vs rendering conundrum will remain a challenge – an increasingly hard one to win.
When designing a template for a client, it is important to explain that you cannot please all of the people all of the time – if you want to, then forget Html, use plain text.
We use Html because it enhances branding, it creates a visually appealing environment for your copy and because it allows us to gather metrics.
The golden rule is simplicity. Let your content lead your design, not vice versa. Unless you don’t care about 40% of your audience. That’s the harsh reality of it. Some marketers are happy to sacrifice nearly half their recipients in order to send a print style design through to the remaining 60% - big images with overlaid text everywhere, usually unsupported by Alt text. Or with the most pitiful stuff behind it (image of fish etc).
I believe that people respond to email because of what they read. But images can be a factor in deciding whether to read it or not. So can rich text. So Inbox always lets copy lead design.
But until the impossible dream of standardisation occurs, the design vs rendering conundrum will remain a challenge – an increasingly hard one to win.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Out with the old.....
Feeling the recession yet? We did, last week. A long standing client decided they could o better and cheaper themselves, and I quote: "we can access bulk email technology at less than half the price".
I bit my lip and thanked them for their business.
Of course they can access bulk email technology cheaply, just as you can sell the Merc and buy a Skoda and save a few bob. I know the technology will be poor, and I know also, rather sadly, that they do not have the knowledge and skills in house to use it to best effect - that's why they paid us rather more.
Inevitably in a recession, people will look to save money, and often will sacrifice quality in so doing.
The irony is that the 5 new clients we have already picked up this year are upping their spend to sign with us - because they want email to work for them, and have realised that their self-managed, cheap bulk email technology is not producing the goods!
Of course it is sad to lose a client you have spent 4 years developing a professional and effective email communications campaign for, but at the end of the day, if you are sacrificed to cost, they probably attached little value to what you did for them, and losing them was an inevitability at some stage.
So, 2009 is one out, 5 in, and all for the right reasons. Plenty to smile about, and plenty of new clients to do a great job for.
I bit my lip and thanked them for their business.
Of course they can access bulk email technology cheaply, just as you can sell the Merc and buy a Skoda and save a few bob. I know the technology will be poor, and I know also, rather sadly, that they do not have the knowledge and skills in house to use it to best effect - that's why they paid us rather more.
Inevitably in a recession, people will look to save money, and often will sacrifice quality in so doing.
The irony is that the 5 new clients we have already picked up this year are upping their spend to sign with us - because they want email to work for them, and have realised that their self-managed, cheap bulk email technology is not producing the goods!
Of course it is sad to lose a client you have spent 4 years developing a professional and effective email communications campaign for, but at the end of the day, if you are sacrificed to cost, they probably attached little value to what you did for them, and losing them was an inevitability at some stage.
So, 2009 is one out, 5 in, and all for the right reasons. Plenty to smile about, and plenty of new clients to do a great job for.
Monday, February 9, 2009
09 - the year of clarity
I have just finished listening to a really interesting webinar by Herschell Gordon Lewis - one of the USA's pre-eminent thinkers on marketing.
Of course, there is always a danger that when you hear the right voice saying things that make sense, you buy in a little too much - many people say that's how Hitler rose to power.
But Gordon Lewis' message was loud and clear. For email marketing, motivation to respond is a function of clarity and specific benefits. And it is very hard to argue with.
Attention spans are diminishing - as part of our evolution, and as a function of email volume. Recipient reaction must be an immediate "I get it."
Whilst Gordon Lewis was arguing from the background of a professional copywriting expert. I think he could have gone further to align his ideas to email. he omitted to discuss the presentation of email - and made the assumption that recipients would look at the entire message.
I believe what he should have said is that you need to ensure the recipient says "I get it" on the basis of what they see in the preview pane alone. Be clear, direct and engaging. Don't be clever. Cleverness is no longer valid.
Traditionally email begins with a banner. Is that any longer valid? I suspect not. Prime email real estate should support the subject line. A logo and a message should form the header of email. A message which is true. Real bait works better than false bait. Cynicism has grown. Claiming special offers as a preview pane hook which are riddled with subsequent conditions do not work.
More on this soon.
Of course, there is always a danger that when you hear the right voice saying things that make sense, you buy in a little too much - many people say that's how Hitler rose to power.
But Gordon Lewis' message was loud and clear. For email marketing, motivation to respond is a function of clarity and specific benefits. And it is very hard to argue with.
Attention spans are diminishing - as part of our evolution, and as a function of email volume. Recipient reaction must be an immediate "I get it."
Whilst Gordon Lewis was arguing from the background of a professional copywriting expert. I think he could have gone further to align his ideas to email. he omitted to discuss the presentation of email - and made the assumption that recipients would look at the entire message.
I believe what he should have said is that you need to ensure the recipient says "I get it" on the basis of what they see in the preview pane alone. Be clear, direct and engaging. Don't be clever. Cleverness is no longer valid.
Traditionally email begins with a banner. Is that any longer valid? I suspect not. Prime email real estate should support the subject line. A logo and a message should form the header of email. A message which is true. Real bait works better than false bait. Cynicism has grown. Claiming special offers as a preview pane hook which are riddled with subsequent conditions do not work.
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