Posted by Tamara Gielen on May 09, 2008 | Permalink
Posted by Kath Pay on May 08, 2008 | Permalink | Category: Industry News
The UK DMA Email Marketing Council have been busy!
Not content with resting after their re-design of their newsletter, Infobox a couple of month's ago, they've now launched an Email Marketing Blog which aims to impart and encourage Best Practise as well as discuss relevent and topical issues.
Some of the blogs already posted are:
Beyond opens and clicks: why it's time for new metrics
Has Legislation helped?
Getting opened in the business inbox
Spam is in the eye of the beholder
Test. Send. Analyse. Change. Repeat
So check it out: www.dmaemailblog.co.uk and while you're at it, why not sign up for the newsletter?
Posted by Tamara Gielen on May 07, 2008 | Permalink | Category: Industry News
Did the EEC spam its members? Ken Magill certainly seems to think so. Here's what really happened:
in celebration of Earth Day the eec thought it would be nice to give something free to our subscribers (just like we did when we gave away free dice from SubscriberMail during the holidays 2 years ago). We decided to go with one free issue of VIV magazine. We chose this because it both demonstrated how email can extend into the digital world even further and because it is an all “green” publication.
Sadly, when the service message was set to send, notifying people their eec gift was ready for review, a few things went awry:
- People received two or more emails with this notification
- The context of the eec Earth Day gift was left off the copy
While no one’s information was rented or sold to any other company, admittedly, the perceived recipient experience looked pretty poor.
Source: EEC blog
Now, we all know that Ken Magill likes to post controversial articles and he's not afraid to spread gossip either, but he does have a point in his article: VIV Magazine had no business sending emails to the EEC list: EEC members never opted in to receive emails from third parties (it doesn't matter that the email was announced) and the offer (a digital woman's magazine) was completely irrelevant to a large part of its member base (a gift that would have been of value to all EEC members would have been eg. free access to one of their reports/studies).
However, let's not make this any bigger than it is. As far as I'm concerned, this was a mistake and I'm willing to forgive them for it.
Jeanniey has done and is doing wonderful things with the Email Experience Council and I would hate to see the EEC lose credibility over this.
And to answer Ken's question: Jeanniey assured me that the email addresses of EEC members were not added to Zinio's database.
You can read Ken's article here.
Posted by Tamara Gielen on May 06, 2008 | Permalink
Posted by Tamara Gielen on May 04, 2008 | Permalink
Posted by Tamara Gielen on May 03, 2008 | Permalink
Posted by Tamara Gielen on May 02, 2008 | Permalink | Category: Trends
Industry vet Bill McCloskey (founder and chairman of Email Data Source) lists these key trends in email marketing:
1. The largest corporations shifting focus from e-mail marketing to newer channels.
Many of the larger Fortune 100 companies are pulling their attention away from e-mail and instead looking at other new marketing channels, such as mobile texting, RSS, blogging and social networks. The tried and true e-mail marketing campaign is not the hot, exciting toy in the boardroom at these companies. It’s more exciting now to say, “Here’s our mobile marketing campaign.” Some of the budgets for e-mail are now being targeted to other early-stage marketing channels.
2. More smaller companies jumping on the e-mail marketing bandwagon.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed over the last six months stronger interest in smaller companies using e-mail in their b-to-b efforts. The insurance industry and others are beginning to see a lot of excitement in e-mail marketing because the technology is more sophisticated and it’s easier for them to create the campaigns and manage them. The [e-mail management] companies marketing specifically to smaller businesses can make sure the campaigns look good, and they’re delivered to the inbox instead of getting blocked by the ISPs. The price point has come down, too, so now we are seeing the smaller guys using e-mail marketing to level the playing field.
3. E-mail marketing campaigns expanding beyond in-house lists.
In the b-to-b world, a lot of successful marketing is happening through sponsorship of affinity newsletters and magazines online. Lots of people in a particular business subscribe to the trade magazines of that industry and they see the banner ads and white papers offered by companies that advertise in those affinity publications. Those are very successful campaigns that will drive a dramatic spike in traffic to your site. Marketers have to decide how much money to spend developing an in-house list versus spending it on advertising in trade publications.
4. Brands being compromised in the marketplace.
Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed a big increase in the number of spam e-mail and phishing schemes where people are illegally using large technology companies’ domains ... to get their own word out to sophisticated users. It also goes beyond others trying to sell Viagra with your company’s e-mail. Some companies may be incorporating your brand into their logo or e-mails without your knowledge. It’s important to monitor your e-mails if you want to protect your brand.
Source: BtoB Online
Posted by Tamara Gielen on May 02, 2008 | Permalink | Category: Copywriting , Email Tactics , Getting started
1) Simplicity.
It's the old KISS metaphor (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Email has an attention-capturing window of opportunity that is greatly diminishing. Some say three seconds, some five, but either way, it isn't a lot of time. Nielson Norman Group produced a newsletter usability report in June of 2006 ("Email Newsletter Usability") which indicated an average newsletter has the reader for up to 40-50 seconds, while a marketing or promotional email retains the reader for less than 5 seconds.
The fact is we read less, scan more, and make decisions based on where we are drawn into the message--some through a contextual hero image, some through flow of images, typography and layout, and some by modularity. You should understand the basic principles: a simple call to action, buttons, text links and image roll-overs make quick comprehension easier. If it doesn't pass the scan test, then it won't be compelling.
I recommend you test your design on an internal focus group. Flash the email in front of them for five seconds and have them tell you what it said and what the call to action was. If they can't tell you, then you should consider revising.
2) Color.
Go back to the principles of design and use contrasting colors, but do so for the right reasons: to draw the eye, reinforce a value statement, and amplify the call to action. In addition, you have another consideration - how your colors appear within the email inbox interface. Do your light blue borders get muted out in AOLs predominately blue interface? Cool design can get blurred when there is an animated image of an eBay IT campaign flashing at the bottom. Is there a competition of cohesive?
3) Proportion.
While the email industry has migrated to a concept of design in which the top 200-300 pixels are a virtual banner, too many designs have disproportionate layouts (almost like an hourglass). Your email should flow smoothly and be evenly distributed if your intent is for the reader to flow through content. Eye tracking studies show how most users scan e-mail and apply those logics (if you want more information on this, check out http://www.eyetools.com.) If the intent is to design a singular message, then design it to a five-second preview. That way the eye is conditioned to the flow and not tempted to roam.
4) Message focus.
Email is direct response, not a website. Infuse what you know about good media and banner design into your creative by minimizing your real estate. This will cause you to be more concise in your messaging and creative treatments. Just because you have a never-ending scroll doesn't mean you need to use it all. Use imagery to quickly communicate a message, not merely for beautification. While I love the retail industry, the cataloger view of delivering email messages (with the large postcard-like image) has shown diminishing response. Catalogers are continually amazed when simple SALE messages, without that large postcard image, result in a boost in sales. Never forget that because this is a sales message, a response is required.
Posted by Tamara Gielen on May 02, 2008 | Permalink | Category: About this blog
Lots of folks have asked me how I added the Twitter feed to the sidebar of this blog, so I thought I'd post it here. Let me start by saying it is super easy to do :-)
Sign in to your Twitter account, go to http://twitter.com/badges/which_badge, and select "Flash, with friends" other. You can style the widget any way you want by changing colors and font sizes and then you copy the code to your website. It's as simple as that...
In this case I created a separate Twitter account called "emailexperts" and with this account I'm following a bunch of email professionals. The feed shows all the people that I follow with this account. Want to be added? Just follow @emailexperts on Twitter and I'll follow you back :-)
Come on folks, it's time to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. You'll love it, I promise! :-)
Posted by Tamara Gielen on May 02, 2008 | Permalink | Category: Miscellaneous
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