The Email Wars

One would think that the words used on a button are a no brainer. Things like: “Buy Now”, “Shop Now”, Learn More, “Read >>”, “See It”, and like this example “Go Now” would not matter much. But I want to advance the idea with all of you that they do. They must.

Now I cannot here tell you what is the best, but it has been eating at me lately to try to understand what verb combination would perform best in different emails? Would one phrase work better than another with Business to Business Vs. Business to Consumer? What about in social media? Do we want to hear something different in all of these case OR am I just giving this too much thought?

I would love to hear from some of you on this as I am sure that you have experiences with your email marketing programs that could support a best practice. Now here is the hard part. Maybe it works for you, or maybe you have not experimented with this button language idea enough yet to know.

Does it make a difference not only in the click, but in the conversion? Is there a way to properly set expectations from the click of a button with that individual clicking the mouse? I think that deep down inside we are setting expectations on both sides here.

Sound off and let me know your thoughts please.

We have been fortunate to work with a lot of publishing brands that are heavily embracing new ways to extend the use of their print publications over the past few years. We are starting to see, due to reasons of cost/distribution/reach, that these brands are beginning to use platforms like Zinio to take the print publications and extend them to the web. This past week a brand I enjoy online, Quicksilver, took their print publication to the next level by going the distance of embedding media like video into the “digital flip magazine” idea. 

They not only took it to the web, but took the initiative to use in as a driver in their email marketing program. I loved the approach and the execution, as I think that more brands need to be thinking from a cost/environment way. By not only using it as a cool factor on their website, they also made it a “click factor” in this most recent email campaign. 

Not only that but they dedicated 50% of the email creative to just drive people to it. Massive use of email real estate for a retailer.

Now this is the first time I have seen it used by this brand, but I am hopeful that it sticks around as monthly element. Not only is is cool, but I would think that on site visit times would go through the roof. And isn’t that what you want? Sticky content?

If you have a publication that could benefit from leveraging content you are already creating you should reach out to the folks at Zinio to learn just how easy it is and how well it performs.

How many emails do you get that have pictures of people that are not like you? What do I mean here? Well so many times we see images of people that are not like us at all wearing clothes, using products, in meetings, etc that do not represent who we are. Talk about relevance right? We see men and women. End of story. 

But what if we were to take the approach of using the social media strategy with our emails? What does this mean exactly? Well it means start using pictures of people that buy, use or like your brands? I think that this would be a great new approach in emails and social media. 

How would this work? 

Well an idea I have had for a long time is this… 

1. Someone buys your product

2. You let them know that once they get it you would love a picture of them using it, wearing it, or showing it. 

3. You give them a place to upload a photo of them with the product.

4. You build a showcase to share with others people like them with the relevant product. You could even go as far as using the photos in a ecom site to show others like them wearing the product. 

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This is not an open ended question, as if you are hear reading this blog each week (as 1000’s of you do) you might want to partake of the eROI Monthly “Newsletter”. Why am I telling you about this now? Well it is both timely and relevant as it comes out this week. (I think Tues or Wed this week) and you should sign up now to get it. 

Now our newsletter is not really a “newsletter” as I am not sure what that word really means anymore, but it is a monthly extension of the resources for marketing that we strive to put out in our emarketing blogs and Resource center. You will find things that benefit you, not us in it. Kind of the opposite of a “newsletter” from the old days IMHO.

It is short, concise, easy to read and drives you into content that is found deeper in our sites and blogs. 

If you have not done so, please take a moment to sign up. The killer thing is that you can always unsubscribe if it is not providing you any value. Really, go ahead, we understand.

It might also help you to learn more about what type of things eROI is working on for clients that are not just about email marketing. Part of the story we need to do a better job of telling in 2009 is the depth of work that we touch in email, blogs, social media, lead generation campaigns, custom application development, video production, and new media strategies.

Love to hear your thoughts about the the emails that we put out for our own brand. Give us a check up from the next up and let us know how we are doing.

I have long been a fan of the 3 Stripes and decided today to look at opting into their newsletters to see what they are doing and if there is anything to learn from their programs. Here is the “registration” page – note that they do not cal it a newsletter sign up or opt in page, but a registration. Awfully formal if you ask me. 

So the first thing that jumped out at me were so many required fields. Will Adidas really use this many fields immediately as they start to message me for those newsletters I am signing up for? Or am I signing up for newsletters? I was not really sure to tell you the truth. They said eNewsletters but for all I knew it could be anything. Showing me some links to past examples would have been helpful as all I saw were product promotion emails to the left of the page. 

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Often times we spend so much time thinking about the RIGHT copy instead of the right voice. Do you or your brand have a voice in email? Or is it your voice? Or your copywriters’ voice? 

I have underlined the areas that PUSH the brand voice in red for your quick scanning pleasure.

Think about how you come across in what you write as your brand is much different than you are in many ways. I was passed this email from a co-worker this AM that made me think about this fact and wanted to help illustrate it with you. Sure it borders on the edge of most brands, even this brand I think, but it made an impact. What this shows me is the continuing change in comfort levels of pushing the envelope online with copy, images and videos with brands in order to engage with the customer types in segmented areas. Things typically cannot do safely with print or even Radio/TV. 

Have you tried things like this? Would you?

New Email Marketing Survey: Email Analytics – TAKE THE SURVEY

At eROI, staying on top of the latest in email marketing is always a top priority. In this new email marketing survey we ask you, how do you use analytics in email marketing? 

Have 5 minutes? We would love your thoughts on Use of Analytics in Email Marketing

To show our appreciation, all survey participants will be automatically entered to win one of a handful of iPod shuffles! – AND WHO DOESN”T Need another iPod? Right? You could give it to your neighbor, the mail man, that guy that hands you your coffee each AM as you amble like a zombie to work, or even a co-worker that is doing a great job. Unlimited ways….

This survey should take just a couple minutes of your time, and we will share the results with you after we crunch the numbers. We hope to have it out next week. We like things immediate… just like you. 

Take a moment to take the survey 

I have had the pleasure of spending the last 8 months leading the eec’s Roundtable on email marketing for cause. We choose the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation to assist this year and have learned a lot on this journey to help them have a better email marketing program. 

This last week we presented at the annual conference about our learnings and how other caused based/non-profit organizations can find ways to make their programs better. 

I have loaded up the PPT from the event for you to review and even download if you wish. 

Still 4 months left in this program and I hope that we help them to get to a place where they can have a great program that drives awareness, branding, and fund raising. 

Just returning from the eec Annual Conference in Arizona, I had a lot on my mind. I got the chance to spend time and build relationships with peers, brands and partners in panels, workshops and interactive presentations. Together we shared data and beliefs on what works, discussed best practices in email marketing, and who should be responsible for what. 

What I learned: 

The Anatomy of an Email. In a panel that we were a part of, Lisa Harmon showed us the perfect layout of an email, with best practices applied to the wireframe (get the PPT here). It was inspiring, and at the same time made me think that I was in med school. I do want a copy of this perfect email for my wall. 

Subject Line Testing. It should be a constant thing. I know that with each email we create we are always testing variables, but I can also tell you that subject line testing is not a constant. We need to drink the Kool-Aid on this one. I heard from REI, Borders and other great brands of how they are consistently multivariate testing and finding great lift in not only the open rates (sorry Loren McDonald, I know you think the Open Rate is dead now) but in the click and conversion to sales rates. Always tying the campaign back to a sale or goal is the key. 

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I think that I have this discussion in some manner each and every week. The question is either should we personalize our emails and if so does personalization work? Well I can go either way on this depending on what you choose to do with personalization. At times personalization with a name seems almost spam-ish when it is done poorly or used as an afterthought of throwing it into a sentence or the greeting of an email. 

But the examples I have to share actually do work IMHO. Now notice that these two email creatives are exactly the same. There is only ONE difference that I can find between the two and this is the subject line. As they arrived in my inbox back to back, the subject lines stood out. They did not use my name but they use eROI in the subject line and wrote the copy differently. They got me. It stopped me and made me want to open it more. It felt not personalized, but relevant. And I think that the discussion around personalization should actually be changed to one of relevance. 

When data, copy or images are personalized in some manner that stands out and grabs your attention it is not a true factor of personalization but actually one of relevance with the subscriber. This leads me to challenge you to change the conversation you might be having with your team, vendors and in the end your email subscribers. Think about how you can use subtle changes to data to make an impact. Think about what you can do to make them stop, of only for a moment, in a cluttered inbox to take that next step of opening and clicking through to learn more about your offers. 

It is time to change the questions in everything we have known this far in email and time to start talking to people in a way that will make them think about your emails. 

Love is in the air, or in the inbox this week with many brands reaching out to their subscriber lists with Valentine’s Day email campaigns. Now many retailers are predicting that the economy is going to impact this major retailing holiday as well. Are we all going to cut flowers from our yards and make our own greeting cards this week? Maybe the economy is taking some of the “love” out of the air. Fear and uncertainty can do this I think. 

But let’s get back on track here. I had three examples that I wanted to share with you of Valentine’s day email campaigns that are worth pointing out. 

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Well not only was it one of the best events at the eec conference this last week but we wanted to make sure that those of you that could not be there for it could enjoy it and learn from it afterwards. So we have posted the video in a round by round format as well as have loaded the presentation up to Slideshare for you to enjoy and pass the knowledge to your teams.

It was eROI Vs. Responsys Vs. Mighty Interactive and it was close. The client projects were for eSurance, Children International and At-A-Glance. Great ideas, approaches and best practices all the way around from all 3 teams. One real interesting part of this is that none of the agencies were allowed to talk to the client in any way, shape or form before they went to design. Totally blind… only able to rely on THE Eye of the Tiger.

Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon was the Moderator/Referee of the event and TEXT to vote was used in real time round by round on the screen.

We look forward to doing this event again at another upcoming conference in Indy. Connect with you there?

Round 1- Round 3 can be found on the eROI Youtube channel if you want to watch it BLOW by BLOW and learn from the experts in email design WHY they made the decisions they did. 

This might be a little premature as I don’t think we will have this stickers ready until SXSW in Austin in March, but I am just so excited I had to share. It’s the little things in life that sometimes bring me the most joy I think. And if there is a sticker with it even better. 

Our designers have been hard at work vetting some ideas for some new eROI Swag to support our heavily read blogs. If you are not familiar with the whole eROI family of blogs, move your eyes to the top of the page and look at the header with the collection of blogs at the top. Each one is really it’s own unique design and voice, covering topics not only in email but in design, campaigns, life @ eROI and more. They are truly a reflection of eROI as a company where we work on so many things that are digital and are incredibly fortunate to have a team with so much passion and experience. 

Unless you have had the opportunity to come by the office or work with the team it is might be hard to understand everything that we do and the energy that exudes from our offices and minds each day. I can personally tell you that I learn more each day at work than I might anywhere else in my professional life. 

But let me get back on target… we have stickers coming. Oh yeah this excites me more and more each day. So I am going to put these out to you for a gander while the minds here continue to finesse the designs to properly give you the character of each of these blogs. And if you want to get on the list to get the collection sent you to so that you can decorate your car, laptop, office or co-worker, then just leave me a comment on this blog with your contact info and we will email you when they arrive. I will happily stuff the envelopes and let the USPS drop them at your desk. And maybe in return you can send me one of yours or pick me up one that you think would look good on the eROI office walls.

Here is the full collection. Changes may occur to enhance the coolness before they get printed.

A thought I often have when seeing so many email campaigns everyday is: “Is there an ideal font size in email?”. Now I know that some browsers and email clients have some extra settings to the user that can change font sizes based on their preferences, but shouldn’t you start out thinking bigger? 

This example of a recent email I got made me think about this again as the fonts were so small in comparison to all the others I get. Sure you might have a lot to say in a small environment, but if I can’t read it easily why does it even matter what you have to say? 

Thinking about usability in email/the inbox is important to understand. We all know that we have a very short time in email to tell someone what is important, what our call to action is and what to do. So if they have to squint and work to read it chances are that they will just move on. 

Give yourself the 3 second test with your own emails. Do you:

1. Have a clear message?

2. Use just enough copy to incite action?

3. Have the ability to easily read the sentences and copy without a magnifying glass. 

Class dismissed.