The Email Wars

We have all been jawing about the use of animated gifs in emails over the past 8 months and I love that we are starting to see them being used more and more when they make sense. Now not only to they really make an email work well, drive deeper engagement, and even make us all pay more attention to them when they start dancing in our inbox but they are something that we can all use.

VIV Magazine has been doing some new campaigns with their newsletter taking them over the top in a good way. My senses also tell me from the length of the subject lines, the layouts and the great attention to detail that I would wager that one of our “favourite” email marketers from across the pond (hello Dela) is behind this crafty work. I could be wrong the based on the email I have seen his fingerprints are all over this. I hope I am right.

I wanted to call out a few things that really make this work and you should note. Armed with some of these tricks/ideas you might be able to make some strides in testing these techniques in your own programs.

1. The subject line is LONG. Tests have shown that subject lines can actually perform better when they are clear and really give the value of the content behind them. Using well written complete subject lines can actually lift read rates and conversions. Now you need to test this on your own in your programs but do test them.

2. The animated gif in the hero shot works in conjunction with the rotating boxes below them. Well thought out as they really lead us to believe that the email is truly interactive, enticing us to try and click them to change the picture. Well it will not work, but it will drive them to the landing page. A little trick, but tricks work as long as the content you are driving them to deliver on the intended action.

3. Video. Yep video in email. Sure it is not going to work but as consumers we are addicted to video. A simple play button in an email does more than trying to game every email client to make video work.

4. Great bold recovery footer. I love the anchoring that this bold “VIV” red footer gives this email. Not only does it pull the eye through the entire email but it also does a great job of highlighting the contest.

Overall this is a stellar email layout and the techniques used are text book best practices. Hopefully this email gives you some ideas of some “tricks” you can try for yourself.