The Email Wars

Do any of you ever notice the massive footers that are used in some industries for emails? Now I know that heavy footers are the design rage right now, but not in emails. Often times legal departments mandate that the legal terms for financials/investing, contests and regulatory issues need to be there. But do you think that they either build trust or help the email campaigns in any way? 

When I personally see them they are a turn off. They make me lose a little bit of trust, although legal will tell you that there are there to build trust (CYA here) and make sure that no one has other expectations. But why can’t they live as as hyperlink and live on a page on the website? 

I wanted to use an example of the video game industry as eROI has done a lot of work in this space over the past years. I can tell you from the example here that they are ego plays. Everyone wants to have their brand and organization represented in the email somewhere. What value does that bring to the subscriber? None in my opinion. This footer in the video gaming industry is always the longest to approve part of email creative. Is everyone there? Do they all have enough room around them to make all the stake holders happy? These are the questions that get vetted over and over again. 

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I subscribe to so many emails for the reason not that I am going to buy from most of them (sorry for taking your metrics down) but to see what different industries are doing and how I might leverage some ideas in campaigns we are building. It is a knowledge management approach. Since it is hard to get real time data in the email marketing world that you might get in other industries from books, you have to set up honeypots to track industry leaders in order to learn. 

But I was excited to see the change this week in the creative from The Body Shop. It was not a dramatic overhaul, but it did pop more to me. 

They moved and changed quite a few elements. The forward to a friend in the top right is now a My Account button. So does this tell us that people are not using the Forward to a Friend ability as much anymore as an email asset and they see that this change is better for their users? I would wager from what I have seen that the forward to a friend is not as important anymore as it used to be. Not a metric or conversion driver. 

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I have always been a big fan of Diesel for the fact that they take major brand risks. Now that being said their brand is attractive because of the risks that they take. So maybe it is not a risk. This email that arrived this week was sent to announce the celebration of their 30th Anniversary (B-day) and drove to a video that has as of now gone viral.

Now the great thing about this email is that it references the email but does not deliver the email in the creative itself. It makes the shock value even stronger once you get in to watch it. Why try to deliver video in an email if you think it might scare people from clicking on it, or even worse it does not play in your email client.

I also love the landing page (which is built by city) for the fact that they still only give away sparse details on the party but you need to stay tuned to get the event location information. I can only bet that this is going to be a bash and I have asked our eROI NYC Office Director to follow this, go, and get some video of the event to post later.

There is also a good article on iMedia about Viral today you should read.

Video on the next page.

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I was driving home last night and thinking about a project I am working on for a client right now. They are having us work on their welcome messaging strategy and it had my brain churning. I am not sure why it was so important for me to think about, but I distilled it down to four things that I think are important when you are setting up a relationship via the opt in with email marketing. 

Identification, Trust, Understanding and Conversion. 

Identification:

You could make this simple: Who is sending this email and what will I know about them. Or you can think it out farther. We all know that you have a short time to capture the attention of the email reciepent. So what are the things you need to focus on? The from line, is it you or your brand. The subject line, what is the action you are intending them to take. If you can make this a Welcome/Thanks/You need to X subject line then you are ahead of the game.

This also lines up with the creative. Will they see your brand instantly? Will the creative match up with the look of the site that they were just on and carry over the voice of where they just came from online? You can focus on thinking about the split second reaction of the WHO to nail this. 

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In order to protect the innocent we had to spring to action this past week. We were presented an email that was designed by another agency for an event that we were working on. They had volunteered to do the creative work for the event and we were happy to let them take a stab at it. Now I don’t want you to get the wrong impression, but I can never understand how some agencies do not get the finer points (wait the basic points) of good email design. 

Since there was not time to make it not an ALL image email we had to look at what we could fix in a short amount of time. We took a quick look at it and had these questions. 

Before:

1. What was the event

2. Who did I want to see

3. What did I need to do

Now these should be some questions that you always ask yourself with a little change to the who, what, where and why. But eROI stepped into email triage and put some minds against it. In no more than 30 minutes we were able to drive home the message, I think. We clearly communicated what was going on, why you would be interested, who was going to be there that you would want to see, and what to do. Simple enough huh? 

After:

But in the end I want to focus on how we can help our agency partners get a better idea of how to approach design for the inbox. Email design is not print design. Is that clear enough? We are here to explain, help and even give you feedback. Use us as a friend and partner whenever you want. 

Now let’s execute some great campaigns.

Ok, had to share this. You might laugh, you might say it is dumb, etc. Regardless I got a hoot out of it and I am a dog person not a cat person. The below post is really illustrative of two things. One we create bad terms and more bad terms every day. Two we need to focus on understanding what we hear before playing the game of telephone.

But what spawned this was someone today asking me if I had heard about “cat phishing”. I was not sure what to think. Many ideas ran through my brain of what it could be, but in the end after searching and searching it turns out that is was “copy cat phishing” they heard. Yes now that makes more sense. 

It is something that all brands have to consider as it is everywhere and could negatively impact your own brand and the consumer trust in your brand. But then again so could the avian bird flu, a wayward mack truck, or the news. So until you find the magic brand protection bullet (I think it is co-ownership with the consumer/partner) let’s just enjoy some cat phishin’.

Now the image is funny, but the problem is not. It is kind of like opting in for a camapaign with a name like Mr. Poopypants. I bet there are quite a few other ways we could make a dent here, like a public service campaign of education about email marketing from the DMA, EEC, DM News, and all the other ESPs and marketers. That would most likely help all of us if we took this to the public proactively instead of just sitting back and dealing with it. 

Now me, I am up to $135 that I OWE the Obama campaign since the night of the DNC election speech. Ryan, he has HOPE that the Obama team will starting using email more intellegently instead of email intellegence.

Feeling like the news paper boy is chasing me down the block 1-2 times a day looking for $5.00. Time to throttle it back guys and stop being panhandlers.

This election is providing us with so much real time data on the good and bad things we need to consider about our email marketing programs. 

The question it continues to leave in my mind is this: IF elected, will Obama continue to use email as a communication vehicle to the citizens of the United States? I would really hope that he would as it would be a great thing for all of us to have a direct communication method to the leader of our country as well as make a statement about the power and acceptance of email.

If you have not heard about the new project that the Email Experience Council is working on for this year’s non profit project, you should get up to speed. Jeanniey Mullen has just posted the next update on the project on the ClickZ site. You can read about last year’s project here as well.

I can tell you that we have an all star email marketing crew on this from many ESPs, brands, PR firms, and agencies. There have been many calls and many meetings leading up to this effort that will soon start paying off for the Agassi Foundation. 

We would love you to watch how it grows to see if you have some ideas on how to help us spread the word on this project. It is going from a regional to a national effort. Any help that you or our company would like to provide would be appreciated. 

Read the article here >>>

Today the team sent me an intervention email. It is not that they don’t like me, it was that they are “concerned” about my love and embracing of ALL things digital. I IM, I email, I Tweet, I Facebook, I Skype, I blog, I comment, I Flickr, I YouTube, I Vimeo, I post in forums, and most importantly I forget to notice that it is still sunny out in Portland, Oregon. I guess that they have a point now that I have taken the first step in admitting I have a problem. 

So I am happy that they took the time to intervene. At least they used email as the vehicle, as last time the all company “meeting” in my office was a bit over the top. Guess they forgot about the baseball bat and the fire escape so close to my desk…

But on the other side of the coin, this is one of the simplest and best sites using email as the “viral” vehicle that I have seen in a while. MeetUp used a great idea about all of us and our dependence on online communication, “friends” (watch the video and see if you catch the 433,000 BFFs copy there, classic), and the fact that we need to use these mediums to gt back out and physically interact with those in the real world. After all it is where LIFE happens, not the inbox or the web. Sorry to burst your bubbles.

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This story/case study in DM News caught my attention as I so often wonder how wineries do not focus more and more on email marketing as a communication, brand development and sales tool. It seems like a natural way for these business owners to build a relationship with consumers and fans when wineries are only located in 3 places. 1. The Winery 2. The Grocery Aisle 3. The Restaurant. 

If you can work to add a simple way to capture the email address at the winery or on your own site you are 99% of the way there to setting up a relationship that should drive more bottle sales at all three locations. Just knowing what wine to select when you see it can be a chore from a list and from the aisle. If you can work on your programs to get people to recognize the name and label you are winning the battle.

Owning and growing this relationship through email is most likely one of the best and best cost factor mediums to talk to your enthusiasts. As a wine lover myself I know that I appreciate learning more about the winery, vintages, events and in many way becoming a smarter, better educated imbiber of the tasty grape treat. 

DM News has the full story here >>

You got past the filters. You made the From line and Subject Line clear. Check. But now I open the email from you and I am bombarded with so many brands. Most of whom (if I don’t read all the M&A news) I would not know why they are in this email. I built my relationship with Snapfish, but now you have some new parents and it seems that you parents might be more proud of their brand than the one you have spent so much time building. 

In this email from Snapfish you are immediately placed off guard by seeing the Comcast(ic) brand header at the top. When did Comcast lead again? Is this an ad for Comcast or an email newsletter form Snapfish? Now I realize that when one brand buys another brand it takes time to move the customer from one expectation in branding to another. I expect to see some brand confusion at first as they build knowledge and association, but not a brand hijacking. And this being said… I am a marketer. If I threw this up to the “Mom” test we always like to use, she would be confused. Please, if you have a mother, make sure that she sees this first. If she gets it, then we will get it. 

I think that there is another way that could have been approached on a brand education standpoint than what we see here. This hodge podge of Comcast, Snapfish and HP does not work. I know eventually that will change as we get used to it, but in the mean time remember your subscriber. Remember who you has built the relationship. Remember the brand value. And most importantly respect the trust that the brand you just bought has built in our lives. It is not easy to get trust back once lost.

I like to see how some brands are increasing ways to become the one stop location and challenge the channel partners that they work with. Now I assume that they are partnered up with a travel system, but this is a natural extension of maximizing the reach that they have to travelers. 

I know as a frequent traveler myself that I go back and forth between hotel sites, ones that I have accounts with and then to airline sites. So combining it and presenting it as a customer value is a good way to approach this. I know that some of you will continue the search back and forth between browsers and sites, but I will wager that they capture a good percentage of those traveling with them on the fact that you can use your hotel points just like miles for flight so easily. 

Good thinking. 

The EEC and Chad White have published their Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season. Worth a read if you are in the consumer markets or have campaigns that will touch people during the holidays.

Executive Summary:

Long before retailers hang any wreaths or tinsel in their stores, they send out emails promoting their Christmas deals to their subscribers—lots of emails! Last year the Email Experience Council tracked more than 3,300 emails from more than 100 top online retailers during the fourth quarter and released daily reports on strategies, tactics and trends via the Retail Email Blog. Based on that monitoring, the eec has produced this helpful roadmap to the email holiday season so retailers and other B2C companies can better formulate their campaigns this year.

This guide includes benchmarks and advice on when to begin your campaign, how much to increase your email volume, which days to send on, and how to stand out in the inbox during the holidays. For instance, last year 88% of major online retailers increased their email volume during the holiday season, with retailers boosting their send volumes by 45% on average.

It also discusses and provides examples of the “16 Phases of Christmas,” the 16 strategies that retailers use at different points in the holiday season. Those strategies include promoting e-gift cards and “buy online, pick up in store” services.

Check it out and get the Guide >>

What do we see in email? Buy me. Sell Me. Join Me. Listen to Me. Or simply Here I Am. What value does that bring to your brand? What value does that bring to your customer? We could argue each side brings value to a certain segment of your audience. And in some cases it does. But what about using email marketing to expand your brand story? Are there things that you are not thinking about that through targeted exposure might bring a new thought or feeling, and yes a sale, to your email marketing campaigns. 

I was struck by a hotel brand that I appreciate as they continue to do good things with their email marketing strategy. I need to call them one day and find out who is the brains behind their thinking here. They are a boutique property with over 20 cities with locations. Well this past week they launched a new site and focused on the food and restaurants at their properties not only in the email but even down to the title tags in the site. Kudos for thinking about this holistically instead of in a silo we often see from brands. 

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Just how do you drive a move to mobile email campaign? I was forwarded this example of eTrade making a move to get people to use their mobile version by giving away a free blackberry. That is one way. But what did they miss with this campaign? 

1. Where is the VIEW AS Mobile version for those getting this on a mobile device? FAIL

2. Why is the header of the email so massive? Anyone with a mobile device is not forced to scroll (or thumb) down to the content If they have HTML enabled. 

3. The email itself is over (I cut off the 2 pages of legal) 1200 pixels long. Not a very good practice in my book if you are targeting mobile OR even the typical inbox. 

So what would have worked better? 

First nailing the top three above. But on top of that thinking about the value prop of not just giving an incentive of a blackberry but a mobile device of their choice. Not everyone wants a blackberry so why pigeon hole yourself into a gift that might not appeal to your audience. I know that this is a deal with Blackberry as the content says “exclusive” but they need to be building mobile apps to be cross platform complaint. They might have missed some promotional opportunities to just touch an existing audience and move them to use their services from a value standpoint. 

What would you have done?