A new report just released by JupiterResearch reports that E-mail marketing spending will grow from $885.0 million in 2005 to $1.10 billion in 2010, and we will see an amazing 50% drop in spam during the same time-frame…
To see the short article on the report, click here.
The multitude of technology and communication devices available to us today have made it very difficult to stay focused on even the most important tasks. Core principles such as high productivity and customer service are interrupted every few minutes by a flashing instant message indicator in the menu bar, a buzzing cell phone, or a single-sentence email.
A headline on ABCNews.coms, “Multitasking Drives Workers to Distraction” sums up the effect of the problem in our workplace.
Here are a few steps that I’ve found instrumental in taking back my day from these time and attention thieves:
According to the ABCNews.com article, office workers are interrupted, on average, once every 10 and a half minutes and it takes them 23 minutes to get back to their original task. Don’t jeopardize your relationships, your customer service or your productivity by allowing distractions to steal your focus.
Karen Gedney wrote a great piece for ClickZ this week on what it takes to be a good email copywriter. Here are some of the key considerations as it relates to effective email marketing and what it takes to get people to act:
- Funnel Your Creativity Into the Subject Line
- Know Your Template
- Activate the Impulse to Buy
- Divide & Conquer
- Email Assignments Are Like Mini Masterpieces
Check out the full article here.
When it comes to Spam, too many companies focus on CAN-SPAM compliance alone, thinking that as long as they meet the Federal requirements, Spam complaints won’t interfere with their email marketing success.
Not so!
The law is easy to comply with….the real challenge is avoiding the perception of Spam. Most Spam complaints don’t occur because a company fails to abide by the laws, they occur because the recipient is annoyed, surprised or inconvenienced by an email to the point that they fight back! This is particularly true with AOL users, and other ISPs who make Spam complaining very easy.
A new article in eMarketer does a nice job proving this point, with some good stats to support their claims. Two key findings from the recent holiday season were that more people were reporting emails as Spam than a year ago, and more people said they received an overwhelming increase in emails than during the previous holiday season.
Not only does this indicate a growing frustration and impatience with unwanted/unexpected email, but it also indicates that companies need to work harder to earn the trust and desire to be heard from!
The article reinforces, with hard facts, that the single most important aspect of successful email marketing is…..TRUST! Once a recipient trusts the sender, they are very likely to open the email, but more importantly they are very unlikely to report an email as Spam!
Check out the full article by clicking here
Taking a purely aesthetic approach to viewing html email is something I’ve been doing for years. Much like with a webpage, it usually takes me all of a split-second to visually diagnose a potential “unwanted” in my inbox and quickly mark it for deletion. I prefer my eyes to any imperfect spam filtering application.
According to a recent study published in the journal of Behaviour and Information Technology, Canadian researchers found that it takes a mere 20th of a second to visually diagnose a webpage. In one blink of the eye, volunteers in the study were able to give positive or negative ratings on several web pages. Their results were shockingly close to opinions made after much longer examinations of the same pages.
This study can relatively be applied to email. After all, an html email is basically a mini webpage in your inbox. A well-designed email will reinforce its message. Researchers suggest a “halo effect” is created by this visual impression. If people feel positive about the design, they are going feel positive about the content of the email. They go hand-in-hand.
There are a few key design items that I look for after opening an html email. Here is a breakdown of my quick diagnosis.
The Logo
A logo speaks volumes about a company. It is the core branding feature that defines a company’s image. If the logo looks sloppy or thrown together, chances are that the company is as well. If the html email doesn’t contain a logo, it’s probably not worth reading. It should be clean and well positioned at the top of the page.
The Layout
This can vary greatly and I’m not one to put a uniform on a layout. But the general arrangement should be as follows. The most important content on top (logo, header graphic, headline), followed by the body (main copy), and ending with the footer (company address, unsubscribe feature, disclaimers). These page elements should “flow” working together to deliver the email’s content.
The Colors
Everyone has their favorite colors, so I’m not going to say what should and should not be used. I tend to stay away from fluorescents and colors that don’t match the subject matter. For example, I’m not going to take legal advice from an orange and yellow email, but I may check out a vacation package with those same colors.
The Content
The body of the email should be easy to read and positioned neatly under the headlines. Often I see body copy jumping around graphics and typed in a font that I need a decoder to read. And for me, the body copy shouldn’t be too long. I don’t want to read a small novel in my inbox. Maybe an enticing paragraph or two and let me click through to the company’s website to read the rest of the story.
In conclusion, you don’t have to be a creative director or a web designer to know what a good email looks like. Just be trusting of that initial design perception. Nine times out of ten it will set the tone for the rest of the content.
The blogosphere is an interesting ecosystem, where one persons opinion ignites others responses, and before long you have a dialouge that is occuring. I am a big fan of this, an encourage any reader of this blog to leave a comment or email us at blog AT blueskyfactory DOT com if you have an opinion or would like to discuss a topic in more detail. We would love to hear from you.
Adding to the dialouge around email marketing, I read a post by Yaro Starak, a successful internet entrepreneur who shares his knowledge and expertise on his blog and podcast, Entrepreneurs Journey. On this post he talks about split testing your email newsletters, which is a topic that is very important to marketers and one that so many aren’t taking full advantage of quite yet. The idea isn’t novel, as its been around and utilized with traditional advertisers for many years. The concept is this, test multiple creative against one another to see which one performs the best. In the offline world its much more involved in getting a new TV spot traffiked, waiting for the next print run, etc, but online your creative can be tested and optimized in almost real time if you are paying close attention.
As it relates to email, Yaro sums up a good overview of split testing. One key point when sending out different messages to rate their performance is to keep your variables controlled, he states:
“The important thing with split testing is to be certain to test each element independently. If you change multiple elements in each test then you don’t have any clear relationship to correlate a change in response, it could be because of any element change.”
This is a key point, if you are testing your lead article with various copy, or measuring the use of specific imagery in your emails, make sure you are consistent with where they are in the creative. Make sure its easy to measure for yourself so you know what your best performing creative is.
You should also be able to split test on various metrics, or combinations thereof. For example, your open rate could be based purely on the subject line of the mailing, if you test 2-3 subject lines, with that being the only variable thats changed, the highest open rate will tell you something valuable. You can also test your open to click ratio, essentially the click through rate on key content items and their placement. This kind of testing to small segments of your database can prove to be extremely valuable to your marketing optimization. Your list is unique to your business and your company, each one of your recipients has relationship (in some way or another) with your brand. Mine as much information about your list as possible by finding out whats working. What is your audience interested in? What could they care less about? How does it effect your metrics? Split testing, its good for you and your customers.
It’s clear that Video content on the web is going to continue to be one of the hottest new topics online. Expanding broadband, along with always improving delivery platforms mean that video will continue to grow…
….but what about video email? Sure, it’s popular….everyone is asking about it. But is it realistic to expect video to become as popular inside email inboxes as it will be on web pages? The answer is not a simple one, given the inherent security around email delivery, and the many options email users have for controlling what they see, and what they don’t.
There is, however, a very simple and I think wise choice that will likely rise in popularity.
The option of providing video content in an email, but in a ‘post-click’ environment, rather than in an instantly streaming format, has been gaining some traction over the past year. With a clear call to action for the user this is an effective alternative for marketers who arent comfortable with putting the video inside of the actual email.
More and more now we are working with clients and creating more simple HTML emails, or even some plain text-based e-mails that talk directly about the links in the emails and what is behind them….which is of course some engaging rich media/video message, etc. The true way of delivering rich media email is to use a detection technology that can essentially tell if the recipients system will allow the flash / video to play in the inbox, if not, the user should be delivered an alternative HTML version that prompts them to take an action i.e. check out the video. The advantage with this technique, is that the video sits on a separate landing page, which means there is no downloading required, and the page offers more real estate to promote the message…..so, the perfect content can be created without fear of any delivery issues. The recipients of course do have to click the link(s), but we are finding that with the right email and the right message this is something that will in fact take place.
Over time, as email users come to expect rich content behind the clicks, and look for it, overall click activity will grow! It is very likely that there will be a slow, but steady shift in email behavior so that the initial email becomes a pathway to the real content!
Tamara Gielen writes a very interesting weblog on best practices for B2B email marketing. I have been reading her for a couple of months and find her content to be informative and right on target. Today she linked to an interesting post from Chief Marketer titled “10 Tips To Grow Your Email File” - I encourage everyone to check it out.
10 Tips to Grow Your Email File:
Surprisingly, although 77% of consumers report wanting to receive offers from marketers — and you would think that is exactly what marketers would want to send — only 8% reported getting them.
“a gap exists between the information consumers ask for by e-mail and what they get.
The dawn of Rich Media on the Internet is here… Finally!
In the heyday of the internet bubble the promise of “convergence” was on everyone’s tongues however the technology and widespread use of broadband was not there.
The number of broadband users have increased to the point that it makes sense for companies to offer Rich Media content with an sizable audience to view it. These companies include Apple, Google, Cinema Now, Yahoo, Rhapsody and Slingbox. While most of these are concentrating on delivery of broadcast television programming and movies on demand, Slingbox offers a hardware product ($249.95) that attaches to your broadband (Satellite or cable box DSL/Cable) modem and Television (not required). This product allows you view your cable/satellite subscription remotely from any computer connected to a broadband connection (256k minimum recommended). Rhapsody offers internet users the ability to subscribe to their service and listen to over a million songs online.
Rich Media is also has been making it’s presence known in banner ads on websites and email. Rich Media has always posed a problem for email, this is due to security settings, virus protection and anti spam software that are integral parts of today’s email. Blue Sky Factory is the only Email Provider that currently can deliver rich media emails without the recipient getting security warnings or even worst a blank email.
Rich media offers a new and unique new tool to effectively communicate with your audience in a engaging, effective manner.
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