Email Marketing RulesNothing in Email Marketing Is ‘Set It and Forget It’
Posted on May 9, 2013
If ever there was a channel where “set it and forget it” thinking doesn’t work, email marketing is that channel. Things are always changing and marketers have to keep up. My favorite indicator that marketers are falling behind is old copyright dates.
While some brands now automatically update these dates, you may consider manually updating them as a way to force yourself to go in and actually look at your promotional email template, triggered emails, preference centers, and other landing pages at least once a year. Reviewing these more frequently—like every 3-6 months—is best, but once a year is better than having them slip through and go unchecked for two or more years.
For instance, CNN requires that people register with their site in order to receive emails and participate in the CNN community and part of that process includes an opt-in confirmation request email. That email carries a copyright of 2007—which means that it hasn’t been updated in five or so years. That’s a lifetime in the world of email marketing and it shows in this email, which doesn’t have the current CNN logo and could benefit from sharper copy.
Carrying a 2009 copyright, Crutchfield’s welcome email has also been forgotten for too long. Its logo and navigation bar are both out of date. And while the copy was really good for 2009, it could be doing more, especially considering all the excellent new content and social efforts Crutchfield now has at their disposal.
LifeWay’s email signup confirmation page carries a 2011 copyright and could also benefit from some updating. The page squanders the opportunity to further engage new subscribers by not offering even a single call-to-action or doing any additional expectation setting for their email program. Suffering from a bad case of Back Alley Syndrome, this lonely page doesn’t even have Lifeway’s standard website navigation bar or footer.
Make sure you’re reviewing your email templates, triggered emails, and landing pages on a regular basis by first taking an inventory of all your different assets and then creating a schedule for regular reviews of each one.
Attracting 1-Year-Old and 113-Year-Old Subscribers
Posted on May 7, 2013
Brands spend a lot of time scrutinizing their checkout process, whether they’re retailers or nonprofits accepting donations. They know that unnecessary friction in the process means frustration for their visitors, lower conversions and fewer repeat purchases. That same scrutiny should be applied to email signup processes since an email subscription is worth a lot of money.
ExactTarget examined email subscription processes of more than 160 B2C brands—including retailers, restaurants, manufacturers, travel and hospitality, and nonprofits—and found plenty of unnecessary friction. One area that is emblematic of the kinds of opportunities that brands have to make their signup process smoother is the dropdown menus used to collect year of birth.
For example, Boden’s email opt-in form starts with the current year. Clearly they don’t want 1-year-olds on their email list, so it makes sense to start with an earlier date so that older would-be subscribers have to scroll less. As it currently stands, anyone over 18 (born before 1995) would have to scroll to select their birth year—and for J. Jill that likely means that the vast, vast majority of their subscribers had to scroll.
Similarly, AutoZone’s dropdown menu started with the year 2011 and J. Jill’s with the year 2009, as if 2- and 4-year-old subscribers are acceptable.
At the other end of the spectrum, Applebee’s and Tide’s opt-in forms were deferential to the oldest living people on the planet, starting their dropdown menu with the year 1900 and making those born in 1929 and later scroll. For someone in their 30s or 40s that meant a lot of scrolling.
While those brands make would-be subscribers work a little harder to sign up for promotional emails, Wine.com is clearly paying attention to the details. Their dropdown menu starts with the year 1993, the earliest year that you could be of legal drinking age. That’s smart.
And although many brands like Wine.com ask for their subscribers’ date of birth for legal and compliance reasons, it’s wise to couch the request as an opportunity for the subscriber to get something in exchange for this data. DailyCandy does a good job on their opt-in form of explaining why they need your birth date while answering the question every subscriber is asking themselves: “What’s in it for me?”
While this may all seem a little picky to some, consumers get hung up on the details, so you should sweat the details. Less friction in your signup process means more visitors convert into subscribers, which means a more successful email marketing program.
Infographic: The State of Welcome Emails
Posted on May 3, 2013
To determine the current state of welcome email programs, ExactTarget examined the welcome emails of more than 160 B2C brands, including retailers, restaurants, manufacturers, travel and hospitality, and nonprofits. The infographic below summarizes our findings.
For more on this research, including examples of welcome emails, check out More Brands Sending Welcome Emails, But Opportunities Remain and Quarter of B2C Marketers Send a Welcome Email Series.
Want this infographic for your blog? Here is the code you can use:
The Last Word on April 2013
Posted on May 2, 2013
A roundup of articles, posts, tweets and emails you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & whitepapers
Nine email marketing tricks that earn eBags $14 a head on email subscribers (Smart Company)
Subscribers, Fans, & Followers: 2013 Global Executive Summary (ExactTarget)
66% of marketers say email delivers ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ ROI (econsultancy)
Just how engaging are birthday emails? (Return Path)
SaleCycle Look Book (SaleCycle)
An apparel retailer converts 33% of one-time buyers into repeat shoppers (Internet Retailer)
Remailing: It’s Like Printing Money! (Bronto Software)
Updating Email Acquisitions? Focus Further Down The Funnel (MediaPost)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
@andrewkordek: just got done prioritizing taguchi test factors for a client. Love it that we can test over 18,000 things in email #emailmarketing
@EmailSeinfeld: Kramer invents Scent-in-Email: “It’s like having the beach, right in your inbox.” Elaine’s bf (@chadswhite) says her subject lines are weak.
@EmailStatCenter: 50% felt getting their name wrong in an email was a reason to think less of the brand. – @Emailvision http://t.co/LgBHuwVkJ9
@aliverson: Hey “email expert,” your email’s going to spam because you messed up your DMARC record.
@JustinBridegan: Don’t be afraid of long subject lines, be afriad of words without meaning. Clarity is the key #ETcafe #emailmarketing
Great additions to the Email Swipe File pinboard
Litmus email sent on 4/23/13 >>View the pin
Tumblr email sent on 3/6/13 >>View the pin
Jack Spade email sent on 3/21/13 >>View the pin
Sephora email sent during 3/2013 >>View the pin
Noteworthy subject lines
Karmaloop, 4/30 — What? We Are Not F’n around 40% Off Footwear- 48 Hours
Etsy, 4/27 — Watch Your Language!
Gap, 4/29 — 1 dress, 4 ways to wear it
Crate & Barrel, 4/29 — Chop chop. Up to 45% off Wusthof Gourmet knives.
Restoration Hardware, 4/27 — Introducing RH Small Spaces. 116 Pages of Inspired Design.
ThinkGeek, 4/25 — ThinkGeek: F5, F5, F5!
The North Face, 4/22 — Opt for Recycled Gear this Earth Day
Uncommon Goods, 4/22 — Re-Make a Difference
Boston Market, 4/11 — The Big Rib-bate: Two Rib Meals for $10.40!
Brooks Brothers, 4/11 — An Interview with Wynton Marsalis
Threadless, 4/10 — These new Iron Man tees will not give you super hero powers… or will they?
The Container Store, 4/8 — Ever wonder why we have so many hangers?
Clinique, 4/4 — BB or CC? Find your skin perfector and we’ll ship it free.
Home Depot, 4/4 — Black Friday Is Back! Savings Start Today!
Zappos.com, 4/4 — Puddles Beware!
ModCloth, 4/3 — Retro looks you can wear during your next time warp.
Ninety Nine Restaurants, 4/3 — Our New Menu is Here!
Ann Taylor, 4/3 — NEED. WANT. MUST-HAVE.
West Elm Market, 4/1 — No green thumbs needed…
Most popular posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
1. Yahoo Mail Hacking Reveals Do-Not-Reply Failures
2. Email Signup Failures at Crisis Levels
3. The Many Gradations of Mobile Email Design
#ETCafe Twitter Chat Preview: Measuring Email Marketing Success
Posted on April 30, 2013
The ExactTarget team invites you to participate in our #ETCafe Twitter chat every Thursday from 11am-12pm ET, where we discuss emerging topics and trends from across the interactive marketing world. The virtual coffee chat is held directly on Twitter, hosted by @ExactTarget.
This week I’ll be a guest on the chat and we’ll be discussing measuring email marketing success. Here’s a preview of the discussion questions for our chat this Thursday:
1. Do you know the return on investment (ROI) of your email program?
2. How do you measure your email program’s influence on offline behavior and online sharing?
3. Do you measure subscriber lifetime value in addition to measuring campaign success?
4. Which email metrics do you find most valuable to running your email program?
5. How much weight do you give to negative metrics like spam complaints and opt-outs when measuring success?
6. Which key performance indicators does your CMO/CEO judge your email program by? Do you think they are the right KPIs?
7. What resources would you recommend to help email marketers better measure their success and set the right goals?
Please join us this Thursday for an exciting discussion with dynamic interactive marketing professionals! Follow the #ETCafe hashtag in your favorite Twitter application and be sure and add the hashtag to your tweet to participate.
The One-Two Punch of Subject Lines and Preheaders
Posted on April 25, 2013
While the growth of mobile email has more radically affected email design, it’s also affected subject lines by displaying fewer characters. As a consequence, subject lines have been steadily trending shorter over the past few years. While we used to recommend that subject lines be no longer than around 60 characters, now the recommendation is no more than about 40 characters. So subject lines are working harder on a per character basis.
The good news is that subject lines have backup in the form of preheader text, which is HTML text that’s placed at the very top of your email. Preheaders play a more prominent on mobile devices—and that’s in addition to the extra attention that preheaders get from Gmail and Outlook, which display a portion of your preheader text as snippet text after your subject line.
Many brands are wisely using their preheaders to elaborate on, continue or otherwise support the subject line, including hyperlinking some or all of their preheader text to enable subscribers to take action without reading further. Here are some great examples from recent emails:
West Elm, 2/18/13
Subject line: Today only: free shipping (plus a Presidents Day surprise)
Preheader: Use promo code FREE4PRES at checkout, some exclusions apply
LeapFrog, 2/18/13
Subject line: Be First to Love Our New, Exclusive LeapPad2 Bundles!
Preheader: Featuring Hello Kitty + Jake & the Never Land Pirates. Shop Now
The North Face, 2/22/13
Subject line: Win a $100 Gift Card – only 6 Days Left
Preheader: Download the app and submit a photo for your chance to win a $100 TNF eGift Card – don’t miss out on The North Face Never Stop Exploring App Photo Contest
Barneys, welcome series
Subject line: Fashion at Your Fingertips: Stay in the Know!
Preheader: Follow Barneys New York on The Window, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest & YouTube.
Expedia, 3/4/13
Subject line: Save up to 50%: ASAP hotels
Preheader: ASAP: A Sudden Amazing Price
Wayfair, 3/19/13
Subject line: ★Convertible sofas under $499, go crazy for chevron, colorful accents & decor, get an elegant master bedroom ★
Preheader: Get framed art $55 and under. Kids love outdoor playhouses. Travel with carry-ons $100 and under.
Threadless, 4/24/13
Subject Line: Aerosoiled and 9 more new goofy designs by MADE artist Aaron Jay!
Preheader: Plus, hang out while we interview Aaron Jay at 11:30AM CST.
Gap, 4/24/13
Subject Line: Last day for 30% off! The clock’s ticking…
Preheader: Offer ends today, 4/24. Online only. Can’t see images? Click here.
Sephora, 4/25/13
Subject Line: Pick your gift!
Preheader: Choose from five of our favorite fragrances.*
Preheader text can be a significant source of clicks and spur deeper interactive with an email, so if you’re not using it you should probably reconsider and do some testing. And if you’re using your preheader text for whitelisting requests, “View this email with images” links or unsubscribe links, consider placing those calls-to-actions after preheader text that supports the subject line.
Sending a Welcome Series Is the New Onboarding Differentiator
Posted on April 23, 2013
The beginning of an email marketing relationship is the most important. Not only are subscribers more engaged and more likely to convert, but optimizing the experience of a subscriber’s first month or so on your list can extend the overall time they remain engaged with your brand via email.
The welcome email has been a key tool in getting that relationship off on the right foot. In recent years, more brands are sending welcome emails. At the same time, the welcome email that simply confirmed a subscriber’s subscription has largely disappeared to be replaced by a welcome that seeks to immediately engage new subscribers with deals, progressive profiling and cross-channel opt-ins.
Nearly 81% of B2C marketers send welcome emails to their new subscribers, according to new ExactTarget research involving… Read my entire Email Insider column >>
Email Signup Failures at Crisis Levels
Posted on April 11, 2013
Opt-in failures are costing brands high-quality subscribers and dampening their list growth. More than 15% of homepage and site registration email signup processes resulted in failures, according to ExactTarget research involving more than 160 B2C brands, including retailers, restaurants, manufacturers, travel and hospitality, and nonprofits. This is a worsening from several years ago when signup failures hovered around an already-too-high 12%.
These failures are particularly costly because people who signup via your website are your most valuable subscribers. So losing these has an outsized effect on your email program’s ROI.
While it’s not clear why many of the signups failed, some program characteristics coincided with higher and lower failure rates:
Using confirmed opt-in (COI): Brands that use COI, where a subscriber has to click on a link in a signup confirmation email to complete the signup process, were more likely to have their subscriptions fail. Nearly 27% of the brands using COI suffered signup failures.
For example, GoDaddy’s COI failed because every time you confirmed the signup by clicking on the link in the signup confirmation request email, it sent you another signup confirmation request email and bounced you back to the page notifying you that you have to confirm your subscription by clicking on the link in the email they just sent you. Simply put, it created an infinite loop that you could never break out of.
Sending a welcome email: Signups were less likely to fail if a brand was able to successfully deliver a welcome email. Only 9% of brands saw their signups fail after delivering a welcome email. (See More Brands Sending Welcome Emails, But Opportunities Remain.)
Sending a welcome email series: Not a single brand that delivered a welcome email series saw their signup fail subsequently. (See Quarter of B2C Marketers Send a Welcome Email Series.) This is likely an indication of greater sophistication and therefore better controls.
The high level of signup failures speaks to a need to do more subscription process audits, which have become more complex in recent years.
Platform proliferation means there are now more devices, more operating systems and more browsers to check since they all don’t work the same together. For instance, Discovery Store’s signup form encountered a fatal error when using Firefox on Windows 7, but worked fine when using Internet Explorer.
Acquisition source proliferation means there are now more channels to check. For instance, is your text-to-subscribe working properly? Does the email signup form on your Facebook page work? Does the email signup during checkout on your mobile app work? Tracking your subscribers by acquisition source can help you uncover signup issues, in addition to helping you make decisions about subscriber value by acquisition source.
If you haven’t done an acquisition source audit recently, it’s probably time to do one as you could be unknowingly losing valuable subscribers.
Yahoo Mail Hacking Reveals Do-Not-Reply Failures
Posted on April 9, 2013
Much has been written about all the Yahoo Mail accounts that have been hacked in recent months. One of my tracking accounts was among those hacked and hijacked into sending a spam email to each of the contacts in my address book—which was full of sender addresses used by retailers to send promotional email.
The resulting stream of “Failure Notice” messages made for a poignant commentary on the practice of using do-not-reply email addresses and mailboxes that don’t accept email. Even the “Thank you for contacting us” replies were mostly just messages saying that you reached an unmonitored inbox and instructing you to contact them by other means. Only a handful of brands including Alloy, Banana Republic, Crutchfield and Drugstore.com confirmed receipt of the message and said they’d reply (which none of them did considering it was obviously spam).
In the past, opponents of do-not-reply addresses have argued that they’re subscriber-unfriendly, that they send the message that it’s okay for the marketer to email the subscriber but not vice versa. Making it impossible to easily reply to messages eliminates interactions that might otherwise occur, which is a detriment to the marketer and their brand. Those points continue to be true.
However, over the past year or two, a new reason has emerged to ditch the do-not-reply address and start monitoring the replies to your promotional messages: deliverability. ISPs now factor in engagement metrics when determining whether to deliver, junk or block your emails. So if your subscribers open, scroll through, click, mark as important, forward, reply to or otherwise interact with your emails, then your future emails are more likely to be welcome.
While monitoring promotional email sender address accounts can be a chore because of all the spam and out-of-office auto-replies they get, more tools are now available to separate the signal from the noise.
So if you’re still using a do-not-reply address, you now have one less reason to keep using it and one more reason to make the switch.
The Many Gradations of Mobile Email Design
Posted on April 4, 2013
With mobile email reading now beyond the critical mass stage for nearly every brand, marketers are finally making creating mobile-friendly emails a priority. According to a MarketingSherpa survey, it’s an even greater priority than integrating email and social, which I think is very appropriate and overdue.
My design colleagues here at ExactTarget just released Designing for the Mobile Inbox, a report that gives a great overview of the need for mobile email design and discusses the basics of mobile aware design and responsive design and how they’re different from desktop-centric design.
While it’s helpful to think of email design as falling into those three major buckets, there are actually intermediary steps along the way from desktop-centric design to truly responsive design, and many of the brands I watch are definitely taking intermediary steps:
1. Desktop-Centric Design: Traditional design that’s wide for viewing on desktop and laptop monitors and small links and buttons that are intended for clicking on with a cursor
By my estimation, most marketers are still here at square one.
2. Quasi-Mobile Aware Design: The primary and secondary messages use images and buttons that are mobile-friendly, but the header, navigation bar and footer are still desktop-centric
This is the first step that many marketers take toward being mobile-friendly. Rather than overhaul their entire template, they’re improving the content that changes from email to email. Uncommon Goods is a good example of this approach. Their primary and secondary messages are mobile aware, but their navigation bar and footer aren’t touch-friendly yet.
3. Mobile Aware Design: A single email design that works pretty well on both desktops and mobile devices
Skinny designs fall into this category. I like the creative approach taken by Daily Candy, which makes the entire right-hand side of their emails expendable in case it’s clipped by a small screen.
Spacious designs—with large images, large type and large buttons—that look good on tablets but scale down nicely for smartphones also fall into this category. Lowe’s emails are a good example of this approach.
4. Fluid, Liquid or Scalable Design: Expanding or contracting to fill the screen size, the design keeps everything on the screen to avoid the need for pinching on touchscreens
5. Adaptive Design: The design generally uses one or two pixel-width “breakpoints” that correspond to typical screen sizes for smartphones, tablets and desktops to trigger content changes and reformatting so reading the content is optimized for those screen sizes
This flavor of design is often lumped into responsive design, although it’s technically simpler and more predictable in terms of rendering. For instance, we recently called this Starwood email and this REI email responsive when they’re actually adaptive designs with a single breakpoint that converts the email from desktop-friendly to smartphone-friendly. Many marketers will likely never see the need to improve their email designs beyond this point.
6. Responsive Design: The design format and content dynamically changes based on the screen size
This is held up as the holy grail of email design, but there’s very little true responsive design out there in terms of emails. To get a sense of what responsive design can do, just adjust your browser window when reading my blog, which is fully responsive. You’ll see the size of the images and text change dynamically, as well as the content reorient itself, all the way down to a screen width of just 180 pixels.
How mobile-friendly are your email designs currently and which flavor of mobile email design are you aiming for in the future?
Welcome! Email Marketing Rules is your guide to understanding the best practices of this complex, often misunderstood channel as you craft the best executions for your brand. Every week, we’ll explore strategies and tactics, discuss tips and inspiration, and dig into industry news and trends.
Chad S. White
Head of Research
Oracle Digital Experience Agency
Author of Email Marketing Rules and nearly 4,000 articles about digital and email marketing
