MindComet

Knock Knock… Who’s There?

Email Marketing professionals know how important the subject line can be in getting their messages opened.  However, the cleverest subject line may be of no use to you if your subscribers don’t know who the message is from.

Don’t let your “From Name” stand in the way of your message being opened.  Before you press send spend some time thinking about “who” the message should be from.

I received a newsletter earlier this week that I had opted-in to a few weeks ago.  There was no “From Name” just an email address that belonged to the marketing department of the parent company and not the brand.  Combine a name I didn’t recognize with a lackluster subject line and the message nearly landed in the trash.

Your “From Name” should be:

It should make sense.  Should your message be from an individual person, or the brand name?  The type of message you are sending should help you determine what will work best.

It’s important that your subscribers are able to see that the message is from your brand without question or hesitation.

Your messages should be sent from the same “From Name” consistently.  Your subscribers will get to know and trust the “From Name”. Your subscribers should begin to look forward to your messages and will be able to quickly recognize them based on your “From Name” Changing it will only result in confusing your subscribers.

Your “From Name” is a valuable piece of real estate. Remember to take the time to develop it into an important part of your messaging strategy.

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Posted by MindComet on Feb. 08, 2007

Some Explanation On the Use of Alt Text

A recent report conducted by Campaign Monitor recently exposed the pros and cons of the implementation of Alt Text in emails.  Most importantly the report reveals which email clients handle Alt Text and which don’t.

But first off, let me explain what Alt Text is.  In laymen’s terms, it’s text that displays in place of an image.  This is important for those who are visually impaired who often use screen readers.  Screen readers read all of the text on a page such as lists, links, headlines and alt text (in place of images).  In some cases, alt text is used when a users’ browsing device cannot display images.

A website’s code snippet may look as such:

“”

It will be read by the screen reader as:

“Image: Dog chasing car” 

From Campaign Monitor’s study, the following results were compiled:

Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail, Hotmail & Apple Mail do not render alt text.

Yahoo Mail Beta, Thunderbird, Outlook 2003 and Outlook Express do render alt text.

Some clients, especially Eudora, have their own protocols for alt text.  Instead of displaying the text, it only displays the image’s URL path.

In some cases, if the alt text is too long, it can break an email’s design - trying to fit all of the text within certain constraints.  So to avoid this problem, leave your alt text short and sweet.

Read the entire report here.

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Posted by MindComet on Feb. 07, 2007

Playing the Name Game

Personalization is a great way to connect with your subscribers.  Simply adding their first name to the message, or including it in the subject line is a good way to endear your brand to those who have agreed to receive messages from you.

If you are going to personalize there are a few things to remember before jumping in to the name game.  Personalization gone wrong has the ability to make your subscribers not feel the love you are intending.

Test your fields. 

Last year I received a message from a candy company that started with:

Dear [Last Name]! 

I am certain I provided my first and last name; it appears the message wasn’t properly tested or run through the proper quality checkpoints.  This carelessness reminded me that the message wasn’t hand-crafted just for me.  Of course, as an email marketer, I know that’s not the case, however, Jane Q. Public may not, until a glaring error such as this, reminds her.

But what if providing a name is optional?  You have names for some of your subscribers, but not all of them.  What can you do?

Create a Substitute Name.

Depending on your product and the tone of your message, have fun with the creativity you can have with a substitute name.  I would have much preferred “ Dear Candy Fanatic,“  than an attempt at personalization gone bad.

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Posted by MindComet on Feb. 06, 2007

EMP 101: Email Marketing Meets Politics

No, this isn’t really offered as a college course, but maybe it should be. Email marketing is bringing politics to new heights.  Notice how candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are heavily using email and internet campaigns?

In the wake of the media-frenzied scrutiny of Joe Biden’s remark, I signed up to receive emails from the Barack Obama’s Exploratory Committee.  The welcome-email, much like the website, is sure to win the hearts of simplicity-fanatics — Gmail users and the like – because of the sincere and puffery-free message.  Check it out:

It’s early in the game.  So expect to read more exciting posts with updates on various candidates’ email marketing campaign tactics.

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Posted by MindComet on Feb. 05, 2007

What Fonts With Flair Really Say About You

Today’s consumers can be highly opinionated–the impressions we make are lasting.  Email marketers: It starts with the font. 

A recent study from the Department of Psychology at Wichita State University explores the effect of typeface on the perception of email.  After reading email content in different fonts, participants reported their perceptions on the author’s level of knowledge, believability, maturity, professionalism, and trustworthiness. 

An adjective pair list on a Likert scale was used to rate typefaces:

Fonts, such as Gigi, that were regarded as having low appropriateness, made recipients believe the author was younger in age, less trustworthy and less mature.

Please, email marketers.  Don’t write like this:

Typefaces shouldn’t conflict with email marketers’ intentions.  Choose a font that matches speaks subtly to your target audience and reflects the content of your message.

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Posted by MindComet on Feb. 02, 2007

Apple’s Email Blunder

You would think that a company as cutting edge as Apple, they’d get their email newsletters rendering correctly.  Well, I apparently gave them too much credit, because this is how their February eNewsletter arrived in my inbox this morning.

See?  Pure html code.  Were they expecting their recipients to copy and paste their code into their own html file in order to see it?  Well, that’s exactly what I did.  Here’s what it looks like:

There’s even a typo under “Hot news headlines”. It reads “45 minutes during a private briefing an Macworld”. I guess email just isn’t their bag… where as creating groundbreaking hardware such as the iPod and the iPhone is.  Way to go Apple…  Way. To. Go.

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Posted by MindComet on Feb. 01, 2007

Missing the Mark With Design

In my dreams, I have a perfectly manicured lawn, with the nicest shrubs and accent plants that leave my neighbors green (no pun intended) with envy.  The truth is, I don’t.

I recently received an email from Scotts inviting me to join the “Scotts Lawn Advisory Panel”.  I opted-in to receive messages from Scotts about a year ago.  The messages are generally targeted to my region in the country; however I receive them too infrequently to build brand loyalty.

Yesterday’s message missed the mark when it comes to design.  I was interested enough in the subject line: “You’re specially invited to join the Scotts Lawn Advisory Panel” to see what exactly I was invited to do. 

In the preview pane I was only able to see the Scotts logo four small images and the first line of text. “You’re invited to join Scotts’ exclusive new”

If I chose not to scroll down, I would have missed that by filling out the 10 minute survey, I had an opportunity to win one of ten $500 gift cards from Smith and Hawken. 

I did like that my expectations were set up front.  I knew before getting started approximately how long I would need to spend on the survey.  I also liked the link to Smith and Hawken.  If I hadn’t planned on filling out the survey before, one look at the partner site was enough to make me reconsider.

I also liked that there was an explanation of what benefits I would receive if I was selected to be a part of the advisory panel.

According to the email this includes:

Great Stuff! I hope they select me and my miserable lawn.

There were a few things that Scotts could have improved upon.

There were no links to the Scotts website.  The most logical place to add a link would be the Scotts logo that was above the fold. 

The four above the fold images were so small they were difficult to see and they weren’t clickable. These are both missed opportunity to drive traffic to their website.

The call to action – the chance to win a gift card and the explanation that taking the survey automatically enters the subscriber in the sweepstakes could have been mentioned in the subject line or at least above the fold.  With it buried deep in the message, Scotts will surely receive less conversions than if it had been more prominent.

Scotts could have improved the sweepstakes language at the bottom of message.  It ran right into the standard footer information and just looked like a jumbled mess.

There could be a lot of potential with a campaign such as Scotts.  Unfortunately, in this case, the creative design hinders driving traffic to Scotts website as well as conversions.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 31, 2007