MindComet

Random Points of Interest and Such :: Vol. 1

Since being in the email trenches here at MindComet, a few things have come to my attention about various email marketing practices.  These are just a few I’ve highlighted—which I hope will become a recurring topic trend for emailmarketingvoodoo.com.

Get to the point, would ya?
Mention in the subject line the most important link within the body of the email.  If you’re trying to push your recipients to watch a certain video, include a brief description of the video link in the subject line.

Sharing is Caring
Only use a forward-to-a-friend or refer-a-friend button when necessary.  It doesn’t have to stay just in the header or footer of the email, either.  Let it breathe!  Include a link in the body of the email as well.  And be creative with your copy!  For example “refer-a-friend” may not be suitable in a B-to-B email.

Sleight of Hand
Pay close attention to who opens your email and who doesn’t.  Compile a list of each person on your list who didn’t open the original send.  Change the subject line the second time around and send it again.  This will prove to be a significant tactic to counteract initially low open rates.

Who Doesn’t Love Postcards?
Inboxes… that’s who.  If you’re sending out graphic-heavy emails—such as a post-card style emails—make sure the entire image is not a link. Filters will catch this and mark it as spam, never to be received and therefore never to be opened by your recipients.

Break the Mold
Keep your audience on their toes!  If you’re sending out a weekly or bi-weekly email, try to overhaul your email’s design and layout once every year.  It will regain interest from a potentially complacent audience, which will in turn lead to a more consistent click-through rate and a higher R.O.I.

Monkey See - Monkey Do
Most email campaigns are intended to drive traffic to a website.  So with that being said, wouldn’t it make sense if the email’s navigation reflected the navigation of the website you’re trying to promote?

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 10, 2007

US Mobile Email Usage Building Steam

According to recent studies made by redherring.com and cellular-news.com, the US is slowly adapting to the popular trends of smartphones, much like their European counterparts.  The leader among European countries is Italy, who “spends the most on devices and data usage as compared to the other European countries” (cellular-news.com).

One thing to keep in mind is that high-speed networks are more readily available in Europe than in the US.  This alone may be the reason why Europeans are more inclined to purchase devices like smartphones.

As the US and Europe increases its use of smartphones, it is also becoming popular in other regions, such as India.  According to this report, India accrued nearly one billion dollars in revenue from cell phones this past year.  And naturally, adding value to carrier’s service plans will only make cell phones more enticing there.

So with smartphones having a surge of popularity, comes the retrieval of more and more information, such as email via said smartphones…  especially those with unlimited data plans.  In time, smartphones will become the norm and specialty marketers (especially email marketers) will have to adapt to this shift in retrieving email.

With the official announcement of Apple’s long-awaited iPhone earlier this afternoon, I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before the US catches up with the rest of Europe in it’s implementation of smartphones for daily life.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 09, 2007

Email Rendering Issues

One of the most time consuming aspects of being an email developer is making sure that the email you’re ‘quarterbacking’ is rendering correctly in each and every conceivable client available to the general public.  In other words…  just because it looks OK in Mac Mail does not necessarily mean that it will look the same for an end user retrieving their email via Thunderbird.

The only way around the temperamental conditions of some email clients (Lotus, I’m looking at you) is to test your message with as many clients that you have at your disposal.  If you do run into rendering issues in clients such as Gmail or Hotmail, a nice reference guide can be located here from the fine folks at Campaign Monitor.  They thoroughly cover which clients support such CSS elements as style & link and which ones don’t.  According to the link above, Gmail is most uncooperative client, yet Yahoo! is the most lenient.

Additionally, Campaign Monitor states in their guide that there isn’t any one design approach that will guarantee consistency. Instead, you should take a couple of things into account.

1. The consistency demands of your client
2. The potential email environment of your recipients

• Business to Business
• Business to Consumer

If your email is B to B, focus testing on clients such as Outlook, MacMail, and Lotus Notes.  If it’s B to C, test on your Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! accounts.  Only once your message is consistent across all clients would I suggest sending it out live.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 08, 2007