Email Marketing Voodoo

May28

animated gifs, nhl, animated images, animated jpgs

NHL Network Scores Big With Animated JPGs

As a means to promote their Stanley Cup coverage between the Blackhawks and Flyers, the NHL Network sent this beaut, leveraging one of the best animated ~~GIFs~~ JPGs I’ve seen in a long time.

Check out the whole email here

The only flaw to incorporating an animated ~~GIF~~ JPG this compelling is it’s size. The image is a whopping 6.3 MB. It includes roughly 90+ frames and runs for a little over 15 seconds, so it’s no wonder the file is so large. This may have caused huge deliverability issues in the long run, but it really all depends on their reputation with the major ISPs. Considering NHL’s size and overall output when it comes to email marketing, I’m sure they’re in good standing with most of the major providers.

Another thing to consider are mobile users. This email has a link specifically for mobile users (merely a text version of the same email), but most smartphone users still receive HTML messages by default. Most of these users are likely using their provider’s network and not WiFi. When forwarded this to my iPhone, I viewed it using the 3G network with a good signal and it took a little over one minute for the image to start animating. Maybe if the NHL cut back on the image’s length and ultimately it’s file size (at the same time being just as eye-catching), it would’ve been more effective for your average smartphone user.

So, if animated images are appealing to you and your marketing campaign, there are a few programs that will easily turn any video into an animated image—ideal for email:

SnagIt Video Capture

Debabelizer Pro

Find more information on video-to-image for email at Style Campaign’s blog.

May17

gmail, issue, line break, resolution

Fix for Gmail Image Rendering Issues

Gmail has recently changed the way they interpret and display code. Most noticeably, this has caused a number of emails to render incorrectly. The broken Gmail emails are suffering from the same symptoms—horizontal lines between rows of images—Hotmail was encountering recently. Find my post about that issue here.

The same fix that applied to the Hotmail issue also applies here. Simply include img {display: block;} inbetween the style tags of your email and that should do the trick. If you want to be even more thorough, you can apply the same bit of code inline. Example:

If there are any other ways of fixing this issue, please comment your findings below!

May10

seo, email campaigns, hosted emails, traffic

SEO Tip For Your Email Marketing Campaign

Sure, you always post a link in the preheader pointing to a webpage-version of your email. It’s a best practice that everyone adheres to. But more important than the inclusion of the link is where that link is hosted. I’m sure the ESP you’re using hosts it for you, right? Right. Well, if you want to add some SEO value to your website, you may want to reconsider letting your ESP host your newsletters and just host it yourself.

Last week, Blue Sky Factory posted a very clever idea regarding SEO, traffic and your email campaigns. If you’re including links in your email that drive users to your site, why would you deviate the flow of traffic with a link to your email hosted somewhere other than your site? It takes literally seconds to host a new .html file on your site (if you have ftp access, that is). If you want that added traffic juice, don’t take the easy way out with your ESP’s hosting service. Host the email yourself on your own site.

And while you’re at it, you might as well link to these newsletters as a means to preview what potential subscribers will get if they sign up. Just a thought.

More on this can be found at the Blue Sky Factory blog.

MindComet