I love my birthday. I admit it. I look forward to it every year. I like the cards I get from family and friends. I like the coupons I get from my local restaurant. I even like the birthday card I get from my dentist.

Studies show that I am not alone.

A new white paper from Experian Cheetahmail, The birthday and anniversary report: Benchmark data and analysis for email marketers, illustrates the impact that birthday and anniversary emails can have on your email program.

There are a number of key findings within the report, including the following:

• Total open rates for birthday and anniversary campaigns are 3 times higher than those of mass promotion mailings.
• Transaction rates are five times higher for birthday and anniversary emails than they are for bulk campaigns.
• Birthday mailings sent to all subscribers with known birthdays pull much higher transaction rates and revenue per email than those sent only to select or loyalty members.

I don’t know about you, but on my birthday, I want to be a bit extravagant and spend some money on myself, on decorating my home, or on a good time with some friends!

Here are a few examples of birthday/anniversary emails that have really caught my interest:

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A common complaint about email as a medium is that it is often difficult to tell when someone is using sarcasm or trying to relay emotion. An added difficulty is when language and word usage is different between the sender and recipient. I recently came upon an article from the BBC that takes this concept to the extreme, thanks to a miscommunication caused by an email auto-response.

In this case, there was a road sign in Wales that needed to be written in both English and in Welsh. The sign maker got the English part right, but the Welsh part… well, maybe not so much.

The Welsh translation of the image above is, “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

Apparently, the official charged with creating the sign emailed a translator asking for the proper Welsh translation. When the translator’s out-of-office auto-reply message came back in Welsh, the sign maker assumed that the auto-reply was the actual translation. Alas, somewhere in Wales an automatic out of office message is now on a road sign.

From a designer’s point of view, emails could be described in their broadest sense as a series of rectangles with content inside of them. Just think of your email template’s wireframe — it’s a series of black and white-filled rectangles, right? When you think of it, nearly everything designed for viewing on a screen follows the laws of the rectangles and color fills, but that’s not necessarily the way it has to be.

A recent design trend that I’ve been intrigued by is the use of textures, uneven edges and off-kilter layers to create a more organic feel to email campaigns.

American Eagle has really been at the cutting edge of this trend. Their campaigns use all three of these techniques, plus handwritten fonts and drop shadows (rather than frames), to make their imagery stand out in the inbox. The innovative use of curled photographs and plaster background textures add even more intrigue to the design. I love the way the background texture blends into the white naturally.

Going one step further, American Eagle’s sister brands are getting in on the fun as well. 77kids utilize a linen-style background rather than a plaster one, along with heavily distressed photo borders and paper clips. It’s a unified look for the master brand and the individual brand, and manages to look home-made yet modern. Read More »

Those who know me well know that I am a fan of quality steaks and quality email data appends. A favorite high-end steakhouse of mine, Fleming’s, is batting .500 in this regard. They serve some of the best steaks in the world, but unfortunately, experienced a misstep while performing a recent data append.

I have been a Fleming’s email subscriber for some time. I diligently open each email looking for the next delicious deal. Recently I received an email from Fleming’s with the subject line “Email Communications from Fleming’s.” This immediately raised my suspicions. When I opened the email I instantly recognized it as an email append message. I was being automatically opted-in to receive emails from Fleming’s even though I was already an active subscriber. Oops…

This screen shot shows the append email, and past emails I have received. As you can see, I regularly receive their emails.

So, how did this happen?

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In my last blog post, I spoke about ‘mostly dead’ email recipients who are closely monitored as an anti-spam measure because their accounts are being neglected. Not only do ISPs investigate these accounts, but Microsoft just announced they’re suing an emailer for deceptively creating accounts with the intent to game their anti-spam filter. Clearly this is not something that legitimate senders would do, but it does relate to a question I get on occasion; should we tell our recipients, friends, family and co-workers to help us get out of the spam folder by clicking the ‘not spam’ button?

The short answer to the question is yes, this can be helpful. But the reality is it will only work if:

1. You’re not trying to get around a genuine reputation problem.
2. You’re really popular.
3. The response activity is genuine.

Companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! spend millions of dollars and labor resources fighting search engine click fraud. The fraud scenario is no different with email when users click ‘not spam’ using dormant or otherwise fake accounts. As a result, be mindful that these and other email providers can tell the difference between genuine user responses and an attempt to game their system, as Microsoft is showing with their latest lawsuit.

Here are some recommendations to engage recipients to legitimately help regain inbox standing: Read More »

For many email marketers the number one goal of an email is to generate revenue. Occasionally, though, it is nice to mix things up and send a message that is less about sales and more about relationships.

Passing along a funny story or telling your subscribers more about who you are as a company is a great way to build brand loyalty that can pay off in the long run. Your subscribers might be interested in hearing more about your employees, the city your business is in, about the models you use in your emails, etc. The trick is giving them something to talk about.

Here are two great examples. The first is from Eddie Bauer — they introduce their company dog, Eddie, and talk all about him on their Facebook page.

The second is from TheLadders.com, whose email is all about the company and includes pictures. The subject line of this email is simply “Photos of us.”

I thought I’d quickly pass along a USA Today Snapshot featured data from none other than yours truly, Experian Marketing Services. Their chart lists the top 10 most popular subject-line keywords as pulled from our study, The 2010 digital marketer: Benchmark and trend report.

• Are there any keywords that surprise you?
• Are there any that you think should be on the list that are not there?
• What about ones that you don’t think are as popular?

Share your thoughts with us!