Viewing all posts categorized as 'Creative Standouts'

As “Peak Week” approaches and retailers gear up for their most critical holiday shopping period – which Experian Marketing Services has identified as the Tuesday before Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday – smart marketers are refining their email strategies in real time. Daniel Schotland, VP of Client Services at Experian CheetahMail, and his team have been analyzing year-over-year trends as well as daily data and have important advice that’s sure to create good cheer with retail marketers. For example, flash sales, friends and family focused emails and other viral marketing programs, are garnering twice the response rates of other types of messages this season.

Daniel recently sat down with DM News to discuss holiday email marketing and share tips and trends to help marketers succeed during this pivotal time. You can view Daniel’s Q&A here: http://www.dmnews.com/qa-daniel-schotland-vp-client-services-at-experian-cheetahmail/article/216860/

Refer-a–Friend programs can be incredibly beneficial, but it is important to do it correctly or run the risk of causing deliverability issues (and possible legal compliance issues as well). The key issues to manage are user and recipient consent, content transparency, and with referral incentives.

1. Referring users must feel comfortable during the process, which begins with consent practices. Never use the recipients’ email address with subsequent marketing campaigns unless they provide their own consent. For example, Victoria Secret offers referrers a clear statement that their friends’ email addresses will not be added to their email list during the referral.

 



In addition, it’s helpful to make the referred friend aware, upon receiving that message, that they are not being subscribed to any mailing by receiving this email. Such as with this example by Neiman Marcus.

 



2. If you want the recipient to be your friend too, then ensure transparency with your content. Here are some quick tips with managing content:
   • The friendly ‘from’ address can and should be the friend/referrer. It’s advised that the commercial sender is NOT included in the ‘from’ because the intent is still for the friend to be the referral, and otherwise it may appear to the recipient as an unsolicited commercial email and lead to a spam complaint.
   • Include some language in the email introduction about why the recipient is getting it and what information will and will not be collected.
   • Make sure the subject line is tied to the friend and not misleading. Successful campaigns such as the Saks Fifth Avenue example below put the friends name in the subject line leaving no confusion as to why the referee is receiving the mail.

 


3. Offering incentives is a great way to entice referrals ( Eg; through cash, coupons, discounts, awards or additional entries in a sweepstakes) However, in doing so, the sender must comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. In addition to including an opt-out option in the email the sender must run that referral friend’s email address against the senders’ suppression list to make sure the friend was not previously unsubscribed. Even if there is no incentive, it is still a best practice to apply prior suppressions and include an unsubscribe link in the email to help mitigate potential spam complaints.Since these RAF emails may be deploying off the same IPs as the senders’ bulk email messages, abuse complaints from RAF campaigns can lead to IP reputation issues at various ISPs and cause bulking/spam foldering issues in the future. Don’t give the ISPs any more reasons (abuse, spam traps, bad data, etc) to bulk or block mailings by skipping this step.

Following these points and best practices will not only help the senders IP reputation but can also lead to strong organic list growth and increased revenue.

Pretty pictures can go a long way: How Boston Proper visually engages its email subscribers

Boston Proper, a leading cataloger and specialty retailer of stylish, contemporary women’s sportswear, aims to grow online sales and extend customer loyalty while driving traffic to its e-commerce site, www.bostonproper.com. Since Boston Proper has a highly loyal customer base, avoiding the overuse of promotional discounts and, instead, relying on strong visual merchandising and imagery to drive conversions was key.

By working with Experian CheetahMail (read the full case study here), Boston Proper was able to send brand conscious and highly relevant emails to build a remarkably loyal and profitable customer base. Some of the key creative tips used by the brand, that other companies may want to consider implementing into their own program include: 

Visual cohesion with your website: Boston Proper designed visually stimulating HTML email templates based on strategic or best practice recommendations from Experian Cheetahmail. The designs mirrored the imagery on www.bostonproper.com as well as in the Boston Proper catalog, creating a visual cohesiveness amongst channels and giving customers a familiar and engaging design to interact with. 

Let reporting drive design: Once creative was complete, Boston Proper began mailing to their subscriber list two times a week, simultaneously collecting data on each customer’s response rate and activity. After a few weeks of reporting they were able to determine which mailing frequencies, offers and message content garnered the greatest response from each customer type. 

Target imagery by segment: To leverage these findings, Boston Proper used the segmentation tools in the CheetahMail application to send the most appropriate messages, at the most optimal frequencies, to each group accordingly. For example, the entire file receives two general catalog announcements per month, and a second email per week promoting a top selling product classification. Customers who interacted with the emails in the last 90 days receive a third email that is more category, trend or product specific. 

Boston Proper’s email messages have outperformed those of their industry peers in nearly all areas, with significantly higher clickthru rates and revenue per email. Furthermore, unsubscribe rates have fallen below .15%, proving that customers are highly receptive to the messages Boston Proper sends.

Even though coding for email marketing is, in many ways, easier than that of a website, mistakes are very common. Fortunately, these mistakes are easy to troubleshoot, and most are even easier to fix.

This handy reference helps HTML coders quickly establish the cause of an error and outlines guidelines for proper email coding.

Why are HTML Errors in Emails Common?
Most issues are simply due to messy code. Very often, code gets re-used on a regular basis to deploy campaigns where the content and images are continually being updated and moved around. This can lead to unintentional duplication or omission of HTML tags, and QA oversights.

There’s also the matter of which email client (Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook 2007, etc.) you’re viewing the code. Knowledge of what works across each of the major email clients will help in determining where rendering errors are occurring and why.

Checking Code with an HTML Validator
First and foremost, use an HTML validator, like the one built into the CheetahMail application, to check your code. It reviews
the code and generates a report, detailing where errors like missing HTML tags, malformed table structures and alignment issues exist in the code.

In addition, make use of QA options like Mailbox Snapshot tools which provides screenshots of what the code will look like across multiple email clients.

Across the Board:
Some coding issues tend to be universal. Here are a few of them:

• Layout is off by one pixel or pushes out past the border of the design
  This is usually due to one of the <td> width measurements exceeding the total width of the table. The widths are determined by a simple math equation involving the table cells; usually the math just needs to be corrected. If you add up the individual table cells and they don’t equal the <table>’s width, you’ve found the problem. The problem could also be from the use of CSS to format the design. Certain email clients like Outlook 2007 and Hotmail won’t understand formatting CSS (margin:1px;) and will disregard it. The use of CSS in email is not a best practice.
• Parts of a layout don’t display
  This can be due to a malformed table structure, incorrect HTML syntax, or colspans that are missing or have incorrect numerical values.
• The background image behind the HTML text repeats
  The best practice is to design your creative so it doesn’t rely on background images. If a background image must be used, leave some extra space for the HTML text to “grow” when rendered in different email clients. Since various email clients tend to add extra line-spacing to HTML text, this will allow for the table cell holding the HTML text to expand while maintaining the integrity of the design.
• HTML text isn’t aligning properly and is leaving blank areas in the creative
  Make sure to use aligning properties inside the <td> like valign and align. Without those attributes defined, the HTML text will float in the vertical middle within the <td> tag. If that doesn’t work, review how the overall table is set up, and if the <td> measurements are correct.
• HTML emails in Outlook have a mysterious “break” every 800 pixels from the top of the email down
  This is caused by the rendering engine that Outlook 2007 and 2010 are built on. Since Microsoft Word inserts an automatic page break every 11 inches, or the length of a letter size document, Outlook 2007 does the same. There’s currently no way to code around this issue without changing the design to use flat colors and white space to counteract the automatic breaking.

Email Clients and Their Personalities
Once HTML code has been developed and validated, testing can begin across the major email clients on both the MAC and PC operating platforms. To know the specific coding pitfalls of the email clients is to have reached true HTML email coding enlightenment!

Here are some examples to watch out for:

• Gmail/Yahoo!
  Known to be very finicky, Gmail will pick up on the slightest coding mistake and render the email incorrectly. Extra line-spacing is added to HTML text which can break a design. This can be controlled with the correct usage of inline styles to control how the HTML text renders. Background images should be defined within the <td> tag, and NOT within the <body> tag.
• AOL
  Form functionality like search fields and drop down boxes won’t work. Consider dynamically inserting forms based on domain, or linking to a hosted page offering forms.
• Gmail in Firefox
  Adds extra “padding” to images which causes extra white space to appear around an image’s border. You can alleviate this by adding an inline style called “style=”display:block;” to the img tag. This work-around removes the imposed padding and fixes the issue.
• Hotmail in Firefox
  The same issue mentioned above regarding Gmail in Firefox also happens in Hotmail in Firefox.
• Microsoft Outlook 07
  Most issues involving Outlook 07 have to do with it being based on the HTML rendering engine of Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word is predominantly for text formatting, so it cannot interpret sophisticated code. Basically, if Microsoft Word can’t render code correctly, chances are Outlook 07 will also have trouble with it.
  • Outlook 07 has no support for background images
    This is a common problem for clients who use system text with a graphic behind it. Because Outlook 07 won’t display the background, it will just appear as a blank white space. As a quick fix, pick a color out of the design’s background and insert it as a hex color. Another option instead of using system text, is to code that section of the design as an image.
  • Animations do not work in Outlook 07
    It will only display the first frame. Because of this, it is necessary that the first frame of an animation be a significant one; if the viewer is only capable of seeing the first frame, it needs to capture the basic idea of the message.

Adhering to these simple guidelines will ensure your code will be presented properly across the major email clients. Now get coding!

Header text is a must have best practice for any serious email marketer.  This text will display in an email even when images are blocked and formatting is not quite right.  This actionable area, at a minimum, should deliver the point of the email and have a link to the online version. Header text should be clear, clean and actionable.

The specialty kitchenware retailer and culinary mecca, Sur La Table, recently updated their email header text.  The new text not only follows header text best practices, but it also conserves precious email real-estate, and looks great.

Here is the updated header text. Notice the links are all clickable and are in one line at the top of the email.

Here is the original header text.  The text is not all click-able, is a bit long-winded, and takes up valuable, above the fold, vertical real-estate.

What do you think about these updates?  Have you updated your header text?  Please share your experiences and thoughts with us!

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 »

Online and offline marketers should always try to keep their marketing databases and lists updated whenever possible. This data can include current email address, postal address, name, age, and gender to name a few. Having this data is one thing. Using it successfully and appropriately is another. Sure, first name personalization is great. Geo-targeting is awesome. Age appropriate marketing rocks. But what about gender?

Do men only want to receive content geared toward men? What if one of these men wanted to purchase something for a lady in his life? What about those whose gender is not known? What should these people receive?

There is a particular retailer that I used to love. I usually purchased items from them in-store. This past Christmas I purchased something for my wife from this retailer online via an email. From that point on I have only been receiving the female version of the catalog at my home. In this case this retailer assumed that since I bought one female item that I am an exclusively female shopper. This is a risky and potentially costly assumption — partly because of the way they have treated me since then, this retailer is no longer my favorite.

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