Viewing all posts categorized as 'Creative Standouts'

I recently made an online purchase from The Home Depot. In the shipping notification email I received, they included an email sign up call to action. This is a great way to ask an already engaged customer to join your email list. Placing this above the fold helps to ensure great visibility and hopefully a whole bunch of new subscribers.

Orbitz uses a nearly identical opt-in link in their confirmation email, except in their case they choose to use a text-based rather than graphic call-out box:

Going back to tried-and-true direct marketing principles, it’s no secret that your most recent customers are your most important customers. When sending order confirmations, marketers should look to strike while the iron is hot by including an opt-in link, preferably at the top of the email.

It has been the bane of countless email marketers as to how to incorporate coupons, coupon codes, bar codes, and other traditionally offline discounts into email. We want these offers and discounts to be easy to redeem and print, but how can it be done?

A few key questions come to mind:

• Does the recipient need to be redirected to a separate, print-friendly landing page, or does the email link to a printable PDF?
• Do they need to print out the entire email directly from their browser or from a screen capture? (This can lead to problems if the email prints on multiple pages or if the coupon gets cutoff.)
• Does the recipient need to write down a code and bring it to a store?

Starbucks recently deployed an email with a great solution to this age-old conundrum – they have print functionality within the email itself. When Print This Email is selected, the recipient’s default printer displays. Printing is as easy as a simple click. This solution not only makes printing email coupons easy, but also utilizes the subscriber’s default printer settings which ensures a clean, readable print.

Many of us remember Mad Libs. But how many of us knew that Mad Libs style registration processes can increase form completions?

For those not familiar, Mad Libs are books that have a short story on each page, but with many of the key words replaced with blanks. Beneath each blank is a category, such as noun, verb, place or name. One player asks the other players, in turn, to contribute a random word as specified by each blank, but without revealing the context for that word. Finally, the completed story is read aloud. The result is usually silly and somewhat nonsensical but altogether fun.

A recent article by Luke Wroblewski of Yahoo! Inc. shows how using Mad Libs pays off when designing registration forms. Looking at one registration form before and after switching to a Mad Libs format, the results show that switching to a Mad Libs style form increased form completions by 25-40%. Wroblewski points out that two versions of this form are being used at Vast.com and Kelley Blue Book.

Who knew that forms could be so much fun?

To the chagrin of Dallas Cowboys fans everywhere, the Minnesota Vikings recently advanced in the NFL playoffs. A friend of mine is a diehard Vikings fan and received the email below just as the game ended. (For the record, I verified that my friend is not a bandwagon jumper or Favre follower – but is a 100% certified and valid Vikings fan.)

NFL shop.com did a great job with not only the creative, but the subject line, the time they sent the email, and the segmentation. As far as I can tell only those with a preference set as being a Viking fan received this email.

The subject line was: Your Minnesota Vikings Just Won – Order Now & Get Free Shipping Over $75

There comes a time in most email marketers’ lives when the email address he or she sends from needs to be changed. This change might be warranted because of an IP update, a change to a new email marketing service provider, a hosting update, aesthetic concerns or other reasons.

When a change like this must be made, what should be done? Two of the most critical goals are:

• Do your best to ensure that deliverability does not suffer when you begin sending from the new email address.
• Make sure subscribers recognize that the new ‘from’ address is you and do not hit the spam or unsubscribe button in error.

After a thorough whitelisting process, what’s next? Do you alert your subscribers about the new email address, if so how?

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We have all experienced those times when you go on vacation only to return to an inbox that resembles a wasteland of outdated offers, now-irrelevant messages, and other cyber waste.

DailyCandy has a pretty cool feature to help avoid this mess altogether. They offer a feature where subscribers can pause their email subscriptions for a given duration of time. This is kind of like putting your postal mail delivery on hold while you are on vacation or suspending newspaper delivery (for those who still get a newspaper delivered!). Of course, this technology lends itself better to those senders who email daily, just like the USPS or newspaper companies.

This feature looks to be a win-win because:

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It seems like every holiday season we see companies explore new and creative ways to make their email campaigns stand out from the competition.

This year is proving to be no different. Recently Neiman Marcus Group has made its presence known in inboxes around the world by using large animated GIFs to capture user attention and generate response.

While this marks a new development for Neiman, who have traditionally featured static imagery in their emails, animated GIFs themselves have been around pretty much since the creation of World Wide Web.

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