Part Two: Scott’s Insider Emails
Posted by George Palatine on June 24th, 2009
I wrote a blog post a few weeks back regarding the scottsinsider promotional program. In this post—titled “You Had Me At Welcome”—I described how, after signing up for this program, I never heard from Scotts again.
Since that post I have now received 2 emails from Scotts regarding the scottsinsider promotion. One was a reminder to visit the site often since they add new content weekly (see below).
And the second (about a week later) was promoting a new “how-to” video that was just added to the site (see below).
I first want to say kudos to Scotts for stepping up their efforts. I am not sure why it took so long but I am glad to see they are making progress. Unfortunately I think they could still use some improvement. For example take a look at what the email promoting the video looks like with images off (see below). Yes, the message is intact, but note that there is no link to the video now? The only link in the message was embedded in the image itself. This will require extra steps for recipients should they want to take action and, more importantly for marketers, it eliminates the ability to preform any click tracking/reporting because there are no live links to follow.
I also do not recommend making your unsubscribe option such a focal point of the message. Yes, it needs to be conspicuous according to CAN-SPAM but there are far more discrete means of accomplishing this in the footer area. Additionally their unsubscribe process opens your email client and requires you to send them an email request. Modern tools have made unsubscribing much easier for the users and will reduce the possibility of errors on the back-end. Lastly on the topic of CAN-SPAM, there is no physical address listed for the sender included in this message, a clear requirement.
This program shows some signs of improvement but still needs a little help. Correcting basic best practices regarding image optimization and CAN-SPAM compliance should be addressed immediately. In addition, some consideration should be taken to improve the program’s overall strategy, timeliness and more clearly defined calls-to-action.
