Archive for the ‘Email Marketing Reviews’ Category
Posted by Nic Winters on November 2nd, 2009
Welcome again to The First 2 Weeks, where we analyze 3 competitors’ email marketing strategies when it is most crucial… the opt-in process, welcome message, and first few campaigns as these marketers attempt to establish relationships with subscribers.
In our last edition we evaluated the opt-in process and welcome messages for 3 competitors in the luxury car segment: Jaguar, Mercedes, and Porsche. In part 2 we will now investigate campaigns sent beyond the welcome email and preference editing options.
INITIAL CAMPAIGNS
Within the first 2 weeks only Jaguar sent an email beyond any welcome communications to capitalize on this opportunity to establish a solid foundation with subscribers. This first email was received just over 24 hours after opt-in, and it was fairly important that Jaguar send this message quickly since they had been one of the competitors who did not deploy a welcome message.
This email relied heavily upon images, an issue that was made even worse since they did not employ alt tags to convey what the reader is missing. Thus, when this message is viewed with images off, it appears very blank within the top portion of the preview pane.
Jaguar did incorporate a text area in the message, however it is too low in the design to offset the damage done in the top area. The email does include a couple best practice-related items by utilizing personalization. They bring in both the subscriber’s first name and identify the email address the message was intended for. As noted in past reviews, listing this email address can assist in reducing a subscriber’s confusion in cases of old email addresses that have been forwarded, etc.
EMAIL PREFERENCE OPTIONS
Mercedes appears to provide the most options for subscribers of these 3 competitors, as even though we did not receive an email, we can make some assumptions based on their website. When you view the “Policies” area, you can then navigate to the “Manage Email Subscriptions” section. When you enter in your email address it pulls up all of the preferences that you selected selected during opt-in, allowing you to make updates as needed.
Jaguar doesn’t feature any preference options, only including an unsubscribe link which doesn’t lead to any of the numerous fields that subscribers enter during opt-in.
As we did not receive an email beyond the opt-in confirmation message from Porsche, we cannot evaluate their typical preference options. Within the confirmation email there was not even an unsubscribe link (as it was a transactional-type email), thus we needed to explore the website extensively to find the unsubscribe functionality. This requires a multi-step process – clicking on “Dialog and Newsletter”, then “Porsche Newsletter”, then the “Subscribe” link (a fairly odd link to have to click in order to reach an unsubscribe capability!), and then hitting an unsubscribe link on the far left which allows you to finally enter your email address for them to remove. We would assume for CAN-SPAM compliance that their usual email marketing methods include at least a clear unsubscribe link on messages beyond this confirmation email.
Watch for our next edition in the coming weeks in which we will evaluate the campaigns of 3 new competitors!
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Posted by Rob Ropars on October 19th, 2009
I received a great email from the National Wildlife Federation looking to arrange a symbolic “adoption” of endangered animals by buying a collection of stuffed animals as gifts for kids. At the same time you’re making a donation to a very worthy charity.
With a clear “From Name” (“National Wildlife Federation”) and an intriguing subject line (“Adopt an Animal Today”), I felt like this was my chance to get a glimpse into Brad and Angelina’s world. I too could be honorable and socially conscious by adopting! I opened the email and then saw some snippet text summarizing the message and consistent with the subject line, “National Wildlife: Protect America’s precious wildlife by adopting an animal today!”. Based on who they were, the subject line and the snippet text, I was encouraged to view images to see the message.
Overall the visual layout was clean and colorful and images crisp and enticing. However, as with so many emails I see, the image usage was just too much. Literally everything is an image from top to bottom.
They did do a lot of things correct, they included:
• Snippet text at the top which is useful for email clients that show the initial text in an email (and mobile devices that don’t display full HTML)
• A web link to an HTML copy of the message to view in a browser
• Alt tags behind the images
• A lot of great links to their site as a navigation row
• Their URL and a contact phone
• Typical email marketing/legal best practices (opt-out link, add to safe sender info, privacy policy link, postal address, etc.)
However, they could have had an even greater impact by using HTML text instead of embedding all the text of the email in images. Readers shouldn’t have to take action to see your message or take action.
Throughout the message, the text at the top right, the navigation links, the main message/call-to-action, the names of the collections and the extra gift section have multiple opportunities to utilize text. Why is that so valuable? If someone doesn’t enable images (and most email clients have them off by default), they would only be looking at snippet text and alt tags (and keep in mind that not every email client displays them). Do you really want to risk someone not being enticed to view images and see your message?
In addition, the call-to-action could very well be below the preview pane “fold” in addition to being an image. So it’s forcing people to scroll down and take extra actions instead of just having a link ready to click. Also the text of the links, including the navigation buttons and the “Adopt Now” button, should all be underlined to reinforce visually that they are in fact hyperlinks.
It’s a good email supporting a great cause. However, the email marketing worker bee that I am just wants to reach out and grab the message and redo it so it really maximizes their efforts. With very small reworking, this email could look nearly identical with images on/off and ensure the maximum number of people view (and hopefully take) the desired action.
Being all image and low text content, they also increase the risk of spam filtering as it might look like this email was designed to avoid “word/phrase” filters. In addition, the balance between the HTML and text-only versions won’t be possible since there’s almost no text in the HTML version (something else that looks spammy to filters).
Hopefully someone at NWF will appreciate my humble words of advice and certainly with a full COMPASS report by our team, they (or anyone else) could have a full review of an email with extensive analysis of all the various components of an email. Given the cause and their heart being in the right place, I’m going to go ahead and order one of the collections…for my nephews… no really for my nephews.
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Posted by Nic Winters on October 9th, 2009
Welcome again to The First 2 Weeks, where we analyze 3 competitors’ email marketing strategies when it is most crucial… the opt-in process, welcome message, and first few campaigns as these marketers attempt to establish relationships with subscribers.
For this edition of The First 2 Weeks, we have chosen 3 competitors in the luxury car segment: Jaguar, Mercedes, and Porsche.
OPT-IN PROCESS
All 3 competitors did well regarding opt-in promotion on their websites, as the no scrolling was required to opt-in. Mercedes places a standard opt-in entry field area in a prominent location at the top right of the page, while Porsche requires a little more searching as the link doesn’t stand out in the bottom left with a message that doesn’t exactly scream email – “Dialog and Newsletter”. Jaguar takes it a step further by promoting opt-in in 2 areas, both on the left and bottom.
The opt-in page for Porsche is very simplistic, only asking for your salutation, first name, and last name – but all are required. One great feature about the Porsche opt-in process is an intermediary page you see before arriving at this form, which explains what you can expect and includes a link to the latest newsletter. Jaguar and Mercedes both provide the ability to specify the car models you are interested in (a great piece of data for future email segmentation). However, this and many other fields on the Jaguar form are required – something that may reduce the number of interested parties looking for a simple opt-in. They do capitalize on this opportunity though, as they even ask about your current vehicle and when you plan to purchase again.
WELCOME MESSAGE
Of these 3 competitors, only Porsche sent a welcome message. Their text email arrived around 2 minutes after the opt-in – a very timely response to begin the email relationship. The message serves just one purpose – to confirm your subscription, as Porsche utilizes a double opt-in list. The all text email lacks branding and the style one might associate with a luxury auto manufacturer, but obviously nothing is lost with images disabled in this key message to confirm your subscription. Porsche also used a very generic subject line of “Newsletter Subscription” – not exactly the friendly greeting in my inbox that I expected. Their off-putting from name matches the cold subject line – as “no-reply@porsche.de” also doesn’t extend a warm welcome.
Even with these faults… at least I know that Porsche received my opt-in and I’m officially on their list – something that isn’t so clear with their 2 competitors.
Watch for Part 2 in the coming weeks in which we will evaluate campaigns sent beyond the welcome message and preference editing options.
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Posted by Rob Ropars on October 7th, 2009
I recently received an email from the The Cheesecake Factory. The “From Name” seemed to be more appropriate for a welcome message, “Cheesecake Factory Greetings”. It was confusing in particular because Gmail truncated it so I only saw “Cheesecake Factory Greet.” As I’ve been on their list for some time, the “Greetings” comment made me pause-why not just have “Cheesecake Factory”?
The subject line also left me a little cold, “Announcing More Small Plates & Snacks”. What’s a “small plate”? I see there are more of them now! And oh boy…more snacks. Perhaps the snippet text would provide further insight and make me want to open the email? Here’s what I saw “To ensure you continue to receive email from THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY® , please add …” Yep…I’m drooling now…
Joking aside this illustrates the growing importance of snippet text (aka preview text). Increasingly, email clients are adding this feature after the subject line as a third means for a recipient to decide whether to open an email. At this point I know who wrote me, but unsure why they’re sending “Greetings”, the subject line is vague and there’s not really any snippet text driving me to open the email. I probably wouldn’t normally have opened it to be honest.
But for the sake of a full review of the message I pushed on.
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Posted by Nic Winters on September 28th, 2009
Welcome again to The First 2 Weeks, where we analyze 3 competitors’ email marketing strategies when it is most crucial… the opt-in process, welcome message, and first few campaigns as these marketers attempt to establish relationships with subscribers.
In our last edition we evaluated the opt-in process and welcome messages for 3 competitors in the upscale clothing retail segment: Banana Republic, Eddie Bauer, and J. Crew. In part 2 we will now investigate campaigns sent beyond the welcome email and preference editing options.
INITIAL CAMPAIGNS
All 3 competitors made a definite impression over the first 2 weeks by sending additional emails beyond the welcome message. Both Eddie Bauer (6 emails) and J. Crew (5 emails) however were a little more aggressive than Banana Republic – who sent 2 emails over that same timeframe.
Each of these e-marketers utilized designs with large images that contained mainly text (thus not optimizing their creative for images being disabled). Banana Republic featured an eye-catching design, but the text across the top and down the left side was actually included in the image – causing a blank appearance with images off. Eddie Bauer sent an email that was nearly all text but as they coded this in images, it too appeared blank with images disabled. J. Crew followed in their footsteps with this email boasting a sale with what appeared to be all text, and once again with images off… all is lost. Compounding these issues is the fact that both Eddie Bauer and J. Crew are using image mapping on some of their emails (making sections within images linked to separate URLS) within these large images – a feature that is not supported by all email clients.
However, even though these emails are not designed with images off in mind – all 3 competitors are incorporating various best practices as well. Eddie Bauer and J. Crew are both reminding subscribers to add them to their address book (to ensure future message delivery) and provide forward to a friend capabilities. J. Crew even takes this a step further by including a link for your friend to opt-in if the message has been forwarded to them. All 3 are promoting their involvement in social media within their emails (including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube). Each of the competitors are also using snippet text above their creative, however J. Crew is hampering their efforts by placing this text below their link to view a mobile version – causing the mobile link text to appear in the inbox next to the subject line instead of the snippet text, etc.
In my eyes, Banana Republic committed the worst crime of this group in only their second email to me post-welcome message. To my surprise I received a promotional email from one of their other stores, Piperlime, stating that they thought I would enjoy hearing about these deals… even though I chose not to select to receive messages from their other brands during the opt-in process. Even worse, at the base of the email I found that they weren’t just supplying me with a chance to opt-in for further Piperlime emails… I was required take action if I wished to remain on the Banana Republic list but not receive Piperlime emails!
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