I never sign myself up to receive email newsletters just so I can analyse them, so my response to these newsletters will be from a prospective consumers perspective.

Maharishi - Maharishi Easy Summer 2008: Brick Lane Store now open

I am always a bit disappointed with Maharishi.  The dphmi site has some great clothes on it but the emails they send out have absolutely no consideration put into them.

Okay, so this was never really going to grab my attention that much, I don’t live in London so don’t really care about a new store opening, so I can’t really judge whether this would grab the people of London a bit more than me.  I opened the email just now anyway to see what was going on (for the sake of this blog) and found something that I might have been slightly interested in…..a 70% off sale!!!

Who exactly thought that wasn’t worthy of subject line status?

I also noticed that they have repeated their company name in the subject line which is always a no-no and pointless.

Could’ve probably fit “up to 70% off” in that space….

Chemical Records – Biggest Ever Chemical Clothing Sale – You heard it here first!

I like this subject line, a lot.  If you’re looking to buy some clothes and you see the words “Biggest Ever Sale” you’re probably inclined to at least have a look. 

Couple that with the “You heard it here first” gives it a certain sense of urgency.  It’s like you’ve been let in on a secret that everyone will know about soon, so you’ve got to hurry to get those bargains.  I can also see there subscriber base becoming more attentive to future messages because of a campaign such as this.

Like the easily led person I am, I purchased from them.  I regret nothing.

Urban Industry – The Massive Urban Industry Store Summer Sale in now on

A rival of Chemical Records, Urban Industry also decided to launch their sale at the same time.  Though it will attract interest, when put in comparison to the Chemical Records subject it seems a lot less attractive.

Apart from that everything seems fi……wait a second, they’ve misspelt is in the header.  Woops…..

eBuyer -  HP 530 2gb memory Laptop only £269.97 @ebuyer.com

I’m actually looking into the possibility of buying a new laptop so this was going to interest me.  Still though, I will stay objective in analysing the header.

I’ll start off with the small gripe of having the companies name in the subject line after having it in the send from name…right that’s the bad stuff over with…

I like the fact they are putting the price in.  I think if there is a sale on or you are aiming at the price orientated market (and in these financial climates, who isn’t?), then price will entice more recipients to have a look.

As you may have guessed, i’m on a budget and the fact they have put a small bit of specification (also a selling point), interested me further and made me go and have a look through onto the site. I didn’t purchase (which is the ultimate goal of these) but that’s only becuase i’m half serious about a laptop. If I was more serious about going through with it, there’s a very good chance it would be through ebuyer.

Yesterday, I described why I was impressed with the betfair email I received last week: Inventive design, eye-catching, clear call to action and a good use of animated graphics made for a stand-out email; something which is essential in today’s cluttered inbox.

Now I look at what Next had to offer last week. Where as the betfair email marketing team had clearly put some thought into the email, Next seem to have just followed the guidelines.

Let me just state now that there is nothing particularly wrong with this email – professional design which will carry on the Next brand. The problem I have with this email is that it doesn’t really do anything different.

Fathers Day could be one of those emails where you could take advantage of the forward to a friend function. Can you see the forward to a friend? Yep that’s right, tucked away in the top right of the design – not even an image to make it stand out.

This seems like such a massive waste. The forward to a friend in this email could have really opened up the potential of the campaign. I presume that a lot of the recipients on this email are actually the Fathers, and why would they buy themselves a present on this day? What would have been a little more innovative would be to place a “send a hint” button underneath each “buy now” on the email, making that present hint effortless.

Apart from that, the email is all pretty standard, except that they didn’t bother to test the emails rendering for Outlook, which had images out of place and looking scruffy.

All of this leads to what I believe is lazy email marketing; something which will ultimately become less effective over time. With some continued testing of their campaigns effectiveness and a bit of forward thinking though, and Next could see some positive changes to their email marketing campaigns effectiveness.

Bearing this in mind, you should really look at the impact of your email when someone first opens it. A judgement will be made almost instantaneously when the email is first opened.

You need to firstly make sure that the campaign looks professional. The best thing to do is look through your inbox and find an email you like, then set that as the benchmark for your campaigns standard. The worst thing you can possibly do is construct an email that ultimately looks no better than the junk that you receive. If your camapaign lacks that air of professionalism about it, it will ultimately fail.

Secondly, the branding of the email can have an influential effect on the success of your campaign. There is still apprehension on trusting online services (need quote from recent survey) and if you have a different branded email to your website, a recipient can be (and rightly so) untrusting of the email authenticity. Always use your own website as a base of what your campaign should be constructed around. I’m not saying copy your website, but make sure that the campaign has a familiarity about it.

A lot of people will also scan read something and not pay full attention to it. What your email design needs to do is ensure that the things they do scan over are what you want them to pay attention to the most. If there is an offer on, or you want someone to take note of a certain area of interest in the email, make sure it is prominent to a scan reader. The best thing to do is to place your main points at the top of the page, and then go into further details further down the page.

This also works well for my next point; the preview pane. This should also be thought about as you should be trying to ensure that your email fits neatly within this preview pane. There are obviously different sized preview panes, depending on the email client but a general rule is no longer than 650px wide. This should allow the whole width of the email to be viewed in the pane, meaning you can get your whole message across to them before they open. Further to this point, I tend to find myself not bother with emails when they come into my outlook and I can’t view the full width of the campaign in my preview pane.

Though most design is down to personal taste, if you follow these rules, then you will at least have a good solid foundation to work from.

Then there’s the occasional openers who pick and choose when to look at your emails.  These people are more likely to be affected by relevance of email, timing of email, enticing subject header etc.

Finally there is the dead email addresses.  People who have only opened your email once, twice or sometimes never. 

Understanding what makes these people tick is the key to unlocking the full potential of your whole mailing list.

Firstly, the advocates of your company.  These people are already delighted with your company and it’s email campaign.  The key for them is to keep up what you are already doing.  No sharp changes in your format or direction of your emails will keep your core subscribers happy.

The occasional openers will require a little more research.  You need to look back at your previous campaigns and see where you had high open rates and then look at the factors which may have caused it.  An ideal thing would be to carry out A/B split testing on your list to see which factors encourage or discourage opens. By constantly testing your campaign you can get those occasional openers to at least become more regular.

Now for the dead emails.  This is always a tough decision for an email marketer to make but sooner or later you’re going to have to ask yourself “when is it time to remove them from the list?”

We have a customer who is currently going through this question with a sizeable list.  The first thing to do is try and eliminate all possibilities before believing that it is a lost cause.

Try changing the format or style of your email.  If it is quite a graphical email, there’s a chance that some of them are just not receiving the email. 

Another alternative could be that that you have never managed to entice them in.  In this case maybe offering these people a decent sized incentive to open the email will tempt the recipient back into the loop.

Eventually though, if you’ve tried these ideas and still had no response it may be time to part with them.  Some of them may have just signed up to enter a competition or entered in a hardly ever used email address just because they didn’t want their own inbox swamped.

Either way, with each passing campaign that you send out and they ignore, it will be getting more dangerous for you to keep sending to them.  The last thing you want is to have your reputation affected by someone who opens up the email after a year and has forgotten who you are.  Though your list will look less impressive, you will at least be able to concentrate your efforts on your active subscribers.

Now, I can hold my hand up and admit that I may have spent too much time getting obsessed with the strategic side of email marketing and not offering some more inspiration for creativity.

Don’t get me wrong, I think a well thought about and well maintained email marketing campaign can really work wonders for you.  The problem lies in the fact that more and more companies are taking on email marketing and soon enough there will be many well maintained email marketing campaigns and yours will not be standing out from that crowd as much.

As well as having a stand out campaign, the main goal in todays climate is to not only grow the recipient list but to make sure that these recipients are attentive to your messages.  With that in mind I started to think about email campaigns and the holy grail of viral-ability (yes, I have just made that up, but if Ian Dowie can do it….).

In a previous post I pointed out how H&M had exceeded my expectations by giving me a £10 voucher when I signed up, which I then subsequently told my friends about who also signed up.  Though this was an expensive technique that most companies can’t really afford, the idea of it is still worth some heavy thought. 

Yes, I know, it’s easier said than done but if you can get something that has that forwarding on effect, you can guarantee yourself some serious, cheap exposure.

You have your usual just for laughs viral campaign that will guarantee forwarding during those long office hours (such as reggae irie name generator). 

But it doesn’t have to just be the usual type of viral campaign.  The H&M one was just such a good offer, it would be rude not to tell your friends about free money.  Another great example of this is from one of our own customers, The Urban Shop. They offer 15% off to anyone who forwards the email to their friends, plus another 10% for the person who gets the forwarded message.  Both people benefit from the forward whilst at the same time encouraging the recipient to sign up to the list to receive greater discount in the future.

Another thing you’ll have to remember is to not leave it to the customer to forward this email on.  Treat the link like you would a call-to-action (which it is really), and make sure that a well-placed forward button is present for them to click on.

So when you’re next creating an email make sure that you think long and hard about your forward link, it could be a fantastic way to not only re-ignite or maintain your recipients interest in your campaign, but may prove to be a successful way to increase your mailing list size in the process.

Useful Related Articles:

BeRelevant: How To Make Your Email Marketing Campaign Stand Out From The Rest

No Man is an iland: Take a design risk and get animated? I was dubious about this idea until I read the post and then was left with a head-nodding hmmm at the end

Sporting Events

Wimbledon - 23rd June-6th July

Major Festivals

Notting Hill Carnival - 24th & 25th August

Bank Holidays

25th August

There’s also Fathers Day on the 15th June

1. Don’t make joining the mailing list mandatory when purchasing something from you.

   We all want to make our mailing lists increase, that’s a given, but there’s no need to increase it for the sake of numbers.  This will undoubtedly lead to an increase in recipients but it’s guaranteed that quite a few will be switched off from your messages.  Leave the “join our mailing list” check box unticked and try and entice them in with what you promise your content will have. 

2. Deliver what you Promised

   If you’ve promised that you’ll send them the most up to date information on new stock and sales, make sure that’s what you actually send them.  There’s a certain level a trust placed on you when a subscriber joins your mailing list and to break that by sending content that you didn’t promise will ultimately result in subscribers losing interest and not opening your communications in the long run.  For an example of how you should and shouldn’t carry this out, see my previous post on this subject.

3. Positioning of Subscribe Button

   Something as small as this can make all the difference.  Many articles I’ve read in the past have shown up to a 400% increase in subscribers joining their mailing list solely on the prominence of the subscribe button on their site.

4. Go beyond expectations

   Something I outlined in my previous post, is going above and beyond what you outlined your subscribers would receive from you.  Giving them a voucher or discount off of future purchases from you can really impress your subscribers, especially when they weren’t expecting it.  Word spreads when something like that occurs and can result in mailing lists expanding quickly.

5. Be consistent

   Try and send regular mail-outs to your subscribers.  The worst thing you can do is leave it for several months and then start sending out again, expecting your subscribers to still be interested in what you have to say.  Regular, relevant campaigns are the essential ingredient to growing and maintaining your subscribers.

The first company I signed up to was H&M. They promised they’d let me know when new stock, new offers and special deals were on (I’m a sucker for bargains). I thought that sounded like something I’d be up for knowing about, so entered my address in.

I instantly received a notification email from them and opened it up to find that they had given me a £10 voucher in the welcome email. I printed off the voucher and went down to H&M and spent it. I also told some of my mates about this cracking offer, who also signed up and spent their £10 vouchers.

Since then I have received another three emails from them, two of which had vouchers for me to print out, and the other gave me news of some special range of clothes coming in from some designer.

So not only did they manage to keep to their word but they also impressed me so much that I went and told my mates about it. They went above and beyond my expectations from an email marketing campaign. This is particularly impressive as they don’t actually have an online shop which means they had to drive us to get up and go to their shop.

Now the not so good.

Another company who don’t have an online shop but who I also enjoy shopping at is TK Maxx (did I mention I like bargains?). They promised to let me know when new labels and new stock was coming into the stores. As you really can find some treats now and then in TK Maxx I was quite excited about this idea and signed up.

The first signs that they hadn’t really thought this through properly was in the sign up process. As some of you may know, the clothing in TK Maxx is not the same from store to store, yet they didn’t ask for my postcode or at least general area.

TK Maxx also houses a wide range of clothing and items, spanning the different tastes of the UK population. Yet when I signed up they didn’t ask what areas I was interested in. I could see this going a bit sour.

Like H&M I received an instant notification email from them. I opened it, hoping for some kind of repeat performance of free stuff. What I got was a plain text email telling me that I had officially signed up and then reiterated what I should expect from them.

Since then what have I received? Nothing.

From what seemed like a great idea has just turned into something really quite disappointing, especially seeing the potential I saw in the TK Maxx campaign.

In contrast H&M have really worked wonders with theirs. The emails themselves are nothing spectacular or groundbreaking. But they don’t need to be as they have put the right amount of effort into their campaign planning before hand that they can just send out their campaign to a fully responsive audience.

So many companies come into email marketing hoping for a quick fix that will boost their sales and then very quickly stop the email campaign as they put no real thought into their emails. 

Whats the Objective of Your Campaign?

Probably the best thing to start off with is assessing what your overall plan is with this campaign.  Are you looking to increase sales? Build your brand up? Keep users in touch with latest happenings?

Once decided, you will be able to make better decisions for your campaign.  For instance, if your main goal is to increase sales, probably best to keep the latest developments in your company to a minimum and focus on the main goal.

Design and Layout

This can make the difference from someone opening your campaign, to clicking through to your website and making a purchase.  The first thing a recipient will see is the design of the email as they open it and as we all know, we make quick judgements.  If you send a poorly designed email that looks quite amateurish, then your recipients will see this as that. 

Remember that it is quite likely that these recipients get quite a few promotional emails, some from well-respected companies with good quality emails and yours must be comparable to them for your campaign to work.

The layout of your campaign can also determine how successful your campaign is.  You must make sure that if there is something you particularly want them to click on, that it is clear and obvious for them to click on.  This is otherwise known as the call to action.

Call to Action

Making your call to action prominent in the email is something that shouldn’t be an afterthought in your designing process.  This small part of the design process is also a major factor in your conversion rate, so put a lot of thought into how you want it to look and be placed.  You can try different methods, wording, graphics to get the most out of it.

Subject Line

Obviously this design thought will all be pointless if no-one is opening the email in the first place.  The subject line should be encouraging opens whilst at the same time summarising what is in the email itself.  Try and remember not to make it too long as you want your message to get across to your recipients without it truncating.  Try experimenting with your subject lines to see what factors change open rates.

Experimenting

There really is no definitive formula to making your campaign a success as every industry and recipient is different.  Though you can get the best practices in place, this may not necessarily mean you get instantly high responses.  The best thing to do is experiment with all aspects of your campaign and see which works best.  One of the most common methods is A/B split testing.  This way you can view for yourself which factors are working and which aren’t.  By experimenting for yourself, you’ll be guaranteed a happy and prosperous future in email marketing.