I know. You watch the reads and the clicks… and you measure by ONLY that. Rough.

Even when people are not opening and clicking on your emails, they are having a future lift impact due to the branding that takes place in the inbox. Studies have shown with larger travel brands that if they remove the email marketing in controlled selected groups, those groups were less likely to book with them when they were in the market to purchase. It is about being “there” and not just when people are “in market” to purchase. As you might never know exactly when that time is for everyone.What does this mean or have to do with you? Well it has to do with two things.

Frequency and Consistency. Right there they are out on the table for all to see. Well…. do you have them? Does your email program have them? And if you do… are they enough? How do you know?I ask as I see so many brands and campaigns racing to get content out or smaller groups saying let’s just do a quarterly newsletter or one when we have something to talk about. Really? Now that makes sense to you, the internal company, but does that make sense to everyone else that has subscribed and is looking to hear from you? Not at all.

Why is it always on your terms? If you are not building touch points into your program that keep your name on the minds of your customers and prospects in a positive and resourceful way, then you just lost. As if you are not top of mind they are just going to go to the site that was most recently telling them that they might be the place for them. So how do you do this? Well each site/brand/blog/etc has things that can be used. Everyone has content that can be leveraged. Everyone in email marketing needs to learn how to be a story teller.

That is what we are. If you are not a good story teller, you need to be. They can keep audience engaged, listening, wondering, thinking and waiting for the next line. Don’t you want your email programs to have that effect when you are not getting the reads and the clicks?So why are you always concerned about your immediate sales? Sure someone is always in market somewhere, but you need to be ready to build a relationship first. You need to be able to tell a story.

You need to be engaging not once, but all the time.Grab a good book and notice how the story telling goes. Even better, go to iTunes, look up Podcasts, and listen to a few of my favorites at THE MOTH (an event in LA and NYC of storytellers).

See how they keep you there, engaged, waiting, wanting, and ready to close when the time is ready.

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For years I have seen most of us using small fonts in our email marketing campaigns. Now I know we do this for many reasons. We have a lot to say in a small space. (often times too much to say) We have email templates that are set up to use the same size fonts that we expect to get in email. We think that using the same size font in our emails as we use on a web page is right. Now all of the above MIGHT be right, but until I got this email I never thought too much about it. Really what made sense to me was just how easy it was to read when it was so big. It gave me this idea, why not start making the most important part of the email the largest font? If I want it to be easily read, quickly scannable and make an impact why not go BIG? I am not thinking that 12pt font is the right way, but the conditioned way that we are all used to. This email has me considering trying it a few times to see what happens. Now don’t let me make you think that a font this big should be an image silly rabbits, but font should be text. 

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Just a friendly reminder for you to check to make sure your the images in your email have HTML “alt” tags, which displays a text description when the image does not display. Here is why… 

Need I say more? Well yes, I will say more. I have been on Reebok’s list for quite a while. The reason the images were blocked is because they changed the email address used for email.  That removed the inbox whitelist I had previously setup.  While they do have a link to “If you can’t read this newsletter, view the HTML version online”, with no ability to see anything referencing email content, why should I click that link? Because of the subject line?This leads me to another topic: Image only emails - Why? With all of the chatter from ESP’s and the Blogosphere on email rendering and conversion increases from well designed/coded emails, why do people still do it?  I will tell you why, because it is easy. It takes time to code email for optimal rendering. In an image only email, you can create a unique and dynamic experience.  But is that going to pay the bills?Make sure that your designers are aware of the complexities of the inbox BEFORE they start designing.

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After ripping apart some poor email examples, I think it’s high time we point out someone who’s doing an email newsletter right.I’ve been getting emails from travel planning site Kayak.com for a couple weeks. In each issue I’m impressed by their email savvy, from content to design to the little extras that make me so likely to use them to plan my trips.

Why do I like Kayak’s emails — both as an email marketing guy and as a subscriber — so much?

Examples of Kayak’s Emails

Before we go any further, take a look at 2 issues of their email newsletter that I’ve received:

(Click the above images for full-size versions.)

What do you think of them? Here’s my take:

They Build a Relationship, Rather Than Going For the Hard Sell

As a member of several frequent flyer programs, I get emails from a number of airlines. I also get emails from time to time from other travel sites where I’m a member.

Rather than pushing for a sale right away, Kayak keeps my attention with great content.

I’ve never received an email campaign from any of them that tries to connect with me. They’re just so… all-sell, all-the-time, all about price.

Kayak, on the other hand, doesn’t scream at me about the latest deals.

Their emails sell the idea of traveling. Each section gets me excited about a destination, as if the emails were made up of postcards from friends who were visiting each place.

And even though I’m not usually looking to go anywhere, I often click through just to see what it might cost to take a trip. Just for fun (when was the last time your email campaign had subscribers going to your website just for fun? Try it.).

They’re Well-Designed and Easy To Read

This is exactly the kind of email that comes to mind (for me) when someone asks for an example of a “Light HTML” email message.

They cleverly separate each section with a header (the destination name).

They provide navigation at the top of the email to each section/destination, and each section has a link back to the top.

Navigation is text, not images, so it’s even useful with images disabled.

They distinguish their own content from sponsored content/ads by using lightly shaded backgrounds. Interspersing shaded sections with the main content also makes the email seem shorter than it actually is.

They put their logo in the upper left-hand corner of the email, so it appears in the preview pane, and they keep it small enough that it doesn’t get in the way of other content at the top of the email.

They’re Targeted To Me

And oh boy, is it easy to see what a trip might cost.

Did you see what they did in the sidebar? They put links to “cheap flights from Philadelphia.

When I signed up they asked me what my home airport was, and they’re using that to get me from reading their email to making a purchase. The links even go to a flight search page that’s pre-filled with Philadelphia as the departing airport.

With what is really just basic segmentation and personalization — nothing difficult or complex — Kayak makes a smooth transition from inbox to web.

They Encourage Communication

Look at the footer of the email.

Rather than hiding behind a “do not reply” type of address and using email as a way to talk at me, they tell me they want to hear from me!

What’s especially great about this is they give me multiple ways to contact them:

The link in their email goes to a feedback form on their site.

Unlike the company in our email footer example a while back, they send from an email address that forwards to their help desk, so even if I reply instead of using their feedback form, I can still get in touch with them.

Anything Else?

I feel like I’m rambling a bit here, so I’ll turn it over to you.

What did you like about these emails?

Or didn’t you like them (and if so, why not)?

How do you feel you can apply these tactics to your own email marketing campaigns?

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Of course, picking out dates to send campaigns might seem pointless if you don’t have any idea what your emails are going to be about!

So today, let’s get into some email content ideas.

Annual Industry Events

Many of us work in industries that follow relatively fixed annual cycles, where certain things take place at the same time each year.

Since we know about such cycles/events well in advance, we can plan individual emails or multi-email campaigns to send in the time leading up to (and in some instances after) them.

Major industry conferences and trade shows

Other Consumer or Product Cycles

A publisher in the music industry might send an email newsletter about the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference (occurs every March); if you write about cars, you might put a campaign together around the North American International Auto Show (each January); golf experts could talk about The Masters.

Other industry cycles work well, too. Are you an accountant? Create a campaign to send your subscribers from January up until (and through) Tax Day. Winery? Let readers follow the winemaking process along from harvest through crushing, pressing, aging and bottling.

Don’t Forget Holidays!

Industry-specific events aren’t the only annual occurrences that you can work into your email marketing calendar.

Holidays, while they shouldn’t be a cause of empty greetings, can provide a backdrop for thought-out campaigns.

Many businesses create a series of emails for the “12 Days of Christmas”

The floral, candy and jewelry industries are known for putting together strong campaigns in the months leading up to Valentine’s Day, but this holiday can work well for anyone marketing a unique product/gift idea.

Creating email marketing campaigns around the holidays may sound tired/trite to some of you — and in some cases, it is — but in my experience it’s all about the planning and execution, and how narrowly you define “holidays.”

For more holiday ideas, check out our holiday email marketing calendar. It contains plenty of celebrations that you might never have considered…

“Special Features” — Narrowly-Focused Email Campaigns

Just as in other media, you can drill down to one particular area within the broader focus of your email newsletter and publish a group of articles on that topic.

Example: our features on email marketing for doctors, restaurants and realtors.

This type of “special feature” (to borrow the term from more traditional media) can be a welcome diversion from your typical email newsletter content, and grab the interest of particular groups of subscribers.

Are you a travel agent? Highlight 5 destinations that offer exceptional value. Interior decorator? Show how different color palettes can make a room exciting, calming, bigger, smaller, and so on. A woodworking expert could take a little-used wood and showcase 3 projects that your readers can tackle using it.

The beauty of special features is that they:

Spice up your email newsletter.

Have natural cohesiveness, making it easy for you to keep your content relevant (example: a 5-part series on “readying your classic car for the next show” gives you 5 emails that logically tie together).

Give you plenty of email content to spread over multiple messages and keep in touch with subscribers while providing value.

Unless your email newsletter focuses on so narrow a topic that there’s absolutely no room to vary your individual message content, you can benefit from this type of campaign.

(If you think your email newsletter’s focus is too narrow to do this, please explain in the comments… I’d like a shot at giving you some ideas for possible “special feature” campaigns!)

Small Series of Tips: Break Up the Monotony

The other ideas discussed so far are all for creating “primary content” — the main focus of each campaign you send.

Even with an idea of where to start, and plenty of writing experience, you may find it exhausting to continually crank out thoroughly outlined, researched and proofread articles for your email newsletter.

Quick tips/ideas can supplement your main email content. They fit well in the sidebar of a 2- or 3-column HTML email, or near the end of a plain text one.

The tough part about motivating yourself to keep doing those types of campaigns is that you know that some people simply won’t end up reading the article thoroughly. They won’t have time, or they’ll want something they can scan through quickly.

This is where little “asides” or “mini-articles” can help. Since these are short, people are likely to read them, and they also require less of your time than a full-fledged article (so you can write a bunch of them in advance, and then just drop them into your campaigns as needed!).

Take a topic that you’d planned to turn into a full-fledged article — the primary content for one of your email campaigns — and break it up into bite-size packets of information. Then, put each of them into a different campaign under its own heading.

For example, a chef could use part of each email newsletter issue to highlight a little-known cooking tool and what it’s used for (maybe linking to a page with more details, a demonstration by video, recipes and/or a purchase link).

Multichannel Marketing: Sync Your Communications

If you’re taking advantage of other marketing channels like direct mail, radio and/or print media, think about how you can tie your email marketing campaigns in with those other media.

You might use email to alert subscribers of an upcoming promotion, or to look out for a flyer/catalog/postcard you’re sending them (or vice versa — you could use email to follow up after a campaign run in another media).

Marc recently blogged on multichannel marketing and gave an example of how a retailer coordinated email and postal campaigns to raise their response rate.

To learn more about multichannel campaigns, check out the MineThatData blog.It’s very advanced stuff, but if your business makes or plans to make significant use of multiple media channels to market to your prospects, it’s well worth your time to stop by.

source : http://www.aweber.com

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