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Are You Afraid of the M-Word?

by Informz on Jan 24, 2011

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In this webinar, attendees can expect to learn how to develop a strategy to meet the needs of both desktop email users and mobile users, analyze their audience's email habits, and create emails that ar...

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First let me tell you a little ABOUT INFORMZ – we are an email service provider with a range of solutions built specifically to meet the needs of associations and not-for-profits. Many of our staff have worked in these industries, including myself. So at Informz we are more than just another email service provider - you can consider us your industry experts and your partner for success! With the Informz solution – our core product is email marketing – yet we also offer a full suite of solutions such as those listed above. And the best part is that all the tools work together and the data can be leveraged again and again so that way OUR clients can now work smarter not harder. In addition to providing a hosted service that allows our clients to become a bit more paperless, Informz as a company, also strives to be environmentally responsible. We are 100% wind-powered and plant 10 trees for each new client that comes on board. Also, if you’ve attended a webinar or downloaded resources from us before – you may notice that we are sporting a new look today on this presentation. We are in the process of launching a brand new logo and as a participant in today’s webinar – you are getting a special sneak preview of that. We hope you love it as much as we do! So let’s get started with what we’re here to discuss today – and that’s how this year you can finally make email marketing and mobile become friends!
I am going to review where mobile is today, what options you have to ensure that your email is rendering correctly for each recipient. This will include covering ways you can find out how one is reading your email and how to leverage this information for email marketing success.In addition, how to design just for mobile users and designing for PC and mobile users alike. In addition, I will I cover I will end the presentation with a brief overview of creating a text messaging campaign. ‘Before I move on,lets take a poll – Drag the pool over
What may be a surprise is that in a survey done by Nielsen, 45% of web mobile usage is spent checking email. And one by Marketing Sherpa found that 64% of decision makers are reading email on mobile devices.The number of Smart phone users is said to more than double by 2013. This should be to no surprise to anyone, as yourself is probably sitting at your desk, listening to this Webinar, with your phone right next to you, possibly checking Facebook updates as I talk.So what are you to do about this? In a time when resources are low, who has time to worry about how your email is rendering on a 3x2 screen? You do and should, make time. This trend is not going away and is only growing. If you don’t start now, you will start losing subscribers and resulting in your deliverability going down.In addition, in a study of Informz clients CLICK
it was found that reading email on a mobile device has more than doubled in the past year. As you can see in this chart, desktop software, such as Outlook, has declined over the past year. This is not surprising since most individuals using a desktop software program are probably using it for work email, and the surge of smartphones, makes it easier for us to read our email outside of the office than at our desk. Overall, mobile readership is skyrocketing and we all need to figure out which of our members are using it and how to better design for them. So what to do? Start thinking small! And I don’t mean baby steps, I mean size of email message.But first, lets review how to figure out who is using mobile on your list. SURVEY Let me gauge the group, do you know who is reading your email on a mobile device?
Easy answer – everyone!There are a few ways you can find out who of your subscribers are primarily viewing your email on their mobile device versus PC. First, look at how many messages were sent as HTML and text. This is the beginning step to seeing if your readers have chosen to view in a text version, you may be able to assume, that this is due to them using a mobile device. There is no steadfast rule on what percentage you need to validate the need to create a mobile-friendly email. I would say any percentage, small or large, you should. I know myself, I may look at an email on my phone, my desk, or even these days, on your TV in your living room. It really matters what I have available to me at that moment.
Secondly, you could survey your subscribers. Every email list is only as good as the subscription form you used to obtain the email addresses. If you gathered these addresses by new members to your association, have you asked them to fill out a form stating their preferences from you? If not, it is time to do so. And when creating this form, make sure you ask your user how they prefer to read their emails. Many may like to receive email alerts that are mobile friendly but will only register for a course or purchase a book, while sitting at their desk on their PC. This is great Information to gather, and when the time is right, use it, test it, and see where mobile is most effective.In addition to using a subscription form, you can even survey your members, possibly starting with your newsletter. Asking them would they like a mobile-friendly version of the newsletter. You then gather those names and split your list for the next mailing of the newsletter.So lets look at a chart in which you can actually see what type of device they are viewing your email on CLICK
And lastly, look at your analytics, lets say for your weekly newsletter. The readership is pretty consistent week to week, so this is a great place to start testing out new ideas when it comes to mobile.Informz has this great new reporting tool that lets you see how your users are viewing your email. Here I am showing how one first read the email you sent them and CLICK, in this one, it shows out of those who opened it, how many were mobile users. There is also an extended chart that will show the actual clients of web based email clients such as Hotmail, GMAIL, etc. And why is this important?Easy, once you know what the majority of your readers are viewing your emails on, you can adjust accordingly. At Informz and possibly with your ESP, we have a Virtual Inbox, where you can preview the emails in all different clients before sending it out.From this report, you can identify the subscribers who are using a mobile device and send them a specific mobile-friendly email, and link them to your mobile friendly website. Because there is no point to work hard on designing a new email layout for mobile devices, just to have them link out to your website that does not render correctly on their phone. You will want to find out internally if this is taken care of, or just pull out your own phone and see how your website looks.So the benefits of finding out any of this information through the different ways are CLICK
The benefits of finding out how your subscribers are reading your emails are endless. A very important one is that they will not only appreciate it but they will become more loyal to you in the long run. By having targeted messages sent in the format they want, it will be easy for them to become engaged, take part in your meetings, purchase your products. As a company, you will see an increase in activity just by delivering the message in the format they want it in. Once you find out who is reading your message on what, and what they have asked for, it is time to design the message. CLICK
Alrighty, so when looking at designing for your mobile users, there are three scenarios you could follow. First, designing an email with a link to a mobile-friendly web version of the email. At the DMA’s Digital Marketing days conference in 2010, it was shown that this link, on average, was the 3rd most clicked on link in promotional emails, yet, not many of you are using it.Secondly, if you find you have a substantial number of mobile readers, whether through the subscription form or through findings in your analytics, you can actually create a duplicate email designed specifically for the mobile phone. This should be done strategically to ensure you are not sending the mobile version to those that are more likely to read on their PC, as this will not render correctly.Thirdly, a combination solution, and one of the most popular ones. This is where you create an email that will render clearly both on the PC and mobile device, without losing its effectiveness.So lets review the first one on the list, creating a web version.
So the first option is very simple, create a web version.A web version is where you place a link above the header that directs the reader to a web version of the email. In Informz, you can easily create your web version in our content manager and link the reader to this page. One thing to make sure is that the page is mobile friendly as well. In the example above, we linked readers to a web version and this is how it appeared on the phone. CLICK
As you can see in this example, the web version is easy and clean to read. We have all been told to keep it up above the fold. That is a great tip to follow on a desktop screen, however, on a mobile phone, people DO scroll, but make sure you keep the scrolls to no more than 4, but from top to bottom, not left to right. Less is better, you are not writing a book in your email!So some tips in creating a web version include:Keeping the width of your web version email email at 100% and don’t put a height on it. This will help it fit to the size of the screen being used. This will help it span the width of the device they are viewing on and preventing individuals from scrolling left to right.As for a banner, try to keep it 125 pixels high, and have it span the width of the email. As for images, keep them no larger than 480 pixels. You want to your readers to see the copy you worked on, not all of the graphics that look great on a PC but tend to be blocked on a mobile device. Too many images will force your copy below the fold.In addition, when creating links in the body of your email, make sure they are space between them. If users don’t zoom in and there is little space in between the different links, you risk having the user click on the wrong link. Also, font size should not be any smaller than 12 pixels.
So creating a web version of an email is pretty straightforward. Once you set up your parameters, you can create a web version for every email moving forward pretty easily. This version allows both your PC and mobile readers to have access to a nicely designed and laid out message. You don’t have to worry about who has what or where they are reading the message, because you gave them an option up front to view it on the web. However, you need to make sure that web page is mobile friendly or you just defeated the purpose of doing this version.And lastly, not many staff hours are required for this. The next option, a mobile only layout could create more staff time to create duplicate emails every time around. So lets review what mobile only layout entails.
When deciding to segment out your audience and send a specially designed email that will render correctly on mobile devices, you will want to follow some of the same guidelines as I pointed out with the web version, such as:Keeping the width at 100%. This again will keep the information within the constraints of the mobile device being used.Images need to be less than 480 pixels if you plan to use them, and banners no more than 125 pixels high and have it span the width of the email. I want to show you how one of our clients has created a mobile-only email that is not just plain black text.
One of our clients, Toronto Board of trade, actually sends out two versions of their newsletter. One for PC users and one for mobile-users. As you can see, one has images throughout the design and the mobile-only, removed many of the images and left justified the text.Both of these tactics can have a huge impact on your readership since now, the information you want to share is clear, concise, easily laid out, for your readers to click on the stories they want to know more about. Some additional tips on creating a mobile-only layout include: CLICK
Layout – make sure you keep mobile- only to one column. This will ensure it will fit to the screen and not Use alt tags for your images. Similar tip as keeping your images small the size of your email should be reviewed as well. you can only fit about 12-15 lines per screen, on average. Like the example I have on this slide, many mobile readers cutoff messages and require the reader to choose to download the complete contents of the message. Don’t expect your reader to overcome this obstacle every time, make it easy on themMany of us do this already, but always include phone numbers and email addresses. A lot of mobile devices automatically create them as a link, making it easy for the read to get in touch with you. Keep the subject line to no more than 30 characters. You think you have limits on your PC, look at your phone one day and see how short it is. 30 is actually pushing it in the preview screen.On to links. when you choose to track links within in an email, the code that is added to the link is extremely long, and can actually take up the first half of your screen. TryRemoving the tracking to make the email appear easier to read. If you still want to track you can create a user-friendly URL, still can’t track it to that email but you can keep track for the following 72 hours if you received an increase in hits to that page.Use a service such as TinyURL.com, to create a redirect for the longer address. This service shortens the address so it doesn’t take up as much room in your body copy. CLICK!
With a mobile only version, you are able to create an effective, to the point marketing message. When you send a typical PC email message, many individuals tend to overwrite, and fill the white space. When writing to be viewed on a mobile device, you have to have more restrain. Not much copy will fit above the fold and therefore, your actionable words need to be placed in the first two sentences. And with all email messages, both on the PC and mobile devices, the more subscribers you can have open your email, the higher your deliverability and relationship with the ISP’s will be. If your email does not render correctly, subscribers will tend to delete it and that is marked negatively when ISP’s look at you. The more readers delete without opening, the lower your deliverability will go as ISP’s will view you as a spammer, sending to those who don’t want to receive your mail. But in reality, your message is just not rendering correctly, and the reader can’t view it to start with. A mobile-friendly layout, will fix that.The next is my favorite, the combination design.
So we have reviewed creating a web version of the email and how to create an email specifically for mobile users. The last type of design is creating a hybrid email, one that will be eye-appealing to both PC and mobile users.This is my favorite option since it removes the need for extra work. Once you set up a template that works well with everyone, you won’t need to do extra work.First I am going to highlight one of our clients, Kansas City Convention and Visitors Association, that has created a combination, mobile friendly layout for their weekly newsletter. First, I want show you one of their most recent promotional emails, not the newseltter. So as you can see here, this email promotes new years eve in the city. It looks wonderful on a hotmail account opened up in Internet explorer. The city looks alive, food looks delicious, heck, I may go next year!By using Informz’s virtual inbox, you can see how your email renders. Now, lets look at how it renders on an iPhone. CLICKSo, it doesn’t really say much to your senses. We all know iPhones are known to rederimagaes better than lets say a blackberry, but not always. The email doesn’t have the same feel. And right here, you may loose a potential visitor/customer, because it did deliver the same effect as it does on a PC.So lets look at their newsletter and compare those on the same two devices.
First image, is from Hotmail again, it nicely lays out information, one simple image.CLICKNow look at it on the iPhone. Only thing different is the one image, but since the images don’t tell the story or provoke a feeling, such as the new years eve email, you are not losing potential customers right away. Another thing to look at is, the email in Hotmail is centered, but on the iphone it is to the left. But it is still rendering correctly for both. This is a great design that we should all be striving form.So lets look at the tips on how to get here.
First , define a width of the message, typical width is 600-650 pixel wide. If you choose to do a percentage like the web version or mobile only version, it will expand to 100% of the PC screen, and that is way too large for an email. Put limits on it and it will render correctly on every screen. Secondly, consider your sidebars. This does help with the overall flow and design of the email, but it can cause text to move around on mobile devices that may not render images correctly. Always test and decide if sidebars will work with the majority of your subscribers or not, on a mobile device. Same as the web version, keep your images small, smaller than 480pixels. Bigger than this and will increase the size of your email and could take up half of the 3x2 mobile screen as well. And keep them limited. You saw what happened with the new years even email, 90% of the email is told through the images. If you use images, always use alt tags to label them correctly, such as if you use headers in a newsletter. If the image doesn’t come across correctly, but a red x box does, you want an alt tag so the name of the image matches what the image is.Remember on a text version, you need to review that as well. Most Email software automatically creates a text version, but it will not necessarily be an easy to read text version. There are a lot of codes, line breaks and web addresses that appear nice in HTML format but look awful in text format. Change the text version, insert some lines to highlight different areas and clean up the hyperlinks. You will notice that the make the formatting all off due to the tracking code attached. So lets review the benefits of this combination design.
This is my favorite option as it becomes the standard layout for all of your emails. Therefore, you don’t have to change steps for each email or add any new ones, just create a layout, and boom, it works.With using a one-column design, it will easily render correctly on almost every device and therefore, you should feel confident in your message appearing like you intended it to. And overall, this option requires minimal staff time, which allows you to have more time to concentrate on the many projects you manage.Ok, lets recap what I went through already
First, subject lines and body copy, keep them short. More is NOT better. You only have a few seconds to grab their attention in hopes they will spend the 15-30 seconds on average people spend reading the body of the email. Mobile devices only have a 3x2 screen so subject lines, from addresses and pre-headers are the first thing the reader sees.Make it recognizable, make sure the pre-header states the gist of the email, such as Save $20 on registration, etc. It should complement the subject line, not repeat it. Images, make sure you limit them, in both mobile friendly emails and your regular emails. And if you must include images, such as your logo, a cover of a book, make sure the name of the image relates to it directly. When images are turned off, the alt tag will show and you would not want it to say 123.jpg.Lastly the text version
The national association of bond lawyers, creates a mobile-only newsletter that is all text. They take away the fancy fonts, highlight items with asterisks. This is great to follow, whether you want to apply it to your text versions or creating a mobile-only version of your email and not worry about images rendering correctly.And the last tip before we move onto text messaging is TESTING. I can never do a presentation without reminding everyone how important testing is, especially when wanting to create an email that the majority of your audience can view.CLICK
Test, test test! When I say testing is important I mean test 2 ways.First in terms of your effectiveness you want to routinely try testing different things to see what works best for your audience. Try testing out different types of subject lines throughout the campaign and the different length of subject lines. Also try testing things like messaging and link placement – this is going to make you aware of the strategies that work best for your audience.CLICKAlso, you want to make sure that you are testing the rendering of your email to make sure that it renders the way in which you intend. As I have said all along, email programs render HTML code differently, as well as mobile devices.Not only are you wanting to see the layout of the text, but your background colors as well. Take for example, Outlook 2007 doesn’t show background images. These are things you would see if you knew who your subscribers were using most often, then tested your email, and at that point, you can make adjustments to your template as well as the email body.I showed you examples earlier and I hope you take this information and test your emails starting tomorrow. So on to what many of us are not doing, and fear to do, text messaging campaigns.
So when looking at the option to do a text messaging campaign, one of the first things you need to look at is what you plan on using it for. There are so many ways text messaging can fit into your company or association. You need to use use text messaging to complement your email campaigns, such as, a reminder about the upcoming webinar in case they are on the road and need to dial in to listen. Get them engaged through surveys through text message, polls during a webinar or conference. You can even do a contest throughout the annual meeting, and everyone who answers a question right would be put into a drawing. The options are endless. There are so many ways to use text messaging but how do you start a campaign? Lets take a look.
There are two ways one can sign up to receive text messages from you, either, through a subscription form, or through a keyword that you have associated with your campaign. On your subscription form, you want to include a note to make your subscribers aware that by signing up and receiving texts from you, may result in incurring costs from their phone company. This is all pretty standard these days.Once they opt-in, I suggest sending them an email or a text messaging to have them confirm their subscription. This will ensure they truly want to receive text messages from you and that you have their correct phone number to send to. Once they have confirmed, you can set up a campaign in a variety of ways, whether you want to send them texts for all types of alerts or have them sign up for specific ones either through the subscription form or keyword they submitted.You also want to make sure that when you send a text message, there is always a few words on how to opt out, such as, Reply STOP to end. This is really important as you need to offer your subscribers a way to opt out as you do with emails.Click
Some tips on a text messaging campaign include:Before you do anything, decide if text messaging is right for your audience. As assumed, the younger generation uses text messaging more often than the baby boomer generation, but that is not to say, that they don’t use it at all. Contain your text message to 160 characters, to ensure it will fit in one message.As with email marketing, text messaging requires even more discipline to deliver effective content in limited space. Don’t just text to send something, text to deliver valuable content, such as the latest happenings on capitol hill, or a hot speaker topic happing to all those that are currently at the meeting. This is a great way to get your attendees engaged throughout the meeting as well.And finally, every successful campaign, whether its direct mail, email or text messaging, comes down to reviewing the results. Figure which campaigns have the highest conversion rate by including a code for people to use to receive the discount, or asking them to respond back with a rating of the speaker. At this time you can only track who received the text but you can’t track if they read the text. However, what is great about Informz is that the text messaging module is part of the same system you use for email so you can create a multi-faceted campaign, stemming from one database.
So some benefits of text messaging include the most obvious one, less expensive for you compared to designing, printing and mailing a brochure, or placing banner ads on outside websites. You have a list of individuals that are truly interested in what you are offering and in the end, will become your most loyal customers. Don’t spam them, use text messaging strategically and increase ways they can become engaged. So that concludes my presentation, I hope everyone enjoyed it. I believe we have some time for some questions today. CLICK

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Pramodh BN , Founder and Chief Instructor at Digital Business School Tags mobile marketing 1 year ago

Are You Afraid of the M-Word? — Presentation Transcript

Are You Afraid of the M-Word?
Jeanette Arrighi, MBA
Marketing Strategy Manager
Twitter
@Informz
@EMKTG_GURU
Overview
Mobile Today
Using Analytics
Options for Delivery
Text Messaging
Mobile Today
- 45% of web mobile usage is spent checking email.
- 64% of key decision makers are reading email on mobile devices.
Mobile Trends
Informz Readership Review, 2011
Who is using mobile
Text over HTML
Who is using mobile
Ask your subscribers
Who is using mobile
Look at your analytics
Benefits
Deliver what your subscribers want
Higher likelihood they will take action
Increased deliverability and loyalty
Designing for Mobile
Web version
Unique design for mobile users
Combination design
Web Version
Web Version
Keep it clean and simple
Width should be 100%
Headers and images
Easily-clickable links
Font size
Benefits
Everyone wins
No guesswork
Low effort
Mobile-Only Layout
Very similar to the web version
100%
Mobile-Only Layout
Mobile-Only Layout
Very similar to the web version
Alternatives to images
Include phone numbers and email addresses.
Size
Benefits
Will render on most Smartphones
Increase deliverability
Easy to understand marketing messages
Combination Design
Combination Design
Combination Design
Define a width of the message, not a percentage
Consider how many columns
Image control
Text version tips
Benefits
Set it up once
Easy to render on all devices
Low long-term effort
Overall tips for mobile marketing
Short subject lines
Include contact information
Pre-headers
Short body copy
Limit images
Consistent “from” line
Manage text version
Overall tips for mobile marketing
Test, test, test
Text Messaging Campaigns
Capitol Hill alerts
Special discounts/offers
Tip of the day
Happy birthday alerts
Annual meeting communication
Text Messaging Campaigns
Subscription form
Double opt-in
Opt-out option every time
Tips for a successful campaign
Decide if your subscribers want this
160 characters or less
Clear message on what action you want them to take
Review analytics
Benefits of Text Messaging
Less expensive than traditional print advertising
More interested customer
Immediate effect
Questions?
advisor@informz.com
Follow us online:
www.twitter.com/informz
www.slideshare.net/informz

Are You Afraid of the M-Word?

by Informz on Jan 24, 2011

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Are You Afraid of the M-Word? — Presentation Transcript