2. Creative: Creating Exceptional Email Marketing Messages: Part 1
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2. Creative: Creating Exceptional Email Marketing Messages: Part 1
- 1. Creating Exceptional Email Marketing Messages
- 2. The Recipe For Brilliant Creative Offer Deliverable Graphics & Readable Architecture Visuals Relevant Email Message Format Optimization
- 3. #1: Offers Old New Rule AIDA NEW New Rule IEEO
- 4. The Traditional Psychology of Advertising • AIDA Model Attention Interest Desire Action
- 6. The New Approach to Selling • The IEEO Model Invite Engage Educate or Entertain Offer
- 8. Offer Optimization: Understand Types • Certain offers are optimal for specific stages of the customer lifecycle and not others Entice to Subscribe Welcome Purchase • Exclusivity • Thank • $ Savings • Sweepstakes • Familiarize, orient • Free shipping • Free content/gift/access • Preview, alert • Sale deadline Cross-sell/Up-sell Retain/Grow Reactivate • Bounce-back • Education, tools • New Information • Segment-specific exclusivity • Tier-exclusivity • Extra savings, $ incentive • Behavior-related offer • Loyalty/rewards programs • Behavior-driven reward
- 9. How and If People Respond is Evolving • Consumers tired of being beat over the head with solicitations everywhere, all the time • Inclusion, invitation and community valued over promotion • People want relationship & temporal relevancy – Recognize appropriate stage at right time (you don’t go from first date straight to proposing marriage) • Give in order to receive • Social/service orientation resonating more than outright sales
- 10. Offer Key Takeaways • There’s still a place for both AIDA and IEEO • Variety and an ongoing mix of offer types is key – Begin with IEEO; progress into AIDA • Brand, product, and price can influence but do NOT DEFINE the approach you select • If in doubt, head-to-head test • Offer performance tracking important – Measure effectiveness and point of diminishing returns especially on AIDA style offers
- 11. #2: Subject Lines Old New Rule Short and Simple NEW New Rule Longer and More Specific
- 12. Average Marketing Email Open Rates • According to Epsilon's Email Trends & Benchmarks Report
- 13. New Research on Subject Lines • In 2011 Alchemy Worx tested and analyzed common assumptions about subject lines – Short (< 35 characters) outperform long – Single vs. Multi-proposition • Analyzed 205 million delivered emails across their entire client base • Total of 646 subject lines examined Source:
- 14. Subject Line Length Analysis • The longer the subject line the lower the open rate, but the higher the click-to-open rate Source:
- 15. Subject Line Length Findings • Subject Lines (SLs) under 60 or more than 70 characters generate the highest response – Shorter SLs generate higher open rates, an initial measure of interest, but much lower click-to-open ratios – Longer SLs generate a higher click-to-open ratio, an indication of ongoing interest and true response – Open and click-to-open rates intersect at about 60-70 characters, a “dead zone” where neither metric is optimized Source:
- 16. So if Longer Might Be Better . . . What Do You Say? • Multiple vs. Single Propositions (topics) – Longer subject lines can accommodate multiple vs. single propositions, which increase relevancy • Get detailed (about the offer, benefit, or content) – Use length to get specific enough for subscribers to decide how relevant each message is to them • The more relevant they consider the message, the more likely they are to take response action beyond the open • Use separators between major points if multi-proposition
- 17. Single vs. Multi-Proposition Single – often but not always shorter; longer can work for specificity Multi – can be short, but at any length must get to the point v v
- 18. Subject Line Key Takeaways • They act as a relevance filter – The more information you can get into the subject line, the higher the percentage of your relevant target market will open • Length not as much an indicator of response performance as specificity • Keep them in perspective – With “average” open rates around 22%, the vast majority of email does not get opened no matter who you are or what you do
- 19. #3: Format and Layout Old New Rule Optimized for Desktop Viewing NEW New Rule Optimized for Multi-Environment Viewing and Renderability
- 20. Email Receiving Environments 10 Years Ago 5 Years Ago Today
- 21. Proper Message Rendering a Growing Issue • Proliferation of hardware, software and physical place for receiving and viewing email create infinitely different and changing view-ability • Image blocking ongoing in Google, Outlook, corporate environments • No uniform standards across receiving email clients – Some like iOS resize message, others don’t • Anti-spam measures disable images, links • Format and layout need to enable, not hinder
- 22. How They See Your Carefully Crafted Messages • Fully opened on desktop/laptop • Preview pane • Tablet PC • Smartphone
- 23. Format and Layout Tips for Today • Single vs. Multi-Column Message Layouts – Single-column easier for mobile viewing and enables larger font sizes • Vertical still viable, but horizontal emerging – More common on Web pages making it’s way to email • Plain text still viable, but shrinking in use for commercial vs. functional email • HTML5 will accommodate video, but not yet universally supported
- 24. Single vs. Multi-Column Design
- 25. Vertical vs. Horizontal Scroll • Food blog Tablespoon did a holiday greeting email that scrolled horizontal
- 26. Switch it Up • This design approach fits the brand image and product name perfectly • What aspect of your brand/store/produ ct image would translate to email?
- 27. Format and Layout Key Takeaways • Design with a “mobile in the mainstream” mindset – Where once only a small percentage of your total list ever viewed email on a mobile device, it will become the new norm • Assume partial vs. full view – Optimize for preview pane viewing – position key elements to pop in order to stimulate full open • Plan Layout to stimulate both open and click • Simplify content organization (layout) – Too many columns, small print, too long not being read – Link to extended content on web • Form should support function – Layout should enable vs. hinder response
- 28. #4: Graphic Design Old New Rule Balance to achieve message rendering NEW New Rule Images & design support both rendering and response optimization
- 29. Design in Terms of Building Blocks Pre-header Headline Body Admin Area – (Graphic • Sub headline(s) Bottom • Main offer Header) • Images • Unsubscribe • View as web page • Large enough to • Copy • Postal address • Mobile link/text show in preview • Links • Link to option or mobile • Call-to-action Preferences • Whitelist/address • Not so large as to buttons, icons, Center or Account book request dominate arrows • Other useful links • Social media usefulness • Create as a • Offer T&C connections • Relates to offer mosaic • Share with Social/FTAF
- 30. Ensuring Viability: The Pre-header and Its Components • Link to Render Images or View as Web Page • Rendering or layout issues averted when viewed through browser • Link to view on Mobile Device • Add to Address Book/Whitelist request • “Pre-header Message” • Image-proof your offer with a plain text restatement of it at top of message or one-word link to landing page
- 31. Pre-header Example • Pre-header message restating offer is front and center • Link to view as Web page • Mobile option to view as text • Social media connections
Editor's Notes
- Although we’re focused on the “creative” part of an email marketing program the art of crafting email messages is about much more than simply being artistic. It’s about creating messages that are not only graphically eye-catching, but viewable, functional, relevant and useful. So the recipe for brilliant email creative begins with an essential ingredient that is the primary response motivator – your offer. Once the offer is determined, you’re ready for construction, so you’ll want to understand the building blocks of the message, the formats available to you, and how to optimize the leading graphical format – called HTML – for successful message deliverability and visibility in the inbox. Naturally, you’ll be mixing these ingredients with exceptional graphic design and copywriting skills. Sound like a lot to cook up? Well, like any artist, with a little practice at your craft and the insight I’ll share, you’ll be on the road to breakthrough email messages in no time.
- The traditional conceptual model for creating any advertising or marketing communications message is the AIDA Model: get Attention, hold Interest, arouse Desire, and then obtain Action. In email the subject line needs to grab attentionThe message body should encapsulate your unique value proposition and body copy should interest recipients in continuing to readFocus on one of the seven traditional human motivators to create desire and position yourself as the one company that can satisfy it:need, greed, guilt, fear, exclusivity, relief, and flatterytake a problem/solution approachGet them to say “yes”: position yourself as a solution through price, value, quality, status or uniqueness to create action
- Begin with an invitation or request to engageIf accepted, engagement happensThey inform, instruct, or entertainOffer/promotion is secondary to serving
- Here’s a look at how your offer stable might map into your marketing objectives. For example, when it comes to prospecting (review top row) but when it comes to customer marketing (review bottom row)
- When it comes to message architecture, meaning the building blocks of the message such as header, pre-header, body and footer, the one area that merits discussion in our limited time today is an attribute that has a direct impact on overall campaign performance because it is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, influencers on whether your message is opened and read: the subject line. So, I’m singling out subject lines and addressing these in our second new new rule of email creative.
- Every email marketing message consists of these basic building blocks, which can be thought of as distinct functional sections. From top to bottom, a well constructed message opens with the header containing the To, From, Date and Subject Line. Below the header the body of the message begins, yet before getting right into the content, most emailers will place one or more administrative requests immediately under the header. These might consist of a link to view the email as a Web page (necessary if it isn’t rendering properly in the email viewer) or a request to be added to a recipient’s “safe senders” list. After any up-front administrative elements, the body of the message containing the offer, copy, images, graphics and links is presented. Remember, your subject line should relate to your message content. Finally, the place for further administrative functions – including the two which are legally required – is at the bottom. This is the usual home of the unsubscribe and postal address of the sender.
- Moving on with our building blocks from top to bottom, after the header the body of the message begins. The area right at the top has come to be referred to as the "pre-header". It really isn't part of the header at all, but is rather a "pre-creative" messaging area. It's the home of three common elements that almost all emailers include these days: 1) a link to view the email as a Web page or forcibly render its images if they're not showing, 2) a "view on mobile device" link which will format the message for smart phones, and 3) a request to be added to the recipient's address book or white list to enable future delivery without blocking. But, there's also a new tactic cropping up in the preheader called the preheader message. The preheader message reiterates or supports the subject line and can call attention to secondary offers which aren't visible until toward the bottom of the creative. It has gained popularity because typically, this area of simple text survives any problems created when images and copy in the remainder of the message body don't render. we'll talk about image rendering shortly in case you're wondering what I mean.