Enabler provide best practice advice around utilising the right email tools within your email software for your B2B and B2C marketing communications.

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Your pre-flight sending checklist

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Scheduling emails, especially those going to large audiences, can be a daunting task. After all, how can you be 100% sure that your recipients are receiving the right communication, at the right time, without any glitches?  The truth is, mistakes do happen – but there are a number of measures you can put in place that will make sure you get it right as much as possible. I’ve put together something I like to call your ‘preflight checklist’ *cue aeroplane noises*. It will help you get your ducks in a row before pressing that all important send button.

 

Test emails

Sending test emails is one of the best ways of checking how your email will display for your customers. The part where people trip up is by sending the test emails to one email account (usually themselves) and marking this down as the email having been fully tested. The issue with doing this is you end up only seeing the email on one email client (i.e. Gmail), and perhaps only on one device – normally desktop.

There are a number of ways you can view your emails on multiple email clients. The most obvious (yet time consuming) way is to have different email accounts with different email clients (e.g. having an Outlook, Hotmail and Gmail) and send tests to each of those accounts. If you have no other options then this will, at least, give you insight into several views your customers will see.

However, the best (and more efficient) way I’ve found to test emails is through a tool called Litmus, which allows you to check how your emails will look across a wide variety of email clients and apps. There are tools similar to Litmus out there which are based around the same concepts, all ranging in price and functionality. It’s definitely worth having a look around and finding the best fit for you.

 

Plain text

This one is particularly important if you partake in much B2B mailing. When an email client cannot read a HTML email it will default back to ‘plain text’, which is exactly what it sounds like, lines and lines of basic text without images. Sounds pretty dull right? But what would you prefer, lines and lines of text which your customer can read and get the general message of your email from, or a blank space. Personally I’ve never found blank spaces to be much use in marketing – for one thing ROI on them is rather low…

In this tech-savvy age, most email service providers, will provide you with a way to auto-generate your plain text based on the HTML it can see. If your current system doesn’t provide this feature… come have a chat with us at Enabler! You can check how your email will look in plain text in a couple of ways. The best way I’ve found is to either view it through Enabler’s email marketing software, or send yourself a test and turn off your email client’s ability to read HTML temporarily.

 

Date and time

This may sound incredibly basic, but have a think about when you are planning on sending out your communication. If it’s B2B, don’t try and send on a Saturday, no one will read it. If you’re B2C, have a look at the success of previous communications and plan around it. Think about if your message has a specific time frame to it (e.g is it a limited time offer). When you come to actually schedule the send, double check all these things!

 

Sending List

Choosing who will receive your email is really important. When choosing who to send to, think:

“Will this customer find the content of the email:”

  • Relevant

  • Useful

  • Interesting

If you can’t satisfy that criteria, then don’t bother sending the email, chances are they will not open, and even if they do open, they wont click, call or respond to CTA’s in the way you want. Once you’ve decided who you will send to, make sure you segment the data properly in your email database, and please name it something you are going to remember at a later date!

 

Dynamic content tests

This is only applicable if you are using dynamic content in your emails. With dynamics, it can be tough to figure out how each individual customer will view your email, so testing the variations is incredibly important.

Email clients such as Gmail have a really handy way of doing this. All you need to do is set up multiple email addresses for yourself which have ‘+’ in the email address, each with a different variation associated with the email address. For example, if you market for a pet insurer and want to test different content variants in a pet-orientated email, you might have:

  • firstname.lastname@gmail.com

  • firstname.lastname+cat@gmail.com

  • firstname.lastname+dog@gmail.com

  • firstname.lastname+rabbit@gmail.com

In this situation you would have assigned yourself a cat profile to the +cat email address, a dog profile for the +dog etc. What this allows you to do is have multiple versions of the same email sent to your inbox, meaning you can test multiple versions of the same email without having to constantly change your settings within the system.

 

Send logs

This is really the holy grail of avoiding send anxiety, and it’s something we do in my team at Enabler. Send logs provide a safety check before you hit the send button. They force you to look at each of your settings right from ‘am I sending the right template’ to ‘what time is it going’. For added security at this stage, get a colleague to double check it for you.

If you want to see an example of the send log we use at Enabler, for inspiration, get in touch and we will happily send one across.

I really wish I had a fancy acronym to give you to remember all that… hang on let me give it a go…

T.P.D.S.D.S.

Hmm – Nope, not enough vowels. Oh well, have a go at making your own one up to help you remember, but if you can’t and you want a reminder, read this blog again, or give me a call, we’re always here to help at the Enabler team!

Happy sending email nerds!

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The new Nokia 3310 – what’s all the hype about?

The Nokia 3310’s official comeback conquered the news around the world last month, but what’s all the hype about?  My initial observations would say it is all down to one thing: nostalgia. People dreaming of simpler times when the mobile phone was only used for calls and texts, and you didn’t need to charge your phone more than once a week. Basically, a time when Zuckerberg was still at school and a tweet was a noise a bird made.

The Nokia 3310 seemed to be the perfect phone… in 2000. However, because most of us are NOT living in a hipster village where everything nostalgic is instantly better.  In 2017, what we do need is a phone that assists us in performing daily tasks in this fast-paced smart world. Here are some facts to consider if you are thinking of falling into this retro trend of nostalgia.

According to a report published by Radicati Group, on average business individuals receive up to 88 emails a day, and are expected to react to some of them immediately; an interaction which smartphones handle beautifully. The Nokia 3310, on the other hand, can only be used for making and receiving calls, texting, playing Snakes (yes, I loved it too!) and taking pictures (on a 2 MP camera and assuming you have an SD card).  So straight away, it means the 3310 user is out of touch with the online world, unable to check their emails, incapable of searching the internet and cut off from social media platforms.  All the dozens if not hundreds of daily online interactions you make, suddenly gone.

To illustrate the percentage of recipients who currently open email on their mobile device, we’ve run some browser analysis reports in our email marketing platform, Enabler*. The report reflects campaigns that have been sent in the past 12 months, between March 2016 and March 2017.

Here are the findings: 

(Enabler statistics from two separate insurance companies)

In just 12 months, emails have seen a 64% increase in opens on a mobile device, up from 31.7% (Figure 1) to 52% (Figure 2)… so imagine what the increase has been since the 3310 was alive and kicking?!

Interestingly, if we break down the Mobile Device Analysis further, we can see that 99.5% recipients opened the email via Apple iOS devices which includes iPhones and Tablets.*

(*Please note, this is just an example and devices may vary depending on the target audience and or industry.)

So, let’s assume that your customers have decided to stick with their handy smartphone rather than switching back to the stone ages of a not-so-smart phone (sorry Nokia).

 

What can be done to ensure emails are well received on any device, and that the overall user experience meets recipients’ expectations? 

The good news is that there are quite a few software providers that enable you to preview your email templates to see how they would display on a recipient’s’ mobile device, thus enabling you to optimize your emails for the apps and devices your subscribers use.

Example below illustrates how an email campaign displays across different devices. 

And now here’s an example of how that same email would display on Nokia….

Oh, wait… it won’t.

Joking aside, here are some more ways you can make sure your emails look great on a smart mobile device:

 

Stacked modules

Another important mobile optimisation tactic is stacking modules into single- column templates. If a desktop version email is simply shrunk into a smaller mobile version, a recipient would have difficulties reading email content, and this impacts engagement/clicks. Modules allow the email content to stack on top of one another so that the desktop version rearranges and resizes into a mobile -friendly version that delivers a better user experience.

However, you may find that the modules sequence is different to the one in desktop version. That’s when the developers step in with their programming skills, ensuring that the modules’ logical order is from left to the right, and the email width is decreased. There is also reverse stack order option where the columns go right to left, depending on content hierarchy.

For more information on stacking modules, see our blog on Top 10 Email Coding Tips.

 

Subject lines

The reports we ran in Enabler indicate that subject lines under 50 characters long get the highest percentage of both open and click-through rates. The reason for that is two-fold; firstly, as famous psychologist, George Loewnstein said once, the short subject lines generate curiosity. The second one is that most recipients’ mobile devices only display 50 first characters of the subject line. Here’s an example of what you’d see if you tried to see a subject line of an email on a Nokia.

 

Font sizes

Making sure your copy is legible is one of the main things to concern yourself with when creating emails for mobile. You’ve probably noticed that this experience varies from email to email. For instance if the font is smaller than approx. 13 pixels it will not display large enough on smart phones for anyone to be able to read it, especially not your tech-forward granny.

In fact, some devices will automatically increase any font size that is below 13px. You can set the font size to display differently on mobile than it does on desktop in your code. Nokia is actually pretty good at letting you set font sizes… but unfortunately this is only on the phone itself… as it doesn’t support email.

 

Taking all the above into consideration, it seems a no-brainer that the Nokia 3310, or any other non-smartphone would not be of much use to the vast majority of mobile users in 2017. 

Obviously I’m coming from an email perspective here, but it’s not just email that suffers without a smartphone. The importance of receiving and reacting instantly to internet-based communications such as calendars, project updates, social media, apps, GPS and a good quality camera, to mention just a few, seem far more relevant than just having the nostalgia of a Nokia 3310 and Snakes. I predict that the Nokia comeback will only be as one-off addition to a smartphone, and will most likely be just a fleeting fad – but hey, what’s life without fun fads right (that’s right Flappy Bird, I’m talking to you).

There is, however, one plus-side to the Nokia 3310 that beats the smartphone hands down… you will probably need to take a sledgehammer to it to crack the screen!

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Top tips for an irresistible subject line

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Inboxes around the world are bombarded by around 205 billion emails every day, so a strong subject line will make or break your email’s chances of being noticed, let alone opened. Discover how an irresistible subject line can help command the attention of your recipient and maximise your chance for engagement.

Write for mobile – short and sweet

On average, over 54%* of emails are opened on a mobile device, and a smaller screen means less space to display your subject line, which puts it in danger of being cut short. To avoid this, always ensure your subject line is no longer than 50 characters. This gives you approximately eight words to play with, which should be plenty to get your key info across, and grab the attention of your recipient’s interest.

 

Let’s get personal… Use their name

Okay, so this isn’t strictly a subject line tip, but it will certainly help improve your open rates. People are more likely to open an email sent from another person than from a company, so put their name in your message and get people curious about what you’ve sent them.
See our previous blog post dedicated to personalisation to find out more.

 

Make the most of the preview text

Most Email Service Providers (ESPs) allow you to edit the preview text that displays next to your subject line, and many recipients use this text as a quick screening tool to decide whether or not they want to open your email. If you begin your email with some interesting facts or an intriguing premise, you could mirror this in the preview text to hook the reader into opening the email. Alternatively, you could do more exciting things with your preview text, such as:

  1. Ask a question in your subject line and answer it in the preview text, e.g. “How Will Your Customers Find Your Website?” or “We’ll let you in on our secret tips…”

  2. Elaborate on the subject line, e.g. “Holiday Deals from £99” or “Go to Spain, Italy or Greece for a Bargain Price.”

  3. Give an incentive to open the email, e.g. “Valentine’s Day Sale” or “Up to 80% off Candles and Scents”

 

Make the recipient feel special

If you haven’t the data, never fear – you don’t just have to rely on the recipient’ name to make your emails stand out with personalisation. Emphasising “you” within your subject lines is a proven way to attract the attention of the reader, with phrases like “Exclusively for You” and “Your Special Selection” to give your subject lines the feel of a personalised message rather than a generic sales email. Done right, your recipient should feel appreciated as a customer and should spark enough intrigue to make them more likely to open the email to find out what you’ve chosen for them.

 

Be like-minded… Help readers to identify with your emails

People like to self-identify and belong to a group – that’s why all of those Buzzfeed quizzes about your favourite Game of Thrones character, or questionnaires about which Hogwarts House you are most likely to get Sorted into are so popular and effective at driving engagement. By segmenting your audience data into relevant categories, you can start identifying different demographics and audience interests that will help you shape your email copy and subject lines. For example, you could target your 18 – 22 year olds at university with “The Broke Student Guide to a Luxury Holiday.”

 

Inject some humour

If you make someone chuckle with your subject line, they are much more inclined to open your email to see what other giggles are in store. A classic pun is often a good choice, or you could take your recipient totally by surprise like Groupon did: “Best of Groupon: The Deals That Make Us Proud (Unlike Our Nephew, Steve)” Cheeky old Groupon did break the 50-characters-maximum rule here, but hats off to them for the wit!

 

Drive action by creating a sense of urgency

People check their email while on the go, and often see a message they intend to come back to, yet promptly forget about it. Don’t let this happen to your emails. By using targeted verbs (action words) in your subject line, you can help drive the recipient to do what you want them to do.  By instilling a sense of urgency, they are more likely to open your email as soon as they see it. Good examples could be “Go On, Treat Yourself”, or “Blink And You Might Miss Out…”

 

Use reverse psychology

‘Trick’ people into opening your email by setting them a challenge, such as “Bet You Didn’t Know This About…” or simply by telling them not to, like Manicube did: “Don’t Open This Email.”  Human nature means that most people will see this and be curious enough to have a nose – just make sure your content is actually worth the trickery, and maintain consistency between the subject line message and your email content so readers don’t actually feel tricked. One of the simplest (but rather unimaginative ways) of linking the subject line and email copy is by saying “Now that we’ve got your attention…” We won’t judge if you want to use it!

 

Incentives drive opens

If all else fails, offer an incentive in your subject line to encourage people to open your email. This might be the promise of a product sample, discount offer, prize draw, mystery surprise or anything else you can offer to get people to open your email (short of blackmail. Don’t do that.) Just try and avoid features which can trigger the dreaded spam filters – words like “Free,” “Click,” “Sale,” writing in ALL CAPITALS, and excessive punctuation “!!! <3”
See our blog on avoiding spam filters for more useful tips on this.

Hopefully this has given you some ideas to run away with. If you fancy a few of them but aren’t sure which would suit your business, try several different subject lines and perform a split-test to find the one that performs best.

If you’ve got a subject line in mind but you’re worried about potentially triggering spam filters, there are some free testing tools online that will give your subject line a score basenabled on how many spam-like elements it has. Subjectline.com is a useful one we would recommend.

If your mind insists on going blank whenever you look at the box for your subject line, give an automatic subject line generator a go. This one is really handy – just pop in your keywords, and it will generate loads of potential subject lines for you to choose from or tweak.

However you decide to formulate your subject line, a key thing to remember is that the tone and language should suit both your audience and the organisation you work for. . If it sounds drastically different from your usual brand voice, the effect will be jarring and strange; you don’t want people to think you’ve been hacked or have started sending spam.  If you’d like to start reaching out to your customers differently, consider it as part of a broader branding shift.

*According to report by Litmus in their 2017 State of Email Report.
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Looking beyond the clicks: analytics – chapter two

If you read our first Reporting and Analytics blog, you’ll already know the importance of tracking your email campaigns, and what key metrics you should be recording.

So now you’ve got the basics covered, we’re going to delve deeper into email reporting metrics, more specifically looking at link tracking and Google Analytics integration. Excited?

You should be, because these metrics could help you turn clicks into conversions… now that’s exciting.

 

Why do we look beyond the click?

Every good marketer knows that ‘click thru’ rates are an essential metric that tell you how many people clicked on the links within your email, giving you a good indication of how engaged your customers were with your content. However, click thru rates do not give you the full picture of what happened past the initial click… did the customer make a purchase… did they drop off your website?

In order to find out how your customers are behaving once they land on your website, you need to put some tracking in place within your links and on your website.  This helps to unlock your customers’ behaviour beyond the click, and for that, we need Google Analytics…

 

How to track your customers using Google Analytics

Now this might get a bit technical, but bear with us as it’s worth it…

Google Analytics tracking works using something called the Urchin Tracking Module (UTM). You will be able to see this in action in this link:

http://www.enablermail.com/?utm_campaign=march-marketing-email1&utm_content=group1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=enabler&utm_term=offer-link

Everything after the first “?” in the link is the UTM, and it can be broken down into the following:

  • utm_campaign: Refers to the campaign name (in this instance we would be referring to the March marketing email.

  • utm_content: Content is used to track an individual or segments response. This could be based on any field in your database, for example user-id. For this example we have used a rather generic “group 1”, because who knows what data you hold! (Your options are endless). It’s important to note that this, like term, is an optional field.

  • utm_medium:  Tells analytics the medium used for marketing, (in this instance we would be talking about email).

  • utm_source: This is usually the media owner, but for email marketing it can be used to specify the source of email list or type of email, e.g. houselist, welcome-email, abandoned-basket. For the purposes of the link above we are using Enabler (the greatest email product on the planet… of course 😉 ).

  • utm_term: In AdWords, term is used to identify the keyword used to trigger the ad, but it can be used in email marketing to identify individual links e.g. offer-link. It is important to note that this is an optional field in email campaigns if your email provider lets you set up trackable links.

 

 

How do you create your own UTM codes?

There are three main ways you can create UTM codes.

1. Through your Email Service Provider (ESP)

Many ESP’s will have in-system methods of creating UTM codes. Enabler, for example, does it through its Web Links section, allowing you to fully customise your the tracking of your links.

2. Manually writing them

This is the long way of doing it, but there’s nothing to stop you manually adding tracking to the end of your link. All you need do is take my little template here:

?utm_campaign=xxx&utm_content=xxx&utm_medium=email&utm_source=xxx&utm_term=xxx

Just update the ‘xxx’ with your own tracking information, then add it onto the end of your link. Simples.

3. Using the URL builder in Google Analytics

Let Google create a custom URL which you can track through Analytics.  The URL builder tracking is limited in that it only allows you to enter the values for the parameters, for example, the campaign name and keywords, but this useful tool is a handy of generating a custom URL quickly.

 

 

Is there any best practice advice?

Link tracking is there to best used to suit your reporting purposes, so there’s no wrong way to do it, but here are some suggestions which should help point you in the right direction:

  • Naming conventions: Consider standardising this. Remember, each URL will have multiple parameters, you will want to keep it as clean as possible, and having a standard naming convention across the board will make this easier to manage for reporting purposes.

  • Type case:– Keep it lowercase.

  • Remember – Customers can see the URL too! This is one that people often forget, whatever your parameters are, your customers will be able to see in the link in their browser. Make sure whatever naming you use, is something you don’t mind being visible.

  • Use what you need: only use parameters that are 100% necessary to your campaign.

  • Shorten it: UTM codes can make links incredibly long. It’s always worth considering using a link shortening service like bitly or goo.gl to manage this.

 

How can you tell which traffic came from emails?

The best way to do this is to set up an Advanced Segment in Google Analytics which will report solely on your email traffic.

To set this up, select the Advanced Segment option using the down arrow at the top left above the reports in Google Analytics, then choose “Create New Segment” and set the Medium to “Email”. The Advanced segment will now be based on all visits to the site with a medium of ‘email’ set, provided that this is how you have labelled your links by tagging them.

Before you send out an email campaign, make sure you’ve tested the tracking by sending yourself (and preferably a few colleagues) the email, and clicked through to your website. Then log into Analytics to check you can see that the clicks are being registered by your new Advanced Segment in Analytics.

 

 

Can you see who is converting based on my email campaigns?

I’m glad you asked!  There are a few ways you can do this, but the ways we have found most successful is the use of Event Tracking and Page Tracking in Google Analytics.

Event Tracking essentially works by embedding an image tag within your email with information that Google can use to track customers from email clicks through to conversion. (See Google Developers for more detailed information on how to set up your Events). Once you have your Event set up, you will need to add the URL into your email. It would need to be positioned within your email like this:

<html>

<head>

…some other head contents…

</head>

<body>

…some other body contents…

<img src=”URL GOES HERE”/>

</body>

</html>

and the link would look something like this:

http://www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=UA-12345678-1&cid=CLIENT_ID_NUMBER&t=event&ec=email&ea=open&el=recipient_id&cs=newsletter&cm=email&cn=Campaign_Name

This link will tell Google everything it needs to know to track your conversions.

Page Tracking works slightly differently, but is similar in concept. Each email service provider will have a slightly different way of doing this, but the idea is the same. On Enabler, your dashboard report will have a line in the report which feeds back information about revenue generated.

It does this by working in conjunction with your tracked links and your website. In order to track the pages that your audience visit after they’ve landed on your site, the site needs to send some information to Enabler. In this regard Enabler works in the same way as Google Analytics and requires that each page you wish to track contains a small snippet of code.

Some of this may sound complicated, but trust me when I say that the initial leg work is worth it.  So many of us have problems justifying the email campaigns we want to deploy, and in-depth tracking helps demonstrate how valuable a channel email really is.

Additionally, I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for watching the sales pour in after a campaign has gone out. That’s right, analytics is fun.  Happy tracking!

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Top five email tools

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As email marketers, we are always trying to find the best ways to make sure our emails are the very best they can be.  Gone are the days where you could send a test email to your inbox, sign it off and send it out.  Now more than ever, we have to be extra vigilant with our emails, making sure get into our customer’s inboxes, and that they look good when they arrive there. But with so many tools available and more cropping up all the time, how do we separate out the good from the… not so good. Luckily, the Enabler team are here to provide you with our expert opinions on the tools on the market now.

Our Top Five Email Tools to help you get the most out of your campaigns:

 

1). Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is design software that falls under the Adobe Creative Cloud – which means if you already have a creative cloud log in, you can access all of your assets and imagery from inside Photoshop. The programme itself is very intuitive and provides a host of different ways to achieve your goals. It enables email designers to produce beautiful creatives and maximise their potential.

Adobe are always updating the product (you can check out their update timeline here). Photoshop allows you to work across desktop and mobile devices to create the best looking emails you can, making it probably the best software out there for creating great email design.

Price-wise, you can get the full 20+ creative desktop and mobile apps in Adobe Creative Cloud for £45 per month or you can just go for Photoshop which is £17.15 a month.

View the full breakdown of pricing here.

Photoshop is a creative tool we highly recommend investing in if you want to create visually stunning, engaging emails that drive clicks.

 

2). Adobe Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver is a fast, flexible coding engine designed to give developers the freedom to code emails that look brilliant on any size screen.  Dreamweaver is extremely intuitive, and is a suitable choice for any email marketer, whether you are new to coding or have years of experience.  The coding engine offers code ‘hints’ for new users and works with the developer to keep code clean, reduce errors and improve readability.  It has three main view screens, code, design and side-by-side.  This is incredibly useful as it allows you o see how your code is affecting the design.

A new feature we love is ‘snippets‘.  Snippets are sections of code (e.e. headers, footers or images with text) which you code once, then save for use later.  When you next have a template that needs that snippet in it, you can easily drop it in, making development faster and more accurate.

Dreamweaver has the same pricing structure as the rest fo the Adobe Creative Cloud, so you can own it for just £17.15 a month.

 

 

 

​​3). Litmus ​​

Litmus is an email testing tool which allows you to check how your emails will look across a wide variety of email clients and apps.  The main thing we love about Litmus is that it saves you from having to create test email accounts across all email clients, allowing you to test everything in one central place.

You can test everything from link tracking to email load time.  They even have a section of the tool called ‘checklist’, which is essentially your pre-flight check before sending your email.  It will help you catch broken links, optimise loading speed and check how your email works with images on and off.  This section is fantastic – especially as it allows you to choose which browsers and clients you want to see.  It covers desktop, mobile and tablet – we couldn’t recommend it more.

Litmus also has its Community Area, where you can ask questions to hundreds of other developers and share in each other’s  experiences to make your emails even better.  They also produce emails themselves which keep you up-to-date with the latest email trends.

Litmus does offer a free 7 day trial, but after that prices range from $79 a month to $399 a month (for the Brits out there, that’s approx £63 – £320 a month).  They do have a pricing option where can tailor your package, so it only contains what you actually need; like an email pick’n’mix.

 

 

 

 4). Send Forensics

Send Forensics is an email deliverability tool that focuses specifically on making sure your emails hit your customer’s inboxes. It’s very advanced, and works to safeguard your email reputation and boost engagement.

You can run a free email deliverability test that will score your email and tell you the percentage will end up in spam, however to get the full features it costs $49 a month.

Once you sign up to the full features version, the software not only gives you a deliverability score, but what elements of your emails are trigger spam – whether its due to your content or the technical makeup of your email, for example if there is no SFP set up.

(Here’s some tips on avoiding spam filters)

It will mark your vocabulary and copywriting, judging words you’ve used and highlighting any negative one that are hindering your deliverability, and offers you alternative phrases to use instead.  It also highlights any positive keywords to demonstrate the phrases helping your email deliverability.  Send Forensics will even rate your copywriting tone of voice in determining whether you are being overly promotional or conversational in your tone.

 

One of the really standout aspects of Send Forensics are all the technical checks it undertakes when examining your email.  Not only will it check the image:text ratio, and inspect the quality of the links you provide, it will also dive under the skin of your email set-up, domain authority and IP address to check your sending reputation, noting any sites that have blacklisted your IP or technical problems that might be hindering you reaching the inbox.

All this might sound very technical, but Send Forensics is anything but.  The software is exceptionally user friendly, and offers advice on how to undertake any actions it suggests, making it an ideal solution for email newbies.

5). Email on Acid

Email on Acid is another email testing tool that will help you make sure your emails look great across devices and clients.  It provides coding tips and marketing guides via their blog, and also has a forum where you can post techniques and questions to other email developers – however if this is one of your main uses, we would probably recommend going with Litmus as they tend to provide answers faster.

It comes in cheaper than Litmus at $45 – $295 per month, however unlike Litmus they don’t provide a custom tailored option, meaning you have to take everything in each package.  Both LItmus and Email on Acid’s basic package come with one user, but Litmus’ most popular package comes with five users, whereas Email on Acid only has the one user account.  E

Email on Acid is a cheaper alternative if you are a small business with only one users, but if you’re a bigger business, definitely opt for Litmus.

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Top ten email coding tips

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Say the words “Build me an email” to a developer and watch the expression on their face drop. Yes, HTML emails are old school, but there’s no need to don a loin cloth and start chipping out code from a stone tablet.

Email has come on leaps and bounds within the last few years, and with open rates frequently increasing on mobile devices, there are a few tips and tricks you can use for responsive emails.

 

Here are a few favourites to keep you building successful, responsive emails:

 1). Keep inline

If you have tried building an email before, you have probably heard of this one. This is basically adding any style changes you make to the containing table of your content.

For example:

<td style=”font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:11px; color:#000000;”>Hello World</td>

The main benefit behind using this styling is that some email clients will strip out embedded CSS in the <head>, leaving your email with as much style as socks and sandals.

Email developers have already started trialing emails with no inline CSS, which are not 100% foolproof yet, but with a large percentage of global email clients supporting embedded CSS, there is hope for cleaner emails in the future.

 

2). Query your media

Let’s say you want that image smaller, or a different font for that block of text, or you need that column to stack on mobile… not a problem! Media query to the rescue.  Media queries are the CSS3 commands that allow you to change your viewpoint depending on your screen resolution,  meaning that your imagery and content will display differently on different devices… thus making your content fully responsive.

Within the <head> of any email there will be a minimum width set, for instance 480px which will control and sometimes constrain how your media is displayed.  But, if you add a media query to your style command, any styles that you set within that media query will take over when the screen resolution drops below the minimum width.

For example:

<style type=”text/css”>

    body {width: 680px;  background-color:#000000;}

    @media only screen and (max-width:480px) {
        body {width:100% !important;  background-color:#ffffff !important;}
    }

</style>

This means your image can be any size, the font family can styled differently for each resolution, and you can stack your columns all day long. Happy days!

 

3). Stacking

 We briefly mentioned stacking columns in the last tip.  As you’d expect, this coding command allows you to stack columns on top of one another by setting them as .stackonmobile {display:block;} for mobile. This coding tip helps with mobile optimisation by making sections of your email more visible and legible on smaller screen resolutions, instead of trying to squash them into one column.

The default for stacking was left to right for a long time, however more recently we can now reverse stack, by setting the containing tables text direction as right to left.

For example:

<table width=“600” dir=“rtl”>
    <tr>
        <th width=“300” dir=“ltr” class=“stackonmobile”>World</th>
        <th width=“300” dir=“ltr” class=“stackonmobile”>Hello</th>
    </tr>
</table>

Note that we need to redirect the sub-tables back to left to right for text alignment. Also the html layout will be reversed, right column first, which is why ‘World’ is before ‘Hello’ in the example above.
Also note that we have used <th> instead of <td> for Android compatibility, as they dropped the use of display:block on td’s.

 

4). Min vs Max

With screen resolutions getting bigger and bigger, is it a good idea to make our emails wider?
When I started in email builds (back in the dark ages of blackboards and chalk written HTML), the width was 585px. This slowly grew to a standard 600px, which seems to still be the acceptable size. Most of the emails we produce today are anywhere between 600px & 720px. Occasionally a 1000px email rears it’s oversized head, but these are usually for big occasions with large hero images for impact.

What we need to remember is that emails will still be framed by the email clients furniture i.e. the inbox list, the search and edit tools, sender details etc. So an oversized email might end up stretching beyond the width of the screen, which results in an ugly horizontal scroll bar at the bottom… and nobody wants that.

So remember, size does matter.  Always aim for the optimal image size depending on the platform or device being used to ensure your emails remain mobile responsive.

 

5). Bring it to the Table

With email development, it’s all about the tables. Below you’ll find an example of an email HTML table.

Example:
<table width=“100%”>
    <tr>
    <td align=”center”>
        <table width=“700”>
            <tr>
            <td align=”center”>
                <table width=“100%”>
                    <tr>
                    <td align=“center”>Hello</td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
            </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
    </td>
    </tr>
</table>            

The first outer table is set at 100% width to ensure the table is centred within the main body of the email itself.  Then the body table is set at your desired email width (i.e. 700px as above) with a 100% media query class.  By setting the tables within the body to 100%, this helps to ensure the content flows responsively when scaled down to a smaller screen resolution.

 

Handy tip: When building emails using tables, make sure you repeat your inline styles.  A table within a table will lose styling in some email clients, especially background colour and font attributes.
And another handy tip: Try and make sure you nest your tables, and avoid using colspans in your email code. Outlook has a nasty habit of ignoring colspans and rowspans, so nesting your tables will give you more control over your code, making you a happier developer.

 

6). A font by any other name

Be on the lookout in Outlook, your font might not be the font you wanted! 
Having a backup or fallback font within your email code is exceptionally useful to ensure your emails always look the way you want them to, even if the email provider doesn’t have your first choice font.

However… Outlook 2007/10/13 has other ideas, and will automatically apply their own fallback font or Times New Roman. Even if you set fallback fonts in your code, Outlook ignores them. Cheers Outlook.

But wait, there is a fix.. phew!
<!–[if mso]>
<style type=”text/css”>
    body, table, td {font-family: Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica !important;}
</style>
<![endif]–>

Drop this code into the <head> of an email and Outlook will pick up the web safe fonts first, so you can safely steer clear of Times New Roman.
Font-astic!

 

7). Does my article look big in this?

A bit of extra padding never did anyone any harm, but adding Padding and Margins to your table styles could harm the way your email looks, as some email clients might ignore them.

Spacer images used to be the way to use padding in emails. Developers would use transparent 12px x 12px gifs and fit them into every nook and cranny of their emails… sounds tedious doesn’t it?

Luckily there is an alternative which is much more efficient to implement, and works across all email clients successfully… A non-breaking space (&nbsp;) – just add font size, line height and a width/height depending on the space you require:

 

<td style=”font-size:20px; line-height:20px;” height=”20″>&nbsp;</td>

So now your emails and tables will always be lean and evenly spaced…no padding required.

 

8). The (Alt)ernative

 When your emails load quickly, you get to display every image and aspect of you email in all its glory. But what happens when you’re a slow connection speed or your email client is blocking images by default?

You could end up with empty spaces where your images used to be, but hopefully you will see the Alt text – the alternative text that’s displayed when an image can’t display.

Some email clients won’t load images automatically, so without any Alt text you could get a blank looking email. 🙁

Example Alt text:
<img src=“images/hello-world-title.jpg” width=”200″ height=”40″ alt=“Hello World”/>

Another alternative is to actually style your Alt text so that it’s less bland if it gets displayed. Add a font-family, font-size, font-colour or text-decoration, so you try and match the image style, and get your email looking good if the images don’t load.

Example stylised Alt text:
<img src=“images/hello-world-title.jpg” width=”200″ height=”40″ alt=“Hello World” style=“font-size:16px; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#ffffff;”/>

 

9). Hamburger to go please

Now that emails have further CSS3 support, it’s allowed many developers to start introducing some great responsive features to their email code.

The Hamburger Menu (so called because it looks like a little burger between a bun) is one example of this.

Those long menus on an email don’t need to be stacked half way down your mobile screen anymore, they can be tucked away neatly in a clickable, drop down menu, making your email more mobile-friendly and more visually appealing.  Just need the fries to go with it now!

 

 

 

10). Give yourself a fighting chance

Make sure you are putting yourself in the best possible position for email building. One of the ways you can do this is to get the right software. Lucky for you, we’ve put together a list of our favourite email development tools, from design right through to deployment.

Check them our Email Tools blog and start getting the best results out of your emails.

Whatever you do, keep experimenting with your HTML/CSS emails, even if you end up with Frankenstein’s monster there might be a small part that works really well, or another that will give you a further understanding of where to go next.

Happy coding!

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Planning your editorial calendar – get ahead of your marketing comms

As a marketer, there’s nothing worse than the frantic last-minute creation of new content or scrambling for a topic to post about. From erratic emails to hurried hashtags, when it comes to your marketing communications sometimes being reactive isn’t always the best philosophy. Proactively planning your communications ahead of time means that you will always have relevant reading at the ready. More importantly, your business objectives and marketing goals will benefit from having more focused communications that deliver you both richer content and quality results.

Sound good?  Then you need an editorial calendar! Allow me to give you an overview of what exactly editorial calendars are, how to create and use them, and a few tips for generating that sometimes-elusive content…

 

What is an editorial calendar?

Providing a bird’s eye view of your content, an editorial calendar is a fantastic tool to help plan your marketing communications for the year ahead.  It is hugely beneficial when it comes to planning cross-channel promotions as it enables you to consolidate your content planning in one place and maintain a consistent tone across your content. Upcoming industry events, public holidays and topics of audience interest will help inspire your content generation, and allow you to set up a posting schedule for your communications.

Your editorial calendar provides you with a clear overview of your communications, ensuring you maintain a regular active presence across all your communication channels, as well as allowing you to spot any gaps or missed opportunities ahead of time. Build a familiar identity through your calendar content by maintaining a consistent tone of voice, post frequency and choice of topics. By being savvy and planning in advance, you can get your content ‘in the bag’ ahead of time more efficiently, delegating content creation or research amongst your team so you don’t have to single handedly build your calendar.  Be creative and make sure you are using every suitable marketing channel available (social, email, blogs etc) to really maximise your communications effectiveness and achieving your marketing goals.  All-in-all, an editorial calendar ensures your marketing communications remain as time-efficient and engaging as possible.

 

 

Creating your editorial calendar

Start by deciding how you want to set your calendar up; some people swear by spreadsheets, whereas others like to use one of the dedicated tools available (more on these later.)
When you’ve got your format sorted, start by looking ahead and plotting in any industry events such as exhibitions or conferences, as well as internal events such as promotions, seminars, product launches, training or networking sessions your company is looking to deliver. Make notes of any content creation opportunities around these events, such as topics for articles, blogs, email campaigns, photo opportunities or subjects for videos.  Try to ensure you plan your content to suit a range of channels (e.g. social media, website, blog, email) and formats (e.g. article, infographic, video) in mind, so that your communications stay consistent without ending up in a rut with lots of duplicate content.
At this early stage, be sure to meet with others to share ideas, begin to delegate tasks and set deadlines, and keep each other up-to-date with progress going forward.

 

 

Tips for content generation

It’s important to establish the fundamentals of your content before you get posting to ensure that it’s all meaningful – your audience will be able to tell if you’re just posting for the sake of it.

  • Consider the purpose of your content. For example, do you want it to drive lead generation, increase sales, or present your company as a thought leader or raise brand awareness?

  • What sort of audience and customers are you looking to attract?  Think about their possible demographics and how to appeal to them in terms of topics of interest so that the content you post is directly relevant to them, and your time of posting and tone of voice are targeted appropriately.

  • Pin down the resources and skills at your disposal in the office; you may have copywriters, photographers, and designers who would be happy to get on-board and help boost the quality of your content…use them!

Now that you know where you’re going and what you’ve got to work with, you can start to plan your topics…

  • Link your products and services to seasonal holidays and events; ideally you should aim to produce more than just a generic “Merry Christmas” greeting message. For example, if you’re in the property industry link it to successfully selling your house in the winter, if you’re in retail highlight some amazing gifts you sell, and if you’re in the travel industry showcase some amazing holiday destinations for the winter.

  • Not everything has to be an article – remember that content “snippets” are great too – a series of ‘top tips’, for example, or an interesting fact of the week. A balance of light-hearted and informative will make your content well-rounded and broadly appealing.

  • Stuck for content ideas?  You can use HubSpot’s blog topic generator. Enter up to three nouns and let it generate related blog titles for you – it’s great for some quick inspiration!  For something more in-depth, you can use Buzzsumo to see the topics generating the most engagement in your industry and plan your content accordingly.

 

 

Tools and templates to get you ahead

For something simple, you could use an Outlook or Google calendar visible to everyone who will be working on content creation, or an Excel sheet (download HubSpot’s free Excel editorial calendar template – just fill in a quick form). There are however many excellent free or inexpensive tools available online that could help you be even more efficient and create something a bit more special:

 

CoSchedule – Editorial Calendar

This one has been developed by the guys at WordPress, so if you’re already using WordPress as your CRM you can add their editorial calendar as a plug-in and keep everything together. No need to fret if you don’t use WordPress – you can just access your calendar through the CoSchedule website instead. You can start by signing up for a free trial to see if you like it, and will benefit from a helpful tutorial that guides you through the set-up. The interface looks just like a calendar, and it’s very easy to use with drag and drop flexibility. To continue after the free trial, CoSchedule costs from $30 per month.*

 

Trello

This simple platform starts you off with ​​an empty board, to which you need to add ‘sticky note’ like lists and add your content information (topic, deadlines etc). As you begin to build up your lists you will see a calendar start to form, and you can easily shuffle things round by dragging and dropping if you rethink your strategy. It’s also fun and personalisable with different background colours, stickers and colour-coding. The basic version of Trello is free to use, though you can upgrade to a paid version from $9.99 per month.* if you need the extra bells and whistles, which include unlimited “Power-Ups” for your boards, a higher limit on the size of attachments, more personalisation options, greater security, and priority email support

 

Asana

Asana is a project management ​tool​​ which can be used for editorial calendars too. Start by setting up a project and titling it something gloriously imaginative, like “Editorial calendar”, then assign each member of the team their tasks/content to create, grouping each one under the project as you go.  Asana is great fun if you like ticking off lists, has a range of seasonal themes you can select from, and is very straightforward to use.

 

 

 

Hootsuite & SproutSocial

These fantastic social media tools allow you to plot in your posts into a calendar with all your links, images and copy well in advance, so that your posts always go out at the exact time you want, creating hassle-free social media management.  Both platforms allow you to view all your social streams in one place, allowing you to view and respond to engagement quickly and efficiently. By planning your content in advance, these platforms allow you to be reactive where it counts, by identifying key influencers and potential leads, and turning them into customers. Gain valuable insight into your audience demographic and interests using the indepth analysis dashboards on both platforms, and helping you tailor future content more effectively to drive further engagement.

 

 

 

Whichever tool you choose, taking the time to set up your editorial calendar will equip you with a valuable asset in your marketing communications. It will allow you to tailor your content to your products and business objectives, and help drive consistent audience engagement. Even better, posting regular interesting content will help to raise your brand awareness, which in turn is likely to lead to more customers and boost your ROI.  This blog should help you get your editorial calendar off the ground, so now all you need to do is source your content and you’re away!

Happy planning! 

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A/B testing your email… easy as 1,2,3?

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Email is an excellent way of communicating with your customers and there are always ways to improve interaction. You may have heard the terms ‘AB testing’, ‘split testing’ or ‘multi-variant testing’ being batted around in the marketing world but what is it… and why should you be doing it?

A/B testing is taking two (or more) versions of something and displaying these different versions to selections of users to determine which one works better. The term can be used for many areas of marketing but I’m going to focus on email. With email testing, we look at open rates and click through rates to determine which variant of the email has performed the best.

Well-planned A/B testing can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of your campaigns.

It’s important to test because no database is the same as another and you can’t just rely on research by others and apply it to your own campaigns. Even within industries, there can be huge discrepancies between what works for one company and what works for another.

 

The first thing to do when planning an A/B test is to figure out exactly what you’re trying to improve. Are you looking to improve your open rates or click through rates? Are you trying to work out what type of email best suits your audience or are you testing content? Whatever you’re looking to improve, there’s a test for it. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

 

Subject line

This is one of the first tests I’d recommend running. It’s really effective for boosting open rates. You can try testing anything from the length of the subject line, to using your customer’s names, to referring to the offer in the email. Whatever you do, remember to make them different enough to notice an effect. The great thing with subject lines is that you can test multiple subject lines at once. I’ve run campaigns where we’ve tested up to 10 subject lines in one go!

Subheader

This is the first piece of text within the email template and sometimes also displays alongside the subject line in the recipient’s inbox, depending on the email client. If the first text in your template is ‘Click her to view this email online’ you’re missing out on an additional opportunity to get your message across to your audience.

Headline

As one of the first parts of your email the customer sees, this is a pretty good section to test. You can try posing a question or relating the headline copy to the rest of the email – it’s up to you.

Call to action

This is another section of your email to really dedicate some testing time to. It’s the part of the email which can determine whether your customer takes the action you want. You can test creative look and feel, or the copy itself.

Personalisation

Are you going to use your customers name within the email? How about relevant information? For example, if you work in the insurance industry you might include a policy number or the name of their pet (but maybe only do the pet one if you specialise in pet insurance, otherwise you’re headed down the stalker route!). Personalising an email can help engage your customers. This doesn’t work for all email recipients, which is why it’s perfect for testing. Read our blog on personalisation for more tips and ideas on this subject.

Creative

The layout of your email is one aspect with which you can have endless hours of testing fun. You may decide you want to put different sections of your emails in different places to see what gets more traction from this alternative placement in the design.

Testimonials

This is fairly simple. If you’ve got the testimonials to back up your product, why not try them out to see if they boost engagement?

Time of day

Timing is another effective variable to test. I’ve seen this have more impact with B2B than B2C databases, due to the flow of the work day. For example, some people prefer to check their emails on their commute or during their lunch break but are more likely to interact with them towards the end of the work day on the commute home. However, you may find that your B2C database prefers morning sends to afternoon sends, or vice versa. Either way, it’s an easy and effective aspect to test.

Imagery

Imagery is one of my favourite elements to test, mainly because it’s really interesting to see if customers are affected by imagery. If you have a picture of your product in there, how do users react to it? You can also test placement and quantity of imagery.

Amount of content

Content testing works especially well for blog based emails or newsletters. Providing customers with too many articles can cause a paradox. If there’s too much choice, to the point where the user feels overwhelmed, they may not take any action. However, in other databases you might find that the more content you include in these emails, the more click throughs you get.

Wording of offers

Choice of wording can be applied to almost any area in an email but the one I’ve seen work the best is copy surrounding discounts. Some customers may respond to ‘50% off’, whereas others may prefer seeing ‘£20 off’. How you word your offers can have a big impact on the click through rate, so this is an important consideration for those of you running promotional emails.

Overview

The key thing to remember when selecting a test is to make sure you only do one test at a time. In order to determine what has had the impact on your interaction lift, you need to know exactly what it was that worked. If you try testing subject lines and creatives at the same time, it’s very difficult to pinpoint exactly what made the difference and if one test affected the outcome of another.

The second thing you should do is work out who you are going to test on. As general best practice, I’d always test on a statistically relevant percentage of your data and then roll out the winning result to the rest. This ensures you are exposing the majority of your customers to the winning version.

Thirdly, make sure you’re always keeping a record of the tests you have run and what the outcome was. You can then use these findings, and apply them to subsequent campaigns. Having said this, if you find something that works don’t just stop testing that element. For example, if you find a particular style of subject line that engages your audience don’t just assume this will work for your customers forever.

Imagine you got the same style of subject line for all the emails you received in the next three months ‘Andrew, check out these new offers’…. over and over again. You’d get bored, we all would. When email subscribers get bored, they stop interacting. We call this having ‘list fatigue’ and it happens when brands tactics have gone stale. To ensure this doesn’t happen to you, make sure you keep on testing and trying out new things to keep your subscribers interested.

You may find several elements that work really well for you and you can keep these on rotation to use when the previous formula stops working.

A/B testing is such an interesting area of email marketing. It’s a chance to get creative with your emails and really get to know your customers, finding out what makes them tick and improving your results at the same time. I hope you have fun testing your emails and that you boost your campaigns as a result.  And as always, if you have any questions about this subject or what we do here at Enabler, get in touch.

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How to avoid email marketing mistakes

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Email is a huge part of most companies’ marketing mix but many brands are still swinging and missing when it comes to delivering great campaigns. Email is an integral part of many marketing campaigns. We use it every single day. The first thing I do when I sit down at my desk in the morning is check my email and it’s also the last thing I do before I leave. It’s the one thing that stays up on my screen for the whole day.

When we’re dealing with something that impacts so many people day to day, we can’t afford to be getting it wrong. So, what are the challenges of email and how do we overcome them?

1. Getting noticed in peoples inboxes

  • Subject line testing
    Every data list is different, so there’s no magic solution to email subject lines. The best way to achieve results is to test subject lines through A/B testing and then roll out to the rest of your list. For example, send 20% of your emails to one subject line and 20% to another. Leave it 24 hours, assess the results and send the winning subject line to the rest of your list. Over time you’ll get a sense of what engages your audience and what bores them to tears.

  • Do something a little different
    Emojis in email subject lines can work really well when used cleverly and sparingly.

  • Know when to send
    Different databases respond to different send times. At Enabler, we find that 9am, 11am and 2pm work really well as send times for B2B. This enables you to catch people as they start work, on their morning coffee break and during the post-lunch slump. Again, the way to find out what works best for you is testing. Split-send to your list at different times of day and compare the results.

  • Know how often to send
    No-one wants to be spammed with emails after they’ve signed up for a newsletter. With the introduction of Gmail’s inbox tab system, which separates everything into primary, promotions, social and updates you don’t want to be stuck in the junk section! A way to deal with this is to ask your users what they want; find out what they’re interested in and send them that.

 

2. Ensure your emails are rendering correctly

There is nothing worse in the world of email than opening up your inbox to find an email that hasn’t rendered correctly. Maybe you’re missing half an image, maybe you can’t see images at all. Maybe you’re missing half a call to action button on your Outlook client because a lazy developer didn’t run the email through an email testing client before sending it to your inbox. The key to making sure you get it right is to test on each email client before hitting the send button. I prefer Litmus because it allows you to email your HTML directly to the program and shows you how your email will render on both mobile clients and desktop clients. It also shows you all the versions of the clients rather than just the latest ones. Top tip: Outlook 2007 and 2010 basically support nothing.

 

3. Keeping up with trends

  • Mobile vs desktop
    Know what percentage of your list are opening your emails on mobile. I generally work to the rule that if it’s more than 10% you should definitely be using responsive design and if it’s anything over 2% you should definitely be at least considering using it. We’re a society of mobile users, and that’s only going to grow. With that in mind, email marketers can’t afford to delay making their content accessible to mobile users.

  • Dynamic content
    Gone are the days of building 30 emails, one for every category you have in your database. It’s all about building one email, and using conditional content conditions to ensure each user sees what you want them to see upon opening your email. All decent ESPs will have this functionality built in, so what are you waiting for?

  • Rich media
    Knowing how to make your emails stand out is more important than ever. Emails can drive sales and brand awareness as well as provide platforms for event attendance. Explore GIFS, Video, Twitter feeds, Social sharing and more to support your email campaigns. With technology developing so rapidly, it’s important to be creative to ensure you stay on top of your game.

  • Be practical
    This is a big one, there’s no point sending great content to your database if they won’t be able to see it, and the email therefore loses all meaning to them. It’s imperative to know, for example, that Outlook won’t support your animated GIF and will freeze it on the first frame. Or that Gmail won’t display emojis in your subject line and show them as little boxes instead. Make sure you do your research and find out what will and won’t work, before you get creative.

 

4. Managing your data correctly

  • You can’t have good email without good data
    Understanding what you can do with your data is every bit as important as keeping up with the latest front end coding trends. You can segment your data by age, region, gender or anything you know about them – all you need is the right tools to collect that data and the right tools to use it to code a great email. Never miss an opportunity for data capture and always employ the Pokémon tag line ‘Gotta catch ‘em all’. (‘em all being the bits of data).

  • Know what to do with that data within an email.
    Personalisation is key but get it right – no one wants to see ‘Hi First Name’ at the start of an email. There’s no point personalising if your data isn’t correct. I’ve seen brands put the wrong merge code into an email so the policy renewal ID was swapped with the recipient first name. This gave the effect that the company was referring to one of its customers as a number, not a name.

  • Be creative
    You’d be surprised how many people actually miss this out of campaigns. It seems like common sense, until you sit down in front of a computer and start trying to plan, at which point your brain might give you… nothing. So how do we get around those creative email mind blocks? First work out what you are trying to achieve. Do you want people to buy from your site?Do you want to increase brand awareness? Do you want to encourage people to enter a competition or play a game or simply visit your site?

 

Once you’ve worked this out you can start working out how you’re going to achieve it. Don’t be scared of doing some competitor research to get you started. Most importantly, have fun – email is great, you should be enjoying yourself!

Is email a dying channel?

In short, no! Email has been around since 1971 when Ray Tomlinson sent the first one on the ARPANET system. It was the first system that was able to send mail between users on different hosts connected to the ARPANET. Since then we have seen the evolution of email as a channel to the point where many of the functionalities mirror what you can do with websites – which is remarkable when you think about it. Considering everything you code into email has to sit within tables… within tables – the amount it has and continues to achieve is outstanding.

Think about how many other internet based fads email has remained a constant throughout. Email saw the birth of MSN, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Mobile apps… and it’s still going, still developing, still adapting. There are conferences all around the world dedicated purely to email and how we can keep developing email.

Online sales have skyrocketed in the last few years and now remain at a consistent high. A huge part of what drives these online sales is email. Email drives people to websites. Email makes sales. Email is awesome.

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The power of dynamic content in email marketing

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Email is constantly evolving. As email marketers, part of the fun of what we do is exploring new ways to engage audiences with email. It can also be a struggle at times. Email inboxes are increasingly crowded with promotional emails as more and more companies use email to communicate.

To help the end user, organisations like Google have customised their inbox layouts to include the segregation of promotional emails from the primary inbox, social media emails and general updates. These updates make it trickier for your emails to get noticed in subscriber’s inboxes, so it’s important to make your campaign attention-grabbing. One of the best methods we’ve seen over the years is by introducing dynamic content into email campaigns.

Dynamic content is essentially using what you know about your customers to provide them with content that is relevant to them. This can be anything from knowing the gender of your users and using the information to show them female/male specific products, to using birthday information to create a personalised birthday message for them each year. This technique allows you to send highly targeted information to your subscribers, and the best part is you can do it all through one email.

What are the benefits?

Higher levels of engagement
It might seem simple, but it also makes a lot of sense. Why would subscribers be interested in your campaign if it’s not relevant to them? To engage people, you need to provide content they find useful or enjoyable (or hopefully both!).

Saves time
Before dynamic content existed, companies would spend unbelievable amounts of time creating separate emails for the same campaign. It was the only way to do it if you wanted to try and personalise. Now, the only bit which takes any time is the creation of the main email and then positioning your content in a dynamic setting.

Shorter emails
This might seem like an odd one but many users don’t actually scroll all the way down to the end of an email; they scan for a couple of seconds and if they don’t find what they want they close the email. Goodbye to your click thru rates. Dynamic content enables emails to be shorter as you’re not trying to squeeze everything into one email in the hope that everyone on your database will find something interesting.

It’s technically interesting!
One for the front-end nerds out there. Dynamic coding is pretty fun (this is system dependent, of course). We’re very lucky with Enabler because it makes coding really easy to do. Enabler, like some other systems, will allow you to view the email in situ as anyone in your database would. This means no messy test emails, and no time wasting!

How can you get started?

The number one thing you need for dynamic content to work is information about your subscribers. There are lots of types of data you can use to make it work and you can even be inspired by your data:

Behavioural data – what have your users done before? What have they bought or read? When they were last on your website, what caught their eye? This data is incredibly useful when planning your campaigns. It can allow you to distinguish marketing to your leads and to your existing customers. It can influence what call to actions you use, where you use them, and other content placement decisions. It can also be used to influence pre-emptive emails based on previously purchased content.Groupon

Transactional data – what did your customers spend their money on? How often do they do this? Are they abandoning their baskets at checkout? Transactional data gives you incredible insight into the buying potential of your customers. Using this information, you could send reminder emails to customers who have left products in their baskets, remind customers of special offers based on content they’ve viewed, and provide buying recommendation emails based on previous purchases.

Demographic data – what gender or age are your subscribers? Where are they based? Knowing a customer’s gender can be really useful for something like fashion based emails, knowing their location can help with events promotions or deals in shops local to them. One of the best examples I’ve seen of this is Groupon:

They send out daily emails which are targeted by region. All the offers in their emails actually contain deals which are near to the post code I provided them with, and the copy reflects this. Check out this ‘Afternoon tea for two’ offer (right). It tells me how far from me it is, what the discount is, mentions the word Londoners and it really pushes the personalisation of the email in the top banner.

If you want to take all of this a step further, once you have completed your dynamic campaign you can also do some reporting on the campaign to find out what worked, then tailor your next campaign based on this information. Remember, with all of these options, testing is key.

The final checklist for dynamic content success

1. Accurate data – there’s no point trying without this. Why use information about your database if it’s not correct?

2. An Email Service Provider that supports dynamic content (if you want more information about Enabler, get in touch)

3. Knowledge of your customer database – what sort of targeting do you think will work on your list? For fashion brands, the key one is gender, for insurance we’re looking at regions and preference based sending, but what will work for your brand?

4. Testing – keep trying new things, A/B test to your hearts content. Never stop testing your email campaigns!

In today’s market, there is no better way to improve results of your campaigns than through dynamic content. Dynamic content is to the email marketing world what Dumbledore is to the wizarding world. Pure brilliance.

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