Email Marketing
Email Secrets of a Top Converting Website
ProFlowers is a conversion-rate heavyweight. Its top-line conversion rate has been in the double-digits for the past few years, and it consistently appears in the top 10 converting Web sites according to the folks at Nielsen Online.
This is not an accident.
ProFlowers.com is committed to a culture of ongoing optimization. A recent promotional email demonstrates its commitment to go beyond the Web site, extending into other touch points, specifically its email marketing.
Look at this screen shot of a ProFlowers email as it appears in my Entourage email preview:
Contrast that with this email preview from SmartBargains.com:
The ProFlowers email shows evidence of planning and optimization, while the second shows, well, a bunch of Xs.
Notice the top of ProFlowers’s email makes the offer part of the “Can’t view this email” line. Most only say something like, “Having problems reading this email? Please click here.”
Inspired by the ProFlowers example, today I’ll share a few tips so you can optimize your own email messages.
Optimize Your Email Marketing
• Use alt tags. Never place an image in an email (or anywhere else online) without an alt tag. It’s just smart, and there’s no downside. ProFlowers uses the alt tag in the large image on the left to reinforce the overall message, and most of the major images are tagged appropriately. I can easily preview the message and act on it, without even downloading the images.
• Test your subject line. The ProFlowers’s subject line gives me enough information to determine if I’m interested in the offer. While this direct approach won’t work for every situation, your subject line should show respect for the recipient’s time and inbox. At the very least, the subject line and content should be consistent. Don’t hook recipients in with a catchy subject only to let them down in the email body by hiding the offer or by making them scroll down to see it.
• Copy matters. It matters a lot. Make sure your offer is clear and concise.
• Test your offers. What are you offering? Sometimes a seemingly lesser offer performs better. Notice how the ProFlowers offer gives me a clear choice between two decent offers.
Get Into the Inbox
These optimization tips are all well and good — provided your email actually arrives at the intended inbox. So much opt-in email ends up in the junk folder because it’s mistaken for spam. I asked my friend, Yasifur Rahman, VP of Kobemail, to share a few other tips that will help marketers optimize deliverability:
• Images and text. It’s a good idea to work toward a 60:40 image-to-text ratio. Image-only creative is a big no-no. Always have both images and text in creative. Most spam creative is just center-aligned images, so this layout is a spam indicator for various filters. If you have a top header (usually a logo), keep it under 100 pixels and simple, if possible. And always linked to the sender’s landing page.
• Overuse of spam-flagged words. Symbols and words, such as “$,” “FREE,” “$100″ (or any other amount), “cash,” “!,” “Prize,” “!!!,” “click,” and “complimentary” increase your spam score exponentially when used excessively. A few of them used here and there won’t affect the email as much. But when they’re used consistently throughout the message, the email is open season for spam blockers.
• Backgrounds and alignment. Colorful backgrounds raise a spam score greatly. A white background is the lowest scoring color within an email. Also, most spam messages are centered. Left-align your creative to make it look legitimate. The combination of these changes will have a positive effect on your deliverability.
• Subscription date. Add a subscription date to your message, such as: “Thank you for signing up on 07/13/06.” This builds email credibility. The more information about the subscription you put in your email, the easier it is for ISPs to determine that the mailing was a legitimate, subscribed mailing.
• Broken image and text. A smooth transition between image and text makes your creative look professional. Plus, when images are disabled, the HTML won’t break. Combined with the earlier recommendations, it will be easier for email recipients to believe your email isn’t spam. And if reported, it’s easier for the sender to convince the ISPs that the newsletter was legit and not intended as spam.
You can get more of Rahman’s tips on his blog.
Email and the Big Picture
Email’s only one piece of the conversion rate puzzle.
Double-digit conversion rates don’t happen overnight. They take work and relentless testing, collecting insight after insight into why customers behave the way they do, making the changes, then doing it all over again.
What are you optimizing in your email marketing and landing page experience?
. .
Also seen on ClickZ.
Looking to improve email and landing page conversion? FutureNow can help.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Spirit Air Wants to Have a Threesome With Me
You may be thinking…
“Yeah, right. Save the April Fools‘ pranks for Google.”
But it’s true! Spirit Airlines wants to have a threesome with me.
They told me so via email:
What kind of persona do they think I am? 
Seriously…
Do you think they got their message across?
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Written by:Robert Gorell
Can I Please Have the “Mac Guy” Back?
It was a bad moment. I felt like “PC Guy” from the “Get a Mac” commercial was trying to sell me an Apple product. It gave me the heebie-jeebies.
It all started when I checked my email and found an email from Apple with a subject line that said, “The new Mac Pro. Now with 8 cores standard.”
Like many email users, I don’t automatically enable HTML images. So, I have to click to allow the images to be shown. The result: The Apple email looks like a fancy design of gray and black with absolutely nothing there.
The subject line (”The new Mac Pro. Now with 8 cores standard.”) means nothing to me. How is that a benefit? It certainly doesn’t excite me enough to explore further, but since I’m an Apple fan, let’s say I decide to keep going.
When I did finally enable the image, I see the computer tower…
The call to action above the fold is “Configure now.” Wow, that’s really exciting!
I’m a Humanistic type (as opposed to Spontaneous, Competitive, or Methodical), so the word “configure” holds no scent for me — it sounds like something really technical you do with a graphing calculator. No thanks.
But for argument’s sake, let’s say I’m curious enough to continue and see this landing page:
Could they possibly use more techno-speak? There isn’t a word here of that wonderful, personal, easy-to-understand Apple language.
If this were designed for Methodical types, I’d give it high marks. Even if she didn’t have her images enabled, the Methodical customer might scroll down and see there was indeed some text in the email. She would probably like the word “configure” and appreciate all those wonderful technical specs, and a subject line like, “Now with 8 cores standard.”
But for the other types, this scenario bombs.
Spontaneous customers who don’t have images enabled on their email will likely not even open it with that subject line, and if they see nothing but a black and gray design with nothing in it, they’re gone.
Humanistics won’t often get past that subject line, either. Where’s the wonderful everyday language and engaging images? I’d like to see that nice guy from the TV commercials telling me why this new Mac Pro would be great for me. I bet he could do a good job of putting it into plain English and making me feel good about the product.
Competitives might like the subject line, but they want benefits, not features. How will this help them do more, be better, have a superior computer to what they have today? They also will bail if they don’t have images enabled. They are almost as impatient as the Spontaneous folks. Here’s the sad thing: There’s actually great copy for Competitives like, “Once reserved for the top of the line, 8-core processing power is now at the heart of the Mac Pro.” Same feature, but delivered in a benefit-oriented fashion Competitives would love — yet it’s below the fold where, unlike the Methodical customer, they may not scroll to see it (they’re much too fast-paced).
Bottom line: The whole scenario feels like it was designed by that “PC guy.” I want my Mac guy back.
[Editor’s Note: Do your landing pages speak to customers in their own language? If you’d like to optimize your landing pages and improve customer focus, we can help.]
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Written by:Holly Buchanan
Godin Was Right — Threadless is Better than “Seamless”
A few months ago, Seth Godin put the word “seamless” into a better context.
…seams are important.
Try throwing a baseball or a football without seams.
Wear clothes without seams and you look like you’re on Star Trek.
Seams make it possible to get a grip.
The goal, it seems to me, is not to create things that are seamless. It’s to put the seams in places where they are actually useful.
That’s exactly what Threadless.com does for its customers. If you’ve done business with them before and have selected an item that’s running low in their inventory, and you abandon the checkout process before buying, they’ll send you a follow-up email like this:
Their shirts come with seams, as does their marketing. The copy is spot-on without being pushy. They seem to be doing us a favor. Threadless knows that their customers know that the t-shirt designs they print sell out fast. They don’t shout “buy now!” when we’re just browsing the products. Nope. This message is tailored for people who’ve shown genuine interest. And despite the exclamation points, it reads something like this: “Sorry to bother you, but here’s what you should know about our inventory. If you really do want to buy this item, you should probably do it soon-ish.”
(Hat tip to Rishi at the Better Retail blog for the subtle link to this via comment. Great seam!)
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Written by:Robert Gorell
America’s Test Kitchen Shows How to Sizzle an Email
For years I’ve been a fan of the America’s Test Kitchen chefs and their magazine, Cook’s Illustrated. I’m a bit of a foodie — and a pragmatist — so I love that they give their audience no-nonsense, real world advice on how to cook. And even though they have a hit TV show, they continue to publish their Cook’s Illustrated in black-and-white and illustrated in order to reduce costs so that they don’t need to run ads in the magazine. They’re authentic and passionate, and that energy feeds the relationship with fans like me.
I’m a sucker for good, experience-based marketing; the kind that draws you into an experience with a product or service. So, what’s even more impressive to me than the magazine is that they have some of the best email marketing around.
In addition to their typical, retail product-based emails, there’s one thing I love more than anything about this company: Christopher Kimball’s newsletter. Kimball is the CEO/Editor-in-Chief and, in addition to being head of the company, he runs a family farm in a small town in Vermont. For as long as I’ve been a subscriber, Kimball’s newsletter has always had a welcoming, familiar tone, describing every detail about “what’s going down on the farm.” He talks about the harvest, funny happenings around his small town, updates on things the family has cooked, links to photos, and so on. Here’s an except from a summer update:
“Two weeks ago, our family and neighbors turned out to help get Jean’s hay in [links to photos], and our strawberry crop has been terrific. Adrienne will turn out at least a couple dozen jars of strawberry jam and probably a similar number of raspberry. The 23 rows of corn were better than “knee-high by the fourth of July,” and all the potatoes are doing well and are free of potato bugs, at least so far. I hope to start digging new potatoes out of the ground by early August, steaming them, and serving them with nothing more than salt, butter, and chives. Click here to see recent photos of the farm [links to photos]”
It’s a whole email of this rich commentary, interspersed with links for recipes on the Cook’s Illustrated site and updates on the filming of their weekly show on PBS. But here’s the thing: I’m absolutely compelled to read them. What’s more is that I completely look forward to taking a 15-minute break from city life to be transported to an environment that seems so alien to me, yet I’m allowed to experience it as a resident. I pour over each link and look at every photo, but more importantly — for them, anyway — I’m driven to read the recipes. Why? I’m curious and excited to learn what made the cobbler he and his wife served at the latest community event so amazing. And that’s the point. His words draw me into the experience and persuade me to interact with the brand and its products.
Knowing when it’s more effective for your copy to have personality and create an experience, versus cutting straight to the point, is crucial. It’s about showing your audience that you know them by anticipating their interests and needs. That’s what Kimball does so well, and it works.
Want to know how Kimball does it? If you’d like to craft authentic, engaging prose that turns visitors into customers, customers into fans, and fans into advocates, join us for our upcoming Persuasive Online Copywriting seminar in Orlando. (Sorry, kids, no coyotes and freshly-picked apples, but you might find a cartoon mouse or two.) If you can’t make it to Florida, perhaps you’d like to buy the Persuasive Online Copywriting e-book or simply subscribe to Future Now’s free newsletter instead.
[Editor’s Note: This is the first post from the latest addition to Future Now, our first-ever VP of Marketing, Bond… Brian Bond. It takes a brave soul to market the marketers, so if you’ve enjoyed the email soufflé, feel free to wave ‘hello’ in the comments. Welcome to the team, Brian!]
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Written by:Brian Bond
Sloan Seymour, President of Ziff Davis, Spammer Extraordinaire
How many complaints does the FTC have to get before they file a suit against Ziff Davis?
In February, Jeffrey asked “Does Ziff Davis’s Spam Damage its Brand?” Both Jeffrey and I could not get off of Ziff Davis’s email list, no matter how many times we tried to remove ourselves. Thankfully, a reader (James) left a comment on June 10th about how he solved this problem:
Hi all,
I found a solution to Ziff Davis SPAM. I spent an hour searching every Ziff Davis email on google and come up with the following list.
info@ziffdavis.com, phil_kramer@ziffdavis.com, kelli_turtz@ziffdavis.com, sandra_gibson@ziffdavis.com, Sloan_Seymour@ziffdavis.com, Martha_Schwartz@ziffdavis.com, Stephen_Veith@ziffdavis.com, Phil_Kramer@ziffdavis.com, angelo_mandarano@ziffdavis.com, lfreeman@ziffdavis.com, chris_maginn@ziffdavis.com, baseline@ziffdavis.com, appscout@ziffdavis.com, larryseltzer@ziffdavis.com, matthew_graven@ziffdavis.com, randy_zane@ziffdavis.com, events@ziffdavis.com, chris_primesberger@ziffdavis.com, opportunities@ziffdavis.com, eWEEK@ziffdavis.com, Debra_Olchick@ziffdavis.com, jeffrey_burt@ziffdavis.com, dennis_barker@ziffdavis.com, mary_hart@ziffdavis.com, gearlog@ziffdavis.com, Sheena_Mohan@ziffdavis.com, askloyd@ziffdavis.com, kristin_holmes@ziffdavis.com, ppereira@ziffdavis.com, debra_donston@ziffdavis.com, Matthew_rothenberg@ziffdavis.com, Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com, elda_vale@ziffdavis.com, eric_lundquist@ziffdavis.com, jason_freidenfelds@ziffdavis.com, Mary_behr@ziffdavis.com, john_mccormick@ziffdavis.com, aimee_levine@ziffdavis.com, stan_gibson@ziffdavis.com, Nicholas_mokhoff@ziffdavis.com, dennis_fisher@ziffdavis.com, garcia@ziffdavis.com, darryl_taft@ziffdavis.com, caton@ziffdavis.com, Karl_Elken@ziffdavis.com, barry_ harrigan@ziffdavis.com, andrew_garcia@ziffdavis.com, cameron_sturdevant@ziffdavis.com, chris_maginn@ziffdavis.com, joe_wilcox@ziffdavis.com, peter_coffee@ziffdavis.com, kristin_holmes@ziffdavis.com
This list includes CEO’s, GM’s Managers, Executives and staff thoughout thier SPAM empire.
Send an email to all these people with an email subject similer to:
Violation of Federal CAN-SPAM act of 2003: Request to stop receiving unsolicited emails from ALL Ziff Davis related publications, subsidiaries and websites.
However, don’t be rude or abusive just politily tell them that thier “unsubscribe” links have not stopped thier spam and that they are in voilation of the above Federal Legislation.
I sent off this email with a read receipt, and received no reponsce from anyone apart from:
Sloan Seymour
President, Enterprise Group
Ziff Davis Media
Office: 212.503.4850
Mobile: 917.273.2774
Sloan_Seymour@ziffdavis.comShe apologised, and advisde me I would be removed from all mailing lists. I have happily never received SPAM since
I’m sure you could just email Sloan and help would help you, but the extra emails in the CC feild might add a bit more weight.
Hope this helps other people out there stop the madness.
I followed this advice and was personally contacted by Sloan Seymour.
An Open Letter To Sloan Seymour
Sloan,
Thank you for keeping me off your email list, till now.
How bad are things at Ziff Davis? Desperate enough that you have to insist on sending emails to people who have so angrily opted out?
I suggest you invest a few bucks and buy a few copies of this book for your staff. Make it a requirement to actually read it and practice permission marketing.
By the way, if things are so bad at Ziff Davis, let me know — I’ll happily purchase a handful of copies and send it to you, as long as you never email me again.
You can see from the comments on our post that this is a common complaint. I’m sure you are aware. Please let us know what you plan to do?
Pissed off in the blogosphere,
Bryan
P.S. Below is the previous email thread to remind you of our correspondence.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Warren Miller Loses His Edge Online
What if you had a business where you had a loyal and engaged community of fans, where people were dying to say good things about your brand, but you decided it wasn’t so important to cash in. How would this strategy work for your business? (Let me know how that works out for you.)
If you’re an avid skier who lives in North America, like me, you’ve probably seen a Warren Miller film. He was one of the first to harness ski culture enthusiasm for commercial purposes — way before the Internet.
For years, I’ve been a big fan. I hadn’t seen any advertising for this year’s Warren Miller film, but — knowing that it just wouldn’t be a ski season without one — I was proactive about not missing a second year in a row. I don’t watch much television and I rarely listen to the radio, so unless I’m lucky enough to see an ad for the film, it’s easy to forget. Luckily, I went online to see when and where his film would be featured and was able to buy my tickets directly from his site.
Warren Miller’s loyal fans are passionate about skiing and snowboarding. His crowd acts differently than most moviegoers. It’s a bonding experience between strangers who are all there for the same purpose; they’re looking for an adrenaline hit from powdery, snow-covered mountains. Everyone is very vocal and outwardly excited, sharing the experience that gets them stoked for the upcoming season.
Still, I’m left scratching my head. Why didn’t they collect my email address when I purchased my ticket online? Had they specifically told me that they’re collecting my information in order to inform me when next year’s film will be released, I would’ve been perfectly happy to cough up my email address. After all, I would rather not have to think about when the Warren Miller flick is playing next year. They would be doing me a favor by telling me when and where it’s playing in my area, and just letting me click to purchase directly from an email.
Something I found interesting at this year’s film was that the majority of attendees had pre-purchased their tickets. In fact, there was hardly anyone purchasing tickets at the box office. Each year, and at every screening, the audience receives a free (or discount) ski pass to the local resort. But this year, the tickets weren’t handed out at the event. Instead, the audience was given a piece of paper with a ticket number where they were asked to go online to redeem their free pass.
Wouldn’t this be the ideal opportunity for the Warren Miller team to collect email addresses with the sole purpose of nurturing their loyal customers?
By the way, the film rocked! It wasn’t the best year ever, but it definitely pumped me up for what’s ahead this winter. After seeing the flick last week, I purchased my season pass at my local ski resort. I may even want to purchase the DVD when it comes out. Too bad they didn’t collect my information. I’ll probably forget about the DVD and I probably won’t be proactive enough to buy it later on when I’m skiing (read: not just daydreaming about skiing). If I received an email about it when it comes out, chances are they would make another sale. This is why it’s often a good idea to ask for an email address after you’ve made the sale.
Oh well. Maybe they’ll catch on next year.
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Written by:Melissa Burdon
Captain Hook Would Be Proud of this Email…
Just got an email from Oceana, the world’s leading ocean conservation group. No reason, really. They just want to stay in touch, rid the oceans of pollutin’, over-fishin’ scallywags, and wish their newsletter subscribers a happy International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day. And, yes, it’s written in the voice of a pirate.
It’s a great example of how to spice up your PR without making it seem like you’re only after the cash booty. Pirates base their careers on the element of surprise. Likewise, marketers — the lily-livered bilge rats they be — need to make Broca walk the plank.
Have fun with you email campaigns. Talk like a pirate, even. Just don’t get too carried away…
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Written by:Robert Gorell
Andy Sernovitz, Word-of-Mouth Expert, is a Metrosexual…
Actually, that’s putting it lightly. Andy’s screaming that ProFlowers’ email marketing thinks he is gay, and he’s telling everyone! Maybe because it’s Pride month, or perhaps the rainbow reference in their copy, but that’s Andy’s impression.
I’m sure this wasn’t Proflower’s intention. It was, however, a poor job of personalization. What ProFlowers did was take a professional relationship and turn it into personal familiarity. They do a fabulous job of personalizing around birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays–but those are set events on a calendar. This is much tougher in a “just because” email for the simple fact that relationships–like the one between Andy and ProFlowers–doesn’t exist on a calendar.
I hope my friends from ProFlowers go ahead and forward the following couple of posts to the email marketers:
Your Email Marketing Sucks!* Study Says So…
Why “Personalization” of the Web Scares Me
I do want to thank ProFlowers, though, for reminding me that I haven’t touched based with Anne Holland from MarketingSherpa in a while–she’s the last person I sent flowers to from ProFlowers. (Apologies to my lovely wife. It’s not what it seems.)
Be proud, Andy. Spread the word!
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Your Email Marketing Sucks!* Study Says So…
Sliverpop released a new study called 8 Seconds to Capture Attention. Some of the things the study points out include:b
35% of landing pages studied didn’t have the same look or tone of the email that generated the click. For consumer campaigns, this figure was 29%, but increased to 41% for B2B companies.
Unfortunately, this happens when email marketing is silo’d within the organization and the folks sending out emails don’t have the ability to control landing pages, etc.
45% of landing pages didn’t repeat the promotional copy found in the email. Landing pages with images and messaging matching the emails that generated initial interest are better able to reinforce the brand and move email recipients from clicking to converting.
In other words they did not plan for their customer to follow the scent.
17% of the email marketing campaigns studied actually sent recipients to the marketer’s home page rather than a unique landing page. “Home pages are most often created to appeal to the broadest spectrum of prospects possible, while truly successful email marketing campaigns are focused on segmented groups based on their relationship to the company or product,” said Elaine O’Gorman, vice president of strategy, Silverpop.
Email marketing is still one of the most powerful online marketing tactics. Hopefully, if you have been a GrokDotCom reader for a while, you aren’t making any of these mistakes. However, thinking about email marketing in isolation without paying attention to the details of the online sales and marketing blueprint is just a noise making, customer irritating tactic that sucks the success away from you.
*P.S. “Sucks” is a Brooklyn technical term.
P.P.S. Don’t forget to plan for the preview pane.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
