This email from Original Penguin has a nice implementation of ‘two click’ Facebook Like functionality. Clicking on the ‘like’ button in the email drives to a landing page with a similar design, which includes a working like button. Users can then use that to like the deal, posting a link to the landing page on their Facebook profile.
Unfortunately, as the integration supplied by Facebook is largely javascript, the ‘like’ action can’t actually happen in email, so marketers have to drive to a landing page and then encourage clicks there.
Gmail’s recently announced Priority Inbox feature uses an algorithm to automatically sort busy inboxes into ‘Priority’, ‘Starred’ and ‘Everything Else’. Criteria for sorting into the priority inbox include keywords, people the user emails most and general user behavior (e.g. previous open rates). Rules can also be set up by the user to automatically filter certain emails into the priority folder, and the algorithm is adaptive, so it will learn more about the user’s behavior and preferences with time.
Image via Mashable
What does it mean for email marketing?
There are two main things for email marketers to consider: first, how do you get marketing emails into the priority inbox? and secondly, do you want to be in the priority inbox in the first place?
The key to getting into the priority inbox is relevance. The user is now actively teaching filters what they want to read, so every mailing should be as useful and engaging as possible. This means segregating your lists, following design and HTML best practice and cutting out irrelevant ‘blanket blasts’ to everyone. It might even mean mailing people less sometimes.
Lets look at some of the filter criteria:
Keywords
A good way to get relevant keywords into an email is to include lots of html web text and avoid trapping your text as all-image builds. It also means you should pay attention to your copy as its now bring scrutinized more than ever. I’m sure a side effect of this will be to add ‘important’ to every email. That won’t get you very far. (see also keyword stuffing on the web)
Sender reputation
The chances are the user won’t send many emails to your sending address, but having them add it to their address book will help mark it out as a trusted source. Perhaps you could get them to use the send address for feedback – it means investing in a response management team to handle replys and not using noreply@yourcompany.com. Your ESP should be able to help with this.
User Behaviour
Admittedly this is a bit of a catch all heading at the moment, but really it means you should aim for higher open rates by optimising subject lines, and encourage lots of repeat openings by having a consistent sending schedule and always providing compelling content.
It’s worth also considering how your audience will use the priority inbox and how this will affect the content and tone of voice of your campaigns. For example, if your campaign’s aim is to communicate one message quickly and drive clicks online, it should be optimized so the user can easily scan and act upon it. If you find your users prefer to take longer to properly read your emails (for example it may contain lots of editorial content), then you may wish to add a “star this email to read it later” call to action to your preheader. (Having a history of being ’starred’ may also be a factor for getting into the Priority inbox in the first place)
Bear in mind that whilst the user will check the priority email first, in this folder they will be scanning things quickly and looking for things to act upon. The users mind state once they come to read the regular inbox afterwards may be easier to engage with for some marketers.
So really, preparing for Gmail’s priority inbox is actually an exercise in being a better email marketer. Smarter inboxes like this are becoming more common, and most of the major webmail players have made noises about this recently, so it’s something that’s not going away. Granted, it does raise the bar in terms of relevance and optimisation, but the only real losers here are ‘batch and blast’ marketers sending one message to everyone they can find in the hope that it’ll convert someone – and getting those guys out of the picture is good for everyone, right?
A co-branded marketing email from UCAS (the UK’s higher education admissions authority) and Hewlett Packard has caused a bit of controversy over the last few days. The mailing, with subject line “You have been accepted to receive big discounts on HP laptops!”, was sent before A-level results were announced yesterday, causing some students to mis-interpret it as a university acceptance letter.
In UCAS/HP’s defense, most A-level students should be intelligent enough to know their results are sent out by post, not email, and should really be savvy enough to recognize a marketing message, however it does go to show that marketers should ensure they never lose sight of the customer’s experience.
One thing that often gets overlooked when discussing mobile use of email marketing campaigns is where recipients end up after they’ve clicked. Whilst this email isn’t particularly optimized for viewing on a mobile (aside from a link to a text based ‘mobile version’ at the top), Sephora has done well to optimize their site and landing pages for use on smartphones.
It’ll be interesting to see how this mobile support may relate to their email campaigns from now on.
Welcome! The Email Design Review is your guide to best practice design for email marketing - We aim to showcase great examples of creative email design, identify and focus in on email design trends, and provide credible design insight to the email marketing industry.
