designing for your subscribers - tips and tricks to increase email marketing roi
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DESIGNING FOR YOUR SUBSCRIBERSTips and Tricks to Increase Email Marketing ROI
PERFORMANCE-DRIVEN DESIGN
• Design is the visualization of a business plan. More than a pretty picture, great design requires an actionable plan and measureable goals.
• Design should acknowledge the subscriber experience.Put yourself in your subscriber’s shoes and understand how they will interact with your communications.
• Design and technology are seamlessly integrated.Emails should be designed and coded to display properly in the various ways a subscriber will view it. A comprehensive testing strategy is essential to ensure success.
AGENDA
• Business Planning Checklist• Subscriber Experience• Performance Driven Design• Design Considerations• The Mobile Inbox• General Coding Considerations• What elements are supported in email?• Tools for creating HTML• Email client-specific recommendations
BUSINESS PLANNING CHECKLIST
• Why are you sending this email? Drive leads Increase brand awareness
• Who are you sending to, and what do you know about them? Internal audience: sales reps and C-suite executives External audience: subscriber behavior by segment
• What do you want subscribers to do once they receive your email? Register for a webinar Read an article
• How are you going to measure success? Open/click data Number of leads generated
SUBSCRIBER EXPERIENCE
Consider the entire subscriber experience – from first impression to final click.
Each individual phase influences the decision to open and engage with your email.
Your email design is experienced in stages – not as a static page.
FROM NAME
SUBJECT LINE
PREVIEW PANE
ABOVE THE FOLD
COMPLETE EMAIL
CLICK THROUGH
*Email Sender and Provider Coalition
It all begins with the From Name – 73% of subscribers click “Report Spam” or “Report Junk” based on this field.
FROM NAME
IS YOUR FROM NAME EASILY
RECOGNIZABLE?
SUBJECT LINE
*Email Sender and Provider Coalition
69% of subscribers click “Report Spam” or “Report Junk” based on this line.*
IS YOUR SUBJECT LINE RELEVANT
AND INTERESTING?
IS YOUR SUBJECT LINE RELEVANT
AND INTERESTING?
SUBJECT LINE
69% of subscribers click “Report Spam” or “Report Junk” based on this line.*
Images are disabled by default more than 50% of the time. Is your key message visible, relevant and enticing in this space?
PREVIEW PANE: IMAGES OFF
WHAT IS YOUR EMAIL SAYING
WITH IMAGES OFF?
PREVIEW PANE: IMAGES ON
What’s your open rate? Only subscribers that turn images on trigger an open.Are you giving them a reason to keep reading?
AVERAGE PREVIEWPANE DIMENSIONS:
300px by 300px
CONSIDER THE SUBSCRIBER EXPERIENCE
Is this the message you want to convey?
ABOVE THE FOLD
Does your content above the fold provide motivation to respond? Are you persuading subscribers to scroll?
DON’T CRAMEVERYTHING
ABOVE THE FOLD…INTRODUCE CONTENT
ABOVE THE FOLD
*The Nielsen Norman Group
COMPLETE EMAIL
• Seconds – not minutes – to view an entire email• Only 11%* of those who open
will scroll below the fold!
EVEN IN THIS VIEWTHE ENTIRE EMAIL IS NOT
ONSCREEN AT ONCE
Subscriber experience doesn’t end with the inbox
CLICK THROUGH
• Don’t ignore the transition to your website, landing page, or other marketing collateral.
• Ensure the products in your email are available on your site - better yet, map the individual products from the email to a product page.
Brand Synergy • Content Hierarchy • Visual Hierarchy
Engagement Techniques • Rendering Results • Tested Quality
PERFORMANCE DRIVEN DESIGN
Visual recognition of the brand across all media channels creates a seamless brand experience, creating trust to engage and transact.
Website
BRAND SYNERGY
Create a content hierarchy, arranging each content element (text and/or image) and associated call to action with appropriate weight.
Wireframe Preview Pane
Above the Fold
CONTENT HIERARCHY
Maximize response by creating a visual hierarchy, using design techniques to guide the subscriber's eye through your email based on the content hierarchy.
Primary call-to-action
Secondary calls-to-action
VISUAL HIERARCHY
Headlines utilizing size and color hierarchy
“Quick Bites” or summaries
Use design techniques to engage the subscriber through a mix of emotive and rational imagery and content. Smart use of images, borders, buttons, links, charts, colored
backgrounds, etc. should be applied and tested.
Preheader Teaser Text
In This Issue
Lifestyle Imagery
Link to External Video
Forward to a Colleague
Subscriber Q&A
Recovery Module
Read More Link
Use of Background Color
ENGAGEMENT TECHNIQUES
Optimized Design Non-optimized Design
If an email is created primarily with images,it will not display effectively when images are blocked.
HTML text in web safe fonts
Main call-to-action in prime placement
Designed with image-blocking and
preview pane viewing in mind.
Ensure your design efforts are viewed as intended once they hit the inbox. Emails that are created with the subscriber experience in mind will have a
greater chance of success.
RENDERING RESULTS
Top 10 email clients:General (B2B & B2C combined)Outlook 43%
Hotmail 17%
Yahoo! Mail 13%
Gmail 5%
Apple Mail 4%
iPhone 4%
Thunderbird 2.4%
Windows Live Mail (Desktop) 2%
AOL Mail 1.2%
Lotus Notes 0.4%
Only comprehensive testing will validate successful rendering of design and ensure functional performance prior to sending to the subscriber inbox.
*Fingerprint from Litmus, February 2010
Top 10 email clients:Florida Power & Light (B2C)
Yahoo! Mail 29%
Outlook 21%
Windows Live Hotmail 14%
Apple iPhone 7%
Apple Mail 6%
AOL Mail 5%
Comcast 3%
Windows Live Mail (Desktop) 1%
Earthlink <1%
Other (<1% each) ~13%
TESTED QUALITY
*ExactTarget via Fingerprint from Litmus, Feb. 2010
NEWSLETTER DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
• Include a Table of Contents or In This Issue Section
• Include a 3-4 sentence teaser for articles with a “Read More” link instead of including the full article
• Introduce your main call-to-action within the preview pane and other important content above the fold
• Develop a visual hierarchy for headings, subheading, and body copy for easy scan-ability
• Use images selectively to eye track to engagement areas
POSTCARD DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
• Your message should have a singular focus; don’t let your postcard become a newsletter
• Make that message the Hero in your design
• Introduce your main call-to-action within the preview pane and other important content above the fold
• Consider the placement and inclusion of secondary messaging that supports your main focus
TRANSACTIONAL DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
• Position content front and center; keep it simple
• Don’t include too much cross-sell information (follow the 70/30 rule)
• Use a higher text to image ratio
• Use font colors and sizes to create a visual hierarchy
• Send a branded HTML email instead of Plain Text
THE MOBILE INBOX
• Smartphone users use mobile email primarily for triage
• There are no standards in place for displaying emails on smartphones
• Most mobile devices display a “stripped down” version of the HTML portion of an email, NOT the plain-text version
• Optimizing your emails with HTML text in web-safe fonts will benefit smartphone users as well
• Consider including a link in your email to view a mobile friendly version of your email
DESIGN RESOURCES
Design Tips for Outlook 2007
Email MarketingDesign & Rendering: The New Essentials
Email Design for Lotus Notes
CareerBuilder.comCase Study
EXACTTARGET DESIGN RESOURCES
Email Design Checklist
Design Team BlogNew posts weekly!blog.exacttarget.com
EXACTTARGET DESIGN RESOURCES
Design Team Tweets@ETDesigntwitter.com/etdesign
MarketingExperimentsMaximize Agency ROIthrough testing
DESIGN CENTER ON 3SIXTY
• Resources• FAQs• Creative Library• Template Source Code• Free Button Libraries
3sixty > University > Design Center
DESIGN SERVICES
EXACTTARGET DESIGN SERVICES
• Performance & Design Assessment• Strategic Newsletter Design• Design Best Practices Training• Program-Specific Template Design• Branded Template Build• Custom Design Packages
Visit ExactTarget.com for more info!
THANK YOU!
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