whitepaper email success toolkit - digital...
TRANSCRIPT
EMAIL SUCCESS TOOLKIT
Before you hit the send button on yet another “oops” message, use this toolkit to prevent mistakes. Included are a Project Brief to help with your process, a Quality Assurance Checklist you can use to organize your email testing, a Mitigate the Impact Checklist to remind you what to do if a mistake does slip through, and examples of “Oops” campaigns for inspiration.
WHITEPAPER
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
©2014 Digital River, Inc. bluehornet.com
CONTENTS
PROJECT BRIEF
QUALITY ASSURANCE CHECKLIST
PROBLEM? MITIGATE THE IMPACT CHECKLIST
EXAMPLE GALLERY
OTHER RESOURCES1 3 5
2 4
Page 2©2014 Digital River, Inc.
PROJECT BRIEFBelow is an example of an email project brief. Depending on your specific situation and needs, the contents may vary, but this should give you a great starting point to put some structure and clarity into your process.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Template / Campaign Name:
Review / Approval Owner:
Creative Due Date:
Tested HTML Due Date:
Email Launch Date:
TEMPLATE / STARTING POINT
Design new email from scratch
Create new email from existing HTML/Template • If creating from existing assets, please describe:
BACKGROUND / BRAND DIRECTION
Goal / Objective of this campaign?
Who is the primary audience?
Tone / Image of template?
What are your KPIs / Success Metrics?
Specific elements to incorporate into template?
OK to Share to Social? If so, which channels?
Copy Deck location?
Make sure your entire team is on the same page before you begin. When everyone understands the bigger picture – the project goals, audience, success metrics – it empowers everyone to make the right decisions during the process.
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MAKE SURE COPY DECK INCLUDES Headlines and Sub-headlines and CTA button names
Body Copy
Call-To-Action button names and URLs
Links (full URL paths including navigation, social, body links, CTAs, privacy policy, etc.)
Snippet
View Online / Mobile Verbiage
Address Book Verbiage ( if applicable )
LAUNCH INFORMATIONSubstitute Name (for personalization)
From Name
From Email
Reply Email
Subject Line
Footer
Campaign (if applicable)
Bill Code (if applicable)
Attributes (if applicable)
Test List Email Addresses
Segments to Send to
Segments to Exclude (if applicable)
Send Date (Month/Day/Year)
Send Time (Hour : Minutes AM/PM)
A/B Test Details (if applicable)
The more revisions there are, and the more back and forth there is, the greater the likelihood of miscommunication and mistakes slipping through. Iron out all of the content before it you get it to the design phase.
Although it may sound counter-intuitive, conducting A/B split tests on your campaigns can actually help prevent mistakes. With an extra layer of variables in play, people are more cautious and thorough when setting up the email. If a mistake does get through, it may only affect a small percentage of recipients. And, of course, you are gathering insight and data to make your future emails more successful.
Page 4©2014 Digital River, Inc.
QUALITY ASSURANCE CHECKLISTAfter your email is designed and programmed, QA is your last line of defense against mistakes. This checklist will help give you an idea of how to keep track of all the elements that need to be tested and where the email should be previewed before the send button gets pushed. Whenever possible, have someone other than the creator of the copy and design available for testing. A fresh pair of eyes can do wonders.
DESIGN AND TEMPLATEConfirm final creative matches creative brief, tone, design, and assets specified.
Confirm correct template is being used.
TEST MESSAGE RENDERING IN EMAIL CLIENTS AND BROWSERS
Outlook 365
Outlook 2013
Outlook 2010
Outlook 2007
Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail / Windows Live (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari)
Yahoo! Mail (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari)
Gmail (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari)
AOL
Apple Mail 6
Apple Mail 5
iPhone
Android
BlackBerry
Remember that HTML for email is very different than HTML for websites. If your design looks good when you preview it in your browser, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will look good when it gets to the end user. Mobile emails have a bigger audience than ever. Take advantage of email rendering tools or third parties like Email On Acid and Litmus to streamline the testing process on multiple devices.
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SPECIFIC RENDERING CHECKSOverall layout/readability of message
Placement holding of all components: images, paragraphs and spacing, indentations, etc.
Font accuracy - style, size, placement, formatting
Rendering of special characters
Link underlining/color consistency
Check View Online version to make sure all content displays correctly
Check to ensure Text version mirrors the HTML version with offered links and content
View email outside of company firewall to ensure images are publicly viewable
CONTENT ACCURACYFrom name
From/reply email
Substitute name
Subject line
Link underlining / color consistency
Snippet copy
Headline
Sub-headline
Body copy
Offer (Discount, expiration, disclaimer / fine print, etc)
CTA / Button
Disclaimer
Custom fields populated correctly
Call any listed phone numbers
Double check every date (Events, releases, number versus day of the week, etc)
Checking for spelling and grammar at the same time you are reviewing for message tone and clarity is difficult. Instead, read through the email a few times, with a different objective each time. Remember that yspell check won’t catch everything. A great trick is to read the copy backwards... it forces you to ignore the message and lets you focus on individual words.
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CONFIRM LINKSCorrect path
All links are tracked
Functionality
Links open in new window
Variable for duplicate link paths in HTML (if applicable)
ALT TAGSAccuracy
One for each image
CAN-SPAM COMPLIANCEIncludes physical mailing address
Unsubscribe link is working
Landing pages are often created at the same time as the email, so be sure you don’t overlook a placeholder link or a URL intended to go to a specific interior web page that’s temporarily directed at the home page.
Page 7©2014 Digital River, Inc.
PROBLEM? MITIGATE THE IMPACT CHECKLISTFirst you need to truly define what type of error it is. For example, is it revenue impacting or not? There was a big box retailer last holiday season that sent out a message that was selling iPads for the absolutely wrong price. The price was so off that they really couldn’t even honor the pricing in the offer – so that is a BIG error. But if it is a broken link in the navigation to the contact us page…or the view in browser link – it probably isn’t so monumental. Use this checklist as a guide to help keep your cool and make sure you are thinking everything through under pressure.
WHAT TO DO WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONGStay calm and assess the situation
Will this impact revenue?
Identify who you need to involve to address the mistake
Determine IF you want to send an Oops message at all. And to whom.
IF YOU NEED TO SEND A FOLLOW-UP “OOPS”
EMAIL, REMEMBER…Be timely
Maintain your brand voice
Be transparent
Don’t blame anyone else
Learn something
You can’t change any code that’s in the sent email, but you might be able to change what’s on your server that the email is pointing to.
Depending on how the mistake was made and how your server is set up, you might be able to fix images or links with broken paths. It can be as simple as posting a new file with the mis-spelled name. Or if there’s a typo in the image, you can repost an updated image.
Page 8©2014 Digital River, Inc.
EXAMPLE GALLERYThe proper “Oops” email response is entirely dependent on the actual mistake that was made, but here are a few examples to give you some ideas should you ever find yourself in need of sending one.
FROM: KATE SPACE
SUBJECT LINE: THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.... HERE’S A
SWEET TREAT
FROM: PACSUN
SUBJECT LINE: OOPS, OUR SITE WAS DOWN.
LET’S TRY THIS AGAIN!
Page 9©2014 Digital River, Inc.
ORIGINAL EMAIL
FROM: WHICH WICH?
SUBJECT LINE: CELEBRATE OUR BIRTHDAY
WITH $3 WICHES!
FOLLOW UP OOPS EMAIL
FROM: WHICH WICH?
SUBJECT LINE: OOPS . . .
Page 10©2014 Digital River, Inc.
FROM: THREADLESS
SUBJECT LINE: WE SCREWED UP!
FROM: STELLA & DOT
SUBJECT LINE: OOPS! PLEASE DISREGARD OUR
CONGRATULATIONS EMAIL
FROM: THINKGEEK
SUBJECT LINE: OOPS! THINKGEEK’S IN THE DOGHOUSE
Page 11©2014 Digital River, Inc.
BlueHornet2355 Northside DriveSuite B250San Diego, CA 92108
(866) [email protected]: @bluehornetemail
OTHER RESOURCESOn-Demand WebinarDid you miss our “Preventing the ‘Oops!’ Email” presentation? Kara Trivunovic, VP of Strategic Services for BlueHornet discusses how to avoid the “oops”, how to mitigate its impact, and discusses ways to get creative with “oops” emails. Watch it online now...www.bluehornet.com/form/preventing-the-oops-email-on-demand-webinar
Editable ChecklistsWould you like an editable Microsoft Word version of any of these checklists to build from? Just email [email protected] with your request and we’ll send you the file.