The document provides tips for designing emails to improve subscriber experience and email marketing ROI. It discusses considering the subscriber experience at each stage, from the from name and subject line to landing pages. Proper design, testing, and ensuring emails display well on both desktop and mobile is important. The document also includes examples of how testing different email designs led to improved performance for different companies.
Increase Email Marketing ROI with Design and Testing Tips
1. DESIGN FOR YOUR SUBSCRIBERSTips and Tricks to Increase Email Marketing ROI
2. LET’S TALK ABOUT… Subscriber Experience Performance-Driven Design Code Matters The Mobile Inbox Landing Pages Test, test, TEST! Resources
3. WHY DOES DESIGN MATTER? 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.
4. 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
5. It all begins with theFrom Name – 73% of subscribers click “Report Spam” or “Report Junk” based on this field. *Email Sender and Provider Coalition FROM NAME IS YOUR FROM NAME EASILY RECOGNIZABLE?
6. SUBJECT LINE 69% of subscribers click “Report Spam” or “Report Junk” based on this line.* IS YOUR SUBJECT LINE RELEVANT AND INTERESTING? *Email Sender and Provider Coalition
7. SUBJECT LINE 69% of subscribers click “Report Spam” or “Report Junk” based on this line.* IS YOUR SUBJECT LINE RELEVANT AND INTERESTING?
8. Images are disabled by default more than 50% of the time.Isyourkey message visible, relevant and enticing in this space? PREVIEW PANE: IMAGES OFF WHAT IS YOUR EMAIL SAYING WITH IMAGES OFF?
9. 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 PREVIEW PANE DIMENSIONS: 300px by 300px
10. PREVIEW PANE & IMAGE BLOCKING Hotmail - Images Off Hotmail – Images On
11. PREVIEW PANE & IMAGE BLOCKING Hotmail - Images Off Hotmail – Images On
12. ABOVE THE FOLD Does your content above the fold provide motivation to respond? Are you persuading subscribers to scroll? DON’T CRAM EVERYTHING ABOVE THE FOLD… INTRODUCE CONTENT ABOVE THE FOLD
13. COMPLETE EMAIL Seconds – not minutes – to view an entire email Only 11%* of those who open will scroll below the fold! EVEN IN THIS VIEW THE ENTIRE EMAIL IS NOT ONSCREEN AT ONCE *The Nielsen Norman Group
14. 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. “…A well-designed email means nothing if the landing pages don’t work well.” – Chad White
17. Website Email Visual recognition of the brand across all media channels creates a seamless brand experience, creating trust to engage and transact. BRAND SYNERGY
18. Wireframe Preview Pane Above the Fold Create a content hierarchy, arranging each content element (text and/or image) and associated call to action with appropriate weight. CONTENT HIERARCHY
19. Headlines utilizing size and color hierarchy Secondary calls-to-action Primary call-to-action Maximize response by creating a visual hierarchy, using design techniques to guide the subscriber's eye through your email based on the content hierarchy. VISUAL HIERARCHY “Quick Bites” or summaries
20. Preheader Teaser Text Forward to a Colleague In This Issue Read More Link Subscriber Q&A Lifestyle Imagery Use of Background Color Link to External Video Recovery Module 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. ENGAGEMENT TECHNIQUES
21. Optimized Design Non-optimized Design Main call-to-action in prime placement HTML text in web safe fonts If an email is created primarily with images, it will not display effectively when images are blocked. 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
22. *Fingerprint from Litmus, February 2010 Only comprehensive testing will validate successful rendering of design and ensure functional performance prior to sending to the subscriber inbox. TESTED QUALITY *ExactTarget via Fingerprint from Litmus, Feb. 2010
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24. Include a 3-4 sentence teaser for articles with a “Read More” link instead of including the full article
25. Introduce your main call-to-action within the preview pane and other important content above the fold
26. Develop a visual hierarchy for headings, subheading, and body copy for easy scan-ability
36. There are no standards in place for displaying emails on smartphones
37. Most mobile devices display a “stripped down” version of the HTML portion of an email, NOT the plain-text version
38. Optimizing your emails with HTML text in web-safe fonts will benefit smartphone users as well
39. Consider including a link in your email to view a mobile friendly version of your email
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41. LANDING PAGE TIPS Continuity – graphics, offers, headlines, imagery, data Set expectations, and follow through accordingly Keep forms simple Honest, clear, concise copy – use bullets! Avoid extra elements (navigation, sidebars, images…) Don’t be afraid to re-state value Use seals! Same rules of email apply to landing pages
42. IS THIS A POSITIVE SUBSCRIBER EXPERIENCE? Email with “Download Now” call to action Above the fold view
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44. Did the landing page meet the expectations that the email set up?
52. PIER 1 RESULTS MEASURES: CTR of Delivered Emails Unsubscribe Rate Sales Generated by Subscribers WINNER: Generated 86% More Clicks Than Other Competitors Generated 25% More Sales Than Nearest Competitor
59. AAA OHIO RESULTS MEASURES: CTR of Delivered Emails Projected Renewal Revenue WINNER: Outperformed Control CTR by 26% Outperformed Projected Revenue of 2nd Place by 4%
66. MARKETINGEXPERIMENTS RESULTS MEASURES: CTR of Delivered Emails Unsubscribe Rate WINNER: Outperformed 2nd Place by < 2% Outperformed Control CTR by 26% Outperformed Control Unsubscribe Rate by 15.9%
70. EXACTTARGET DESIGN RESOURCES Design Tipsfor Outlook 2007 Email MarketingDesign & Rendering: The New Essentials Email Design Checklist Email Designfor Lotus Notes CareerBuilder.com Case Study
71. EXACTTARGET DESIGN RESOURCES Design Team Blog New posts weekly! blog.exacttarget.com MarketingExperiments Maximize Agency ROIthrough testing Design Team Tweets @ETDesign twitter.com/etdesign
A subscriber’s inbox is a noisy place, filled with the clutter of messages, folders and other distractions. Definition of Spam not only extends to relevance, but also to subscriber expectations surrounding frequency. Think carefully about the subscriber’s relationship with the from name you choose, whether it’s your company name, a business unit, or a sales representative.“A message from the John…” Story – From name was too long in gmail!
Old Navy sent out an email with the subject line “20% off all adult purchases”SO – what’s the best subject line? TEST. Do a simple A/B split testing static vs. changing, promo vs. info, etc.
Old Navy sent out an email with the subject line “20% off all adult purchases”SO – what’s the best subject line? TEST. Do a simple A/B split testing static vs. changing, promo vs. info, etc.
You don’t have to fit every call to action, copy block, and button here! In this space, create an experience subscribers want to continue.
ET tracks opens this way.
“…A well-designed email means nothing if the landing pages don’t work well.” – Chad White
And if they want to view more…is it for the right reasons?
Keep imagery consistent with your brand.
Keep in mind that the design to the right ISN’T necessarily a bad design – it’s poorly optimized. However, optimization is the first step of email design that the subscriber experiences.
*Data collected from over 250 million email recipients using our Fingerprint analysis tool.
1. Introduce presenters + attendees2. Overview of what we’ll cover.Overview of HTML vs. CSSCode for email not the same as code for webHTML is a markup language that is universally CSS is a style sheet whose form is separated from its contentPut yourself in the customer’s shoes when talking to them – the beautiful, efficient world of building websites with CSS doesn’t apply here.W3C puts together rough standards. These standards don’t exist for email.Proper syntax still counts – opening and closing tags
Now I love MarketingProfs as much as the next person, so I don’t want to throw them under the bus, but…
Maybe they tested it and this page works well for them (I don’t know), but my initial impression is subscriber experience FAIL!
How our expertise in performance-driven design increased conversions by 88%
One final resource that I would like to make you aware of is our new Subscribers, Fans, and Followers research. These new resources will provide you with direct insights into how consumers view each of these channels, as well as the type of permission-based content they want to receive through them.