Monday, November 1, 2010

Email Best Practices -- Says Who?

Recently, a client told me we were not using “best practices” in the recommended email copy and layout we had designed.

After probing them about their experience, it turns out they were referencing an article they had read in a marketing publication that provided “Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Email Performance.”

Since we too, read (and write!) articles like that one and subscribe to national research studies, attend conferences, listen to experts, read a multitude of books on email marketing topics, design, execute and measure multiple email campaigns for a variety of clients, it occurs to me to pose the question: Who gets to dictate that something is an email “best practice?”

A year ago, we invested several hundred dollars in an email research study conducted by Marketing Sherpa, a well-known and respected marketing resource. It was 580 pages with ideas, tips, and “best practices.” Only this time, their best practices were based on 86 Case Studies, which certainly adds up to credibility in my book. We use this as our email design and planning bible and so far, their tips haven’t proven to be wrong yet.

If you type “direct marketing best practices” into Google’s search engine, you’ll be served with 2.7 million results. The problem is, the results range from some really helpful sites chocked full of information, to an email vendor site that has a vested interest in steering you towards an email design that works best for their email software.

The real trouble is that email marketing — really good email marketing — is hard work. While you should certainly do your homework before you start, it’s even more important to know your own customer. What offers, creative formats, colors, etc. resonate with them? Have you tested it yourself to know? Ultimately, what proves to be a “best practice” for Company A is not necessarily a “best practice” for Company B.

That said, there are a few email best practices that work, no matter what and the trouble is, they seem to be the least of most email marketers concerns. So, for what they’re worth, here are my top 5 “best practices” or should I say “most practical words of wisdom” based on all my research reading, testing, and results of efforts for multiple clients, B2B and B2C:


1. Subject Lines: No longer than 40 characters INCLUDING spaces. Ideally less than 30 words INCLUDING spaces. Most important words at the front of the sentence. The Email Experience Council recently sent an email with the subject line “Top 10 Vital Factors for Email Marketing Success.” (41 characters) Based on the settings in my MS Outlook in-box, the sentence was truncated as “Top 10 Vital Factors for E” (21 characters), still an interesting subject line but missing the critical words “Email Marketing Success.” My suggestion would have been to change this Subject Line to “Email Marketing Success Factors” (28 characters).


2. Use Buttons AND Links: Visually, buttons draw your eye to the action item, however sometimes people don’t download all the visuals associated with your email. If viewed through a preview panel (and over 50% of consumers use one for personal email), the recipient can read your text and click on links without downloading any visuals.


3. Design Creative for Vertical and Horizontal Preview Panes: Print out your email creative and use your right hand to cover it, leaving about 2” showing from the left hand margin. Are your most important messages within the remaining space? Now cover it 2” from the top of the email. Now imagine every part of your email that’s NOT HTML will not download. Can you still read and understand the message? Can the reader still take the desired action? If not, rethink your layout and copy.


4. Include a Visual: People are drawn to people. Faces should be attractive and worth a second look. Product shots should be visually interesting. The same rules that apply to print, apply to email. An attractive visual breaks up the copy and gives the eye a place to rest. Thermal eye studies show recipients look at the visual first and rest of the image the longest.


5. Don’t Over Use Hot Links: Too many hot links and you’ll lose your reader. Not enough and the reader will be frustrated that they can’t easily follow up on a key idea. Readers scan email, looking to “cut to the chase.” If they can easily click on a link to get to more RELEVANT information, all the better. But if every 3rd word is a link, it’s visually distracting.


These are my email best practices — what are yours?

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