Online Marketing Sydney, Internet Marketing Australia Freestyle Media

I subscribe to a number of eNewsletters. A number of them demonstrate nicely that email marketing, while it seems straightforward, does require a certain level of understanding and skill (Howards Storage World being a case in point).

Just as driving a car may seem like a straight forward concept you still need to understand all the bits that actually go into driving.

Email marketing is a bit like driving a car – it may sound like an easy concept:

• Throw together some messages or offers (hands on steering wheel)
• Blast it out to the audience (keep your foot down)

But it’s actually more like:

• Strategically craft the message, call to action etc (hands at 10 and 2, keep an eye on what’s happening around you).

• Carefully select the audience (right foot accelerator and brake).

• Understand the limitations of your audience’s inbox (left foot clutch, left hand gear stick: start in first, accelerate into second, third, fourth etc).

• Make sure your email message and design adheres to relevant email standards, regulations and best practices (know the road rules and road etiquette – stop at the stop sign, merge like a zip, give someone a wave if they let you cut in).

• Test, test and test it on different email clients, with different preview pane settings etc (practise driving on some back roads before getting on the highway).

• Be aware of the fact that most of your subscribers will never see your email the way you do (assume most other drivers are out to kill you – thanks for that advice Mum).

• Monitor and track responses, fine tune your campaign (keep an eye on the dash so you don’t run out of fuel or oil or water or get a speeding fine).

The upshot?

Everyone starts out with L Plates, there’s no shame in that – but you really need an experienced driver guiding you through the first stage of getting your licence.

Email marketing is similar – you’ll have a much better success rate if you have access to someone who knows (and I mean really knows, not just thinks they know) the full capabilities and limitations of email marketing and how that fits into your overall marketing strategy.

I love Howards Storage world… a place for everything and everything in its
place. So, I signed up to their eNewsletter recently.

Therefore, it was with some excitement to see in my Inbox:

From: Howards Storage World

Subject: Spring Clean

Ignoring all of my other important emails, I clicked on this to bring the
message up in my preview pane (I use Outlook 2007 with my preview pane at the
bottom).

This is what I saw…

Frowning slightly at the fact that there was nothing of interest in the preview
pane and the it looked out of whack, I persevered and scrolled down to see what
I could see…

Not much more.

Now, getting a tad bit frustrated I decided to open it anyway just to check it
out…

Yes, that’s right about 1/3 of the email was about nothing – just images and
poorly aligned “stuff”.

You may ask, why is this a problem?

1. It’s generally accepted that around 40% of subscribers will have imagesturned off or their email clients don’t render images particularly well (one source says this is more like 65%). This means the email could have looked much worse to about 40% of Howards Storage World subscribers. They would have seen nasty red crosses for 1/3 of the email.
2. Moreover, if some of their audience has a preview pane to the right, it would have looked BLANK.
3. If someone without a wide screen had opened it, again it would have looked BLANK.
4. In addition, I had to scroll down TWICE to actually get to the offer – the only reason I persevered and didn’t delete it, is because I couldn’t believe they’d done this.
5. Heaven help them if a sizable portion of their audience gets their email on a handheld device…

The upshot:

1. Don’t assume that just because your email looks good in your Inbox when you test it then it will look the same for your subscribers.
2. Be aware of email design standards to allow for various email client settings (check out the email standards project: http://www.email-standards.org/).
3. Test your email across different email clients and with different settings before sending.
4. Don’t rely too heavily on images to tell your story.
5. Make sure your subscribers don’t have to go hunting for the offer – get it in front of them early on, not everyone reads to the bottom of an email.

Guest Writer Angela Schuster owns and runs Schuster Consulting Group www.schusterconsulting.com.au