Email programs don’t necessarily read and display html the same way that web browsers do. For example, email programs don’t read JavaScript, and Outlook 2007 uses Microsoft Word to render and display the html in your email. In fact, almost every email program behaves a bit differently when it comes to displaying your html email creation. According to the Email Experience Council, fewer than 50 percent of marketers create emails that render appropriately and one in five emails are invisible and ineffective due to blocked images.
Testing your html designs in every email program to make sure each of your customers see the same designs in the same way isn’t practical because there are literally thousands of different email programs used by consumers.
Instead of designing for the masses and worrying about how your emails will look in obscure email programs, design for the majority so you can be assured that your emails will render properly for most consumers. According to MarketingSherpa’s 2006 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide, here’s what consumers are using to read their emails:
- 20% use AOL
- 19% use Yahoo!
- 15% use Outlook Express
- 12% use Hotmail
Sending a test email to each of the aforementioned email programs and then eliminating any quirky design flaws assures that at least 2/3 of your audience will see your email the same way. Of course, the best Email Service Providers already design templates intended to render properly in the majority of email programs, so using an email template designed by a professional with a good reputation is a good way to go.
Even if you’re an advanced html programmer, starting with a trustworthy email design template and customizing the html in the template will save you from rediscovering the most common email design pitfalls. Make sure you pick an Email Service Provider with plenty of template options that allow you to access the code and style sheet behind the template.
John Arnold is the Regional Development Director for Constant Contact, and author of the book Email Marketing for Dummies.
Writing a good subject line isn’t easy and coming up with good subject lines over and over can seem downright impossible. To make matters seem worse, subject lines turn into dots…. in the inbox after around 30 or 40 characters. Not to worry. A few practical tips and some creativity put to use can have your subject lines and your response rates beating the averages.
Here are 5 ideas for writing effective subject lines:
- Put the immediate benefits of opening the email in the subject line. For example, instead of “November Newsletter,” try highlighting one of the articles, topics, or headlines within your newsletter.
- Put your subject lines to the test. For example, if you have a list of 1,000 subscribers, you can send 100 emails out with one subject line and 100 with another. Wait a day or two and send the subject line with the highest open and click through rate to the remaining 800.
- Use value words in your subject line based on your audience’s interests. For example, if you have a golf article in your newsletter write something about golf in the subject line and send it to your golf list. (Just make sure no one is in more than one category when you use this technique or they will receive the same email multiple times.)
- Work off of a theme. Try writing down 5-10 subject lines that all have the same theme. For example, a health club might use 30-minute workout ideas as a theme and highlight a different workout in every subject line as in “30-Minute Weightlifting Routine”
- Get to the Point Early. Most consumers will skip your email if your subject line doesn’t grab their attention in the first two or three words. Eliminate unnecessary words in your subject line by placing your main idea in the first three words. For example, a subject line that reads “All Our Sports Equipment is On Sale This Weekend” is weaker than “Sports Equipment Sale This Weekend.”
No matter what strategy you use, make sure your subject lines aren’t misleading and be careful that you aren’t inadvertently emulating the subject line techniques used by spammers. Read the subject lines in your junk folder periodically so you’re aware of the latest tricks associated with spam emails.
John Arnold is the Regional Development Director for Constant Contact, and author of the book Email Marketing for Dummies.
Referrals happen when your customers recommend your business to others. You can determine whether your customers are likely to give you referrals by using an email survey to determine your Net Promoter Score (NPS). Here’s how:
- Send an email survey asking your customers how likely they are to recommend your products, services or business to others. Use a scale from one to ten where a rating of one indicates highly unlikely to refer, and a rating of ten indicates highly likely to refer. You can email your question in a formal survey or include the question in your other email campaigns in order to gather results over a period of time.
- Gather your results and divide your respondents into three categories:
- Group your customers who rate from 9-10 as promoters.
- Group your customers who rate 7-8 as passive.
- Group your customer who rate 0-6 as detractors.
- Subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters to determine your NPS as follows:
- % of Promoters - % of Detractors = NPS
According to Net Promoter, the most successful companies consistently score above 80%. How do you increase your score? Take action. Contact your detractors and try to resolve any problems. Contact your passives and find out what it’s going to take to convert them into promoters. Thank your promoters and encourage them to spread the word by forwarding your email campaigns to friends and colleagues.
John Arnold is the Regional Development Director for Constant Contact, and author of the book Email Marketing for Dummies.
Capturing a few email addresses from prospects or customers only to have them unsubscribe a few emails later is frustrating, but keeping subscribers around long enough to engage in repeated buying cycles is more likely to happen when you employ a few retention tactics before you even send the first email to a new subscriber.
According to a 2006 Epsilon Interactive consumer e-mail study, 73 percent of consumers will unsubscribe if they feel that a company sends e-mail too frequently. Determining proper frequency is challenging because consumers are willing to tolerate almost any email frequency as long as they feel your email content is relevant and valuable to them.
Staying in tune with your audience in order to deliver on their email content preferences is essential to subscriber retention, but don’t forget to make sure your audience is in tune with your intentions by setting frequency and content expectations upon sign up. According to a July 25, 2007 “Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study,” by The Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, less than 7% of major online retailers give subscribers any kind of idea how many emails to expect.
Instead of hooking subscribers in with an offer to Join Your Email Blast, include frequency and content verbiage in your subscriber offers. For example, if your company intends to send weekly email coupons to your list, ask new potential subscribers to Sign Up for Wednesday Web-Savers.
Setting frequency and content expectations for your list subscribers not only reduces the number of subscribers who are surprised by your email messaging frequency, it helps you to segment your subscribers into interest categories so you can focus your value propositions on the characteristics inherent in each email subscription offer you create.
John Arnold is the Regional Development Director for Constant Contact, and author of the book Email Marketing for Dummies.
