It's been a while since our last post and in between breaks in the email marketing lab, occassionally we go out into the bright light, throw a football around and breathe in the crisp Fall air.
Then, we get herded back inside back to our desks. Before I get lashed again, here is some email marketing yays or nays that have stored up in my inbox for the last few weeks...
What the Cluck? - The fast-food chain that is always looking to find the right combination to logo/branding success needs to figure out the right recipe when it comes to their emails. For the past few months, I've been getting emails from the Colonel and company after signing up for their list after a recent trip for some famous mac/cheese and mashed potatoes and gravy.
Wait - all you see above is a white box? Yep. What I've got were emails like this one in Outlook 2007, featuring a few basic email faux pas.
The major one is that it's one giant image, which is a no-no when it comes to those that have images turned off. Where's the click-to-view option? Absent, which confuses me to no end. I even forwarded this to my Hotmail account and it slightly improved when I clicked and dragged across the body. Still, I doubt if you showed this to KFC's top marketing executive, they'd be impressed.
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So we go from the Great White Email to one I really like, from Thrillist.
Primarily focused on pop-culture items, they send out a daily email about clothing, food, music and other cool stuff with quick links within. Mainly focused on one subject, it's a quick in-and-out when reading it. They even have regionally-specific editions you can sign up for, which hopefully will start to expand as they do. It's a very hip-looking site with an email setup I like, seen here. Here's what I like:
-The messaging is simple. Like I mentioned, it's one main topic centered int the middle. If you like it, great. If not, delete. It's a 30-second decision, probably the quickest you'll make all day.
-Not a lot of excess. Yes, there's banner ads at the top and right, but they're not too overwhelming for me. There's some quick forwarding and contact options seen, plus some random scores on the left. Not bad.
All-around, I'm a big fan.
One more not-so-great one from New Hampshire's Verizon Wireless Arena. While they have made some improvements from their past offerings, there's still some way to go.
-The first thing I'd change is the colors. Drab grey and blue aren't ideal for a venue looking to attract people to fun.
-There is something going on here with the HTML/CSS code as the two major boxes aren't lined up, making it look like something's wrong. Of course, the service they used to build this template might make it look like everything is ok. However, a simple rendering report would help them see what this email will look like in the various major email clients. This is a service we offer through our company and you can reach to us at www.sendlabs.com for some help.
-Look at that giant gray area at the bottom, left empty. An improved Upcoming Events area with pics/links at the bottom would open up an ad space option where it currently resides.
Finally, I am an admitted comic-book nerd and have been a fan of Marvel's email The Pulse for quite some time. It's a weekly one-hitter that updates fans on the latest releases, movies, downloadable content and the other news about our favorite heroes and creators.
What I like:
- Bright colors, supported by a clean, white background. As my co-worker Brett would say, "This breathes well." I feel like I'm in a big green field reading this.
-Four stories with quick leads and links. Using email as a drive back to the website where the majority of the content resides. Thank you. Too many companies jam everything into an email when they have a perfectly functioning site to direct people back to. Email's a conduit, not the end-all, be-all for your marketing and branding.
-A good text-to-image ratio. Even if someone has images turned off, you can still scan through and get the jist of what messaging they're putting out there. But in any case, there's the click to view messaging at the top of the email.
-Quick links/images to regular features like the Featured Video, Weekly Watcher and Wallpaper.
-There is a bit of wasted white space under the Spotlight and Survey, making me think if they took out one story and had a took out one of the features on the right-hand side, they could tighten this up even more. Overall though, great stuff.
As always, forward me any emails you like/don't like at josh@sendlabs.com. No matter how advanced marketers get with the interactive space, you can see there's still a long way to go for some.