Blog Box

An email marketing review by Andrew Beeston

At Brown Box we regularly help our clients with best practice for their email marketing efforts including, legal requirements, content development and sending practices. When I recently received an email (from a company we do not serve) I felt compelled to show it to everyone and because we are passionate about our work, the decision was made to share with you a few things you can learn from the email received. We appreciate that not everyone has expertise on these matters so we have decided to omit the name of the business who sent the email.

The Problem

Now that is a long email!

Looks pretty long for a text email doesn’t it? Not the type you’d expect to get from a friend let alone a company sending through any email. I know what you’re thinking, ‘how long is that email?‘ Well I did a count and it came to 3028 words. That’s a VERY long email. Nobody will read that email.

Not only that, but the email was very wide. My screen is 24″ wide, so it went very very wide. Click on the image of the email and see how hard it is to read an entire line. Nobody will read that email.

Apart from the length there were grammatical issues, spelling issues and legal issues in the introduction and it got worse from there. It certainly wasn’t an email I wanted to read. Nobody will read that email.

So how can an email like this be fixed? What can you learn from this to improve your email campaigns? Here’s 8 ways to fix this email covering three of the big issues presented here.

1. Make it Readable

The email itself was simply text so traditionally this would be ‘readable’. But even with it being plain text, there was much that was wrong with the email. The email was clunky, wide and boring, to help this:

• Make the text scannable with a bit of bold. In 3000 words, 7 phrases were bold. Use bold at least once per paragraph, if you’re not saying anything worth bolding - remove it.
• Limit the width of the email. This email was as wide as the screen allowed, so on my 24″ screen it was massive, help me - keep your emails at a maximum 600px wide for readability (an industry standard for all email messages).
• Use lists just like this one. They’re easier to digest.

2. Get To The Point

My best guess with this email is that the main article was about chess and business. I saw it somewhere as I glanced through the text in an Internet induced haze. I don’t know because the mere fact that the email was that long meant I never bothered to even start reading it. If you must, link to the full version.

• Get to the point quickly and simply.
• Use images to convey meaning - after all they are worth a thousand words.

3. Link To A Longer Version

With short attention spans and multitudes of choice online people want to know what they are getting before they commit to anything. Entice readers to your full article online by providing:

• Short teaser paragraphs or interesting imagery linking to your longer article online.
• A pdf download link. With 3000 words this is more of a paper than an article. Help people print it off and read it later with a nicely formatted pdf.
• A blog or alternative news site. We create news websites for some clients who cannot or do not want to put articles up on their primary website. This has proven to be extremely useful in performing a function they wanted but could not otherwise have.

A Final Word

There were so many other ways that this email could have been improved that it would have been unfair to bring out them all. Grammar, spelling, the subject line, legal issues with unsubscribing, newsletter archives and other less significant issues. If you are sending emails like this and not getting the results you want, speak to me. I’d be glad to assess your work and help you develop something that works. You can find us on Twitter, email (andrew or rob (at) brownbox.net.au) or Skype me (username: Niphal) or of course contact Brown Box.

Rob and I have used Twitter for a while now for personal interactions - starting connections with people that some have turned in to more formal business connections or simply closer relationships with people we have already known. Realising that it can be a great tool for business, we have launched a new account for Brown Box. On it we will be discussing issues relating to:

• small to medium businesses and making the most of being online
• web design
• email marketing
• our work as we get through it
• events and issues significant to the company

We hope that you can join in the conversation with us - it’s a great way to make small updates and start conversations that can lead to greater things. So take a couple of seconds and look up Brown Box on Twitter. We’d love to speak to you soon.

In only two words - how would your customers and employees describe your business?

Thanks to Christer

I can just imagine Print Marketing and Email Marketing standing 100 meters apart in a dusty one-street town.  The Old Sheriff and Johnny-Come-Lately with his shiny new hat ready to mix the town up.  Though, Johnny’s not so ‘lately’ and he already has mixed the town up.  And seeing them standing there I realise they each serve important purposes and neither has yet found it’s time to leave so the bullets miss, or never leave, and a strange peace prevails.  As long as different people access information in different ways, some on a screen and some on a page, some both, bedfellows they will remain.  But similar they are not.

While perhaps this is an exaggeration, we do know that on the web, people approach communication very differently than they do print.  This is obvious.

Even the same people.

Different expectations, different opportunities. So the challenge is being aware stepping into the different opportunities and expectations?

In light of this I was dwelling on a few thoughts this week and I hope these might be of interest:

• More ‘touches’ can be allowed online than offline, but expect a number of these to be user-initiated. Facilitate that
• There is an expectation of discourse over broadcast
• Don’t keep making the same pitch. Don’t send something you wouldn’t want to receive yourself
• Narrative is powerful.
• When it comes to print people appreciate that you’ve taken the time to mail them something that looks good. Yet no matter how ’shiny’ your campaign, email is a perceptually lower-value item with a different set of typical responses.
• We expect propaganda in our mail-boxes however people feel a type of ownership over their email in-boxes. Respect that.

Now, if you’re Coles or Clint’s Crazy Bargains, I would feel very weird if I received anything other than a simple ‘here’s our specials’. But most of us are not involved in selling groceries and two-dollar tools. We have important relationships with key customers. Where is your value to them? Can you provide more of it via email? That’s a good place to start.

Some thoughts I’ve been chewing on recently anyway.

~ Rob

Key 1. Provide clear, attractive choices to your users (rather than monopolising the conversation)

Yes, you’re at this party with no girlfriend or wife to rescue you (only males read this) and resigned to the fact that even if you could fit a three letter article somewhere inside the incoming monologue it would probably be a waste of air. So your peripheral vision starts seeking an escape and that little mental book opens to record another name under ‘who-not-to-make-eye-contact-with-at-parties’.

I shall name it ‘Customer Claustrophobia’.

To be honest, I don’t think the party experience is that dissimilar to what many of us experience from the many charities and retailers all vying for the various digits on your credit card.

As I’ve mentioned it’s tiring and, I am convinced, detrimental.

Fig. 1 - Original Email

While I won’t delve into established theories regarding the evolution of the conversation and resurgence of the communal marketplace, working with Dunham + Company and Samaritan’s Purse we’ve finally had the chance to address some of these very common errors. 

Clear Choices - The Email

The new email is now enjoying a high open rate with the highest click-through percentage yet seen for a Samaritan’s Purse email (28.5% of people who opened the email clicked a link) and beyond that, those visiting the site read on average over two articles.

What’s changed? Traditionally Samaritan’s Purse’s emails were similar to what many of you may have seen in your inbox from other organisations. Well formatted (we did them) but very singular in their focus - if you were not interested in the primary article there was not any clear idea of what else might be of value/interest.

If your mailing list is of any size you can safely bet there will be wide range of interests seeking accommodation in the material you distribute.

Fig. 2 - Current Email

Back to the party analogy, if your listener isn’t interested in your topic, allow a change of subject. We applied this truth firstly with Samaritan’s Purse via an overhaul of their newsletter email. Our goal was a more visually engaging format (recognising online users low copy-tolerance) and allowing readers to choose the subject they are most interested in.

However, as the copy is removed from the email itself, we needed infrastructure for providing the content on subjects requested. Yet we needed to be wary of the false ‘more-words-means-more-information-in-someone’s-head’ position.

Key 2. Allow conversation (stop yelling with your hands over your ears)

‘Hi, I’m Rob’ - The Site

Like some of you perhaps Samaritan’s Purse didn’t have infrastructure needed to implement a dynamic of this type so we worked closely with Samaritan’s Purse and Dunham + Company to develop an online archive, presentation and correspondence system developed using as a starting point the fantastic WordPress. Many hours later we were happy to see a model emerge where clearly formatted design, quality images, formatted text and user response were facilitated on budget ensuring a valuable experience for all members.        

Visit the newsletter site here.

I think Facebook address this well by having made almost everything ‘commentable’. While not entirely applicable in this situation (or maybe yours), the expectation is now interaction.

Changing Samaritan’s Purse’s method of email correspondence required changes in both the email and supporting frameworks.  The site and email now complement each other and provide far more opportunity for Samaritan’s Purse to converse with those interested and involved in their work than before.

So again, provide choices and facilitate conversation.  Important thoughts I think.

It’s an evolving process with a long way to go, but I think application of these important principles will allow for new growth for Samaritan’s Purse.

Thanks for reading,

Rob