So, I signed up, and immediately after signing up I receive this welcome email,  and I liked it so much I wanted to share it with you.

Why is this email so outstanding, above and beyond all the other emails/sign up/welcome/confirmation emails I receive?

• Because it is simple in its design and it makes good use of white space.
• It is easy for me to read and digest quickly. As I read a lot of my emails on my iPhone (And so do a lot of you I imagine) I appreciated the simplicity. I have received some welcome emails with too much information and I can’t digest it as easily.
• Copy wise, it is not too wordy, yet it still manages to give me the vital information I need to get started. This is important for the user – tell them who you are, how you can help them, what they do now, and tell them how to do it. Simply.
• Design wise, it is on brand with a look that matches their website and app. But I would expect no less from a modern start-up. Take a page out of this book and make sure your branding is the same across the board, so for new users, they recognise you when you arrive in their inbox, and not think ‘who is this’ and accidently delete you. We don’t want that.
• It gives me some tips about how to contribute to the site. It’s nice to give people some guidelines straight up if there are any ethics or codes they should be aware of.
• It gives me a link to to get started, which I appreciated as an easy way to get to the site quickly. This increases engagement and for me, I think it gets people onto the site sooner than if I had just gotten a welcome note, thought great, and delete it, and forget to visit the site.

This example to me is a good all rounder, and shows me a welcome email can be both short and sweet, and effective.

Do you have some welcome email examples you want to share? Got your own questions about welcome emails? Give us a bell! 

I am not sure what appealed to me more – the color palette or the lure of wine and Tahiti?

Besides the exclusive luxurious competition offer that immediately appeals, the design is clean and simple, and the copy is brief. Both are standard for a promotional email such as this – so remember these elements when you design your next promo email.

I have just suggestion for improvement. The main image could have served well as a call to action. I actually clicked on it a couple of times however nothing happened and it took me a few seconds to find the tiny ‘book now’ in the bottom right hand corner.

Why does this matter? We generally recommend clients link from images as well, as we find that images are generally links and people know this, and they tend to click on images – so use this fact and take advantage of all possible call to actions you can.

Besides this one thing, this is a fantastic example of a great promotional email.

Mother’s Day Email Marketing Ideas

Mother’s Day in this part of the world falls on Sunday 13^th May.  According to many sources, it’s the second largest shopping holiday of the year.

And that is not far away at all – so you need to start planning your email marketing campaign now. We thought we would share a few strategies and tactics with you to help you put together a sterling mother’s day campaign.

Get Emotional

Mother’s Day is one of those holidays loaded with emotions such as gratitude, love, appreciation, maybe even sadness and guilt. Everything is about coming from the heart and being authentic, so use this opportunity to show you have real humans behind your brand, and show you all have mothers too and that you actually care. Come across with this emotion in your communications and you will grab people at a deeper level beyond just touting mother’s day specials.

Idea! Share ‘staff picks’ and include your staff member’s favorite Mother’s Day idea, tip or gift suggestion.

Help them find great gifts easily

As with any holiday, some people have difficulty picking gifts. So how about having a fun and interactive gift-generator that helps someone find that perfect gift for mum? Or send your email out with a selection of beautiful, unique, or even quirky gift ideas to spark people’s imaginations.

Idea! Showcase your most popular products or ideas; even create packages, or experiences for people to choose from.

Use your Data

If appropriate or possible, you can use segments of data to refine your audience, and to specifically target certain products or offers to certain segments of your database, based on preferences, location, age, etc.

Idea! If you have it, tap into historical purchase information to garner insights about what people want.

According to this DM News article marketers can use gender and age demographics to fine tune their recommendations.

Beat the Rush

Before everyone’s inboxes fill up with Mother’s Day emails, get in early and stand out in people’s minds, and inboxes. Provide people with great suggestions for gifts, offer them incentives, give them tips even, to help your recipients themselves be as prepared for Mother’s Day as you are, and help them win points with mum.

Idea! Help your recipients, and they will be ready with their wallets to thank you when it comes to next year’s Mother’s Day campaign

According to data compiled by eDataSource the traditional ‘flowers and candy’ marketers are not yet in full swing until two weeks before Mother’s Day.

Be outstanding and stand out

When people’s inboxes start filling up with Mother’s Day emails, it takes something special for you to stand out and not get deleted with all the other emails. So you will want to be really creative with your subject line, and just as clever with your content. Don’t be afraid to be funny, clever, and unique or even a bit shocking. The subject line is what will get you to stand out and grab people, make them open your email and persuade them to buy.

Procrastinators ahoy!

Consider offers that help busy, rushed, last minute people or just the un-prepared, to get sorted. Put together easy (and potentially discounted) packages with a gift, a card, and delivery, and offer either early bird discounts or last minute free delivery. Early birds and procrastinators alike with thank you and will gladly pay for the convenience you offer.


Post Holiday Hangover

According to this survey, Mother’s Day email open rates peak after the holiday. The survey reveals that the possible reasons for these delayed open rates are many people may not have had a chance to see their moms for mother’s day or organise anything in time (There are always some of these people) And there is also a segment of people that wait for last minute discounts before purchasing. (This ties back into offering discount packages for procrastinators to tap into this segment of people)  When doing post Mother’s Day campaigns, just make sure you delete or supress anyone that did make a purchase so that you don’t email them again.

Idea! Use this follow up as a chance to ask people how their mother’s day went – what they bought, did they find your gift suggestions helpful? Use any information you gather to enhance next year’s Mother’s Day campaign.

Need Some Mother’s Day Marketing Inspiration?

May the following quotes rouse your Mother’s Day spirit and marketing inspiration.

• No gift to your mother can ever equal her gift to you…life. — Unknown
• Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever. — Unknown
• We never know the love of the parent until we become parents ourselves. — Henry Ward Beecher
• A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. — Tenneva Jordan
• The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. — Unknown
• All mothers are working mothers. — Unknown
• Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs since the payment is pure love. — Mildred B. Vermont
• When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. — Sophia Loren
• There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. — Chinese Proverb
• A Mother’s Prayer: First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be beautiful but not damaged, for it’s the damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half and stick with beer. Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes and not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking you, because if I knew, I’d be doing it. May she play the drums to the fiery rhythm of her own heart with the sinewy strength of her own arms, so she need not lie with drummers. Grant her a rough patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, for childhood is short – and adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers and the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a bitch in front of Hollister, give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, for I will not have that shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 am, all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a mental note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen. — Tina Fey

To help you and your team plan for campaigns with content around key holidays, events and celebrations, Jericho has created the 2012 Campaign Content Calendar which you can access here http://blog.jericho.co.nz/2012-campaign-content-calendar-for-marketers/

We love ideas, so please add yours in the comments, and remember to share this article with your social networks – please!

So, would it surprise you to know that more people share by email than by Facebook?

That’s the result ExactTarget got when they surveyed folks for their 2012 Channel Preference Survey.

Here are their findings.

As seen in the graph above, when you combine all the age brackets, 63% of people use email to share content and only 33% put it on Facebook, and only 5% on Twitter.

The only time social media rules is specifically within the 15-17 age group, so if this is your target audience, by all means stick with Facebook. For everyone else, it looks like it’s time to review the importance of email as part of your marketing campaign.

Email is also the chosen one when it comes to preferred method of contact. 77% of people said they want emails from companies they’re interested in. Direct mail, on the other hand, came in only at 9%.

Email was also the first place people looked for deals from companies they already know. Company websites came in second.

According to ExactTarget, the only place email has declined is as a method of personal communication (45% vs. 66% in 2008). Text messaging is up (36% vs. 16% in 2008), as is social networking posting (13% vs. 3% in 2008).

Also 91% of people say they check email every day and that’s more than any other means of communication.

Social media is great, no doubt. However if you are underestimating the importance, and the preference for, email, particularly when dealing with current customers, you’re missing out.

Want more details? Read the full ExactTarget 2012 Channel Preferences Survey. It’s free.

“Countless small businesses send out countless emails every day”

Levitt has a good point and here at Jericho, we see a lot of outstanding emails, and we see a fair few ‘invisible’ ones too. So we wanted to share Levitt’s advice for creating campaigns that won’t get lost in the customer’s inbox.

Don’t be too perfect.
Levitt isn’t suggesting that you include typos or grammatical errors to make your emails more human. But you should allow your personality to shine through. “The best brands—much like the best people—have an identity, a voice, idiosyncrasies, and unpredictable quirks” he notes. We tend not to trust people who are buffed and polished to an unnaturally perfect degree—and the same is true of email campaigns.

Delight with small surprises.
Beneath an email offer, include a customer review, a blurb from a recent blog post or a link to a relevant article. “You might be surprised by all the clicks and social sharing that your little afterthought generates,” Levitt notes.

Make an impression with strong design.
Create a memorable banner-esque header that sets the tone for your campaigns. “Have a graphic designer help with typesetting and graphics,” he advises. “Do it once, and do it right. You’re going to get tons of use out of it.”

Err on the side of sending too frequently.
You should never send an email simply to send an email. On the other hand, don’t hold back relevant, useful, timely content because you’re worried it might be one message too many, he says.

The Point is relax and say what you mean. Email marketing is about developing a relationship with your subscriber—so communicate with that person as you would with a friend.

This is an appealing newspaper-style approach to email. This was Distracted‘s quirky store newsletter.

It certainly stands out from the typical emails we usually see, with a distinctly vintage look.

A lot of copy is included, and it’s almost like a newspaper that’s been loosely adapted for email, but we figure that people familiar with Distracted’s unique style will know and love this.

Our only concern is how the long columns of text will hold up on mobile devices, as well as when readers move from one article to the next.

Overall though, it is a distinctive design from Studio Bomba.

This fantastic email example was designed by Studio Bomba for Distracted.

Want more? You can see the whole email here.

Why is Reputation and Deliverability important? Why do you need to know about these things when you just want to send out some emails? And what do these terms mean anyway?

Reputation and Deliverability requires senders to meet strict international best practices for good reasons like anti-spam measures. You might wonder just what issues there could be around delivery. After all, you write an email, you click “send”, and the emails arrive seconds later. However when you send email that goes out to dozens, hundreds or thousands of recipients, not all of those recipients are going to get your email. And deliverability is the guy in-between acting like the bouncer at the club, and he determines who gets your email, or who doesn’t, and why.

So how do you ensure every one of your emails gets through? Appease the deliverability gods? Tip the bouncer? An easier option would be to talk to our deliverability guys who have provided the following expert advice.

1) Deliverability is strongly measured by sender reputation. And a good sender reputation starts with a dedicated IP address. We do recommend dedicated IP addresses for clients especially those who have B2C databases of more than a few thousand recipients.  This offers a number of benefits, including the ability to apply for ISP whitelisting, subscribing to ISP feedback loops, and to build your own reputation as a best practice email sender. How it works is each client is assigned an IP address configured for their exclusive use. This is not only a recommended best practice but also a requirement by many IPs such as Yahoo / Xtra for whitelisting.

Why is this important? Without a dedicated IP address a sender has no reputation and runs the risk of being blacklisted as a result of others that may share the IP that they use.

2) However deliverability is measured by much more and it’s not enough just to isolate the IP address. Domains also have their own reputation. It is also important that headers and links are configured for clients to use their own Domain.

Why is this important? This not only strengthens the banding of the email but also builds the reputation of the Domain.

3) SmartMail complies with the US CANSPAM law well as New Zealand’s Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act of 2007. And we constantly monitor any changes or new laws that might impact our senders and work closely with agencies involved in enforcement to ensure that our clients comply.

Anti-Spam filters examine content, behaviour and complaints to determine if a message is spam. These filters are completely unaware of your relationship with your customers, and as a result are often error-prone. Whitelisting is a service offered by a few Internet Providers to solve the problem of filters that incorrectly identify your messages as spam. We work with clients to achieve whitelisting approval.

Why is this important? When your IP address is whitelisted all your messages automatically by-pass the filters and get delivered into the inbox.

4) SmartMail complies with Best Practices when it comes to hygiene as a result of invalid addresses. We also seek to identify bounces that occur as a result of reputation issues or other Deliverability issues.

Why is this important? This careful monitoring allows us to assist our clients in managing their reputation and resolving issues before they result in damage to their long term reputation.

Every feature of our platform and capabilities is designed around meeting or exceeding these requirements. And as we have a team of deliverability experts right here at Jericho, if you have any queries about your deliverability, IP whitelisting, domain, reputation, or data handling, don’t hesitate to give us a shout.

W – Why
Why are you sending the email? What are you welcoming them for? This will determine the style of the email, when you need to send the email, and what you require your subscribers to do once they receive the email.

E – Engaging
This is potentially the first email they will have ever received from you – make it great! Make it so wonderfully enticing your recipients open it, and make sure it represents your brand, so that when they get your emails in the future they will know it’s you and they will open it.

L –Love your subscribers
Show them the love! Don’t just send an email saying ‘Thanks for signing up’ – where’s the joy in that? If they have just subscribed, or just signed up to something with you, or just purchased something in store, tell them you appreciate it, say thanks, offer them something.

C – Clickthroughs
Is there a call to action required from this welcome email? (You will get this from the questions in the ‘WHY’ section) Would you like recipients to clickthrough to a voucher, or your website for example? Have a good call to action that makes this obvious.

O – Opens
Good design and good copy is key. Make it relevant, timely, attention grabbing and appealing. That way you will ensure new customers or new subscribers will open your welcome email and get the information they need from you instead of mistaking it for more junk and deleting it and missing that vital new customer 50% off voucher!

M – Mandatory
We say mandatory because we believe welcome emails are that important and that effective. And if you don’t already have a welcome email campaign set up, contact design@jericho.co.nz and our design team can put some concepts together for you.

E – Ever and Ever
First impressions count right? If you want this recipient to keep coming back and showing you the love for ever and ever impress them off the bat and you’re more likely to hold on to them as a subscriber.

S – Series
Plural ‘welcomes’ to us means ‘welcome series’! Welcome series are great for when people visit your website, and generally they have limited time to get the gist of what it is you are great at.  So you use a welcome series to extend the education period. For example you could say ‘Sign up to our monthly news updates and we will welcome you with 5 ways to get the most from us’ then, you can use triggers in SmartMail PRO to deploy a series of emails at set times– perhaps weekly, or twice in the first week then one a fortnight.  Or even better, use the series as your sign up incentive – you could say “Sign up for our newsletter and we will send you our ‘3 ways to save money when you shop.’” How enticing is that?

Click here to read our ‘welcome 101’ master class post,  and then you can read our post on ‘8 outstanding welcome email examples’ to get you started.

You are welcome!

This has got to be one of the best subject lines I have seen so far in 2012. Their play on words was so clever I opened and read the whole email even though I have no interest in rugs. If their email subject line had said ‘Rug Sale’ I would have deleted it immediately. Instead, they caught my attention instantly.

The next thing that impressed me about this email was their good use of the pre header text. As you can see in the screenshot, their pre header text matched their subject line, so even though they did repeat the information I knew exactly what the email was about. It’s descriptive yet simple. They also give the option to view text, or text with images which is handy. And they provide a link so people can add them to ‘safe senders’ list. This is a link that we strongly recommend people use if they don’t already.

The body of the email had fantastic graphics that were bright and visually appealing, (Part of which you can see in these screenshots) and like I said I’m not excited by rugs but this email made me want to buy one.

So they have captured my attention, got me excited by their rugs, now they have provided me with a large, colorful, simple, unmissable, call to action. Which I promptly clicked on. (You may recall the importance of a good call to action from our post last week – read it here) See this great call to action in the screenshot below.

Overall this email has all the elements of a well-designed, well thought out, and well tested email. It has a great subject line, makes good use of the pre header text, has attention grabbing content, has a great call to action, and also includes handy links to unsubscribe and connect with them on social media sites at the bottom.

Well done.

As an extension of our posts in December about personalisation, we thought we would start the New Year with a focus on subject lines. New opening lines for a New Year you could say.

Some subject lines work really well, and others leave you cold. Why is that? Well that’s what we are going to explore.

1) It’s about creating intriguing, catchy subject lines that capture the recipient’s attention above all the other emails in their inbox.

2) It’s also about creating subject lines that are in keeping with your brands style and language.

3) And it’s about creating subject lines that cleverly and naturally incorporate a recipient’s name to make it really personalised.

I have recently received two campaigns which did a great job of using personalisation in the subject line, and they were really engaging and got me to open the emails and read them.

‘Amanda, have we got the deal for you!’
I thought ‘wow I better check that out just in case it really is something I will like, also I don’t want to miss out!’ I opened it of course, the deal was good, and so I thought it was a great email. You can play on people’s FOMO (Fear of missing out) – if that works for you and if it’s relevant, it’s fine.

‘Thought you’d like to see this Amanda’
I was naturally curious as to what they think I should see, so I opened it. (Well it worked didn’t it!) Inside was simply a promo about something that I wasn’t interested in, but it got me to open and read the email.

I received another email campaign that used personalisation in the subject line, but it didn’t provide me with quite the same feeling as those other two. The email came from someone I knew, and the subject line said:

‘Amanda, I owe you an apology!’
I thought, ‘Oh gosh, what for, I haven’t spoken to them in a long time! So I opened it, and saw an email that was a clever sales pitch to attend their sales seminar. I don’t open any of their emails any more.

Apart from this example I give above, some examples of not so effective personalization we have seen are:

• Name; Do You Have a Minute?
• Exclusive Savings for Name
• Name – Good news and bad news
• Hi Name
• NAME; Save 30% for Two Days Only!

Each of these examples read like a subject line from a spammer or some such similar source. So how likely would you be to unsubscribe from emails with a subject like these? How much more likely to click ‘Spam’ would you be? How much less likely would you be to open emails from these senders again?
The general idea is about being on brand and in keeping with your brands tone and voice; it’s also about not appearing to come across as a spammer, or appear to be people who send emails with subject lines that give a less than reputable appearance. You don’t want to be sending subject lines that make people think you are a spammer. And we all know it’s wise to stay away from ‘deal’ and ‘$’ and ‘free’ and words along those lines.

My key take hope tips from this for you would be to write subject lines that:

• Are intriguing and catchy
• Are in keeping with your brands language, tone, style and message
• Not trying to sell anyone anything
• Naturally, and cleverly incorporate a recipient’s name

Do all these things, and you will have winning subject lines that will  increase open rates. And we all like that.