HTML, CSS, and coding - these words seem to be the scariest and costliest thing for marketers to hear, but HTML emails are the best way to get the exact email you want. The main idea to take away from the following article is: keeping a low image-to-text ratio and sending multipart messages are just two ways to keep deliverability high.
B2C: If you want to include images, videos, branding or a color scheme in your emails, you have to create them with HTML.
Some people don’t want to do that (and that’s okay). They don’t want to learn HTML or hire a designer; plus, they believe sending HTML emails will bring down their delivery rates.
If that’s you, read on. Creating HTML emails is just as simple as plain text (we’ll show you how). Plus, we’ve checked in with Laura Atkins of Word to the Wise, a leading expert on email delivery, for the straight story on hitting the inbox.
HTML & Basic Templates Make It Simple
When you create a plain-text email, you’re just typing words. You can do the same thing with an HTML message. Just use an email template – a pre-designed background you can type directly into.
Many email services provide them, or you might be able to get a few for free across the Web (here and here, for example). If you use AWeber, you’ll find hundreds of templates already available in your account.
Earlier this fall I was invited to speak on a panel at ExactTarget's Connections 2011 User Conference entitled "Bridging the Divide: Internationalizing Your Marketing Efforts" where I presented a case study of how ListEngage has helped Parametric corporation with their monthly international email sending needs in 9 different languages and solved some specific challenges. Collectively the panelists offered some great insights. Charlie McAtee from ExactTarget summarized them well. Here they are:
1. Make training easy. Sean Mattson of Hitachi Data Systems stressed that robust training is a key. When rolling out a global email marketing initiative, Mattson found the best training tool was to create short video clips to build a robust library of “how to” videos that marketers across the world could turn to for answers. At Hitachi Data Systems, new features are constantly being rolled out and employees can easily lose their familiarity with the software if they don’t use it for a period of time. Constant training to update employees on new tools and to refresh their memory on previously learned tasks is an integral part of the training process.
2. Establish a support system. Whether you establish a 24/7 support system or encourage local marketers to connect with one another when they have questions, it’s important to offer a way for them to get their questions answered. Gina Mencias of Roche Diagnostics explained the advantages of creating a culture that empowers the local marketing employees to turn to one another, regardless of geography, with questions – whether they’re technical questions or inquiries about what types of content is working well for each market.
3. Listen to subscribers, and look for ways to automate their requests. For a global client, Altaf Shaikh of ListEngage shared an example of how they were able to automate a frequent request from their international email subscribers. Because the global marketing campaign delivered email messages to subscribers in their preferred language, it was difficult for subscribers to forward the content they found valuable to their colleagues who spoke a different language. ListEngage developed a process to create a Language Bar where the intended recipient’s language could be selected and thus receive the message in their preferred language, not the original subscriber’s language.
4. Keep messaging simple. Not only will simple messaging keep translation costs down, but it will eliminate the possibility of a subtle nuance or a mistaken play on words that doesn’t resonate across all local markets.
5. Provide a framework. In order to develop a turn-key global email campaign, Gina recommends providing global teams with a framework from which to structure their email marketing programs. One item in particular she’s found very helpful to share with her international email marketers is an international calendar of holidays. These will provide timely ideas for content that will be relevant to subscribers. Suggested design templates and sharing content that’s performed well in other regions are also part of the framework she provides.
Thanks to Charlie for his insight and great breakdown of the session! Have an email dilemma of international proportions?
Email us and we'll share our thoughts.
It’s the end of August, one of the traditionally slowest months for productivity and growth for many industries — and maybe you found a little dip in your email marketing ROI this summer? All of those “Out of Offices” and clicking latencies are precisely the reason it’s time to restructure your email goals — and plan to hit your targets dead-on once “school’s back in session”.
So this summer, as the dog days dwindle – why not swing back into action with
3 Fool-proof Ways to Deliver Targeted Email Marketing:Send Emails Based on Attributes: Your “Master List” is a living database of all of your many, and uniquely different subscribers. If you’re a sporting goods store who knows their customers favorite sports you can pre-determine that while Joey the runner from Chicago, IL may want nothing to do with your “Fall Footbal Blowout Sale”, Coach Bill in Plano, TX might be looking for all new padding for his defensive line. By sorting on the “Sports” profile attribute and sending the email to Coach while avoiding Joey, you’ve made one football fanatic ecstatic and saved another customer the grief of deleting another email from his inbox!
Drip Campaigns: Someone shows up on your circuit board website and asks for a quote, but certainly isn’t ready to buy. They leave their name and email, and you send them a series of emails based on what you know about your buying cycle. Day 3 after quote, a handy “What to Consider When Buying Circuit Boards Email”; Day 8 after quote, a reminder email; Day 11 after quote a discount coupon worth 10%; and if they happen to buy somewhere in between the mailings stop.
Dynamic Content: Don’t want to make 50 emails with varying content for the 50 states you send to from your Daily Deal website? With dynamic content, a feature that ListEngage is fully versed in, you can create one email and define what content you want to go into a template based off of what data you have on the subscriber. With dynamic content you can send one email and simultaneously feature the daily “Lobster Roll Deal” in Boston and the daily “Wine Tasting Deal” in San Francisco! It’s easy enough to pull together and a tremendous time-saver that delivers targeted results.
Can you think of other ways that have helped your business target your subscribers? Do you have a targeting problem you think ListEngage could help you with?
Send us a note and let us know!
Powered by Compendium