Tara Scot

on January 29, 2008

category: integrated marketing

Web Developer

Junk or spam?

If you have multiple email accounts, you know that some of them label unasked for mail as "junk" and others as "spam." In my Outlook email at work, I look in the junk email folder and a few of the dozens of items are tagged as SUSPECTED SPAM. In Hotmail, they give me a Junk folder too.

In Gmail, they just set up a Spam folder — no refinements. It's spam or it's in your inbox.

Then you have the legitimate email that comes to your inbox when you'd rather it hadn't. Here's what Return Path says in a DM News article last week:

56.4% of consumers say they receive high volumes of junk e-mail from marketers, when junk is defined as "e-mail from companies I know but that is just not interesting to me."

Great. Another definition of junk, i.e., all the mail that gets through the filters.

Wait a minute. That's the old, old definition of junk mail — "the crap in my mailbox that isn't interesting to me."

I think marketers can fix that. Let's make our email interesting.
 

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Tara Scot

on October 23, 2007

category: integrated marketing

Web Developer

Will the voices please shut up, I'm trying to talk about email here!

I have a confession to make. As an employee of a direct marketing agency, it's an ugly one...

I check my home mailbox less than once a week. Sometimes I just go get my Netflix movies and leave the rest of the mail behind. I won't go into the reasons why, let's just assume the voices tell me to do it that way, and move on.

So I suck at getting my mail. But I check my email at least every 10 minutes. I get email on my phone. I get email at my desk. I walk down the hallways and people ask "Hey, did you get my email?" If my husband has a honey-do item for me, he sends me an email. If my friends or family want to schedule a get-together, they send me an email. If you want to get my attention, send me an email.

The point is that for me, and others of my ilk (read: geeks), email marketing is much more effective than print advertising. But the question remains, how do you get my attention? If you're not my boss, a client, or my husband, how do you get me to spend even 10 seconds of my ridiculously frenetic day focusing on your message?

Obviously, you need to make it a targeted, relevant (and therefore interesting) message. I'm a mom. I'm a musician. I'm a geek-gadget lover, and a somewhat OCD collector of kitchen containers. Send me something about that and I'm yours (along with some of my money). Targeting, or list strategy, is a necessity for a successful email. It's also a subject I'll leave to the experts. I'm going to talk about the next most important thing: The email itself.

Six things I've learned about email:

1. Get to the point. You have about 1.5 seconds before my finger, which is hovering ominously above the "delete" button, crashes down on it and relegates your email to the black hole that is my recycle bin.
2. Make it funny. If you can make me laugh, I will read it all. Even if I don't want what you're selling, I will most likely forward your email to at least one of my friends. Maybe they'll throw money at you.
3. Don't get too fancy. Email technology is in its embryonic stage compared to other web technologies. If you want to make sure people see your message how you intend, keep it simple. Don't attempt any cool web tricks. Hell, don’t even attempt lame ones. At best maybe (and I repeat maybe) try a clickable link.
4. Keep the identity, message and call to action above the fold.
5. Don't bet on pretty pictures. Over 75% of email clients have images turned off when the user first loads the email. Your message and identity must be in simple text first, and graphics as a backup. In this example, Apple didn't get the memo *:



6. Hold no hope for improvement in the future. Microsoft's latest version of Outlook (2007) now uses Word's HTML engine (and all its limitations) to display emails rather than Internet Explorer's. Yet another thing I need to ask Bill about over lunch some day...

Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes, my bills are often late.

* Source: www.campaignmonitor.com
 


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