Happy New Year from the
Design and Campaign Solutions teams at ExactTarget!
With the new year, we’re welcoming in some quick code updates that
will save you a little bit of time – but more importantly, keep you
up to date on HTML efficiencies for email. In the introduction of
the most recent version of Yahoo! Mail, the link color issue that
we were previously experiencing has gone away. It’s a small thing,
but worth a note in the interest of writing clean and efficient
HTML for email.
As noted in our
post from last
year, an older version of Yahoo! Mail caused link colors to change
to a...
Read More »
In the last post of our series, we’ll explore the vast array of
message types and the formats they take on. View my previous posts
to learn more about
Contact Strategy Development and
Message Personalities.
MESSAGE TYPES
A successful contact strategy will be a thoughtful combination of
the message types needed to meet unique business goals and
subscriber needs. Which make sense for your brand?
Newsletters
News / Editorial Feed
Welcome / Opt-In
Profile Updates / Preferences
Promotions / Cross-Sell
Retail Promotions
Rewards
Coupons |
Reengagement / Retention
Subscription Confirmations
Alerts /... |
Read More »
Picking up from my last post on
Contact Strategy Development, we’ll continue to explore the
message personalities that make up successful contact strategies.
As our own human personalities set us apart as unique and special,
messages also provide the opportunity for a brand to allow their
unique voice to come through. Brands can set themselves apart from
the pack using clear communication, unique presentation and
outside-the-box thinking, and those results become more meaningful
when the value to the subscriber is apparent.
Message PersonalitiesWhen planning, each message that makes up an...
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In the ever-changing inbox, it's critical for brands to have clear
goals and objectives when creating an email contact strategy.
Marketers are pairing a smart mix of strategy, user experience and
effective design to drive engagement and deliver relevant, timely
messaging.
Contact Strategy Development
Beyond the basics, it's important to address two vital components
in developing a good contact strategy. Focus on both your business
needs and subscribers needs, using a simple checklist:
-
Define your audience
To whom are you sending?
-
Determine business goals and set a clear value
proposition
What do...
Read More »
In any email communication, it’s important to deliver a clear
message, letting the subscriber know exactly what you’d like them
to do. The average time spent reading an email is mere seconds, so
you have a small window of opportunity to grab their attention.
Using a good call-to-action is a critical part of any
performance-driven design, and
should be created mindfully so that the subscriber isn’t left
guessing.
Call-to-Action Recommendations
To get a desired action from a subscriber, we’ve compiled some
simple recommendations on formatting and design.
- CTAs should be direct and action-focused...
Read More »
Happy Holidays from everyone
on the ExactTarget Design Solutions team! To end the year with a
bang, we’re highlighting our ten (okay, a few more than ten) most
useful interactive marketing tips from 2010.
-
The 6 Stages of Subscriber Experience
Performance-driven design is the foundation on which emails are
created.
-
Email + Video
Take 1 and Take 2
These posts discuss support, delivery methods, benefits and the
concerns of using video in email.
-
The Design Center on 3sixty
The Design Center is an all-inclusive design resource to view and
download our latest design whitepapers, template source...
Read More »
During
Connections 2010 last week, Sir
Richard Branson delivered a great keynote. While the thoughts he
shared were great life principles, they also apply to marketing and
the influence we hold within our own brands and on our
subscribers, fans,
and followers. Take a quick peek at what I thought were some
good reminders.
Thoughts on Life and Marketing
-
Use marketing power for good. No matter what
position you hold, find a way to make a positive difference. As
marketers, we have the immense potential to influence others and
should use that power for good.
-
Take risks. Take them responsibly, but...
Read More »
ExactTarget's Design Solutions team is getting geared up for the
best Connections yet! We’ve been planning sessions, compiling
handouts, helping with some rockin’ demos and designing buttons.
We're here to make sure you learn all that you can about how to
improve your interactive campaigns through strategic design.
Our Top Ten Conference Design-Musts:
-
Design Booth Buttons
Back by popular demand, make sure to drop by to grab a few of
these.
-
Design Booth
Your fearless designers and their leader - Chris, Kristina,
Andrea, Anna, Tana and Justine – are waiting to chat about all
things design in the...
Read More »
Design
and Code for Success
According to a recent study, Outlook users account for 43% of all
email client users— beating out big names like Hotmail, Yahoo!
Mail, Gmail, and AOL by significant margins. You might already know
about some of the challenges posed by getting an email to display
perfectly in Outlook 2007, and the newly released Outlook 2010 is
much the same. We’ve compiled some great tips that will save you
time and ensure your success when it comes to this environment from
both a design and HTML coding perspective.
Email Design Tips
Our latest
whitepaper includes the following...
Read More »
We already know that writing HTML for email poses its own set of
unique challenges, and rendering can change without warning as
there are no universal email standards. We have a quick update for
email rending for Gmail in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. The
fix below will show you how to modify your HTML to ensure flawless
rendering!
Recent Change in Gmail Rendering
If you’ve started seeing an extra space underneath your images in
Gmail like the screen shot below, keep reading. Gmail in both
Internet Explorer and Firefox can now add extra pixels of space
below your images. This can...
Read More »
Looking to “go green” and dive into the world of email, or simply
want to make your emails more effective? Here are some basic
recommendations when designing marketing programs for the financial
services industry.
Brand Synergy
It’s crucial to stay true to your brand and ensure that all media
channels and programs have a consistent look and feel. With solid
brand synergy in place, the rest revolves around delivering
appropriate content that your subscribers want to read.
Transactional Design Recommendations
- Position content front and center – keep it simple.
- Don’t include too much cross-sell...
Read More »
Should social media be used in email? Sure! But only if it makes
sense for your audience. Decide if you will link to your existing
social presence, enable content sharing, or both. Let’s take a
quick closer look:
-
Link to your existing social presence. This
can include a simple text or graphic link to your Facebook page,
Twitter feed or LinkedIn site, driving traffic to your social
presence. As with your email program and website, you’re simply
encouraging interaction with your brand.
-
Enable content sharing through ExactTarget’s “Social
Forward” integration. In other words, share an “item”...
Read More »
Our previous blogs,
Connections
Extreme Makeover: AAA Ohio Redesign and
Connections
Extreme Makeover: MarketingExperiments Redesign covered the
Design Solutions teams’ redesigns for
AAA Ohio and MarketingExperiments. To finish up, we’d like to share
our thoughts on our final redesign.
Pier 1
Imports is a retailer that focuses heavily on unique furniture,
home décor and accessories. Based on our conversations with Pier 1,
the bulk of their customer base falls around females in the 50-60
age range. High quality products are marketed through the channels
of print, in-store collateral, web, and...
Read More »
This week we’re focusing on email
rendering in Gmail. Gmail, like other web-based email clients, is
constantly evolving. These updates continually change the way HTML
emails are rendered. Not only do email designers need to pay
special attention to Gmail, they need to be aware that their Gmail
subscribers may be seeing one of two different versions of Gmail.
Depending which browser and version you are using, scroll to the
bottom of your account and select the “older version” link to test
that version of Gmail. To revert back to the newest version, select
the “newer version” link in the top...
Read More »
written by David Hoang
With the move from Outlook 2003 to 2007, Microsoft made a lot of
security improvements. Along with that, however, were a number of
design changes. Outlook changed its engine for rendering HTML
content from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Word. Before, it
essentially meant that if your code looked good in Internet
Explorer, it looked good in Outlook.
However, that is not the case anymore.
This is a huge impact in the way we design emails; because of the
high volume of Outlook users, particularly in the
Business-to-Business realm.
Here are a few key elements to consider...
Read More »
written by David Hoang
Question:
When do email marketing
professionals usually take a break or step out?
Answer: When he or she just hit the “send”
button for a mass email.
There is nothing more nerve wracking than hitting the button with
no return. Unlike web publishing, there is no turning back
with email. So what’s the solution? You can say, “don’t make
any mistakes” – but it’s inevitable. What you can do, however, is
strategically make a checklist of what to do before hitting the
send button to make sure mistakes are avoided.
Here are some quick tips on what you should run through your...
Read More »
We’ve
blogged about it before, but we’re so excited we just have to
share it again. The Design Solutions team is currently knee-deep
working on one of ExactTarget’s premier main-stage events at
Connections 2009. Still don’t know what I’m talking about? It’s
simple – you can’t afford to miss:
Extreme Makeover: The Email Design Competition.
Connections 2009, Indianapolis, IN • Thursday, Oct.
15th, 10:00 – 11:00am
The specificsThree design teams compete. Only one can win! Design teams from
ExactTarget, Mighty Interactive, and Smith-Harmon have redesigned
and will soon deploy their take on...
Read More »
Several of my colleagues and the Design
Solutions team had the opportunity to attend a fantastic seminar in
Indianapolis this week given by Edward Tufte. Without diving into
the full breadth of his rich background and teachings,
Edward
Tufte is an influential writer, analytical designer, and
landscape sculpture artist. Through his work, he has provided
amazing thought leadership into how to effectively display
information and content.
This fresh insight begs the question, how can we create better,
more effective presentations based on Tufte’s strategy for success?
Or in an email marketer’s...
Read More »
written by Michael Moriarty
Currently, Javascript paired with HTML is more or less the norm on
the web as a large percentage of websites use it for high-level
functionality. Why then aren’t we seeing more Javascript-infused
email campaigns? Is it even possible? Including Javascript in email
is possible, but that doesn’t mean it should be included. Let’s
examine why.
JavaScript is stripped out of HTML email by default in all
major email clients. JavaScript is a powerful vector for
executing malicious code on a user’s computer — let’s compare a
user’s experience browsing the web against a user...
Read More »
As we touch on this issue time and time again, HTML for email can
be very different than HTML for websites. Here are a few tips to
get started, and for coding veterans, some thoughts to freshen your
perspective.
Coding HTML for a
Custom Template or an HTML Paste Email
The creative is done, copy is approved – time to start coding and
testing for proper rendering! Since the rendering of the email is
crucial to ensuring the subscriber has a positive experience, it’s
important to choose the appropriate editor to achieve that result.
Many popular WYSIWYG editors such as Dreamweaver and FrontPage...
Read More »
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