When desiring
to link multiple areas of one image to different locations, a coder
may choose to use an image map to overlay a custom link map on an
image; this allows one image to be linked in unique ways (including
non-rectangular regions such as circles and polygons) without
having to slice, code and link multiple smaller images. Utilizing
image maps reduces the effort involved, but how successfully do
they function in major...Read More »
Interactive Marketing Design Tips
Image maps tend to be considered the "black sheep" of
web design by many, but do they in fact have a place in HTML for
email? The answer is yes and no – but mostly no.
When desiring
to link multiple areas of one image to different locations, a coder
may choose to use an image map to overlay a custom link map on an
image; this allows one image to be linked in unique ways (including
non-rectangular regions such as circles and polygons) without
having to slice, code and link multiple smaller images. Utilizing
image maps reduces the effort involved, but how successfully do
they function in major...Read More »
When desiring
to link multiple areas of one image to different locations, a coder
may choose to use an image map to overlay a custom link map on an
image; this allows one image to be linked in unique ways (including
non-rectangular regions such as circles and polygons) without
having to slice, code and link multiple smaller images. Utilizing
image maps reduces the effort involved, but how successfully do
they function in major...Read More »
Looking to increase your email marketing ROI and take your emails
from "ehh" to "AHH"? Whether you're a beginner or seasoned
retailer, below are a few key ingredients to optimize your email
marketing programs.
Personalize
By personalize I don't mean adding your subscriber's first name in your email. We all know email can do that. Instead, personalize the content you present to your subscribers based on their chosen interests, purchase history, location and behavior. By doing this your message will automatically be more relevant and engaging to your subscribers. Read our recent blog post for more...Read More »
Personalize
By personalize I don't mean adding your subscriber's first name in your email. We all know email can do that. Instead, personalize the content you present to your subscribers based on their chosen interests, purchase history, location and behavior. By doing this your message will automatically be more relevant and engaging to your subscribers. Read our recent blog post for more...Read More »
As the temperatures begin
to increase, so does the amount of content in my email marketing
newsletters. It’s summer and all my emails are jam packed with
information. So jam packed in fact, that I’m hitting information
overload! Sending all details to everyone may still be commonplace
in print media, but in the digital world – Subscribers Rule!So what do you do when you email marketing newsletter has more information than you have space?
1) Utilize Segmentation: Not everyone on you list will be interested in every piece of content housed in your email. Dig deeper into your list and see...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 »
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
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...
It’s relatively common knowledge that some email clients block
images in emails by default. But just which ones block images and
to what extent? This is a common question, and the answer is
expectedly complicated. I will attempt to clear up the confusion
and then offer some tips to best design your emails to work
regardless of image blocking. But first, the rundown of major
clients and their peculiarities:
As you can see from these tables, image rendering is very inconsistent across clients, but the biggest trend, especially in the more recent clients, is that images are usually blocked...
Read More »
While sifting through the many emails in my inbox last week I
noticed that one of the campaigns I was working on included this
little gem:
Subscribers Rule
You have heard us preach that Subscribers Rule, we’ve instructed you on making content relevant to your subscribers, now it’s time to ask your subscribers what they think of your email. Why not let your subscribers tell you if they think your emails are relevant? There are a few ways that we have seen this ranking of email being used.
You have heard us preach that Subscribers Rule, we’ve instructed you on making content relevant to your subscribers, now it’s time to ask your subscribers what they think of your email. Why not let your subscribers tell you if they think your emails are relevant? There are a few ways that we have seen this ranking of email being used.
- Buttons: Let your users give your email a thumbs up or thumbs down. As you can imagine this technique does...
Looking
for a dose of inspiration to jumpstart your marketing program? Take
a few notes from Google's Marissa Mayer. She spoke
at Make/Think, the AIGA design
conference last October. For me, her points were the most valuable
of the entire conference. Focus on the user, value
simplicity, let the data decide and be unexpected.Focus on the user - Giving your audience timely and relevant information should always be your main objective. Google focuses on decreasing search latency through optimizing how their site is coded.
In your situation, this could mean developing an SMS opt-in program or...Read More »
With CoTweet joining the ExactTarget family, we see
the convergence of the power of social media and email
communication; an Internet Marketing Hub to maintain relationships
on both platforms.
In Guy Kawasaki’s blog post, he wrote, “ExactTarget’s acquisition of CoTweet heralds the beginning of the growth of Social as an integrated marketing channel and is nothing short of being historical.” At the Twitter Conference (#140tc) on March 8 in Seattle, WA, I had the opportunity to listen to panelists and professionals talk about Twitter. The two words that kept coming up were relationships and...Read More »
In Guy Kawasaki’s blog post, he wrote, “ExactTarget’s acquisition of CoTweet heralds the beginning of the growth of Social as an integrated marketing channel and is nothing short of being historical.” At the Twitter Conference (#140tc) on March 8 in Seattle, WA, I had the opportunity to listen to panelists and professionals talk about Twitter. The two words that kept coming up were relationships and...Read More »
Thanks to everyone who was able to attend “Designing For Your
Subscribers: Tips and Tricks to Increase Email Marketing ROI” last
week. We had an excellent turnout and plenty of great questions. If
you weren’t able to attend the session, don’t worry! You can watch
a
recording of the one-hour webinar on 3sixty.
Do you have data on email clients that consumer subscribers tend to use?
While data is available, your mileage may vary. Each audience will be different, and you may see dramatically different segments in your list or even between lists, as we saw in the webinar. Fingerprintpublishes an...Read More »
Do you have data on email clients that consumer subscribers tend to use?
While data is available, your mileage may vary. Each audience will be different, and you may see dramatically different segments in your list or even between lists, as we saw in the webinar. Fingerprintpublishes an...Read More »
Line-height is a text transformation property that designers often
use when laying out a design. Line-height can be used to provide
extra space between lines or to reduce the standard space between
lines. In print, this technique is called "leading."
However, when it comes time to code this design in HTML, how is this CSS property supported for email rendering? The short answer: fairly widely. However, there are several caveats. Below are the results from testing line-height firsthand in Outlook 2007, IE 7 and 8, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari and via a Litmus test in Outlook 2000/XP/2003, Lotus...Read More »
However, when it comes time to code this design in HTML, how is this CSS property supported for email rendering? The short answer: fairly widely. However, there are several caveats. Below are the results from testing line-height firsthand in Outlook 2007, IE 7 and 8, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari and via a Litmus test in Outlook 2000/XP/2003, Lotus...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”...
Recently,
our Design Solutions team launched the
Design Center on 3sixty. Within 3sixty
University, the
Design Center is an all-inclusive design resource to view and
download our latest design whitepapers, template source codes,
custom button collections and more! An extensive list of frequently
asked design questions and HTML troubleshooting tips are also
available, ranging in topics from preview pane dimensions to CSS
support in email.We invite you to visit, explore and gather inspiration for your next email campaign. We will continue to add and update features, so be sure to visit often...Read More »
Twitter has revolutionized micro-blogging and ways users share content in real-time. Some believe that social media is more valuable than email, but I beg to differ, as both are powerful platforms and are different mediums of communicating. A great solution is integrating Twitter into your email campaigns to reach out to both audiences.
Why Twitter? According to Mashable, there was an estimated 18 million users on the popular micro-blogging site in 2009. Even with 60% of users quitting within the first month, there are roughly 7.2 million active users; untapped and perhaps not an email...Read More »
Last post, I discussed current support and delivery methods for
email + video. This time we're going to focus on some of the
benefits and concerns and finish with a few closing thoughts. As I
mentioned last time, please note that this blog centers on the
technological considerations around email + video—the
strategy around sending video in email (or not) is another
discussion!
Benefits of email + video
Benefits of email + video
- Strong emotional appeal
- Highly engaging
- Personal, even user-generated content
Video in
email is one of the most intriguing hot topics regarding email's
technological growth and audience engagement capacity. Current
support for the combined use of these mediums is low, but audience
interest and advertiser investment in online video—and this type of
media convergence—continues to grow. This blog recaps the major
points I discussed in the "Email + Video: Take 2" panel at
Connections '09. Please note that this blog centers on the
technological considerations around email + video—the
strategy around sending video in email (or not) is another
discussion!
Online video
Online...Read More »
Online video
Online...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 »
As I kicked off last week in
Connections Extreme Makeover: The Email Design Competition
Results, our next few design blogs will focus on each of our
Design
Solutions teams’ redesigns for AAA Ohio, Pier 1 and Marketing
Experiments.
So let’s get right to it: AAA Ohio’s Annual Membership Renewal email. AAA's current email was being sent to members annually to prompt online, phone or in-store renewals. After our first meeting with AAA, we realized that members could benefit from AAA in many life activities, which in turn fueled their customer loyalty. Thus, our “Renew Your Journey…” design was...Read More »
So let’s get right to it: AAA Ohio’s Annual Membership Renewal email. AAA's current email was being sent to members annually to prompt online, phone or in-store renewals. After our first meeting with AAA, we realized that members could benefit from AAA in many life activities, which in turn fueled their customer loyalty. Thus, our “Renew Your Journey…” design was...Read More »
Recently, the ExactTarget
Design
Solutions team competed in Extreme Makeover: The Email
Design Competition during our annual Connections
user conference. Our competition included teams at
Mighty Interactive and Smith-Harmon. ExactTarget
clients Pier 1, AAA Ohio and
Marketing Experiments
participated to have each team create an email redesign. Each
design was then deployed to a subscriber segment and analyzed by
Marketing Experiments to arrive at a winner based on clicks and
conversions.After weeks of preparation and anticipation, the winners were revealed. During the reveal, the Connections...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 »
