Beyond the Inboxmy.leadmd.com/rs/230-YBS-585/images/Beyond_the_Inbox... · 2020-04-29 · LESSON 1...

Beyond the InboxEM A IL B ES T PR AC TICES

Just like your social security number, we’ve all had access to email since basically birth.

BUT, just as a reminder: Email is used to share messages digitally on both a personal, professional and transactional level.

November 9, 2016 | PAGe 2EMPOWERING MARKETERS. POWERED BY TECHNOLOGY.

With email as one of the primary marketing tools of today and really into tomorrow, it’s critical that a solid email marketing strategy is implemented in any organization big or small, enterprise or start up, B2C or B2B.

In the lessons that follow we’ll talk about how we at LeadMD talk to our clients about Email marketing.


So..what are we learning today?

The State of Email Today

Common Types of Emails & Usage

Email Design Best Practices

In closing


Lesson 1




In closing


LE S S O N 1


In a report conducted in July 2016 by Litmus, it’s clear that today the landscape of email has changed vastly in most recent years.

One of these changes revolves around the email clients that users consume content & messaging in.

litmus.com/lp/2016-state-of-email-reportGet the full report here:


LE S S O N 1


The list to the right reveals the most popular Email Clients used based on well over 13 billion Email Opens tracked via Litmus Email Analytics platform within July 2016.

Apple iPhone 33%

Gmail 16%

Apple iPad 11%

Google Android 10%

Apple Mail 7%

Outlook 7%

Outlook.com 5%

Yahoo! Mail 3%

Windows Live Mail 1%

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Apple iPhone 33%

Gmail 16%

Apple iPad 11%

Google Android 10%

Apple Mail 7%

Outlook 7%

Outlook.com 5%

Yahoo! Mail 3%

Windows Live Mail 1%

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Over 50% of your potential users are accessing their email from a mobile device!

Outlook is not the email client of choice any longer.

What does this tell us?

LE S S O N 1




With the rise of digital marketing, businesses are using multiple platforms like social media and web content to attract and cultivate leads–yet email marketing is still one of the most dominant mediums in marketing. In fact, according to the Litmus Report, over 72% say they prefer companies to communicate with them via email over any other channel.

The ability to craft personalized content and reach prospects at home, work, or on-the-go has made email marketing one of the most powerful tools available today.

LE S S O N 1


LE S S O N 1

The State of Email TodayThe average office worker now sends or receives 121 emails a day, according to a recent report by the Radicati Group.

This number doesn’t even include the flood of retail offers, spam, and advertisements in personal inboxes.

Often times we as users are “subscribed” to communications based on their own interactions (like filling out a form or adding something to a shopping cart) as a result many suffer through a waterfall of unwanted messages, and gradually come to characterize all commercially-oriented email as an annoyance.

Emails in a day100+


LE S S O N 1


What does this ultimately mean for marketers today?

Email is not dead! And everyone gets a lot of it everyday!It’s not a one size fits all kind of thing.In a swamp of junk, team pow-wows, meeting invites and other misc emails, your messaging needs to stand out from the crowd, otherwise you will be missed.


Lesson 2




In closing


LE S S O N 2

Common types of emails and their usage

New Product Offering

Promotional or Discounts

Product Updates

Office Internal Updates

Lead Nurturing

Report releases

Auto responder after form submission

Transactional Sends

Asset Download

Event Invites

Webinar

Newsletter “Personalized” Sales follow-ups

Customer Notifications

Welcome aka “Onboarding”

Just as there are many channels in marketing, there are also many email types to market those specific channels! Here are just a few of the different types of emails you can use in your campaigns.


LE S S O N 2


Over the next several pages we will dive in deeper within the following email types to give you an even greater understanding of the different types of emails, their purpose and why some of the samples provided do a great job of getting the point accross from both a content & visual perspective.

Newsletters

Promotional

Welcoming/Onboarding

Asset Downloads/Report Releases

Event & Webinars invites

Product Updates

Auto responders

Lead Nurturing


LE S S O N 2

Newsletters

Why is THIS newsletter awesome?

What’s a newsletter?

Litmus always has great emails and more often then not, they are in a newsletter style with a fun twist.

By using strong colors, large heroes, and consistent heading styles, Litmus is able to bust through the email noise and really stand out with clear CTAs and click-worthy reading.

If you don’t already know the purpose of a newsletter then you’re a bit silly, BUT we’ll tell you anyways. A newsletter is an email where you’re sharing a grouping of content and updates in a bulletin or digest style format. Newsletters are typically sent out at the same time every week/month or day depending on the business or segment.


LE S S O N 2

Additional NewslettersOther great stuffLitmus isn’t the only great newsletter example, there are a number of companies that do newsletter extremely well.

Here are just a few of the examples of how both visually and contextually a long newsletter can be done right.


LE S S O N 2

Product Promotion + New Offerings

Why is this awesome?PayPal was able to tie an every day annoyance to a solution they offer. They quickly represent their brand coupled with an interesting headline and minimal/clean imagery. This of course ties nicely to an informative snapshot of their in-app service.

It makes you want to sign up for this, because it just looks that easy and that helpful.

What does this type of email entail?When an organization is launching a new product, an improvement to an existing product for purchase, you’ll likely want to have a great, to the point message to go out to your user-base to really get them excited about the changes to your product landscape and ultimately use or purchase it!


LE S S O N 2

Demand Generation/ Asset Download

What is this email awesome?Well we don’t mean to toot our own horn, BUT it’s a pretty great email! It’s to the point, there are SEVERAL clear CTAs that all direct you to 1 goal, downloading this guide. From a content perspective, the copy is personal, fun and interesting. The 3D thumbnail of the book makes the report feel prestigious and tangible so go out, great your cup of coffee and read this bad boy!

What does this type of email entail?You have a new piece of content you’re putting out like an ebook or a report and you want to send out a message to your database about this awesome new piece of content right? This is where a “Demand Gen” email blast comes in. The goal of this email is to click that clear CTA and not detracts them with supplemental ones, get them to WANT to download that guide or email that blog.


LE S S O N 2

Additional Demand Generation/ Asset DownloadOther great stuffBUT, we’re not the only people with awesome emails, there are a lot of excellent examples of messages companies like Litmus, Workfront, and InvisionApp put out there to promote a piece of content.


LE S S O N 2

Onboarding + Welcoming

What are these emails awesome?Both Airbnb & Pinterest create beautiful and friendly onboarding experiences that align their copy to their users’ journey and keep their visuals accessible and informative.

What does this type of email entail?When a lead turns into a customer or a browser turns into a subscriber, you should welcome them into your organizational crew! Get them familiar with your business, how it relates to them and platforms they will be using here on forward. On boarding is typically a difficult process for many, and when done improperly, can deter a user from continuing to use your product or service.


LE S S O N 2

Events & Webinars

What are these emails awesome?Events and webinars invites can be drastically different depending on your target market and how much urgency you’re looking to create. We have three samples here. What works about all three is you state the time/date of the event itself. What works about the two on the left is that their CTA is clear enabling people to register immediately. What’s great about the one on the right is it FEELS like a big deal! It feels like a large event, with many sought out speakers, an agenda and sponsors. This gives a lot of great intel and details into an event and makes you want to be a part of this big deal.

What does this type of email entail?You want to invite someone to an upcoming event or webinar you need to send them an email about it right? The goal of this email is to create awareness about the event and ultimately get people to register and ATTEND.


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What’s the overarching theme of these assets?

Use the right type of templates for the right type of messageClear and concise CTAs (call to actions)Be bold, but stay true to your brand from both a visual & copy standpointAlways stay mobile-optimizedMake things visually interesting and unexpected

LE S S O N 2



Lesson 3




Email Blast & Email Send Program

QAing your email


LE S S O N 3


What we’ve found at LeadMD is that 9 out of 10 of the times that we’re given designs or pre-coded templates from external groups, they are missing key functionality or have email design “no-nos” applied to them.

There are A LOT of email design “no-nos”. Mainly because of what we talked about at the beginning of this training, there are A LOT of email clients that users view your content. And they all have specific requirements that make email design both exciting, challenging and sometimes frustrating.

So what we’ll do today is share some of those “no-nos” with you and the proven practices to beat them!


LE S S O N 3


Think of the Mobile user FIRST

This is an unavoidable market, remember from our first page? Over 33% of users are accessing email from their iPhone. If you’re still designing emails without a responsive or hybrid framework, you live in the stone age.

While you design your desktop version of the email you must think, how does this translate to mobile?

Then, you have to: - Make mockups for both- Understand how one affects the other - Test them in all applicable environments.


LE S S O N 3


Sorry friends, no custom fonts

I know, it’s the worst. We get it, everyone is sick of Arial, BUT, you will be better off using a “web safe font” instead.

While there are certainly work arounds, it’s not worth the QA nightmares of Google & Typekit fonts to integrate them into your emails, as there are just too many email clients that render certain fonts badly and can break other elements of your email, so our suggestion is to just play it (web) safe.

Here is a list of web safe fonts for your reference: cssfontstack.com


LE S S O N 3


Don’t go wild with background images

Many email clients will also render background images incorrectly.

You can always do it, love it and play with it, but keep in mind your Outlook 2007 user might not be seeing the same email as your Apple iPhone user.

So if you design a background image, make sure you also have a typical background color applied to that region. Ensure that the color will play nicely with your brand and the copy that lays over it. When you have both your styles referenced in that area, give it a Litmus test to make sure everything looks a-okay!

In Marketo it isn’t always easy to modify sections with background images. You often need to “Edit HTML” within the email (not the template) to make modifications to images, copy & CTAs.

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LE S S O N 3


Say goodbye to gradients

The typical CSS you’d use for gradients will not work in email like it does work on a web page.

In the sample here, you will see that the same gradient CSS is rendering differently in 9 email clients, which makes it ULTRA unpredictable!

CSS gradients will straight up break your email (and your heart) in multiple email clients.

If you just have to have those gradients in your email, use an image, which comes with complications in itself.


LE S S O N 3


Don’t fill your emails with huge blocks of text or a single large image

As we’ve discussed, people get a lot of emails in their inbox, they don’t always have time to read a novella in your send. Keep your message clear and concise, don’t add everything and the kitchen sink (that’s what Landing pages are for! [wink] )

For emails with huge images, you may be alienating your users, for those who only see plain text or can’t display your images properly, you have a missed opportunity with a user. In addition, when you just have 1 big ole image, you miss the opportunity to include dynamic content and tokens!

Instead create a balance between imagery & copy.


LE S S O N 3


Keep the dimensions under 600px

We see a lot of clients that have 800px+ in their brand guidelines.

That’s too big man, and you’ll have significant issues on several email clients like Gmail and even more issues bringing those wider emails down for an optimal mobile experience.

As a guideline, keep your width of your email under 600px whenever possible.

And by the way the answer for how many maximum columns you should have in an email? Four! Make sure you keep it to less then four, but perferably under three.

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LE S S O N 3


Think about Marketo’s advantages & limitations

Think about who’s editing this email and their skill level in Marketo and HTML.

We see a lot of design with some very custom and aspirational items, keep this thing as clean and easy to understand for as possible, think about how this will be developed and ultimately used by other people, not just you.


Beyond the Inbox




In Closing


In closing

When you make your own emails here are a few things to keep in mind:

K.I.S.S (Keep it simple silly!)Think mobile optimized first and ultimately design for bothBe a marketer, not just a designer, a writer, or a developer, you’re all of the above!Accessibility is key to open rates & click through ratesDo the research QA is key


In closing

Foundational Questions

Getting down to it

There are MANY best practices across both of these mediums. But ultimately for every email you start, you need to ask yourself these base questions to get the ball rolling in the right court, regardless of your role in the process of getting this email in the inbox of thousands.

What is your ultimate goal with this email?

What is your primary call to action (CTA)?

Can you use an existing template for this?

If you can’t use a template, ask yourself “why”?

If you make a new email, can you use it again?

How will you make this send personable & approachable?

Who is this email for? At the end of the day, what is my goal for the user?

These 4 questions should always be top of mind. If you don’t know why your sending, you may need to rethink your strategy.

Once you have your strategy in place, it’s time to make some magic!


Awesome resources

Litmus.com Sitepoint.com

Reallygoodemails.com Marketo & Hubspot blog

InvisionApp PowerPoint (yes, you’re reading this correctly!)

Makerbook.net LeadMD

Pinterest.com CampaignMonitor.com


Thanks!


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Beyond the Inboxmy.leadmd.com/rs/230-YBS-585/images/Beyond_the_Inbox... · 2020-04-29 · LESSON 1...

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