I will admit, I am an Apple fan, but also go both ways on my desktop with an Apple and a PC. I get this campaign so well, as I would assume everyone does, that it drives me to want to learn more. They keep it simple in ALL emails and focus in on the driver to make me take action.
Humor works, as well as focused copy and clean images .
Here is a tip for every BtoC website whose goal from email marketing is to drive sales online. Many people get paid on the 15th and 30th of each month.
Why not drop your email on the 16th….when their paycheck was most likely just direct deposited in their account. They are a lot more likely to buy a shirt, stereo, etc… with a full paycheck in their bank account.
Give it a try…
I found this from Glen Tomlinson. A good litmus test for your best practices in email marketing.
A/B testing or split list testing is a simple and relatively easy method for testing the various elements of your marketing campaign. You divide your customer base into two equal groups, and then expose the first half to one version of your message, and the other half to an alternative version with slight changes. You then track both sets of results and determine which elements provide the best returns.
Email is ideal for A/B testing because of the immediacy of the response to your communication. Within days, your campaign will yield all the information you need to determine which elements were successful, and which were not. For maximum return on your email investment, testing should become a regular and disciplined activity.
Let
I love a clear and concise email outreach. Not just the “Check Out our Sale” or “SAVE SAVE SAVE” but give me a strong visual clue as to the Pavlovian Benefit… the Money that will stay in my pocket.
Great concept and orginal use of a first full of bills.
I found this interesting testing article on offer numbers. I think that it speaks for itself and really the results were not a surprise. We refer to the targeted campaign with one offer in client strategy all the time. Use the newsletter to build relationship and the “postcard” to drive them to a specific action. Losing the number of choices (when you KNOW your customer) through a targeted offer based on profile and past activity factors is a sure winner.
Now this does not mean that you could not have more than one clickable button or link in the email in my opinion, but make sure that they all drive to the same landing page. And also of importance is to code each of those links with a tracking URL (like ?source=link1). Adding this code will allow you to look at the conversions based on the placement of the link and help you to refine your link placement in the inbox.
Continue After the JUMP…
In this day everybody is telling you to segment, segment, segment. Now I fully support this philosophy, but sometimes companies are too wrapped up in segmentation and creating offers specific for segments, instead of offers that are best for them. Now I recently said that Golfsmith needed to do their segmentation better, but this email below is relevant for their entire audience.
In market research their is a term called “analysis paralysis” meaning you can get so wrapped up in analyzing the data that you have a hard time producing actionable recommendations. Companies can get so wrapped up in segmenting that these “targeted” offerings are thought out too much and may be so specific that without exact proper timing, they can fail miserably.
Drving a new product launch should focus on giving the customer/prospect one task. Do not create multiple links in emails that have one goal. Keep in Simple. Tell them what the new product is, what they need to do to learn more or buy, and drive them to conversion.
Leave scattered newsletters to measure interactions and desires and campaigns to lead to results. Narrow in with a laser like focus and have a landing page in place that replicates some of the creative you placed in the inbox.
What offers have you seen that works. Were they focused? Why did you buy?
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