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 What is a side-scrolling email? As the name might imply, this format is a horizontally designed email that requires the user to scroll sideways to view more content as opposed to scrolling down.  Why we like them: Want to jazz your email up a bit? A side-scrolling email is the perfect way to do that. Many people have never seen it before, compelling them to look because of the novelty factor (at least the first time you try the design). This means that your email will stand out in the inbox...

Have you ever seen an animated GIF used in an email campaign? It’s quite possible that you haven’t; most companies use them sparingly, and with good reason. While animation can help your email pop – movement both attracts the eye and allows you to showcase more in one space (and above the fold!) – animated GIFs can raise some problems when incorporated into email campaigns.

So, how can you ensure that your animated GIFs are up to snuff?

A “pre”header element comes before anything else in the email, immediately before the nav bar (for information on nav bars, see previous post Marketing automation tip: do email navigation bars help or hurt?). Its key purpose is to summarize the main point of the email, so that if the images are not displayed, customers know what your email is trying to say.

"What is the best time to send emails?"

"How do you know?"

The internet is peppered with blog posts all attempting to answer these same questions. One company may think the prime time for email sends is 8 am, while another may say it’s 11 pm.

So which is it?

The problem is that all of these companies have different types of audiences, so it is difficult to nail down the optimal time based upon another company’s successes.

With the new year approaching, now is a great time to brush up your email creative. Try out our top five creative tweaks to get your email ready for 2012.

Your inbox is likely awash with holiday emails, but as 2012 approaches, marketers are already gearing up for their next targeted campaigns. Don’t fall behind the pack - here are some trends to watch that’ll keep you in the game.

Social media marketing is on fire right now. It seems like every advertisement, commercial, or email refers the customer to a Facebook or twitter page with a promise of special offers or other enticements. Why is this? Perhaps it’s because the speed of social media enables users to take advantage of viral marketing. Perhaps marketers appreciate the immediacy of the medium, which allows brands to be at the top of customers’ minds for an extended period of time. Or could it be that people like to communicate on a more personal level rather than receiving just a list of sales and dates?

Before we can talk about pros and cons of using navigation bars in marketing automation, we must first clarify what they are. The nav bar is the area immediately after the preheader in an email. It usually contains multiple links to different areas of your site for navigational purposes, hence the name.

Pros

There are some obvious advantages to having these categories front and center in an email. Any time marketers can direct potential purchasers to their specific goals – to “kitchen goods,” for example, rather than the homepage in general – they put them that much closer to making a purchase, and lower bounce rates. Nav bars also mean that even specific emails which hold no appeal to a particular customer still have a chance of gaining click-throughs or even conversions, since they are reminded of other things offered by the same brand...

"Hello Account #XYZ, thank you for clicking/calling/writing..."

Form emails and letters are a personal pet peeve for many people. The format is rote and clearly interchangeable among recipients. Even referencing a specific topic of interest would go a long way towards winning them over. But in the modern world how can a company possibly do this with so many clients and so little time? As paradoxical as it may seem, using automation to personalize services actually does make logical sense.

“Can you hear me now?”

It’s a joke that’s funny in mobile phone ads, because with phones, there’s an easy answer: either you hear someone, or you don’t. With email, the line can be less distinct. Colors and a great layout may spur click-throughs (they “hear” you), while lines and lines of incomprehensible prose may halt any chance at revenue, but if you don’t have a call-to-action, it’s difficult for customers to know what to do next.

More and more we are seeing social media and email marketing converge. It makes sense. Both channels can work together to extend your reach, create meaningful conversation with customers and increase conversions.

The three ways

1. Include your social media channels in the header of your email. Many email platforms have made this super simple with plugins. Even if your email platform doesn’t have a plugin, it is easy to find free social media icons to add to your email header (hint: just Google free social media icons). Once you add them to your header, don’t forget to link them to your social media platforms.
   
    

What you will learn:

Discover the powerful stats for abandoned cart emails that prove they work. Learn how to put the campaigns together including: timing, messaging and frequency. Plus, see some real life examples.

Cart abandonment defined:

Cart abandonment occurs when a shopper adds an item to their cart, but does not complete the purchase. According to industry experts, cart abandonment rates range anywhere from 60-70%, which coincides with data we have collected from our own clients which show an average of 69% abandonment.

Let the data speak for itself!  Download the entire guide here: Abandoned Cart Emails: the facts, the data and the how to. (.pdf, 2.87 MB).

Simply defined, automated targeted campaigns are emails that are directed to a specific group of people and are triggered based on a set of rules or criteria. The most classic example of this is the ‘Welcome’ campaign. It is sent to those who have just registered to receive your emails and is triggered off of that registration date.

We love automated targeted campaigns because we know they work! We have completed hundreds of these campaigns for clients over the years and have found huge increases in effectiveness when compared to normal blast mailings. For instance, we’ve observed the following differences when comparing automated mailings against normal mailings...

In email marketing, as in telemarketing, there is a key difference between persistence and pestering. One can garner customers, whereas the other will get you on a Black List in a hot second. But how do you know where to draw the line?

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” wrote Shakespeare, and this principle of communication has held true for centuries. In email marketing, too, brevity can pay off big time. A recent study found that marketing posts on Facebook that are less than 80 characters create 27% more engagement than their longer counterparts. In email subject lines, this concision is equally important if not more so, given that many email providers crop subject lines after a certain number of characters.

The character limits

Various studies have found that the major email providers tend to cluster between a 40 and 50 character limit for their subject lines:

• AOL: 38
• Hotmail: about 45 for their initial line (using word wrap)
• Yahoo!: 47
• Gmail: 130
• Thunderbird: 130
• Outlook: 255 characters

Image-only emails look beautiful. You have full control over your branding and messaging and frankly, they are easier to design. The drawbacks, however, are too serious to ignore: