These days there’s a growing list of essential content you should include in every email you send. You know the drill. Unsubscribe mechanism, postal address, link to web version, the list goes on.

The permission reminder message

Of all the essential content though, there’s one I consistently see missing in many of the thousands of campaigns we deliver each week. What makes this more surprising is that this is one of the most important elements and also one of the easiest to add. I’m talking about the permission reminder message – a simple sentence or two reminding the subscriber how they gave you their permission to email them. Here’s a quick example:

Hi, just a reminder that you’re receiving this email because you subscribed via our website. As promised, this issue includes great tips on ……

Simple hey. In 2 simple sentences you’ve assured each recipient that your email isn’t spam and reminded them why they were interested in hearing from you in the first place.

Don’t stop there

We’re nearly there, but now that you’ve reminded the subscriber how you got their permission and what you’re sending them, why not give those that are no longer interested the option to unsubscribe right there and then. Here’s a complete example:

Hi, just a reminder that you’re receiving this email because you subscribed via our website. As promised, this issue includes great tips on ……, but you may unsubscribe if you’re no longer interested.

If you can’t summarise how you got their permission in a few words, then there’s every chance you don’t have it or they won’t remember giving it to you. “Remember that time you downloaded a report from our partner and gave them your email address” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

As we recently mentioned, our team has been hard at work adding more design flexibility to our email builder Canvas. We know how important this level of control is to so many of you, so we’re really excited to share that it’s now live.

You now have total control over the emails you create in Canvas. That means changing background colors, text colors, button colors and more so they perfectly match your brand. You’ll also be able to choose from a range of fonts for each text element in your campaign.

Customizing Colors

You can now quickly match a Canvas email to your brand using the color options in the customize tab. From this single spot you can change the color of headings, body text and header/footer text. You can also change the background color of your email, the color of links, button color, and button text color. Changing is as easy as entering the HEX color code directly, perfect for those with specific brand colors, or using our easy color picker to find one that suits.

Customizing Fonts

Changing your heading and text typeface is easy now too. Unlike other email builders, Canvas really pays attention to typography by worrying about details like line height and padding. It even supports web fonts with nice fallbacks. With the addition of customization, we made sure we gathered a bunch of typefaces that work well in any environment and can be paired together for some good combinations. That means fonts that look great at any size or weight, such as bold or italicized. So when it comes time for you to design your email, whatever font you choose in Canvas, it will look just right.

We know you’re going to love the new flexibility and control that customization provides, but to allow for it we did need to make a few template design tweaks. So if you’ve previously created a template using Canvas you may notice some small changes. We hope you’ll agree it was a small price to pay to get total control over colors and fonts in your email designs. If you do have any questions about that, just get in touch with our Support team who are always happy to help.

While this new flexibility and control has made Canvas more powerful, we’ve made sure it’s still just as easy to create unique emails quickly that will automatically look great everywhere. And our work doesn’t stop here. Look out for more Canvas updates soon.

Thanks again to everyone who let us know how important this flexibility was. We absolutely listen to everything you have to say and are so grateful you’re passionate enough to share your thoughts with us. This update is now available in your account and we hope you take a moment to check it out. We can’t wait to see the emails you start customizing!

In a post on the eConnect Email Blog at the beginning of October, James Trumbly, Director of Business Development at eConnect Email explained how to use an email marketing system to nurture leads. Trumbly discussed how the best lead nurturing approaches to email marketing consists of delivering high quality content to a narrowly targeted audience at regular intervals. In addition, they always provide incentives to opt in to an email list that contains your ultimate offer and leads to a sale.

I’d like to talk about how marketing should approach leads after they’re nurtured by email marketing when the prospect is ready for qualification. In my view, the lead qualification process, like the lead nurturing process, should stay within the marketing department. I also think that marketing personnel should take the additional step of getting on the phone to qualify leads. While this is a function normally left to sales departments, I think Marketing is in a better position to qualify leads- and by doing so will ultimately produce higher quality leads for your sales teams. Here’s why:

Marketing Doesn’t Have Near-Term Quotas to Close Deals
The reality of sales departments is that salespeople live quarter to quarter, and they have to hit a quota each quarter in order to stay in the good graces of their department. While this is a great incentive for keeping your sales team motivated to bring in revenue, that same incentive could be counterproductive in the lead qualification process.  So that is the reason I believe Marketing is better suited for lead qualification.

First off, the marketing department isn’t particularly concerned with hitting near-term quotas. This allows the marketer to engage a prospect in a more open and honest conversation about their needs, purchase time frame, budget and other factors that comprise typical qualification criteria. Beyond that, marketing departments should become more responsible for the quality of leads that they send to the sales team. By managing the qualification process, the marketing team becomes intimately tied to the quality of the lead.

In order to make this work however, marketing departments need to be methodical about whom they hire, how they compensate and how the lead qualification process is managed- and improved. Here are four tips for managing this process:

1. Hire at the Junior Level
In any role, hiring the right person is critical. For the role of lead qualifier, you want someone energetic, competitive and willing to spend time on the phone. You also want them to be junior enough to grow into a different Sales or Marketing role. Beyond that, you want someone that can really drive a phone conversation and has the inquisitive nature to dig beneath the surface to and uncover information from the prospect.

2. Compensate with a Sales-like Pay Structure
The biggest driver in increasing the quality of marketing leads is to tie compensation to the sale. The easiest way to do that is to start them off at a base salary while offering them a commission based on the total revenue of closed deals. You can also add incentives for qualification accuracy such as an additional bonus for a great sales-accepted lead.

3. Decide How to Route Leads
The natural lead category breakdown is to create three buckets of leads:
a.  Qualified leads
b.  Disqualified leads
c.  Leads that need to be nurtured

All of these are fairly self-explanatory but the last one is worth elaborating on. The real opportunity for shifting this role to a marketing department is that you can dedicate someone to nurturing leads with a human touch. As such, there should be an intense focus on the nurturing aspect of lead qualification.

4. Improve Sales and Marketing Alignment
While this is a long-standing issue in companies across the globe, it’s a necessary area of focus for making this model work. Both the sales and marketing departments should have regular meetings about lead qualification criteria. This allows the sales team to fully understand why Marketing is disqualifying certain leads (and to double-check that they’re not disqualifying a few hidden gems). The best way to manage this process is to have both departments meet frequently. Introduce weekly meetings and gradually move to once a month.

While this is not a comprehensive list of what needs to happen, I believe it to be the key area of focus. If you follow these steps, you can create a Marketing team that drives more sales, is more accountable and is better suited to see its contribution to revenue.

How long do you have to snag your reader’s attention before you lose them? Say it with me: ten seconds or less. We’ve had this drilled into our heads, and great designers know what keeps people reading and what doesn’t. But what hasn’t been learned nearly so well is that your customer’s online attention is not only short, but also very narrow.

Usability guru, Jack Nielson, explains in a recent Alertbox Column that most users focus only on what interests them or what they expect will give them the answers that they need while ignoring the other content. Known as “Tunnel Vision,” this phenomenon can make the difference between click-throughs and deleted messages.

Let’s consider an example. You design a newsletter advertising your website’s 20 percent off sale. You include a headline, an image, a block of text that includes a coupon code, and a call to action that says “Shop Now.” Nielson’s usability research suggests that if you haven’t stated the coupon code in the headline or included it as part of the call to action, many subscribers won’t see it. It’s a phenomenon similar to banner blindness, where readers ignore portions of the screen that they think aren’t essential to the overall message. If the coupon code is necessary in order to receive the savings, you’ll need to follow a few design tips in order to keep it within your subscribers’ field of vision.

• Put important elements near each other.
  If your image shows sale items and information, try putting the coupon code within the image or as the image caption. If subscribers must read through a block of text in order to find the coupon code, they may miss it altogether.

• Include essential info in the link.
  People tend to focus on click-able elements within an email design. Your call to action button and any nearby links should contain the essential information you’re trying to communicate. So instead of using a call to action that says “Shop Now,” try “Save 20% with coupon code FALL2012.”

• Test with actual users.
  Designers have difficulty recognizing usability problems with their designs because they already know where the important information is and their eyes gravitate toward it. They might not recognize where tunnel vision might occur for the average subscriber. Creating simple A/B split tests can point out problems that keep your readers from noticing the important stuff amongst everything else.

Tunnel vision means that users often don’t see things that are right in front of them. By grouping important elements together and putting essential information where readers tend to look anyway, you can boost your click-through rates and ultimately, your conversions.

Hyde Park Baptist Church, located deep in the heart of Austin, Texas, reached out to us with the need to create a stronger, more appealing way to communicate to its members.  With that in mind, we were able to assist HPBC by creating email templates that would allow them to send out customized weekly messages to a variety of groups.  The email templates provide a consistent and organized theme that allows for a variety of people to receive announcements and other information without the dread of reading, yet another, boring black and white email.

University Ministry Example

General Ministry Example

Do you want to improve your email strategy?  Just a simple change can bring great results.  Contact HMG Creative to get started.

The success of your email marketing campaign depends on putting the right information in front of your subscribers using the right format in order to solicit engagement. And while mainstream testing plays an essential role in determining what form that information should take, there’s another option you should consider, one that could take your marketing effectiveness to a new level: heat map analysis.

What is Heat Map Analysis?

Heat map analysis uses eye-tracking software to determine what areas of the page viewers tend to look at most. Heat map studies enable you to more accurately determine where the most important elements of your email creative should be placed in order to attract user engagement. If your call to action is hanging out in a low-visibility corner, for instance, a heat map can not only point out the problem, but also show you where to place that call to action for better results.

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Properly branding your company is one of the smartest decisions you can make. Keeping all of your marketing consistent will not only help simplify things but it will also ensure that your clients recognize YOU.

While we provide a large selection of general templates with every eConnect Email account, it’s impossible for them to truly capture the unique brand of your company. You can save thousands of dollars on professional design services by having our in-house design team give you the personalized look you need to really stand out.

Our design team can take your existing brand (logo, brand colors, collateral and/ or website) and build your company a custom email template, saving you time and money. Call us today to get started on your new template (866) 596-9997.

Here are a few of our latest email template designs:

Click here to learn more about this service and view more custom designs.

If you’re still viewing mobile optimization as the latest in email marketing design, you may be falling behind the times. Studies show that tablet users now account for a growing percentage of online shoppers, with tablet ownership almost doubling over the 2011 Christmas holidays. And not only are more people using tablets, but those same people are also spending more. A recent Digital Marketing Insights study conducted by Adobe Systems found that tablet users spend 50% more than their smartphone counterparts and 20% more than those using desktops or laptops. What does that mean for email marketers?

• Even if you’re not ready to take action, now is the time to consider how tablets might be changing the face of email marketing. Just as we are all getting used to creating a mobile version of our email campaigns, the tablet market has begun growing, introducing a whole new dimension to both email and website design. The changes may be subtle, but they are worth considering in light of the lucrative potential of this new market.

• Adapt your code for larger screens. You can create device-specific code that will help your mobile emails display properly on varying screen sizes, from a relatively small iPhone to its larger tablet cousin, the iPad.

• Keep it interesting below the fold. While it is still vital to make sure your most important information displays above the fold on any device, tablet users will appreciate interesting content that extends beyond the visibility cutoff for smartphones. Include good quality graphics and keep clickable elements spaced widely apart to accommodate finger clicks.

• Monitor client usage to determine when it’s time to make the switch. By watching the analytics reports on each email you send, you can determine what percentage of your subscribers currently checks their email on a tablet device. As those numbers grow, you will know when it’s time to start implementing tablet-friendly designs and creative for your overall email campaign. Until then, it’s a trend that bears watching.

As email marketing continues to evolve alongside technology, eConnect Email provides all the capabilities you need to keep your email campaigns up to date. Our analytics and deliverability tools will keep you apprised of trends among your subscribers, ensuring that you’re ready to launch new initiatives when needed without scrambling to catch up.

How do you define a great email campaign? Effective copy, concise subject line, clear call-to-action, sure. But putting hours of effort into an email campaign means nothing if you don’t see results. A successful campaign boils down to your brand understanding how to meet (and exceed) the expectations of your audience.

I, like most of us, am subscribed to numerous newsletters for a wide variety of reasons. Some for aggregated news purposes, business tips, daily deals or retail companies that offer value. I think we all know our favorites by the excitement we get seeing the new email freshly unopened in our inbox. This for marketers is a dream come true; these loyal subscribers are the pulse of the messages they create and move the needle for what’s to come.

A company recently caught my attention and now goes into a short list of brands that I not only enjoy watching, but admire their email campaigns and overall integrated marketing.

One night, killing some time before dinner I walked around downtown San Diego and went into the Goorin Bros. hat shop. The store pulled us in and almost back in time as we tried on hats reminiscent of the 1960s, old derby days that radiated class. It was so fun spending time in the store that on my way out I wrote my name in a book to be added to their newsletter list.

A few days later I received my first email from the Goorin Bros. and I was able to open it on my phone without a hitch. I thought the email looked very clean, sharp and with closer notice to this and emails to come, I was continually impressed with the beautiful, thoughtful design, clear messaging and access to information.

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Over the holiday season, I used my mobile phone more often than usual for a variety of tasks: checking email and Facebook, shopping online, browsing the internet. Being stuck in a car for 10 hours and away from your office for over a week necessitates some creativity when it comes to staying connected. Because I was stuck using my mobile device almost exclusively for these tasks, I became more aware of the frustrations associated with email messages and websites not designed with the mobile user in mind. And while this subject has been discussed before, I think it’s worth revisiting, especially as we enter a new year and begin planning new email marketing campaigns. So, without further ado, here’s my list of the top five ways to keep your mobile users happy.

Big Buttons

Fingers are much less precise than mouse pointers. Make it easier for your mobile subscribers to open and click by making buttons fat finger friendly.

Space Between Clickable Elements

Another problem that arises when you’re using a finger instead of a mouse is clickable elements placed too close together, resulting in mis-clicks. By adding additional white space between clickable elements, you can reduce the likelihood that users will find themselves waiting for the wrong page to load.

Important Information Visible Without Scrolling or Enlarging

When you have dozens of emails to catch up on, it’s important that you are able to grasp the main idea quickly. Test your email messages on a mobile device to ensure that font sizes are readable and that the user doesn’t have to scroll either vertically or horizontally to see your main message and call to action.

Single Columns

HTML is much less flexible than CSS when it comes to re-ordering columns and content blocks. Make it easy on yourself and on your subscribers by sticking to a single column that will display appropriately on a mobile screen.

Hide Unnecessary Content

It’s great to include social sharing buttons, links to your social media pages, and other secondary content in your email messages. But on a mobile device, all that extra content makes it more difficult for your subscribers to get the main message. Make mobile emails easier to scan and read by hiding images, text, and other content that isn’t strictly necessary.

As you’re designing new email campaigns for 2012, eConnect Email offers flexible design options, image management, templates, and inbox previews to help ensure that each message displays exactly as intended. By catering to the unique needs of mobile users, you can ensure that an increasingly mobile audience will continue to read and interact with your messages.