MindComet

Top o’ the Mornin’ to Ya! A St. Patty’s Day Email Recap

It’s one day after St. Patty’s Day and I accomplished everything I wanted to yesterday:

So since my liver-recovery is in full swing, I figured it’d be a great time to review some exceptional St. Patty’s Day-oriented emails. But instead of waxing poetic about why I liked each one, I’m simply going to post the screenshots of the impressive emails. There are four total. Find the below:

Simple:

Season’s 52:

Bare Escentuals:

Paul Frank:

Did you receive any awesome St. Patty’s Day emails? If so, don’t hesitate to comment!

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Mar. 18, 2010

Must Subscribe: Moosejaw, Threadless & Swell

Threadless:

Seemingly influenced by Tim & Eric, this is an obnoxious, tacky and hilarious email and I love it so. Comic sans? check. Hot pink background? you got it. Eye-catching? you bet. Well done.

Sign up for Threadless’s email list here.

Moosejaw:

Simple creative. Witty copy (FTF call to action). A very unique basis for a sale. These things amount to the email below from Moosejaw.

The main call to action is the extended 10% off sale, but there’s a subtle aspect to the sale which makes it above average and slightly interactive. Enlarge the screenshot above and see for yourself.

Sign up for Moosejaw’s email list here.

Swell:

This email struck a chord with me, mostly because it doesn’t employ some overpaid model enjoying themselves way too much while wearing the shoes. It’s just two angles of the product. That’s it. It’s simple and sweet.

Sign up for Swell’s email list here.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Mar. 08, 2010

The Hotmail / Firefox Line Break Issue Is Resolved

Have you ever come across the consistent issue of line breaks in your email design in Hotmail using Firefox?

One consistent annoyance I’ve always encountered has been testing an email in Hotmail with Firefox. For some reason, this combination of client and browser generates horizontal line breaks in emails. I never knew why… until now.

After some digging, Smith-Harmon has discovered that a simple bit of code is the purest remedy for this issue. At the top of the email (before the opening TABLE tag), make sure you include this:
<style>img {display: block;}</style>

It’s that simple. You can also accomplish the same effect if you code each image individually with the “display: block” property / value. For example:

<img src="images/header.jpg" style="display: block;" />

Kudos to Smith-Harmon for this useful shred of knowledge!

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Mar. 02, 2010

Always Test Your Unsubscribe Link

Rule of thumb: before you send any email, make sure your unsubscribe link works. It’s that simple. It may be a fairly obvious statement in regards to email marketing, yet something many overlook.

See this example below:

I received this email from Full Sail this morning and after realizing that information on their “entertainment business” degrees is irrelevant to me, I finally decided to put our relationship to rest… or so I thought. Once the very visible “unsubscribe” link was clicked, I was lead to this page:

Unsubscribe FAIL.

But this may not be Full Sail’s fault entirely. From clicking on the other links within the email, their Google URL builder states that the source is from “PasteMagazineContest”. This tells me the email was likely developed and managed by Paste Magazine as a partner / promotion deal. Shame on them both, though. For Paste not testing their email and for FullSail not providing a working unsubscribe link.

If I were FullSail, I’d get this link working ASAP as to avoid any potential SPAM complaints or even lawsuits.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Feb. 25, 2010

Using Google Docs as a QA Checklist Alternative

Yet another Google tool can be leveraged to assist your email marketing efforts. Besides BlueSkyFactory‘s genius way of using AdWords & Wonder Wheel for developing subject lines, ExactTarget recently suggested that using Google Docs goes hand in hand with quality assurance management.

If you have a Gmail account, you can start creating forms and spreadsheets here. It’s a nice alternative to Excel or Numbers mainly because you don’t have to exhaust additional computing power with running another program; the application is already in your web browser.

Here at MindComet we use Excel spreadsheets to keep track of what’s working and what’s not with all of the email campaigns we manage, but Google Docs may just add that last bit of efficiency and collaboration we’re looking for. What, if anything, do you use to track the changes and breaks with your email campaigns? Do you simply list all of the errors, or do you consolidate them in lists that you share with your co-workers?

If you don’t currently have a QA process or method, you should probably develop one, so why not start with Google Docs? It’s free, quick and convenient. ‘Nuff said.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Feb. 22, 2010

Banana Republic Unveils Interesting Enticement Call To Action

The email below from Banana Republic landed in inboxes a couple days ago and has made the rounds as a point of discussion on numerous email marketing blogs…. I can’t help but put my two cents in.

It’s a very clever (almost too clever) method of compelling users to click through via the arrow on the right side of the email’s design. Once the user clicks, the landing page displays all seven wardrobes for the ‘Chino-Week’ promotion. But was the arrow too subtle for the average BR customer to notice and click?

From what Dylan at theemailwars uncovered was that it was a gender-specific email to boot.

What do you think? Was this call to action and email in general effective or not?

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Feb. 18, 2010

Google’s Subject Line Tools

Google has two tools available that can help email marketers compose relevant Subject Lines and it’s been right under our noses for some time. Google’s Wonder Wheel and Adwords Keyword Tool, when used in conjunction with one another, can potentially increase open rates. The idea is to take what people are clicking on on the web and transplant it into your subject line to increase open rates.

Christopher Penn at Blue Sky Factory developed this method and goes into more detail on their blog here. It’s a smart idea and definitely worth trying for yourself. I, for one, will be utilizing this method very much in the future.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Feb. 09, 2010