Author Archive: Molly Niendorf
Crazy about email design?
Our picks for the best design-related posts on the Emma blog
In the past year, we covered everything from fancy-lookin’ customer emails to email makeovers to (lots of) mobile design tips. In this roundup, we’re sharing the best design-related posts on the Emma blog.
1. Building a slice and dice campaign: Instead of compromising email deliverability with one big image, we taught you how to code an image into smaller slices.
2. Designing emails for smartphones: Guest blogger Anna Yeaman, creative director of Style Campaign, shared her top six mobile design tips.
3. Research, inspiration and doodling: Taylor Schena offered a behind-the-scenes look at her design process.
4. Stylishly formatted email campaigns: We featured five customers with effective content arrangements in their emails.
5. HTML code for email layouts: We gave you access to the code of Emma’s content layouts to use and adapt if you’re building campaigns with an Upload Your Own HTML template.
6. More mobile tips: Miles Price weighed in with more design tips for crafting emails for mobile devices.
7. An email makeover: We highlighted a refreshed email strategy and brand new look for Rumours Wine & Art Bar in Nashville.
8. Animated GIFs of the future: Cody De Vos paved the way for using animated GIFs in your email campaigns.
+++++
For even more design inspiration, see our design showcases.
What design topics would you like to see us feature next? Let us know by commenting here.
The anatomy of Emma’s response page
Understanding delivery stats, opens, click-throughs and more
Once you send out an Emma campaign, your response results immediately start building on the main response page. If you’re like us, you spend the next few hours obsessively refreshing the page to see how many folks are opening, clicking and sharing your campaign. It’s exciting stuff, for email marketing nerds anyway. But it’s even more exciting when you’ve got a solid handling on what you’re looking at — and what you should be striving for.
Let’s take a closer look at an Emma mailing, one of our Agency Insiders. I’ll break down Emma’s response page to explain each section and how you can use the data to inform next steps.
Here's a look at the Overview tab of our mailing's response.
The Trend
The chart at the top of the page gives you an at-a-glance account of the mailing’s opens and clicks. Click the upper right links to adjust the view (by default, it displays a 12-hour view), and hover your mouse over data points to see numbers. Read more about our interactive charts here.
What to look for: Scan the time of day that yields the highest open rates for your audience. In many cases, this will be three hours following the mailing’s send time; however, you might see different trends if you send your mailing very late at night, for example. Our mailing met expectations, as we saw the most opens in the first hour after its 11:00 am send.
Next steps: If you see open times contrary to what you expect, use this information to determine the timing of your next mailing. Perhaps you expected your audience to be opening your email during work hours, but they’re actually opening in the evening. Schedule your next mailing for 6 pm and see what happens.
The Send Off
At the server level, we track the number of emails sent, received or bounced.
When you send an email campaign, the response tracking is actually happening at two distinct levels: the server where your recipient’s inbox is hosted, and the inbox itself. (For more information on how email delivery works, take a look at this blog post by our delivery specialist, Art.) The numbers under The Send Off all happen at the server level. Emails sent refers to the number of emails we attempted to send (which will match the number of active email addresses in the audience group that you send to). Emails received refers to the number of emails that were successfully received by the servers on the other end. And the bounces include emails that were kicked back as undeliverable by the receiving servers. Read more about bounces here.
What to look for: Emma has an average 98% delivery rate so you should see that about 98% of your sent emails were received at the server level. If you’re working with an updated list of addresses, you’ll see even better delivery rates. (Our mailing saw a strong 99.4% delivery rate.) Keep in mind, however, that if you’re sending to an email list for the very first time, you may see a few more bounces, as Emma helps to weed out addresses that are no longer valid.
Next steps: If more than 3% of your emails bounced, click to take a closer look. If all bounces are from one particular domain, Emma may have had trouble connecting to that domain. Feel free to reach out to our support team to help you uncover any curious bounce patterns. And keep in mind that Emma handles soft and hard bounces a bit differently. Addresses that soft bounce will stay on your list, and we’ll mark addresses that hard bounce as “error” so you don’t waste time (or money) mailing to them next time.
The Response
A closer look at the response activity at the inbox level
Here you’ll notice response activity at the inbox level. You’ll see the percentage (and number) of folks who opened your email in a trackable way (read more about what that means here) and the number of people who clicked at least one link in your campaign. If you have a “send-to-a-friend” envelope icon atop your email stationery, you’ll also see how many folks shared your email with friends. (Not to be confused with Social Sharing via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, which we’ll get to in a moment.) Finally, you’ll see how many new subscribers signed up and how many recipients opted out.
What to look for: The open and click-through rates are sort of like your report card grades. Have you met industry averages? That’s a solid C. But why settle for average? If open rates are lower than you expected, there’s a chance that a phrase or two in your email kept it from arriving in your recipients’ inboxes. Proof your content, and make sure to avoid spammy words and phrases. And if you’re doing well, think about how you’ll maintain momentum. We’re pretty pleased with a 37% open rate — and we’ll continue offering the sorts of content our audience responds well to — but that doesn’t mean we aren’t thinking about ways to improve it as well.
Next steps: It’s time to move the dial and go beyond proofing your content. Spruce up your subject line, surprise your subscribers with an unexpected format or dream up a contest. And, hey, ask them to share the email with their friends by using the send-to-a-friend feature, and thank those who do by sharing special content or a coupon.
The Clicks
A breakdown of the clicks across the campaign
This section shows the total number of clicks across all links, along with a link-by-link breakdown. In our example, we see 401 total clicks across 35 links (HTML and plaintext). Notice how, in the screenshot above this one, we see 255 unique clicks. Why is the number of total clicks (401) greater than the number of unique clicks (255)? Unique clicks refers to the people who clicked. In this case, 255 people clicked a combined 401 times, meaning certain recipients clicked the same link multiple times or clicked multiple links.
What to look for: Clicks tell you more than the sum of their parts. Your audience is communicating their interests to you — and their reading habits. Maybe your audience likes your video content more than your weekly wrap-up. Maybe they respond better to a call to action at the top left of the email versus the bottom. Whatever you see, pay attention and repeat what works. In our case, the marquee story, a guest post by Ilise Benun of Marketing Mentor, was the most-clicked link. It was also the story we chose to place at the top of the email.
Next steps: Use the data to guide future newsletters and content, but don’t forget that those clicks come from people. Consider following up in a more personal way every now and then. Save all members who clicked on a particular link as a search group, and reach out by email, on Twitter or even by phone.
Shares
The Shares tab shows the number of shares on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can click the tab to see more details.
Let’s depart from the Overview tab and focus on Shares. If you enabled Social Sharing in your mailing, you’ll be able to track shares to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn on this tab. Moreover, you’ll be able to see how much traffic was generated from those shares. If you’re not sure about Social Sharing, read more here.
What to look for: If you enabled Social Sharing, we do hope some of your recipients shared your mailing! Take a look to see which networks are most-used by your audience, and which recipients are doing the sharing — these folks are likely some of your most enthusiastic brand advocates.
Next steps: If you’re not seeing as many social shares as you’d like, take some time to plan next steps. Just because the social buttons are atop your email doesn’t mean your recipients know how (or why) to use them. Give them a brief tutorial in your next mailing, or design a fun giveaway or reason for participating. For example, in last year’s April newsletter, we challenged our subscribers to share the Earth Day infographic we created. If we reached 100 shares (we did, thanks to our readers!), we’d plant 100 extra trees. That plan worked swimmingly, whereas this mailing didn’t see the same kind of success. It’s back to the drawing board for some new ideas …
+++++
Want some more inspiration? Check out Carolyn’s post on making the most of response charts and our customer stories, highlighting a slew of effective email strategies. And let us know if you have any questions about your response rates — we’re here to help.
+++++
New to Emma? Learn more about our features and service.
A roundup of successful holiday campaigns
Taking a peek at four email campaigns by the Union Square Hospitality Group
If you crafted and sent out your holiday emails on time this year, give yourself a pat on the back. There’s a sense of relief that comes with negotiating the busy holiday season and getting your newsletter out before the new year. But make sure you haven’t checked the task off your list and forgotten about it. Now’s the time to review your holiday response rates and learn from them as you kick off your 2012 email marketing efforts.
Let’s take a look at a few email campaigns crafted by Emma agency partner, Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). USHG includes some of New York City’s best known restaurants, including Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke, The Modern and Maialino. These four campaigns carry representative looks and strong response rates — and serve as fitting case studies for welcoming in the new year.
Union Square Hospitality Group
In this snowflake-themed campaign, USHG has fun with a split test of sorts. Can you guess which button earned more clicks? In fact, the gift card button edged out the e-gift certificate button by just 2%.
+ Sent on Wednesday, December 21st at 9:00 am to 69,892 people
+ Subject line: The Perfect Last Minute Gift
+ Open rate: 19.58%
+ Click-through rate: 6.16%
+ Shares: 23
Why it works: There’s a sense of whimsy in the design — and the sentiment. Plus, the two buttons are a source of education for USHG; they’ll be able to see who clicked where and follow up with other relevant offers, if they like.
The Modern
This festive winter campaign, created on an Upload Your Own HTML template, captures the sophistication of The Modern and shares, among other things, details of its New Year’s Eve line-up.
+ Sent on Tuesday, December 20th at 11:17 am to 10,497 people
+ Subject line: Winter News from The Modern
+ Open rate: 31.33%
+ Click-through rate: 1.92%
+ Shares: 6
Why it works: The email provides a consistent brand experience with The Modern’s website, and with a mix of compelling content, it’s an easy email to navigate.
Gramercy Tavern
Gramercy Tavern’s holiday email is short ‘n’ sweet. It’s also personal, featuring a “season’s eatings” photo of the tavern’s employees (after the click).
+ Sent on Tuesday, December 20th at 9:00 am to 7,949 people
+ Subject line: Happy Holidays from Gramercy Tavern!
+ Open rate: 31.41%
+ Click-through rate: 47.39%
+ Shares: 4
Why it works: Talk about piquing curiosity. Nearly half of email openers clicked through to view the photo. When average click-throughs hover around 6%, a spike like this is a coup.
Union Square Cafe
Created on Emma’s blank template and utilizing an Advanced 7 layout, this campaign by Union Square Cafe follows the format of a traditional newsletter. A departure from their usual campaigns coded from scratch, the built-in layout allows them to revise each newsletter without pulling in a designer from their team — a definite time-saver.
+ Sent on Thursday, December 15th at 1:03 pm to 19,140 people
+ Subject line: Union Square Cafe Newsletter – Winter 2011
+ Open rate: 27.18%
+ Click-through rate: 14.96%%
+ Shares: 5
Why it works: The campaign makes use of space by providing short story blurbs that link to the full scoop elsewhere. Moreover, it plays with content placement. Convention would tell us that the top story in your campaign will earn the highest clicks; in this case, the link to the recipe for Ménage à Pommes is the most popular. Union Square Cafe’s audience is an engaged bunch, happy to spend some time with the campaign and comb it for their favorite stories.
Ready to interpret your holiday response rates? Here are some things to look for:
- Compare the numbers … Use our campaign compare feature to see how your holiday results stack up against the prior month’s mailing — or against your holiday results from last year. Then, see how they compare to industry averages.
- … But only the numbers that matter to you. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to compare click-throughs to your Facebook page if that wasn’t the one of the goals of your holiday campaign. Instead, focus on metrics that correspond to your intended goals. Look for places where you fell short, and adjust the approach of your next mailing.
- Plan a follow-up. When people click on links in your campaign, they’re telling you that they’re interested enough to learn more. Armed with that knowledge, make plans to send a smaller, targeted mailing to the audience members who are most likely to read and engage.
- Prepare for the next mailing. Do the response results of your holiday mailing seem interesting but inconclusive? Have a hunch about why your subject line enticed more people to open? Set up a split test in your next mailing to test your theory. Read more about subject line split tests in Cassie’s post.
If you have questions along the way, we’d love to help. Comment here, or reach out to our support team.
+++++
New to Emma? Get 60 days free when you join.
Frequently asked questions about email marketing
In a series of posts, Emma answers your questions about email design, delivery and more
In our recent holiday survey, we asked our email subscribers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers to weigh in on this question: Say that Santa has a magical elf who only answers North Pole mail dealing with email marketing questions. What would you ask him? We were thrilled to receive a bevy of survey responses — and some really solid questions for our magical elf. (Want to take a look at the survey responses? Visit this post.)
Now, allow me to put on the proverbial, if figurative, elf hat and answer four of the most common questions we received. Oh, and be on the lookout for even more blog posts of this sort. We’re really excited to answer even more of your questions.
1. How do I continue to grow my email list with the “right” people?
Great question. Rather than asking how to grow your lists any ol’ way, so many of you recognize the importance of gaining the right subscribers. That is, folks who want to hear from you and are engaged with your brand. First things first: make it easy to sign up. Post your signup form in easy-to-spot locations on your homepage, blog, Facebook page and relevant landing pages. And keep the process short ‘n sweet. Folks may not hit submit if they’ve got to weed through 15 required form fields. Most importantly, be super clear about what you’ll send, how often and what subscribers will get in return for signing up. Want an example? Take a look at this smart signup form by Social Fresh.
2. When’s the best time of day or week to send an email campaign?
There’s really no magic answer to the question of email sending times because it’ll vary depending upon your audience’s behavior — Do they read email at work or home? Have they signed up to receive your emails from their professional email address or personal address? — and depending upon your message — Are you sending an invitation that needs to go out prior to an event? Does your promotion have an expiration date?.
Of course, there’s plenty of data on email sending times, if you’re looking for it. A study by Pure360 suggests that people are receptive to marketing emails during the first hour of their workday. And the Email Experience Council reports that the most popular days for retailers to send emails are Tuesday, Thursday and Monday. (Want to see some more stats? Check out the Email Stat Center’s section on email deployment times.)
Our recommendation? Go straight to the source. Create a survey and ask your audience how often they’d like to hear from you and when they’re most apt to check their email. Then, test various sending times with different segments of your audience and see which times of day and week perform solidly over time.
At the end of the day (no pun intended), don’t sweat your email’s sending time. If you’re writing compelling emails that speak to your audience, your subscribers will make time to open them, no matter what time they arrive.
3. Can recipients change their preference on how often they want to receive emails?
Yes! And this is a terrific way to increase audience engagement. When given a choice, folks will be more attentive when they receive your emails. We’ve created a help page to walk you through the steps of setting this up, and our support team is on hand to answer any questions you have along the way.
4. How do I keep my email from going in a recipient’s spam folder?
It’s the million dollar email marketing question! While it’s easy to get upset when your emails don’t land in your recipients’ inboxes, spam filters are in place for a reason. They keep all of our inboxes much cleaner than they’d otherwise be by filtering out tons of junk mail everyday. Of course, you might worry that your email — which is quite lovely and isn’t junk at all! — will end up in the dreaded spam folder. Here’s something to remember: You can’t please all of the spam filters all of the time, but you can certainly take steps to increase your email’s deliverability. A few tips:
- Ask your recipients to add your “from address” to their address book or trusted sender list. This is still the number one way to reach their inboxes.
- Update your organization’s SPF record and register Emma as an authorized sender on your behalf.
- Limit the amount of formatting changes in your email. It’s a good idea to spruce up your headlines, customize your link colors and add images, but don’t go overboard.
- For a broader discussion of sending reputation, plus more tips, take a look at Art’s post.
+++++
Stay tuned for more answers to your burning questions, and if these have sparked any other ideas, please weigh in here!
The results of Emma’s holiday survey
How you responded & what we've got in store. Plus, we announce the winner!
Last month, we asked you to take our holiday survey and tell us a bit about your email marketing goals, habits and interests — especially as they relate to your holiday marketing plans. We were thrilled to receive so many thoughtful responses, and I’d like to share the results with you. Some of the answers really surprised us, and the experience highlights just how important it is to eliminate assumptions and ask your audience.
Take a look at how you answered below, and hear what we’ve got in store this season to assist you. Plus, find out a few tips for creating your own surveys and the winner of our survey prize!
1. Choose 3 things from the list below that you’d like to learn more about.
Since we asked you to pick three answers, we knew there’d be a healthy split among them. And we’re already thinking of ways to provide quick tips and to make your holiday emails look as fresh and festive as possible. Take a look at Mary’s five tips for retaining and attracting subscribers. Then, head on over to Emma’s 2011 Holiday Design Spectacular, and check out the holiday templates we’ve designed for your seasonal invitations, promos and greetings.
2. What article types on the Emma blog are most beneficial to you? Choose all that apply.
We’re glad to know that you continue to find value in our posts with email best practices and tips, and that you like our design showcases as much as we do. Throughout the holiday season, we’ll provide even more, including this recent holiday design showcase.
3. Where do you most often read your emails?
There’s lots of talk about designing emails for mobile these days, and with good reason — nearly 31% of mobile users in the U.S. access email on their phones. But, it’s also important to remember that the vast majority of subscribers haven’t booted email activity on their computers in favor of their phones. If we’re ever in a pickle where we must decide between how an email looks on a desktop computer versus a mobile device, we can make a case for designing for our desktop readers.
4. How many email inboxes do you manage? (Choose closest answer.)
This response surprised us more than any other. Boy, you guys are busy! Three inboxes is a lot to manage, and 14% of you manage even more than that. Your responses encourage us to keep our Emma Roundups packed with solid offerings each month — we want to make sure ours is an email worth opening.
5. How many emails do you send out from Emma on a monthly basis?
These results are a fairly close match to the sending behaviors of our entire customer base; in fact, more than 60% of our customers send 5,000 emails or less each month. In an industry where it’s easy to get hung up on list size, remember that it’s the quality of your list, not its size, that matters.
6. Which social network do you use most frequently?
Another surprising answer. We expected Facebook to lead the pack, but we didn’t expect it to lead by such an overwhelming margin. Perhaps it’s a false consensus bias of mine: I use Twitter so frequently that I wrongly assumed that more of you did, too. This becomes a question that could launch a separate survey. We’d love to know more about why you use Facebook most frequently, if you manage a personal or business account and, if you use multiple social networks, how you differentiate your usage. And do say hi to Emma on Facebook, too!
7. What sites, blogs and resources do you use to improve your email marketing?
We had two motives when asking this question: to find out which sites you find most useful and to add some new sites to our everyday reads. We received too many great answers to list them all, but here are some of the sites that came up again and again (go ahead, add ‘em to your Google Reader): Mashable, HubSpot, Email Experience Council, iMedia Connection, MarketingProfs, Marketo, Inc., Fast Company, ClickZ, CMO, Which Test Won, American Marketing Association, Sender Score, Open Forum, Marketing Sherpa, Seth Godin’s blog and eMarketer.
8. Fill in the blank. When it comes to my holiday emails this year, I’m most concerned about ______.
Based on your response to this question, we’re excited to be planning some style-specific articles for your holiday email campaigns. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, check out these articles:
- 5 tips for better-looking campaigns
- Stylishly formatted campaigns, parts one and two
- How can I make my plaintext pretty?
- Building a slice and dice campaign
9. Say that Santa has a magical elf who only answers North Pole mail dealing with email marketing questions. What would you ask him?
This was a fun one! We received so many excellent questions — some serious, some a bit silly — and we’ll be featuring the most common in a series of Q&A posts this season.
+++++
Want to send a survey to your customers? Here are five tips:
- Provide some intro text to explain the purpose of the survey, how long it’ll take to complete and what respondents should expect to get out of it. If you neglect to provide this information, why should anyone respond? You’ve got to know your purpose first, then design and promote the survey.
- Start with a few fun, engaging questions. This helps to hook respondents and set momentum right off the bat.
- Design questions that get at what you really want to know. When I first designed our survey, question #6 asked, “Which social network is your favorite?” A colleague pointed out that it’d be a difficult question for respondents to answer — Favorite right now? Favorite of all time? A network I like the most but maybe don’t use a lot? — and that it wouldn’t provide information we’d be able to draw reliable conclusions from. So, instead, I changed the question to “Which social network do you use most frequently?” This more clearly gets at what I want to know — where folks spend most of their time.
- Save demographic questions for the end — and make them optional. Putting your demographic questions at the beginning is boring at best and alienating at worst. Leave them for the end, and give folks the freedom to answer some or none of them.
- Keep it short. Appreciate that your customers are busy, and they’re probably not inclined to take a survey that requires more than five minutes of their time. You can still collect very valuable information in 10 questions or less. Giving yourself a limit also forces you to cut out the fluff and make each question matter.
+++++
Who won the survey prize, you ask? We used random.org to pick a winner at random, and the winner is … Lauri Young of Quantum Bank. She’s won a month’s worth of free emails on us. Congrats, Lauri!
+++++
Get into the holiday spirit. Request a Readymade design from Emma’s design team.
Behind the scenes of the Atlanta Falcons’ interactive marketing team
We talk email marketing, social media strategy and staying focused during the holidays with Dan Levak, Director of New Media for the NFL's Falcons
Meet the Atlanta Falcons' New Media Group. Dan's on the left.
Read on for a glimpse at the Falcons’ fine-tuned approach — you’ll be as impressed as I was.
How do you use Emma to reach your fans, and how often do you send emails?
We understand that people have more email than they know what to do with so we try to be very disciplined about limiting and consolidating our messaging. We send a weekly e-report that’s a digest of significant events, stories and news. We also send a “pre-game” season ticket holder email filled with useful game-specific information relevant to folks attending the game — such as when the tailgate lots open that week, pre-game entertainment options around the Georgia Dome, etc. We also send various one-off emails to fans that opt in for various value propositions: ticket specials, third-party offers, etc. Again, because of the avalanche of email people face today, we are very selective of these third-party offers — there has to be true value to Falcons fans, or we won’t send it. On occasion our senior leadership team needs to directly address our fan base, and we use Emma’s platform to send out “Letter From…” emails crafted to look like they’re on Falcons letterhead. And we also utilize Emma for what we call operational purposes: season ticket renewal information, reminders for deadlines, applications for season-long parking passes, etc. It sounds like a lot – and in the aggregate, it is — but we are very conscious of timing and frequency of our mailings.
Who works on the Falcons’ email marketing strategy, and how do you set priorities as a marketing team?
We work under an empowerment philosophy. That’s one of the main reasons we’re with Emma — the ease of use of the platform. I’ve used several large enterprise email marketing platforms throughout my time with the Falcons, and many of them require two-day training sessions just to understand how to deploy a single campaign.
Emma’s platform was clearly designed with an emphasis on user interface — it’s so easy to learn and use. We’ve been able to empower various departments throughout the organization to deploy their own email campaigns. Our Ticket Office is a prime example. Folks generally aren’t experts using HTML or CSS, but we set up very flexible templates that allow them to enter their own content & graphics, schedule their emails, manage their own lists and even monitor their own analytics. It’s taken much of the burden off of our digital media group, and it allows them to be much more spontaneous when spur of the moment campaign needs arise.
What’s your most popular content, and how do you continue to come up with fresh topics?
We continuously ask the question: “If I were a fan, and I didn’t have access to our players, coaches and front office, what would I want to know right now?” It’s actually easy when you simply turn it around and always look through the fan prism.
You also use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to reach fans. What’s your social media strategy?
The $64,000 question. :) There’s so much focus on “social strategy,” and yes, we have a very specific one with very tangible strategic goals layered with discreet tactical measures geared toward achieving them.
Without going into too much detail, our social media strategy is centered around two things: be consistent in our interaction and be authentic. We are all bombarded by so much information in our lives. Social media platforms –- especially Facebook & Twitter –- along with the mainstream penetration of smartphones and tablets has created shorter and shorter attention spans among consumers. The mediums are so much more efficient, but this has paradoxically made it more difficult to get your message across. So when someone takes the time out of their busy lives to reach out to us –- via an email, a message board post, a comment on our Facebook page, an at-reply on Twitter –- then we OWE that fan a response. Even a simple acknowledgement that “yes, we heard you” goes a long way. Rewarding someone who invests their valuable and increasingly scarce time with our brand is one of the most important things we do.
A recent Atlanta Falcons Weekly E-report
Finally, we look at these social mediums as an extension of our online presence, and we’re not focused on our dot-com site’s major metrics the way we used to be. Uniques, page views, time-on-site is important, to be sure, but their significance is wrapped in the context of the overall universe — including social. I think making sense of social analytics and being able to derive truly actionable business intelligence from them is a major market opportunity.
This season, you’ll play New Orleans the day after Christmas and Tampa Bay on New Year’s Day. Any special tricks for maintaining focus around the holidays?
We never have issues maintaining focus. We’re all so passionate about our careers and pro football in general — this is what we love to do. What is difficult at times is not being able to spend traditional holidays with your family because the NFL schedule requires you to either play a game or be traveling to a game on major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Everyone in this business understands that taking a few vacation days or a full week off around the holidays isn’t realistic. It’s what we signed up for, and it’s one small con in an industry that’s filled (literally and figuratively!) with pros.
Do the Falcons have any holiday traditions as a team?
Hopefully we’ll look back 10 or 15 years from now and say our holiday tradition each season was getting ready for the playoffs. :) Our owner provides a unique opportunity for all the business units that make up the Blank Family of Businesses to come to Falcons headquarters on a weekday for a mid-December holiday luncheon. It’s a great opportunity to meet and visit with folks who share your culture, but not necessarily your day-to-day experience.
We also partner with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta for an annual holiday ornament drive. Each year we design a unique ornament, and each one has the number of one of our roster players on it. We manufacture several hundred of each roster number, then the players get together and sign all of the ornaments with their number. Fans can then purchase the autographed ornaments (they’re tax-deductible). Because of demand for our highest-profile players, fans don’t specify which player’s ornament they receive — they’re randomly sent out, and it’s the luck of the draw. It’s a fantastic program that benefits one of the best nonprofit children’s hospitals in the nation.
The Falcons' ticket office sends game day emails to season ticket holders.
+++++
Connect with the Atlanta Falcons:
+ Sign up for their email newsletter
+ Follow the Falcons’ main Twitter feed or any number of staff members, players and cheerleaders, including Dan Levak at @FalconsDLevak
+ Like them on Facebook
+ Check out the team schedule
5 questions with Melissa Junge of Animatics
B2B email campaigns, keeping content fresh and spending time in Santa Clara
Melissa writes content for Animatics, and Kym Chao does graphic design.
Melissa Junge, Sales and Marketing Assistant at Animatics Corporation in Santa Clara, CA, is passionate about her company and their communication strategy. Check out an archive of the “SmartNews” email campaigns she sends using Emma, and read below for her thoughtful answers to five questions.
Describe what your company does and what makes you stand out in your industry.
Animatics manufactures motion control systems including servo motors, table top robots, gear heads, controllers, shunts and power supplies. We are best known for the creation of the SmartMotor, an integrated servo motor that encompasses an encoder, controller, amplifier and drive all in one, and can be programmed directly from any laptop in a million different ways for any industry application. Our products are used in multiple industries including aerospace, food, semiconductor, automotive, entertainment, etc. SmartMotors can pretty much be used in any machine that moves.
How do you use Emma to communicate with your audience? Which features are your favorite?
Our marketing efforts, and the way we use Emma, is dual purpose. One audience is our value-added distributors: independent resellers such as Minarik, Onexia, Bertelkamp Automation and others that sell our products to end customers. We communicate with them, and they pass along whatever gets their attention and will be useful as sales tools. The other audience is our end users: primarily machine builders, design engineers and manufacturing specialists who build our motors into their larger machine designs. We use the email campaigns as the primary B2B marketing channel to both of these groups as it’s the quickest and most efficient way to get both groups the information they need.
Favorite features would have to be social media buttons and the tech support. I love the social media share buttons and use the campaigns for most of my Twitter and LinkedIn news. Originally we were using a home-coded mail merge program that didn’t have response tracking or social media capabilities, but now we’ve increased our emails from one every three months to one every two weeks with Emma’s help. Emma tech support is also great. Any questions I have are answered immediately, and I have yet to have a problem that hasn’t been solved.
You send email campaigns every two weeks. How do you keep your content fresh?
We use the email campaigns for a number of things: product announcements, company news, case studies, new marketing collateral and more. Being able to send out content in multiple categories as well as pushing to always innovate and improve our products usually gives us a lot to talk about.
Let’s say your friend from out of town has four hours to spend in Santa Clara. What’s on the must-do list?
Come visit our office, first of all! Get the tour of the training rooms, production (where the magic happens) and some of our new “toys” like the mini mill and SmartMotor powered artwork. We are right across the street from California’s Great America theme park (close enough to hear people scream from the tops of roller coasters during our lunch) so I would say that’s at the top as well. Then, go to a San Jose Sharks game!
What’s the last song that was playing on your iPod?
“Ding” or “Music Monks” by Seeed. It’s reggae musical sound with German rap lyrics. Sounds ridiculous but after you hear it, it becomes addicting.
+++++
Like this post? Read more customer stories here.
Prepare your email marketing for the holiday season
Yup, it's time to start making your plan
It’ll still be a couple months before you’re dragging out tangled lights and sipping egg nog, but don’t wait that long to start planning your year-end email marketing.
Whether your goals are as simple as a thank-you email greeting or as involved as a tightly scheduled retail strategy, a little planning and strategy now will pay off when the busy holiday season rolls around. On the heels of our recent holiday survey, here are six tips to help you prepare in advance — and give you plenty of time left over for egg nog sippin’.
1. Craft a holiday story line. What’s the unique story you’ll tell this holiday season? It may not be wildly different from the story you tell all year long, but it should have its own angle or narrative. Spend some time figuring out how your audience will experience your brand in new and festive ways during the holidays. Pick a story line that surprises and delights you, and your audience is likely to feel the same.
+ Need more convincing? Read Susan Blue’s post on telling your brand’s story effectively.
+ Find inspiration in our video full of festive content ideas.
2. Schedule a list check-up. We say it often around here, but it bears repeating: If your members aren’t engaged, your efforts won’t be appreciated. Before your holiday email cycle begins, send a re-engagement campaign to get your less active members on board. That might mean a special email to folks who haven’t opened or clicked in the last three months or a holiday survey to find out what subscribers would like to hear from you this season.
+ See more details on list hygiene.
+ Read up on the “why” of customer surveys.
3. Consider sending frequency and timing. According to Experian, email volume increases 15-20% during the holiday season, and volume is at its highest of the year during August – December. Response behavior, too, shows some interesting trends. Total clicks for Christmas emails peak one week after the holiday, possibly due to interest in post-holiday sales, while transactions peak three weeks prior. Take note of Experian’s data as you plan this season’s email campaigns. Capitalizing on deal-focused subscribers after the holidays might serve you well, or you may want to plan campaigns during off-peak times.
+ Master the art of the short holiday email.
+ Looking to gain donations? Use our free “donate” buttons.
4. Get social. In the past year, according to Media Post, social networks have surpassed search engines as the most visited batch of websites on the Internet. So make sure your subscribers have an easy way to share your emails with their friends and followers by enabling Social Sharing, and add easy-to-spot links to your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn pages right on your emails. Moreover, think about how you’ll adjust your messaging for the various channels — and if you’ll run any channel-specific promotions or contests.
+ Do social media platforms have their own DNA? Read Grey Garner’s take here.
+ Add an Emma signup screen to your Facebook page.
5. Design for mobile devices. People stay busy during the holidays so it’s your job to find creative ways to reach them on the go. Small screens — and big thumbs — mean you’ll want to pay attention to your email’s width, its image sizes and the number of links. Include the most important content near the top of the email — even folks who choose not to scroll will see it. And if you’re sending coupons or discounts, consider allowing subscribers to use them right from their mobile devices when they’re in-store.
+ Want more mobile design tips? Take a look here.
+ Get all of the buttons in your email to look just right.
6. Make it memorable. Best practices aside, it doesn’t really matter how you do it, as long as you do it in a way that sticks in your subscribers’ minds. Have fun with a Thanksgiving-themed contest. Make a top ten list inspired by Santa’s reindeers. Include holiday photos in a standard Emma layout, or work with our graphic designers to come up with a fancy holiday campaign. However you slice it, if you present memorable content, you’ll stand out in the inbox.
+ See examples of our designers’ custom holiday work.
+ Request a seasonal design
+++++
What about you? How are you preparing your emails for the holidays? What kinds of plans do you have up your sleeve? Let us know in the comments below, and here’s to holiday emails that spread cheer!
Illustrations by Emma designer Lee Floyd
Facebook launches a new dashboard, API, ad unit and more
How do you feel about the recent changes, and how do they affect the way you interact with brands?
Oh, Facebook, there you go again. Changing things up just as I was getting comfortable with the last batch of updates.
As the administrator of Emma’s Facebook page, I suppose it’s time to embrace the inevitable changes to Facebook. It’s a platform that just doesn’t stay static — and perhaps that’s a good thing. It requires those of us who manage business pages to adopt a practical strategy that’s sustainable even as the platform is in flux.
Curious how Facebook’s changes will affect the way you monitor your brand’s business page or how you interact with brands on Facebook? Let’s take a look at a few articles that provide insight:
- Facebook’s New Tools Give Marketers Insights, Help Measure Fans’ Word of Mouth on Fast Company. E.E. Boyd gives a comprehensive view of new features released to Facebook today, including a new dashboard (called Insights) to measure the reach of individual posts, an API to build tools on top of Facebook’s data and a new ad unit that enables brands to create ads out of posts. The new dashboard is likely to please page administrators — now we’ll know more about our fans’ interests and their engagement with our brand. But, I’m curious, if you’re on the flip side of this, is it as appealing?
- Is this the future of Facebook business pages? on The Social Path. Kammie Avant posits that the new Timeline on personal pages is likely to make its debut on business pages soon. Now, Timelines are akin to autobiographical scrapbooks. Will this change how you tell your brand’s story? Will it prompt you to fill in story gaps?
- Prepare Yourselves: Facebook to be Profoundly Changed on Mashable. As Ben Parr suggests, Facebook is undergoing a rebirth of sorts. If it’s lost its emotional resonance, it wants to bring it back in the form of revamped friend lists, subscribe buttons and more.
- For more information on all of these updates, visit The Facebook Blog.
We want to know what you think of these changes. If you’re an administrator of a business page, how do they affect the way you use Facebook? Which changes make you cheer? Which ones make you grumble? And if you’re an agency thinking through these changes on behalf of your clients, what are your biggest considerations?
If you’re on Facebook to generally connect with friends and businesses you support, how do the recent changes affect your use? Are you spending more time than ever on Facebook, or are you drifting to other platforms, like GooglePlus? Are you more likely to “like” your favorite businesses on Facebook, or do you prefer to interact with businesses in different ways?
Is Facebook a platform that you love to use or love to hate? Tell us in the comments below — we’re interested to know what you think of these changes.
Emma’s in-house “Bike to Jack and Back” auction
A personal connection with multiple sclerosis leads to an innovative fundraising idea
It’s Emma’s second year participating in Jack Daniel’s “Bike to Jack and Back” MS Ride, and our team of riders is ready to kick (nay, pedal) some serious tail on October 1st and 2nd. Kelli Liszka and Jamie Bradley share their stories of how we got involved in this cause. Plus, read on for tips about a fun fundraising idea that any company can do — for any cause.
+++++
by Kelli Liszka
Every year, the National MS Society teams up with Jack Daniel’s for a bike ride called Jack and Back. Riders start just south of Nashville and ride to Lynchburg, Tennessee, where all of the world’s Jack Daniels whiskey is made, and the next day everyone rides back to the start. It’s a cool 150-mile roundtrip.
Emma’s involvement with Jack and Back started when a friend told me about the event in 2010. The MS Society was having a sale on ride registrations, and I sent it around the Emma house to see if anyone would be up for it. There was a pretty good response, and the first Jack and Back Team Emma was born.
This year our team has grown from 11 to 17 riders, consisting of Emma staffers, friends and family members. A group of Emma volunteers will also help out at the finish line, setting up camp and cheering on the hundreds of riders. We’ve been hitting the roads to get our legs ready for the ride and are hoping the weather will be in our favor this year.
by Jamie Bradley
In April of last year, I lost my mother to multiple sclerosis. I know, that’s kind of a bummer-y way to start my portion of this post, but stick with me — there’s a happy ending. I realized pretty quickly that there are only so many Lifetime channel marathons and long phone calls home one can stomach before thinking, “I should probably do something — anything — other than this.”
Along came Kelli’s email about Jack and Back. I don’t own a bicycle, but that didn’t stop me from participating. I brainstormed with some other not-so-athletic folks at Emma about ways that the entire office could get involved.
We decided to hold an online auction for all of our staffers to raise money and have fun. Our auction is in its second year, and it’s a huge hit. Even people who don’t want to bike 150 miles or volunteer during the race love the idea of a fierce bidding war for homemade cheesecake. I asked for all willing participants to tell us a “safe-for-work talent, good or service” that they’d like to auction off, and cheesecake was just the start. We got quite the array of offerings, from Doubles Tennis with CEO Clint Smith to A Deluxe Car Tune-up by designer Seth Wood to A Full Night of DJing For Your Next Dance Party by developer Josh Mock.
We posted all of the offerings online, and on auction day, staffers bid for their favorite items. The bidding gets a little ruthless, I assure you. Last year, we raised a little more than $1,300. This year? $2,575 and some change!
I’m proud it’s become an Emma tradition; our donations are making a huge difference to other families like mine.
+++++
Want to pull off a company-wide silent auction of your own? Here are a few quick tips:
- Create a survey to solicit participation. Encourage coworkers to submit anything from baked goods to singing lessons to a night of babysitting. Take a peek at our survey here.
- Export the survey results from Emma’s response page to an Excel spreadsheet. Now, it’s time to post entries in a spot where your officemates can easily view and bid on them. We used a platform called Jive, but you could use your company’s internal blog, build a simple landing page or even coordinate bids via email.
- Drum up excitement and explain the rules. Check out the email campaign that Kelli and Jamie sent to the Emma staff. (We’ve modified the email just a bit so the links are no longer live.)
- As bidding time ticks away, build momentum with another email campaign. See ours here.
- Finally, once the auction has closed, share news of the winners and money raised. It’s super exciting.
That’s all there is to it. It’s pretty simple, lots of fun and gets everyone involved. Have you got any company fundraising ideas up your sleeve? We’d love to hear them.
A few members of Jack and Back Team Emma
Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group.
Copyright © 2003 - 2012 Emma. All rights reserved.