If you've used Emma's new editor, you've probably noticed a few improvements (mostly in the form of streamlined workflow and fancy features) that help you create the most stylish emails around.
Now comes another change designed to make it easier to know what's really going to get delivered to your recipients: Default text and image placeholders will actually display in the inbox.
Yep, the placeholders for text and images now appear in the actual email
When you send an email that looks like this, where the placeholders haven't been deleted or replaced with your real text and images:
A free readymade template with default content blocks to help you start adding text and images
It will render just like that in the inbox. In the past, those unused areas disappeared from view upon previewing and sending.
But now, you get a built-in preview experience as you go, and the inbox version of your email is true to the layout you built in your account.
Why we like it
When we set out to build a new editing experience for our customers, we aimed to cut down on the number of steps it took to get you from creating to sending. That means providing a sense of the email's look before the content comes together.
The placeholders and lorem ipsum text do just that, and by allowing them to render in the inbox, we're finally able to provide a "what you see is what you get" experience.
As the Emma staffer who sends newsletters and announcements to our own community, I appreciate being able to send a test email with the placeholders intact for the stories I'm still working on.
Even if all my email's content isn't finalized, my colleagues can get a feel for my layout choices, spot how the text will wrap around images and see where I've enabled captions.
What it means for you
Ultimately, this change adds up to more creative control for our customers.
When I worked in customer support, I found myself constantly reassuring customers using the old editor that they could ignore unused image and text boxes because Emma wouldn't send them.
But you know what? It's a lot to ask customers to imagine those placeholders aren't there. With Emma's new editor, you're in control, and it's easy to delete the content areas you don't need and just know that what you see on the screen is what's going to send.
Besides, I much prefer to free up customers' imaginations to dream up the most compelling headline copy, the most eye-catching images and the most irresistible subject lines.
So save your creative thinking for the important stuff.
We're excited to announce that we've partnered with Bigstock, one of the world's leading stock image companies, to provide Emma customers access to millions (yep, millions) of stock photo images for use in email marketing campaigns and beyond.
Emma chose to partner with Bigstock, which was founded in 2004 and has grown into one of the web's leading stock image communities, because we believe they have the best search tool and user experience of all the stock image sites out there. Elegant, easy-to-use tools are something we dig here at Emma, so this partnership makes a ton of sense.
Customers using our new editor will notice a new option next time they add an image to a mailing:
Log in to see how simple and seamless it is to find just the right image in Bigstock without ever having to leave Emma's editor.
Just type a keyword or phrase and Bigstock will serve up a whole slew of images that cost just $2.99 each to download and use in your mailing.
Editor's note: Scroll to the bottom of this post to request early access to Emma's new split testing feature.
A couple weeks ago, we tested out Emma's new subject line split test feature with a mailing to customers about fall holiday designs, and we learned just how hard it is to predict the behavior of our email audience.
There. I said it. We're an email marketing company – subject line experts, some may say – and we were surprised by the results of our first official subject line split test.
Here's how it went down. We started by coming up with a list of subject line candidates. After jotting down whatever came to mind, we reviewed our list and pointed out the distinguishing characteristics of each. Some were short and punchy, some long and explanatory, some teased a video, some used the word "free" or mentioned Emma by name.
The coolest part? We didn't have to pick just two subject lines to test -- Emma's split test feature lets you test a third variation, so it's a-ok to stick a wildcard in there and see what happens. Here were our picks:
Variation A: Emma's fall templates are free and ready in your account
Variation B: Free fall templates + a video of how we made the email you're about to open
Variation C: Fall design is here: free templates + affordable custom design
If we didn't have the option to split test, we would've sent Variation B to everyone. It's a little longer than your average subject line, and previous subject line tests (we've done a few over the years, but without the use of this handy feature) have indicated that our audience responds well to subjects packed with details. Plus, it mentions video, which we figured would entice recipients to open and click.
As soon as the split test was launched, Emma staffers postulated which subject line would perform best. We huddled around the whiteboard casting our votes on Post-Its and analyzing words and punctuation with unbridled scrutiny.
I'm not the only one who thought Variation B was our ticket to a high open rate.
The result? Well, we segmented our audience into two groups, customer contacts and non-customer subscribers to our emails, and we ended up with two winning subject lines:
Customers preferred Variation A: Emma's fall templates are free and ready in your account.
A screenshot of our account, mid-test. Customers favored a subject line that mentioned that we added free fall templates to all accounts.
Our broader email community preferred Variation C: Fall design is here: free templates + affordable custom design.
Our audience of email subscribers preferred the subject line that made a broader mention of fall design at Emma.
So there you have it. Sometimes you don't know your audience as well as you think you do. But isn't it great to have a tool that helps you gain that insight? I sure think so.
And you sure can have a ton of fun being wrong.
Can't wait to try split testing your own email marketing campaigns?
We're looking for a few eager folks to try out split testing alongside us. Just email us your username and we'll add this feature to your account right away.
