Posts Tagged myemma.com
Nominate a deserving nonprofit for free Emma email marketing service!
When we say it’s the most wonderful time of the year ’round these parts, we’re talking about Emma 25 time. It’s the annual program (now in its sixth year) where we team up with our customers to award free Emma service to deserving non-profits — 25 around the world, and 25 in the cities Emma calls home (Nashville, Portland, Denver and Austin).
If you’re an Emma customer, why not nominate your favorite non-profit for free email marketing and survey services from Emma? It’s a fantastic way to help those groups use email to stay in touch with volunteers, find donations, send newsletters, manage events and more.
Come early January, we’ll post all the eligible groups and invite the whole world to vote for their favorites. But for *your* favorite group to be an honoree, *you’ve* got to nominate ‘em.
It just takes a few minutes, and you’ll have that warm, fuzzy feeling that no amount of delicious gingerbread lattes can rival. Go on and get to nominating!
Two fabulous notes from the Emma community, post Arbor Day
Last week, we had a little fun on Arbor Day, crafting, um, totally fake notes from a few of the 28,000 trees the Emma community has helped plant this year. In reply, a few of our (always stylish) customers let us know of a few great tree-related programs in their *own* worlds, and we thought we’d share a couple of them with you now:
From Meryl Dorey at Fountain of Beauty Cosmetics in Bangalow, Australia:
Dear Emma folk,
This is not a support request – just a thank you! When I signed up for Emma (only a few days ago), I had no idea of your involvement with planting trees – but what a lucky coincidence. My husband is editor of the Big Scrub Rainforest Landcare newsletter and has spent the last 20 years planting about 15,000 rainforest trees native to the far North Coast of NSW where we are (the Big Scrub). I thank you for what you do to help the environment of North America – my home for the first 30 years of my life – and am very glad to have joined an organisation that cares for nature as well as providing such good service.
And from John Spady at Countrywide Community Forums in Seattle, WA:
I wanted to draw attention to a project that my 86-year-old father has been managing for over 10 years! The “Plant a Tree for Citizenship” project is sponsored by the Bellevue Overlake Rotary Club in District 5030. Here is a short blurb about it from their club site:
One of the most memorable and impacting hands-on project that is ongoing is our Plant a Tree For Citizenship program led by Dick Spady. Plant a tree involves elementary students growing evergreen trees from seeds and conducting a tree planting ceremony a year later.
Just another good story from an Arbor Day / Earth Day perspective!
Fun editorial note: Dick Spady, the man who started the program (also, John’s dad), is the same Dick Spady who started Dick’s Drive-In, the famous restaurant chain in the Seattle area. Burgers *and* trees. Clearly our kind of guy.
Thanks to Meryl & John for sharing their stories (and lives) with us, and here’s to all the great work being done around the world on behalf of our tall, leafy friends. Cheers!
Happy Arbor Day from Emma!
In honor of National Arbor Day, we decided to send an email campaign to the stylish Emma community highlighting all the trees they’ve helped us plant through our 5 Trees program. (We plant five trees for every new customer who chooses Emma as their email marketing service.)
Since the program began back in December 2007, we’ve planted more than 28,000 trees. And we decided to feature thank-you notes from 5 of those trees. Here’s an example:
See how pine, hackberry, apple and cypress trees say thanks, too. The full campaign is online here. Oh, and Happy Arbor Day! Last week, we asked our community of Twitter followers to tell us the ways they saw companies using email to play their April Fools jokes. It’s always refreshing to see companies injecting personality into their marketing campaigns, and this year’s f-f-f-foolin’* was no exception. Here are two we heard about from our Twitter friends: Scentiments With this email campaign, the online perfume retailer launched, ahem, Scratch and Sniff technology. When you click through to the landing page, you get the promo code for the discount – GOTCHA09. Even if the technology was fake, at least the discount wasn’t a joke. Thanks to @PrecociousJewel for the tip! Whole Foods Whole Foods took a more subtle approach in their weekly “Whole Deal” newsletter, featuring one banner ad for “Organic Air” as their Sure Deal of the week alongside regular products and promotions – the “deal” being paying $6.99 for .02 ounces of air. The landing page adds a few more jokes to the mix, including a picture of local penguins lining up for their new Antarctica store. Kudos to @StephanieKern for letting us know about this one. And of course, there were a few other popular ones – Gmail’s a perennial favorite (thanks, @NDPtweets), and the Guardian fooled a few folks into thinking they were going to be publishing all their news in Twitter format going forward (thanks, @moragbrand). I completely fell for Under Consideration’s fake rebranding of Verizon and felt equally as stupid as I did disappointed when I figured out it wasn’t real. What about you? Did you get a particularly clever or convincing April Fools campaign? How do you and your team find ways to add a little personality to your campaigns during the other 364 days of the year? *Come on. A blog post without a gratuitous Def Leppard reference isn’t really a blog post at all, is it? [tags]email marketing, april fools, myemma.com, scentiments.com, whole foods[/tags] I did some hypothesizing (thanks, 7th grade science teacher!) that the ’5-minute’ language would be more effective. After all, five minutes means five minutes, whereas ‘brief’ may just be marketing-speak for ‘the longest survey of your life, sucker.’ When you’re asking for someone’s time, there’s little question that it’s good to be as specific as possible. The question was: does being more specific in the invitation really make a difference in how people engage with your survey? Here’s what we found. While the difference wasn’t outrageous, the five-minute invitation gave us better click-through rates and survey participation rates. Between the ‘brief’ campaign and the ‘five-minute’ campaign, we saw: * An 8% increase in click-through rates in the email campaign And yes, there’s more. In the email campaign, there were two places folks could click through – the top mention, which is where we tested the different language, and the bottom mention, which stayed the same between the two campaigns. What’s interesting? The 8% increase showed up *exclusively* in the difference between the top-mention clicks. The clicks on the bottom-mention were statistically identical between the two versions. Based on that fun little tidbit, I’ve been doing some rather unscientific speculating (sorry, 7th grade science teacher) that the boost in engagement doesn’t come just from a subscriber *understanding* it’s a five-minute survey and appreciating the specificity. Perhaps it’s connected to the physical act of seeing (and then clicking) the language that’s setting the expectation. If that weren’t the case, I’d have expected a little more variation in clicks in the lower mention. The moral of the story: While setting an expectation with a specific time isn’t the silver bullet to boosting your survey participation numbers, the people who appreciate the specificity will be increasing likely to visit, start and complete your survey. Are you using email marketing to promote your surveys and online forms? If so, tell us what’s working for you. In an economic downturn, we know how appealing it sounds to send as many emails as possible to everybody on your mailing list. After all, email marketing is champ when it comes to making the most of your marketing dollars, returning $45 on average per dollar you invest. But like that half-eaten eclair in the break room, you’ve got to resist temptation. When you email too frequently with generic information, your readers might start to ignore your emails, opt out of them, mark you as spam, or (worst of all) completely dump you as a sender. It doesn’t mean you can’t send when you have something to say. It just means you want to be smart about how you’re sending. Here are three quick tips for staving off email fatigue: * Target your email campaigns! – With email segmentation, you can make sure that your message is getting in the right hands. Rather than sending another promotion to everybody about the newest Snuggie, send it to the people who are mostly likely to take action. Perhaps that’s people who’ve bought a similar product, clicked but *didn’t* buy in your last promotion, or people whose survey results showed that they really love the idea of a blanket with sleeves. Either way, email segmentation allows you to send fewer, more targeted messages. * Ask how often they want to receive it - Email frequency doesn’t have to be a mystery. When new subscribers sign up for your email campaigns, it’s easy to find out just how often they want to receive information from you. Give them the option to subscribe to a higher frequency than you would normally send — it might surprise you how many people actually want to receive extra content from you. Just be sure to honor their request. * Give ‘em what they really want – There’s no point in sending a message if you’ve got nothing to say. When people fill out your email signup form, they’re expecting a benefit for joining your list. After all, email marketing is a relationship. Reward the time and information your subscribers are giving you with a special coupon, product preview, whitepaper or VIP information. Are you trying any of these? Has the downturn impacted your email strategy or email marketing budget? Did you actually buy a Snuggie? Leave us a comment and let us know. Daylight Savings Time gets me *every* year. Seriously. I go from having evenings filled with activities, to feeling like I should be in bed by 8:15 pm. But the cool thing about this year of early evenings is it’s given me more time to delve into the bounty of holiday emails starting to roll in. So, in the spirit of giving, I thought I’d share a couple points that have stood out in my season-laden inbox. * Make it easy to forward. Whether it’s to pass on an invitation or drop a subtle gift hint, make sure subscribers have an easy option to move the information along. * Keep the holiday related information at the top. You’ve heard us preach about the ‘above the fold’ importance before, but it bears repeating. Turn the top 1/3 of your email into a virtual hub of reader engagement. Which…I’m not so sure is a real thing. But you understand, right? * Get personal. People have fairly full inboxes in general. When the holiday season hits, they get even fuller. So take a moment and find three ways to get a little more intimate with your readers. I know I’ve been more apt to click through emails that are tailored for, well, me. * Balance those images. I’ve received more emails with one large image this month than I have any other month. While I know rich images are tempting, be careful. Find a nice balance of images and text, and be sure to make the most of your alt tags. * Be thankful. Let your readers know they’re important to you. Whether it be a white paper, discount, or even a separate campaign, don’t miss the opportunity to let your subscribers know what they’ve done to help you out over the past year. So, happy holiday season, Emma blog readers. I hope you’ve latched onto a few ideas that will take your communication efforts to infinity. And beyond. Which is not a hint that I want anything Toy Story related this year. Or is it? This summer, I unexpectedly found myself planning a cruise. Not a bad gig, I know. As always, I was handing out my email address when I inquired about trips, curious to see the email campaigns of another segment of the email marketing world. That was early July. Now, it’s nearly October, and I’m just now getting the first email campaign from one of the cruise brokers. Three months ago, I would have loved to have seen the specials. Today, I opted out. How can you make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to your brand? Here are 3 quick ideas. -> Send a welcome email note. People are most interested in your newsletter right when they sign up for them. Sending an automatic welcome note (through your email service provider’s trigger email or autoresponder feature) matches the timing of your message with your subscriber’s interest. -> Send regularly. The ideal email frequency varies for each sender, in unique industries, based on individual goals. But letting three months go between email campaigns can cause once-interested subscribers to forget why they wanted your updates to begin with. If you’re not sure where to start with email frequency, try sending every three weeks and adjust accordingly. -> Think about new subscribers every time you send an email campaign. It’s easy to think of your upcoming email campaign as the next in long line of emails you’ve sent, but remember that it’s also the *first* campaign that some folks will see. Look at your email from the perspective of a first-time reader, and see how that mindset shapes your content. What are you doing to shape your a subscriber’s experience in the first few weeks of joining your email list? With only a handful of web-safe fonts out there, I find myself having to get a little creative with what’s available. As you may know, a font that is considered ‘web-safe‘ comes pre-installed on a wide range of computer systems and is used to increase the chance that the content gets displayed in its chosen font. If your recipient does not have the specified font, their browser or email program will select an alternative. The most current list of web-safe fonts include: Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, Georgia, Comic Sans, Trebuchet and Courier New. In my quest to take full advantage of these web-safe warriors, I’ve learned a few tips & tricks. 2. Create headers with images. 3. Gray’s the new black. Hopefully, this ‘moment of fonti-ness’ has inspired you to get out there and get creative with web-safe fonts. Feel free to stop by and let us know what tricks work for you. Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group. Copyright © 2003 - 2012 Emma. All rights reserved.
deciduous, produces medicinal bark, really into early-80s Bowie
"Hello, everybody, it's me, Ash. I just wanted to say thanks. By helping trees, you're supporting our efforts with photosynthesis, converting harmful carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen. But did you know that you're also supporting our efforts with photosynthesizers, converting lifeless keyboard melodies into catchy jazz flute renditions of bossa nova riffs? It's just nice to know you're making a difference."
April Fools, email style.
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A survey invitation that’s, well, inviting
When we released surveys to the Emma community last month, we couldn’t help but send a Emma-powered survey to our customers, too. And, in the spirit of learning how surveys and email marketing campaigns work best together, I used the survey’s email invitation to test which link was more clickable: an invitation to take a brief survey or a more specific offer to take a 5-minute survey.
* A 9% increase in people who started the survey once arriving on the page
* An 11% increase in people who completed the 18-question survey
Smarter email marketing in a recession
5 ways to bundle holiday cheer into your emails
What do your latest email subscribers think of your latest email campaign?
Font use for a web-safe world.
1. Pick a font and stick with it.
While a menagerie of Times New Roman, Comic Sans, and Verdana sounds eye-catching, too many font faces can really take the look of your email ‘over the top.’ Instead, maintain consistency and style by using variations of the same font. There are many ways to explore this method through use of color, weight, and size. It should still allow for plenty of variety within the email and it’ll also make your font choices easier.
Ever find yourself just wishing that you could use that awesome, free font you just downloaded in your next email? You can always use the font in an outside program and then bring it into your email as an image. I tried out this trick recently to add a bit of jazz, pizazz, whimsy, whatever-you-wills to my header sections. What do you think?
Here’s a new trend in email design: try using medium and dark shades of gray for your body copy color instead of black. It’s a quick and effective way to transform the look of your emails into something a bit more friendly and casual (assuming that’s the look you’re going for).
