Archive for April, 2009

How to get your email marketing messages opened is always on the mind of the email marketer. The sheer volume of companies using email has turned the medium into a bit of a double-edged sword for many potential email marketers: Not only have consumers become increasingly wary of unsolicited messages, significantly reducing ‘open’ rates, but the rising use of spam filters, which often target particular keywords and phrases in subject lines, stops many marketing emails from ever reaching a target’s in-box.

Here are a few key points to consider when writing your email subject line:

Keep it short and simple. There is a danger of making subject lines too long, and because of over-communication, people today tend to like simplicity.

Think segmentation. It’s important to test different subject lines for different customer segments. What works with one group may not work for another. In this way you should always test every subject line before sending your email out to various audiences.

Question almost everything. Subject lines that pose a question can work very well. A subject line that can grab the curiosity of the recipient stands a better chance of getting opened.

Make it about them, not you. An oversight that is often made with subject lines is failing to take the recipient into account. For example, We’re Having a Sale’ could be tweaked to read, ‘You Can Save Money’ because it drives home the value proposition you want to deliver.

Don’t be afraid of free. Often the word ‘free’ in a subject line is avoided because it can trigger a spam filter. However, it may be worth the risk when conducting a split test of your emails, providing you closely monitor the ‘open’ rates of each alternative subject line.

Inform before you sell. By describing what’s in the email in the subject line, a recipient may be much more willing to open it. By informing first, followed by selling, you can stand a much better chance of success simply because the email had been opened.

Hopefully these pointers will help you when considering your email subject line. But always remember to consider the following.

State clearly and succinctly what you are offering and how it will benefit your recipient. Throughout your campaign planning, put yourself in the position of the recipient. What makes you want to open an email? What makes you want to click on the link? If you know your audience, then you know what they want. If you’re not sure how they will respond, test the list in small increments and measure the results.

Good luck.

As a designer and eternal student to the craft of design, I have taken great comfort in reading “Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failures, and Lessons Learned”. The satisfaction in knowing that even the cream-of-the-crop have their off-days, not always hitting the mark every time. I understand the agony of defeat from an idea not coming to fruition as intended. I cringe at the ever so public, humiliating creative mistakes and blunders. But I also appreciate that with every stumble, dead-end and cock-up, there’s a lesson learned and a necessity not to find yourself there again. Without the disasters, there surely cannot be any triumphs!

Dozens of top designers reveal the heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious, mistakes they have made and talk about how they were able to grow from their experiences. Self-delusion, overcommitment, procrastination…they’re all here. Poor communication, missed deadlines, enraged clients…yes, they’re here too. Read this book and be inspired to find the silver lining in even the cloudiest situation.

If you’re looking to promote your website in any way, and are looking to take on board the learning process yourself rather than handing it over to a consultant or web design / SEO company, then there is some funding available for you right now.

The Leader First grant from Train to Gain, offers £500 initial funding, plus a further £1 for £1 funding up to £500 of additional funding on a £1500 project. To take advantage of this funding then you must not have undertaken any similar Leaders First funded training in the last 2 years and will need to apply through Train to Gain.

If you are interested in promoting your website and would like to investigate a funded training programme, then contact us for more details.

On the back of a previous MA news posting, ‘Web browser viewing trends’ we have discovered, whilst looking through our analytics report, that Firefox has overtaken Internet Explorer in terms of browser popularity when visiting our site. The significance is not a big deal, but it does point out once again the importance of testing sites on a variety of browsers.

The discovery also highlights the usefulness of the Google analytics tool in discovering the viewing habits of your website visitors. For more info on analytics visit: www.google.com/analytics/

For those of you that like your stats, below is some interesting info on the popularity of Firefox.

Source: StatCounter (web web analytics firm). Firefox 3.0 has become the most popular web browser in Europe, taking the crown away from Internet Explorer 7.0. Firefox 3.0 took 35.05% of the European web browser market followed by 34.54% for IE 7.0. It would appear that the shift is partly explained by a small switch from IE 7.0 to IE 8.0 but also by growing market share overall by Firefox 3.0.

This is a good question that has been raised by www.noisydecentgraphics.typepad.com. A high percentage of logos are only seen online, where colour is not a problem (ok, that’s not strictly true, individual screen resolutions/settings can affect screen colours, but you get the gist). Today’s advanced litho and digital printing methods allow colour to be easily produced over old school black and white printed pieces. Even press advertising is heading for the full colour option. Which leaves the question, where does a black and white logo need to appear? Obviously, there are many places, such as brand merchandising or labels. But even these can still have colour options if absolutely necessary. I guess the answer is, there is no need for a black and white version of a logo.

That said, I’m a big fan of simple, clever logos that can work in any environment. If your brand can be applied to etched glass or even sewn into a beanie hat without losing legibility or impact, then I think you have a logo that will be prepared for any situation your business requires of it. It’s not just about have a logo that is black or white, it’s about having a logo that lends itself to any environment.