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RSSWhat makes great email creative? Is it the design, format, use of images -- or do you simply roll it all up into what you call a good customer experience?
My team gets endless requests to review email creative, both for our clients and for our many agency creative teams. They all think there is some magical formula for great email creative. I guess I've been so close to the email space for so long that I can't see what is so difficult about creating compelling email.
In my opinion, email design is relatively straightforward. Unlike a Web site or microsite, where you truly have to concern yourself with usability and functional design, email is much simpler. Too many companies try to do too much with creative, spending too much time on the considerations when the consumer will spend three to four seconds scanning it.
To simplify this, my team uses a combination of template designs or wireframes that help set up the functional elements of an email template. We use this to help designers do several things:
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The challenge with testing email creative is identifying what you are trying to accomplish. Ultimately it is about moving the needle and creating the best experience -- but testing creative is really about operational excellence. What is most visually appealing isn't always the best for the business, so if a piece that took 10% less time to develop performs at par with another, think about what that extra time could afford you. Maybe this will allow you more time to optimize a landing page?
Successful creative is about streamlining options. It takes time to create new imagery, think about new designs, and blend copy with flow -- and, if you are guessing each time, add 20% to your design costs.
So, what is the real art of testing creative? Here's a simple formula.
1. Draw a wireframes of several templates (they vary by purpose). These are simply boxes designed for the optimal width and length. Rule of thumb is, keep promotional messages and email that is designed for early lifecycle simple and straightforward and minimize the length. Newsletters and community publications can support longer-form wireframes.
2. Assign a description to each box and bullet the things that you can potentially test within those guides. For example, if your top box of 50x 700 is for "Click to add your email address to the address book," think about what else you could test in this area. (User Name, Promotional Message, site reminder message, or leave it out altogether). If it's a header image or text block, then think about testing typographic treatments, background colors, blending with imagery and replacing with imagery.
3. Sit down with your designer and walk her through the wireframes and what options she has for each section. Ask her, if she had two things to test in each box, what would she test -- and if you tested them and they worked, what would that do to help streamline creative next time?
4. Lastly, show her past results of emails that performed, which links performed best (in a visual format). Most email systems will give you a click map overlay report to show clicks by popularity and color code.
Do remember, you aren't limited to the email only. The email is designed to get the receiver from the email to the landing page, so test the exchange between the two. You may be surprised at what can be left out and provide better value at the point of conversion.
Knock 'em dead -- and if you have great creative or one you're struggling with, shoot it over and I'll give you my two cents. (dbaker@whitenoiseinc.com)
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Great Article! I agree that businesses must test out their creative layout before sending out email campaigns. Making an email newsletter visually appealing is an important part of ensuring that your email is read but many businesses “over-do� graphics and make it too busy for readers to absorb content. You are right there is no magic formula but following basic guidelines like ensuring brand consistency with logos used and not using too many styles (different fonts and colors for titles, headings, subheadings) can help improve the look.
Also remember that not all ISPs are the same when displaying your content. Spending all that time on your creative will be ruined if you discover Gmail has stripped your HTML or Hotmail doesn’t have the same fold location as outlook. To counter this, one of the most valuable tools to test with is a campaign preview rendering tool (like Habeas and Return Path offer). You can see at a glance what your creative will look like in a variety of email windows. Many ESPs offer access to services like this but if you don’t have access, ask friends/colleagues/team members with different email addresses (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc.) if you can send a test to their inbox and take some screenshots of the email. This will show exactly how your email creative is arriving in the inbox.
But don't let me minimize the importance of the "word", even though much can get lost in poor design and distracted design... How many great phrases have been poorly implemented in a commercial... (none that you can remember, right?- because the presentation is just as powerful as the word)
If you get 90% of it right, what's going to stick out is the bit that didn't work. How many times have you watched a commercial and said, "That was a great commercial, but..."? The 'but' could be followed by flaws in creative, words, offer, voice, attention, authenticity... it doesn't matter. What the sentence is really saying is that the communication didn't work.
The ONLY part of communication that matters is the overall experience -- which means EVERY part of communication matters.