5. Book Recommendation #1
“Why People Email
So Badly and
How to Do It
Better”
Featured on Today and The Colbert Report
6. Wisdom From Send
Email:
• “Took over our world in about a
decade”
• “Hardest written medium of all”
• We’re still struggling to integrate
• “We’re using it and overusing it
and misusing it”
7. Wisdom From Send
“The Unique Character of Email”
• No tone
• No reaction
• Used both formally and informally
• Very fast
• “Has vastly increased the amount
of writing expected of us
all” (including people whose jobs
never used to require writing skills)
9. Email Marketing Faux Pas 1
Poor List Hygiene
• Unsubscribes should be managed to
keep you CAN-SPAM compliant
• Clean your database of hard bounces
after each campaign
• Monitor soft bounces
• Keep an eye on your unsubscribe rate
• Take a close(r) look at purchased lists
Source: Email Experience Council
10. Email Marketing Faux Pas 2
“Sloppy Copy”
• Avoid funky MS Word characters
• Check your spelling. No, really.
• Read your message -- don’t skim
(their/they’re, missing words, etc.)
• Print it out and read it on paper?
• Get a second opinion
Source: Email Experience Council
11. Book Recommendation #2
“Simplicity is
about
subtracting the
obvious, and
adding the
meaningful.”
14. Email Marketing Faux Pas 3
Competing Links
“Unless it's a newsletter, most
emails should be single subject
with a single call to action.”
Source: Email Experience Council
15. Email Marketing Faux Pas 4
Cold Call-to-Action
• Text format (don’t forget many images are
suppressed by default)
• Keep it “above the fold”
• Top 1/3 and left-most areas most valuable
real estate
• Support with minimal graphics
Source: Email Experience Council
16. Email Marketing Faux Pas 5
Bad Subject Lines
• Approx. 7 words or 35 characters (use
your judgement)
• Don’t repeat your school’s name
• Key words first
• Avoid “SPAM-like” qualities
Source: Email Experience Council
17. Email Marketing Faux Pas
What gets you flagged?
• Percent of Capital Letters
• Repeating Capital Letters
• Gaps (s*t*y*l*e)
• Repetition of Letters
• Special Character Flag: Overuse of
special characters (e.g., & $ # @ ( )[ ] !)
• Punctuation Flag: Too much punctuation
• First Character Flag/First Word Flag
(words like "Free", "hey", "Sale" etc.)
Source: Email Experience Council
18. Email Marketing Faux Pas 6
Clumsy Coding
• Set pixel width to 600 (prevents the need to
scroll to the right)
• Don’t create as one big image
• Readable if images don’t render?
• Consider a “view online” feature
• Check your links! (again and again and again...)
Source: Email Experience Council
19. Email Marketing Faux Pas 7
Insufficient Testing
• Links
• Rendering of images
• Final copy-check
• Different browsers
21. Email Marketing Faux Pas 8
Lacking Mobility
“Email marketers are just
beginning to come to
grips with things like the
iPad and Android and
they really have to...”
Robert Fleming, eMarketing Association
22. Going Mobile
Tips for optimizing your email
campaigns on mobile devices:
1. Keep it plain
(plain text or very limited HTML)
2. Keep it short
3. Be very careful with images
23. Other Email Faux Pas
• Incorrect use of Bcc
• ALL CAPS
• Obnoxious font size
• Too much HTML
• Excessive forwarding
(FW:FW:FW:)
• “Reply All”
35. Do I Need to Apologize?
Definitely...
• Misstated date or time
• Broken Links
• Major rendering problems
• Wrong segments or recipients
• Server problems caused website issues
36. Do I Need to Apologize?
Maybe...
• Personalization glitches
• Minor coding issues
• Egregious spelling and grammar issues
37. Do I Need to Apologize?
Let these go...
• Minor typos
• Missing secondary images
• Slight rendering issues
• Broken ancillary links (not the CTA)
38. Adrienne’s “8 Simple Rules” for Apology Emails
1. Send it ASAP (but be careful!)
2. Make the subject line clear
3. Consider plain-text
4. Keep it short
5. Be cautious about humor
6. Who should it come from?
7. No excuses, just fix the problem
8. No mistakes in the apology email;)
