Melon Corporate Blog
Email Goes wrong - Case Study and Prevention
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Apr 17, 2008
Every so often there it is - an article in a mainstream newspaper describing how someone has created havoc by using CC instead of BCC.
Email is a powerful tool - and like all powerful tools - it can be used for good or evil - furthermore when things go wrong they can go spectacularly wrong.
[Cartoon image is from the Financial Review 17 April 2008]
The Financial Review Wednesday 16 April 2008 has a story about Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit and how the secretariat sent an email cc’ing recipients instead of bcc’ing them.
[ As an aside we are very impressed that Tamerlaine Beasley the principal of one of our clients Beasley Intercultural has been selected to participate in the Summit.
Tamerlaine will be involved with the ‘Australia’s Future in the World’ stream. Tamerlaine will canvass opinions regarding Australia and its future in the region and the world.
We interviewed Tamerlaine for one of our previous newsletters.]
One quick and easy way to improve your email marketing campaigns
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Apr 07, 2008
I have noticed that many of our self managed customers often leave out one element of their html email creatives that can easily improve their click through rates.
All research and previous campaign experience indicates that both web and email users just LOVE clicking on things.
They try to click on text, images, headers, footers, they just seem to have a thing for clicking!
Don’t squish! Resize! Images and Html Emails
Fiona King (Graphic Designer) - Apr 03, 2008
How many times have you seen an image in an html email that just looks wrong… too many times! It may look streeeeeetched ... or sqshed!
This is because people have attempted to resize an image in an html program without actually resizing the image itself (gif, jpg, or png).
Html editors are partly to blame as they allow users to do this.
So instead of the actual image size changing, what is happening is the html is representing the image of one size, as another size. Kind of like trying to squeeze a kid that has grown into his old clothes.
If the "aspect ratio" (proportion between width and height) of the new resized image at least stays the same as the original image then the image will look ok but appear either crunched or stretched.
However when people resize images in an html program often the aspect ratio changes from the original image and the image looks quite different to the original image.
Below is an example of an image squished into an aspect ratio that doesn’t match the original image.
So if you need to resize an image into a defined space that has an aspect ratio different from your original image you’ll usually need to crop the image to fit.
If you don’t have an editing program such as Photoshop a solution to resizing and cropping your images can be found within your Microsoft suite of applications.
Have a look for Microsoft Office Picture Manager within your applications.
A step by step tutorial for resizing images can found here.
Make sure after finishing your changes you save using a new file name to avoid copying over your original file. Mac users can resize and crop using iPhoto which comes packaged with the Mac.
Don’t forget about your offline email list building initiatives
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Mar 30, 2008
I went to a 3 day festival over the Easter break.
When I left the festival at the exit gate there was a volunteer wishing everyone farewell as they left.
He also had a clipboard and a pen and asked each and every person to fill in their details if should they want to be kept in the loop about the festival via email newsletters.
It reminded me that although it is crucial to have opt in boxes and other online forms in place offline initiatives are just as important.
What rhymes wih Rex - powerful subject lines
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Mar 20, 2008
What rhymes with REX...
This was the subject line in a newsletter that I received from Tricom Equities Stockbroking about a year ago.
The email contained research regarding the Regional Express Airlines that is listed on the ASX with code REX.
The subject line was so good that I haven’t forgotten about the email over a year later!
Such can be the power of an effective subject line...
In a recent survey (same as previous link) 59% of recipients said that they determine the value of each email by the subject line.
So what makes a good subject line?
Powerful subject lines should generally be short and tap into peoples’ curious nature - they should generate a thought in the recipient along the lines of "I wonder what that is all about, tell me more".
Subject lines need to pack a proverbial punch as well as generate intrigue or have a “twist”.
With a little intent the most ordinary of subject lines can be repackaged into a powerful subject line.
Email Marketing Resources
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Mar 06, 2008
I review a lot of magazines, blogs, websites and newsletters - relating to online marketing and business in general.
I thought instead of providing an exhaustive list I will review a few of my favourites every so often.
3 online resources relating to email marketing that I regularly make use of include:
- MarketingSherpa : a great source of research material, trend analysis, case studies and industry updates
- Email Marketing Reports: a collection of well researched rigorous articles on email marketing - it is a breathe of fresh air to read solid articles about email marketing as opposed to the self interested "fluff" that is so common on blogs
- Clickz Email Marketing Newsletters: a choice of many focussed industry newsletters written by experts in each field
Please feel free to leave comments with some of your favourite email marketing resources.
Next week I will discuss some of my favourite magazines.
Do you love your lawyer?
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Feb 29, 2008
by Kevin Garber, General Manager
In her article ”Subscribers Speak: Email Connections are Still Welcome, but Increasingly Fragile“
Stephanie Miller from Return Path makes a good point about lawyers: that we all tend to love our own lawyer, but don’t think much of lawyers in general.
She goes on to state that recent research indicates that email marketing is evolving into a similar “love hate” scenario -
“When email connects, it really connects. Yet, still so much email marketing is tired, old batch-and-blast.”
Interview with Meiron Lees from Innercents about his email newsletter
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Feb 28, 2008
Meiron Lees from InnerCents stopped by our office for a quick chat about his newsletter.
Meiron puts out a great regular email newsletter relating to leadership and motivation.
Beautiful on the Inside - HTML code and your emails
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Feb 08, 2008
It’s not difficult to create great looking emails <start shamless plug> especially if you choose Melon Media to create them for you </end shamless plug> but how do your emails look ‘on the inside’?
The code that makes up your HTML email is an important, yet often neglected, aspect of email creation. It dictates to the Outlooks, Hotmails, Gmails and MacMails of this world how the email should be displayed, and though the concept may be difficult to appreciate, these browsers ‘see’ the code and then render it as it sees fit. So where you see the colour red, the browser sees #FF0000.
Therefore if your code is not clean, or has parts missing, or is extraneous, or uses deprecated tags - then there is every likliehood that this messy code will translate into a messy email.
If you want your clients to see a clean, well designed email when they receive it - read on.
The perils of using BCC for email broadcasts
Adam Benson (Chief Web Systems Architect) - Jan 25, 2008
A question we hear frequently is: “Why should I use an email marketing tool such as melonMail when I can just copy and paste the addresses into my email programs BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) field or just use Mail Merge?”
One of the easiest mistakes many marketing staff make is misunderstanding how broadcast emails are in fact very different to the normal emails you send around the office.
There is unfortunately a misperception frequently from managers that email marketing is an amazing breakthrough not because of its convenience and effectiveness compared to other mediums - but because its FREE compared to traditional “snail-mail” campaigns.
It is true that the overall cost of an email campaign can be significantly lower than a paper campaign however, if you want any level of success from your broadcast its important to understand that its not as easy as copying and pasting then clicking send.
The very existence of the multitudes of specialist email broadcasting providers speaks testament to this - how could they stay in business if it were that simple?