Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Increase Open % With Jpg Or Html Messages

Posted by Anonymous on 4/9/2009 at 11:33 AM ET 125 Points
We are good Photoshoppers but not good HTMLers. As a result the emails we send out tend to be be JPG only. We make the entire JPG a link, and have it send them directly to our website.

See what I mean here:

[inactive link removed]

At the top of the email we have the line

View "Country Kids & Old West Bath Time"! Images not showing below? (see on our website)

then the big JPG, which is a clickable link to our website and that's it.

We are using the email marketing tool that comes with 1&1 internet. Since this is free we haven't felt the need to pay for Constant Contact, iContact or Benchmark but are willing to make some changes.

We would move to another service if we can be certain that would help. We could also consider making our emails HTML rather than JPG only if that would help.

Current open percentages for our emails are 25% and we would like to push this number higher. How should we do it?

Are we doing anything wrong?

[Moderator: Inactive link removed from post. 2/14/2011]
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 4/9/2009 at 12:06 PM Accepted
    As a minimum, I'd suggest putting the text of the call to action in the email as well, to give them a reason to click the link to view your images.

    Also, your subject line is key to ensure opens. How compelling is it?
  • Posted by Marco on 4/9/2009 at 12:52 PM Accepted
    There are many things that can be changed to help your ROI on the email sample. High level thoughts are:

    - sending an image only will hurt your deliverability; emails should never be 100% images
    - Many email clients block images so many of your recipients will not see anything when they open the email
    - You should pay (once) to have a HTML template created with email HTML best practices including HTML text so that your message still renders with images blocked
    - There is a lot of space wasted above the fold (the very top of the email) where you'll want to convey what the offer or call to action
    - The actual call to action is buried at the bottom (call now) - I would place it at the very top

    these are just a few thoughts - I hope it help!

    Marco


  • Posted by Linda Whitehead on 4/9/2009 at 1:06 PM Accepted
    I agree with everything Jay and Marco said.
    In addition once you get a HTML template developed, you may want to really consider using an ESP. I don't know what type of data you are receiving from your free marketing tool, but deliverability may be an issue. I don't know if you know what your delivery ratio is, how many are soft and hard bounces etc. With a reputable ESP who follows all best practices, you should improve these results. Also, you can track what links people are clicking on to see what is of interest. This will help you tweak your future communications to be more effective. The reporting is an important aspect of using an ESP. They also do offer templates you could consider using.
  • Posted on 4/9/2009 at 1:27 PM Author
    Jay, Here was the subject line we used:

    Show & Tell Photos - "Country Kids"/"Cowboy Bath House"/"Game Day"

    Probably a stronger call to action in the subject would help??

    Marco, getting away from JPG won't be easy, but we are willing to go there. As you can see, our message is not easily placed in the templates so common today. And our next ad won't look anything like this one so it will be difficult to have somebody do a template for us once. Could we use DreamWeaver or some other tool to help create each ad? Would we have as much creative control?
  • Posted by Mikee on 4/9/2009 at 3:45 PM Accepted
    You really need to take the plunge to html. Even these have a lower success rate than plain text, put image only is the worst. Your layout is not that complex and could be done with a tool like Dreamweaver. You might want to get a package that has Fireworks as they play well together. Fireworks is a pretty easy to use image editor optimized for web content (and thus html emails).

    Mike
  • Posted by Neil on 4/9/2009 at 7:14 PM Accepted
    Please take a look at a blog post I did on this topic:
    Ten Tips for Email Marketing Design.

    I work for the StreamSend Email Marketing service and we strongly recommend against our customers sending out emails that are one big graphic. We recommend you try for about 60% text and 40% graphics. I explain that and provide some other design tips in the blog post.
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