As we all know from our own experiences as subscribers, the marketing emails that people look forward to are those with the most distinctive personalities. Subscribers are much more eager to engage when they feel like they have a relationship with an individual or a persona than with a company.

For most brands, infusing messages with personality means cultivating a unique and consistent tone with design and copy choices. Increasingly, though, brands are finding ways to put actual human faces and/or human emotions into their email, making the messages seem more personal and creating continuity between messages. Below, we'll take a look at how some top retailers are adding personality to their email.

• Backcountry's memorial message is the most sincerely poignant example of personality in email that we've seen recently. The April 10th Backcountry email was sent with the sole purpose of memorializing a professional skier and inviting subscribers to help support his family. The message fosters a supportive sense of community between Backcountry subscribers.

• SmartBargains' holiday message shows subscribers the actual people behind the brand. This is an approach not usually taken, very literally demonstrating that actual people are creating and sending the emails.

• Crutchfield's marketing email features a picture of and quote from their CEO. In a similar way to the SmartBargains message, this makes it easier for subscribers to feel an individual connection to the company.

• Urban Outfitters' top reviewers email creates a community feeling and also encourages the subscriber base to become more active. When they see reviewers recognized, subscribers understand that their own reviewing efforts are valued, and they may be inspired get more involved. Sephora customer reviews function similarly.

• J.Crew's Jenna's Picks is a novel way to put a face on the fashions. The only problem? In many J.Crew emails, we don't quite know who Jenna is! In this message, they describe her as "our in-house style expert and muse" (vague, but we'll take it), but in other messages they just call out "Jenna's Picks" without reminding subscribers why we should care about Jenna.

• Barneys New York's Barneys Babble invites us into the sharp, funny mind of Simon Doonan. We get to follow Simon's adventures and hear his insights on fashion, and Barneys thereby takes on more character.

• Nordstrom's "At your service" email makes online shopping seem more personal by calling out special services. It's always personal to shop in-store at Nordstrom and interact with sales associates, and this email extends the service experience across the email channel.

There's room in almost any brand voice to add a personal touch that will invite your subscribers to feel more connected with your company. For more musing on this topic, check out Silverpop's Engagement Marketing Blog article, Do Your Emails Have a Personality?.

Bubbling with Personality,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

There is a consensus among email marketers that keeping uninterested subscribers on your email lists does more harm than good. Before your unengaged subscribers unsubscribe or – gulp! – report you as spam, take measures to reengage them and reinforce their positive relationship with your brand.

Here are a few ideas for keeping your subscriber base active and excited about your email:

• Run a relevant, engaging email program in the first place. The most important way to keep subscriber attention is, of course, to pay attention to your whole email program at each step. Maintain relevant content, design creatives that subscribers enjoy seeing, and refrain from overmailing.

• Send a "We Miss You" message with a special offer to inactive subscribers. When you know you have unengaged subscribers on your list, show them that you still care. One way to do this is with a "missing you" message, sweetened with a special offer. Smith-Harmon clients Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids added a dynamic "We've missed you!" banners to emails sent to inactive subscribers.

• Involve subscribers by inviting them to help support a cause. Strengthen subscriber relationships with your brand by encouraging them to help you support a cause. This shows subscribers that you care about more than just dollars and also fosters a sense of investment in your brand's efforts. For example, Lucy has encouraged subscribers to help support the Breast Cancer Network of Strength, and PetSmart has invited subscribers to join them in helping homeless pets.

• Run contests or sweepstakes that encourage interaction with your brand. Everyone loves to win. If the reward is enticing enough and the process is simple enough, subscribers will jump at the chance to enter your brand's contest or sweepstakes.

In a recent contest, The Cheesecake Factory asked for new flavor idea submissions from subscribers and then went a step further by letting other subscribers vote for the winner (I'm particularly pleased, since my pick won. Yum, Red Velvet).

Last winter, Urban Outfitters enticed subscribers to create a holiday wishlist by allowing them to enter a drawing to "win their wishlist." Even the contest losers (such as myself) received an email with a discount offer to keep them shopping.

• Marketing a good or service your subscribers aren't familiar with. By showing your subscribers something that they may not have known you carried, you may inspire them to revisit your site. For instance, The Container Store took Earth Day as an opportunity to reveal themselves as a vendor of environmentally-conscious storage options.

Hopefully your email program is so relevant and engaging that no subscriber would ever DREAM of hitting the unsubscribe button. But if you happen to be seeing a high number of inactive subscribers, give some of these ideas a try and see if you can recapture some attention.

Always Active & Engaged,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

It's spring! Everything around us is green and fresh…why not our email photography treatments? This week, we took a look at how brands have been discovering new ways to treat imagery in email, ranging from simple to strange.

Spicing up silos. Products silos are so effective that they're fairly prevalent, but that's no reason for bland designs. Check out these brands' sweet silo treatments:

• Piperlime's propping grounds their silo products while adding interest. What could look fresher than daisies?

• Sephora's props help products pop on an otherwise stark background. They break the grid and add sensual context to products with benefits are tough to convey visually.

• Barneys New York makes their silos stand out against a black background with a jagged, artsy cut.

Thinking outside the grid. While sometimes the straight and simple product grid is the best option, it's worth looking at how some brands have stirred up their gridding for a fresher look.

• Restoration Hardware's clean design shows products framing body copy. It's still a grid, but it offers an alternative to a hero with products gridded beneath.

• Urban Outfitters' checkerboard collage of lifestyle shots features products and art imagery. The individual products don't stand out the way they would in a conventional grid, but they create a strong impression of what the brand offers for spring.

• Boden's use of product silos laid out on a mat-like background image shows a unique alternative to boxes. The inclusion of environmental shots in each section adds even more interest to what could have easily been laid out as a long, less interesting grid.

Why choose? Fun image combos. By incorporating more than one form of imagery, designs take on an artistic look that can suit unique themes.

• Betsey Johnson's cartoon illustrations always complement their images and make the photography seem more interesting.

• Fossil's combination of environmental photography, illustration and a product silo makes this seem like a page out of a scrapbook, suiting the style of the bag and the theme of "reclaiming pastimes."

• Coach uses a silo shot right alongside an environmental shot of the same product. The contrast is visual interesting, and allows Coach to position the product both aspirationally and with functional details.

Set for success with inset images. Including smaller, inset photos over larger imagery is a sleek, simple way to add interest to designs.

• Macy's inset photos set over an environmental shot add product imagery without disrupting the design's windswept desert theme.

• Anthropologie insets a small image of a model over a larger photo of the same model in the same set. The photography is conventional but this treatment makes it seem fresh.

• Fossil includes small close-ups of the models' hands over the larger environmental shot. This makes particular sense for Fossil as it allows them to highlight their watches while still using rich environmental photography.

Poppin' play with color. Brighter spring and summer color palettes (in both products and design) offer an opportunity to have more fun with color.

• Nordstrom uses bright background colors behind their models to make the vibrant clothing stand out even more.

• Shopbop's mix of color and black-and-white photography creates a somewhat jarring contrast and adds an edgy flare to their design.

• Free People's use of a similarly-staged photo with four different-colored pairs of shorts is fun and playful – perfect for spring.

Other creative trends. Freshening up image treatments means taking risks, trying unique approaches and sometimes even getting a little strange….

• Neiman Marcus tries something fun and funky by showing faded version of their model behind the clear hero image. You get the sense that she's actually spinning, per the headline.

• Barneys New York adds intrigue by playing with the orientation of their images in an inventive way.

• Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman all demonstrate the recent trend of incorporating snapshots into designs. (This must work; Lisa bought the "Taylor Momsen" look dress straight from the email!)

In many cases, the image makes the email. This spring, we challenge you to take risks and try photography treatments that will set your email apart in the inbox.

Getting Fresh this Spring,

Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon, Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Marketing to a belt-tightening consumer base, it's now more important than ever to entice subscribers with the most compelling offers you can dream up. It's equally important, of course, to deliver the offers in the most compelling emails possible. It's been interesting to see more inventive sale messaging strategies and design approaches appear in the inbox recently.

Stunning Strategies:

Fun Themes:

• Spend more, Get More: Barneys New York recently offered gift cards to high-spenders: the more you spend, the more you get! Offering gift cards in climbing denominations makes it possible for Barneys to offer fewer straight discounts.

• Find the Savings!: Last year, Disney (scroll down a little) created an Easter egg hunt-themed sale, where browsing was rewarded with "hidden" discounts ranging from 15% to 40%. Not only was the childhood throwback brand-appropriate, but the tactic also encouraged subscribers to keep browsing in search of that elusive 40% off.

• Daily Deals: Piperlime recently ran a fun "Five Days of Treats" series. They presented a new special deal each day, keeping subscribers checking back to find each exciting offer.

Value Messaging in Full-priced Messages:

• Emphasizing Value: Nordstrom, traditionally comfortable in its position as a higher-end, higher-priced retailer, has been shifting its email messaging to include an emphasis on value. Recent subject lines and body copy call out lower costs available on full-priced Nordstrom goods.

• Eating In: In their subject line, "Eating in? We've Got all the Essentials You Need," Pottery Barn acknowledges that their subscribers are likely spending less time and money out on the town. They take advantage of the opportunity to remind subscribers that Pottery Barn's high-quality, long-lasting wares provide the necessities for nice evenings at home.

• Living Simple: Anthropologie uses this email to emphasize how they can cater to an earthy lifestyle rather than highlighting their clothing collection. It's a bit off that their landing page shows their fashion rather than housewares or books, but the message conveys how Anthropologie acknowledges the turn towards simple living.

• DIY: Sephora's "DIY" angle caters to recession-savvy shoppers with eyes on beauty. By calling out salon pricing and the savings of styling oneself, Sephora finds their niche in the value-conscious arena.

Dynamic Designs:

• Unique Text Treatments: A lot of brands send crisp and direct copy-only emails for unfettered sales messaging. Using unique text treatments, like Banana Republic's, can add visual interest without requiring graphics or images.

• Placement of Special Offer Submessaging: Some brands, like The Container Store, add sale messaging as a banner or promotional text in the preview pane. This calls attention to savings without disrupting the rest of the email message. Gymboree manages to convey three different savings offers by packing some punch in their preview pane space. Others add sale submessaging at the bottom of the email so that their main message makes the first impression, as in this Janie and Jack email.

• Graphic Representation vs. Product Imagery: Most brands avoid product imagery in their sale messaging, instead using graphic treatments to create interest, as in REI-OUTLET.com's use of logos. Another graphic approach, still fun and fresh, takes the form of discount tags, like those of Chicos and Old Navy.

With the upcoming months economically uncertain, all we can do is hold on tight and keep an eye to inventive and engaging approaches.

Scoping out the sales,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Much has been written in the category of "the best" when it comes to email marketing. For example:

*Best day to send
*Best time to send
*Best subject line
*Best copy, design, call to action

Best. Best. Best. There certainly are email marketing best practices and guidelines to follow; however, "best" is often relative to your company's situation. It depends on your audience (subscribers, readers, lurkers), the industry you are in (b2b vs b2c, retail vs government, etc), and many many other factors. At the end of the day, what matters most is did the email campaign reach or exceed expectations? Did you achieve the open/click/conversion numbers you had intended?

Below is an example of an email I received recently from Egencia. (Egencia , formerly Expedia Corporate Travel, is the "fifth largest travel management company in the world." Bronto uses it to book corporate travel). Let's break it down into the "best" categories outlines above. How did they do?

1. Best day to send: The email was sent on Thursday. It was sent to my company email address, so sending during the middle of the week makes sense. If they had sent this email to me over the weekend, it may have been buried in my inbox until Monday morning.

2. Best time to send: I received the email at 11:02 PM. Many people are not awake at that time, and if they are, they're probably not checking their work email (well…wink, wink). However, based on the time sent, the email was near the top of my inbox on Friday morning. Also, sending during off-peak times *can* result in better deliverability.

3. Best subject line: Determining the best subject line can certainly be subjective. If possible, I'd recommend performing some form of A|B subject line test on every single email you send. Most email service providers (ESPs) offer this option. Take advantage of it. In this case, I thought the subject line was so-so. It certainly caught my attention as it was asking a seemingly personal question, "How are we doing?"; however, without sender recognition (I knew who Egencia was), I may have deemed this email spammy. Egencia could have offered some incentive for completing the survey and/or added a deadline or sense of urgency into the subject line. But…I opened it. So, the objective of the subject line was met - for me.

4. Best copy, design, call to action:

Copy: The copy here was short and to the point - exactly how it should have been. After all, the message is simple: Fill out the survey. Sometimes marketers clutter these emails with sales pitches, partner offers, and other items that distract from the intent of the email. I like Egencia's KISS approach.

Design: I am usually a big fan of an email that balances text and images; however, as mentioned above in the "copy" section, this email was intentionally image-light. They could have included a few images to spice up the email a bit, images that would have added and not detracted from the message. No harm either way.

Call to action: This is one area where I would've like to see a stronger call to action. "Just click this link to begin" followed by the full URL "http://expedia.qualtrics.com" is pretty weak. Give me reason, an incentive, to complete the survey. Just like they preach in sales training, WIIFM - "What's In It For Me?" Provide several options to get to the survey. Perhaps a bullet-proof button or a "Take Survey Now" link.

Overall, I really like this email from Egencia. I opened the email, clicked on the link, and even spent the 3 minutes to fill out the survey. Well done Expedia team.

What do you think? Would you have opened, clicked and/or completed the survey? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

- DJ Waldow, Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto

The eec blog post introducing the new "render rate" (by the Measurement Accuracy Roundtable) has drawn dozens and dozens of comments to date – from supportive to some that question the value of the standardization initiative.

There were also a number of comments and questions that indicate many people still don't understand what the open rate does and doesn't measure and how open rates are actually tracked. This blog post will be the first of a series from various members of the Measurement Accuracy Roundtable that address the comments and questions posted on the blog.

Before diving into a detailed explanation of how the open rate works and what it does and doesn't measure, I wanted to remind everyone of the core objective and purpose of this initiative.

The Measurement Accuracy Roundtable was formed with two primary purposes:
1) To ensure that email industry metrics that were widely adopted accurately measured what they were designed to measure;
and
2) That the metric was measured consistently by vendors and marketers. The intent was not to eliminate metrics or pose our opinion or preferences on email marketers.

With that background and reminder, let's dive into the basics of the open rate, which hopefully conveys why the eec took up the initiative to standardize this popular email metric…

How open rates are measured: Your email technology automatically inserts html code that references an invisible (often referred to as a "clear" or "1×1″) tracking image in your email, usually at the bottom of the email.

Like the other images in your HTML emails, they are actually hosted on a server, not embedded within the email. When a recipient opens the email, and images are not blocked, the image is called/pulled into the html message from the hosting server. As the image is pulled into the message, it is appended with a unique identifier that is associated to the receiving email address. That rendering of an image associated to an email address has been commonly referred to as an "open." Now, it gets more complicated.

When an "open" is counted: With the above definition in place, let's look at the scenarios in which an open is counted or reported:

Email marketing copy can sometimes start to feel stale. For instance, how many ways can we say "sale"!? It's often necessary for us to actively seek ways to refresh our messaging. As spring begins, let's take a look at some strong, unique copy treatments. Let's look at words with fresh eyes.

Choosing from our favorite brand "artists," we've compiled a "mix tape" (or, these days, an iPod playlist) of copy treatments. Check it out and see if it inspires any new moods.

I Saw the Sign: Subject Lines

• Boden subject line: "A Boden offer to get your knits in a twist." Including branding at the front of the subject line has shown to boost open rates in some studies, implying that some subscribers just scan subject lines without looking hard at the "from" name. Boden picks up this tip and also entices subscribers with the promise of an offer inside. Love the "knits in a twist" rhyme .

• Sephora subject line: "Pick 5 samples!" This short subject line stands out amongst the longer ones and engages the subscriber with a direct call-to-action and a fun offer. While there's some debate around subject line length best practices (check out Chad White's Email Insider article), most email marketers aim for between 35 and 45 characters. Some of the most attention-catching subject lines are shorter than that, though, like this one.

• Nordstrom subject line: "Dive In: New Swimwear from Miracle Suit." The subject line is clear about the email content, and the unique punctuation and fun intro "Dive In:" may garner some extra attention.

RESPECT: Preheaders

• Staples: Last week, Chad White blogged about Staples' preheader in his Retail Email Blog. Staples used clever copy to appeal to their subscribers' point of view, asking them "Is your coupon not displaying correctly? Prompt to view." as well as prefacing their whitelisting request with "Don't miss the savings." Staples recognizes that their subscribers don't care about missing emails, they care about missing savings, and the copy conveys this understanding.

• Piperlime: Because their (adorable!) headline "Tailor Made" probably wouldn't make sense to someone viewing the email without images, Piperlime writers include a different headline for the preheader text, which maintains the playful tone but adds clarity: "Turn it up in menswear-inspired heels. Shop now."

I Heard it Through the Grapevine: Forward to a Friend
Most "forward to a friend" links are direct and clear, but some brands spice it up.

• J.Crew asks subscribers to "spread the word" to their friends as a main CTA in this message.
• giggle includes their FTAF link prominently at the bottom of their email and prefaces it with "Psst," to give the impression that they are inviting their subscriber to pass on a secret.

Greased Lightning: Headlines

• Apple always has great headlines. Their recent email for iPod Touch games is particularly genius: "Score major points this Valentine's Day." The play on "scoring points" is fun and, coupled with the image of the iPod Touch Scrabble game spelling out "LOVE YOU," the whole message is playful and engaging.

• Urban Outfitters: The headline on this email, "YOU LOST" is hilarious. It came long enough after I entered this sweepstakes that I'd forgotten all about it, and the headline caught my attention and led me to read the rest of the email, which contained a special consolation prize discount offer.

• J.Crew's headline "On it way…" freshens up a shipping message that would otherwise be drab. Cool copy can make the simplest messages satisfying for the subscriber.

Baby One More Time: Subheadlines

• Barneys New York's subheadline, "You really need to read today's barneys babble," sounds like an urging from a friend. The subscriber feels like she'd be missing out if she didn't check it out.

• J.Crew gets a third shout-out for their subheadline from a while back. It reaches subscribers right where they are—on their computers, presumably working on something—and invites them to take a quick shopping break.

Twist and Shout: Body Copy

• Land of Nod has some of the most consistently strong copy in the industry. The body copy in this email reaches out to its audience of mamas by making it clear that Land of Nod really understands what it's like to have a newborn. "We know it'll be hard to put the baby to sleep", they're saying, "but at least you'll have this cute bedding to look at."

• Sephora's body copy in their main message and submessages often appeals to the senses, enticing subscribers with quick snippets.

Jack and Diane: Personalization

• Virgin America (whose copy always rocks!) took a fun approach to personalization in this message. Saying "Hey Darrah," instead of "Hi," or "Hello," is conversational enough to immediately engage the subscriber in a dialogue. While "Hey," doesn't fit the voice of every brand, it's worth considering the perfect form of personalization for your subscriber base.

Where Are You Going: CTA

• Piperlime: Piperlime shows some sweet spring sandals and then calls subscribers to "Find Yours". The CTA make sense coming off the body copy. We feel like the perfect sandals are awaiting us if we just click.

• Anthropologie's "See for Yourself" CTA fits nicely into the theme of this email, which introduces some loud and unusual prints and challenges potentially-skeptical subscribers to see how good they'll look.

• Backcountry uses the straightforward-and-proven "SHOP NOW" CTA in their primary message area, but they get creative in their secondary messages with "Get Layered", "Skin Up" and "Little Stuff." A nitpicky point is that the third CTA would have been stronger as a verb phrase for the sake of consistency, but we'll let it go since all three links are so fun and inviting.

Bye, Bye Baby: Conclusion
All brand "artists" mentioned above have consistently on-brand, unique and compelling copy. If you aren't already on their subscriber lists, you might consider signing up for some new ideas. The most important consideration, of course, is the harmony between the design and the copy, so get collaborating and see what jives.

Dance party, anyone?

Feeling the Beat,

Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon, Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

They say that no two snowflakes look alike. Does the same hold true for any two holiday email campaigns? With so many brands celebrating the season via email, it's been interesting to watch unique ideas emerge within the creative snowflake flurry!

This year's snowstorm…

• REI created a distinctively modern and stylized snowflake for the holiday season. They also lightened up their color palette and introduced bright pink so that their messages have a more festive feel that stands out from those using more traditional holiday colors.

•Staples' snowflakes are whimsical, playful and convey a hand-made feeling, which is an interesting choice for an office supply store. If we want to get really interpretive, we could say that these delicate and individual snowflakes imply a personalized attitude towards each subscriber. Or maybe it's just that they're cute.

•Lands' End went with really simple snowflakes—they almost look like a child could have cut them out of paper. The animated banner really conveys COLD as the problem, and the answer is, of course, FLEECE!

•Dickies roughed out the edges of their email, managing to give snowflakes a gritty, edgy look that appeals to their masculine audience. Hey, guys get cold too!

•Circuit City's itty-bitty snowflakes can also be seen as twinkles, making the product seem bright, shiny and special.

•Nine West's subtle snowflakes are unlike anything we've seen before. They incorporated the number 9 to create their flakes. This design has a nice, subtle nod to the holidays, but ultimately most people shop at Nine West for themselves… We're fans of the light blue/dark red color palette for the holiday, too. It's unexpected and can make a brand stand out, yet it still feels festive!

•Cusp has edgy, modern snowflakes in their header and their background. Somehow these snowflakes seem fashionable or even trendy, which makes sense for Cusp.

•LL Bean chose an ornate snowflake that fits in with the fun, intricate patterns on their holiday sweaters. Especially with the Nordic-inspired sweater in their secondary message, this snowflake seems nice and appropriate.

When snowflakes collide…

With so many brands and so many snowflakes, it's only a matter of time before some unwanted creative overlap occurs. This winter Nike committed early to using a bright blue striped background. In each email they changed the color that they paired with blue, which usually looked nice. But when they chose to pair their blue with orange, the resulting email looked uncomfortably similar to what their competitor, Lucy, developed for their holiday creative, especially since both Lucy and Nike used small, subdued sparkly-snowflakes that melted into their backgrounds.

Hey, those aren't snowflakes!

While there has been heavy snowfall in the inboxes, there are, of course, other ways that brands have been festive without literally saying "Christmas" or even "holiday." Here are a few others that we liked:

•Ann Taylor's sale email calls out gifting but not holiday, and sticks to shades of red and pink. Without mentioning the holidays, it still looks like a wrapped present or a deconstructed candy cane.

•Lucy's sale email uses a bow to add a little festive gifting flavor, but it doesn't
deviate from Lucy's trademark orange.

•Sephora's cute bell and use of gold is a subtle and classy-looking holiday approach.

Weigh in and let us know what you've seen and liked this season, with snowflakes or something else. Looking ahead to next holiday, what other design approaches might bands try in order to stay festive without being overwhelmingly holiday- or Christmas-oriented? Let us know what you think!

Happy Holidays!
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Ever wondered what drives response – pictures or words? Red or blue? Flash or plain html? A great way to capitalize on the democratic medium of email is to put your burning questions, late night hunches, and out-of-the-box ideas to the test with an A/B split test! Allow your audience to vote with their clicks and get instant answers that can help drive stronger results!

Follow a few simple guidelines provided in the eec Email Design Roundtable's A/B Test Checklist and start testing your way to more engaging email program.

Let no area of your message be safe from scrutiny! The checklist provides test ideas that will help you optimize:

Subject Lines
Pre-Headers
Navigation
Layout
Copy/Messaging
Imagery
Calls-To-Action

According to the vast and varied experiences of our very own eec Email Design Roundtable, there are 3 golden rules to follow when executing a successful and insightful test:

Rule #1:
Focus on one key variable at a time. Note before you start the test what key metric you are looking to influence to declare a winner. Subject line testing is generally about getting people to open the email; calls to action are more about clicks and conversion.

There is one caveat to focused decision making in A/B test scenarios - while it is necessary and rewarding to get answers to your burning questions by tracking a measurable change in a single metric, it is important to realize that your fidgeting with things can cause unintended side-effects…

• When SL testing, you might focus on change in open rate in order to determine which worked better, but also consider post-open actions (did the subject line set the person up to convert in the email?).
• When image testing, keep an eye on your overall file size, does this negatively impact your deliverability?

At the end of the day, email is a direct response medium, so just be clear what you are trying to test/achieve, and make sure your positive results in one area aren't sabotaging another.

Rule #2:
You MUST use a random distribution for setting up your "A" and "B" audience groups. The sizes of the segments don't need to be the same if the key metric you are looking to influence is expressed as a "rate", but they do need to have the same general characteristics to be a fair test (don't test all buyers in the A group and all prospects in the B group).

In fact, if you can't decide between one hero image and another, do an initial AB split test with a small percentage of your audience on Monday, then send the winning creative to the remainder on Tuesday.

The initial test will give you enough of a sense of "what worked" to roll out the best variation to the remainder of your list. Be ready to act on what the data tells you – you might be surprised!

Rule #3:
Ron Blum of Upromise astutely points out that while the purpose of A/B testing is to find out what works - "don't assume what works today will work tomorrow…
tastes change, people get used to and fatigued by getting the same look-and-feel".

Continuous testing is the best recipe for continued success.

Advanced A/B Testing

If you are one of those highly-evolved, weekly A/B test prodigies and are looking for a new angle on ye old A/B test, try multi-variate testing on for size.

Not all customer / audience segments behave the same way. As your mailing strategy gets to be more complex, there is no reason to stop A/B testing. In fact, segmenting your audience allows you to exponentially increase the insights provided by your A/B testing!

Take this example from Williams-Sonoma:

In general, we find that including the price for a featured item on the hero image of an email drives clicks and conversions. However, when we recently tested the presence of price on an email that was segmented between customers who had a history of spending more than $100 per transaction vs customers who had a tendency to spend less than $100 per transaction, we found that low price customers were more likely to click when the price was NOT provided whereas the opposite was true for customers who had spent more than $100 with us.

Not only did this test help us drive response rate for all customers in the first test, this insight helped us develop a strategy around talking to our lower price customers that will continue into future campaigns.

In order to set this up correctly, just remember golden rule #2 and make sure you have a "control" group in both segments.

With these four segments:
Low Price A vs Low Price B
High Price A vs Low Price B

You can test A vs B in Low Price Segments and see if it's the same as A vs B in your High Price Segments.

Please join us in the pursuit of more perfect email by using our A/B Test Checklist, available in the eec's Whitepaper Room, and returning to post your results below!

Megan Walsh, Williams-Sonoma
eec Email Design Roundtable Co-Chair

More marketers have been including games in their email this season, trying to distract us into playing when we all need to be in Q4 work-mode. The game-playing happens, truth be told, and it can be a good thing. With so many retailers trying to reach shoppers through the same marketing channels daily, the games "pop," functioning as fun ways to inspire clickthroughs.

While I appreciate the festivity, there's a danger that games might draw subscribers in just enough to play and then let them slip away without further engagement. A lack of clear call-to-action and a weak connection between the games and the brands could end up offering subscribers an enjoyable activity without yielding benefits for marketers.

"Gaming" marketers might consider these five ideas for optimizing the play:

1) Include a strong call-to-action. Make sure that the marketing purpose of your game isn't lost; prominently feature a CTA (or multiple CTAs) to get game players back into shopping. Make sure it's simultaneously integrated with the game experience and attention-grabbing.

2) Plan a series of games. Consider creating a multi-part game that is marketed through a series of emails, keeping subscribers engaged and anticipating next steps.

3) Send follow-up messages. After playtime is over, send a follow-up email that reminds subscribers of the fun they had and that invites them to play again, and/or announces the game winner.

4) Incentivize the playing. Offering a discount or free gift to people who play the games will encourage them to shop and take advantage of their reward.

5) Incorporate product into the games. Design games that complement your brand in an obvious way so that there is a smooth transition between playing the game and moving toward shopping.

Let's take a look at how some retailers "game" this holiday:

• TopShop invites subscribers to play in a Christmas fairytale land, where a few easy clicks and drags can spin a carousel until it transforms into a beautiful girl. Players in Australia and some European countries can win prizes, but all subscribers can play. While the game is fun and engaging, I'm concerned that its calls-to-actions are too weak to be effective: only small text links along the bottom of the page ask players to forward the game to a friend and to shop at TopShop.com. Subscribers from eligible countries are enticed into shopping with a discount offer, but subscribers from other places aren't drawn to TopShop.com as strongly as they could be.

• ElfYourself by OfficeMax is back again this year—elfier than ever, as the email says. (I just got "Elfed" by my dad this morning!) This popular holiday game lets subscribers upload photos and see themselves virtually transformed into dancing elves, which can be forwarded far and wide—kind of like spreading holiday cheer—to friends who can then "Elf" themselves, too. Widely popular, OfficeMax's sponsorship of the game must reap some holiday rewards for them, but subscribers are brought back to the OfficeMax site only if they click on the "Brought to you by: OfficeMax" sign. Those who do are rewarded by an "Elfed" OfficeMax landing page, which allows subscribers to shop around in an elfy environs.

• Sephora wins the relevance award this season for its own ElfYourself-inspired game called the Sephora Mistletoe Makeover. Players can upload photos and see themselves dolled up in four fabulously festive looks—Smokey Sugar Plum, Merry Berry, Santa's Little Temptress and O, Tannen-Babe—and then send out emails of their holiday selves to friends.

The whole experience engages customers in a way that's clearly connected to the brand, incorporating Sephora's product offering (makeup) into the fun. When a subscriber creates a card to send to a friend, she or he is offered free eyelashes or mini-lipstick with a purchase: a "wink" or a "kiss." After the transformation, the player can click on a link to "Get this look," and Sephora shows just the makeup needed for a real-life mistletoe makeover. The game further entices players to go back into shopping with a free-gift offer and an immediate reminder email about the offer. Try it out—the link to the game is at the bottom of the email.

We all love a good game. (When was the last time you played "Monopoly"? We brought it out recently and had a blast.) Subscribers' positive experiences with games should effectively strengthen their relationships with the brands that send them. The best games provide a smooth and compelling transition from playtime into shoptime; shoppers feel even more jazzed for holiday gift shopping after being playfully put into the spirit of the season.

Have fun!
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

You've swept your customers off their feet with a dazzling email creative and message. To help you give them somewhere equally stunning to land, we at the eec Email Design Roundtable have added a Landing Page Checklist to our Email Checklist Series. With so many details to think about, our checklist offers a collection of ideas that you can easily apply to your program.

Landing pages should feel like a continuation of the positive experience initiated by your email so that the motions from opening the message to clicking through to responding to the call-to-action (CTA) feel like one fluid movement. Brush up on your landing page best practices to increase conversion:

● Audience and Goal. Thinking about your intended audience and the actions you want to inspire were your primary foci in creating your email, and they're also the core of the landing page. Construct your landing page to propel your audience toward1s the next step. Anthropologie landing pages like this one often add an extra step between the message and the product pages, but their whimsically artsy landing pages are on-brand and engaging to their particular audience.

● Design. To facilitate the unity of the experience, the creative elements must stay consistent with the email—use similar graphics, text and imagery. Keep your designs quite simple—consider losing the navigation and extra links that will distract from the primary message. Use images if they can earn their keep by relating specifically to your offer—steer clear of distracting, generic imagery. This Horchow message shows a nice progression from email to landing page design. The landing page picks up the basic creative elements of the email but shows larger and more compelling imagery and CTAs to move the viewer to the next step.

● Main Copy. Best practice is to use a white background behind text. Keep your copy brief, and start it off by stating the benefits of the offer concisely and in manner consistent with the email copy. This Land of Nod landing page repeats the headline from the (very cute!) email but includes more detailed information about the features. It often works well to use bullet points and a large font for readability, listing the benefits in order of value. Every word should work toward getting the visitor to act.

● Forms. If you need to gather customer information with forms, hold interest by keeping them short and sweet. Ask only for the most necessary information, clearly indicate required fields and pre-populate those fields whenever possible. Include all forms and CTAs necessary for conversion on the landing page. Which brings us to the big whammy…

● Call-to-Action. Your landing page's great love, its reason for existing: the big CTA. But don't stop at one: repeat your CTA multiple times to maximize clicks. The initial CTA should live right after the summary of the offer details and needs to fall above the fold. The CTA copy must be direct and obvious and pack a punch that inspires action. Be careful not to drive your sale to soon—let the CTA match the subscriber's place in the decision-making process. If you're a retailer, consider using an "Add to Cart" button as opposed to something like a "Buy Now" button, as Crate & Barrel does in this focused landing page from this message.

● Other Tips. It may also be a good idea to create multiple landing pages so that they can get as specific as possible to different customer segments. Keep your landing pages live for longer than you'd expect. You don't want people who read their messages later than the rest of the crew to be sent flying with nowhere to touch down and act.

A solid landing page that attends to best practices offers customers a memorably smooth experience with your brand while effectively increasing conversion. For even more tips and tricks, check out the new addition to the eec Email Checklist Series.

Comment below to tell us about some of your own smooth and rocky landings.

–eec Email Design Roundtable co-chairs Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon and Megan Walsh of Williams-Sonoma

It's a much debated number, but common marketing research (read: marketing urban legend) says the average person is exposed to 3,000 ads every day. Yet, while even most marketers complain about the shear volume of ads, we continue to add to the problem. Consumers and business people, however, aren't just struggling to find time to recognize the value from the chaff. We're all trying to keep track of the new ways to communicate with each other and the brands with which we do business. Managing our inbox has become a chore.

A decade ago I didn't need email, now I can't seem to get along without email, mobile email, text messaging, social networks…and most recently, Twitter. (Actually, I can do without Twitter, but I'm trying to play along). Younger people are significantly heavier users of text messaging and social networks when communicating with friends. Yet, even for this demographic, if one solution to tie all of these messaging tools together exists, it is certainly email. It has become the one-box portal. Not only does email cover bank statements, promotions, messages from friends, order confirmations, and newsletters…increasingly it is the gateway to social networks as it updates when someone reaches out on Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn.

Our joint research with Ball State's Center for Media Design showed that teens are more responsive to promotions via email than they are via social networks. Yet, the multitude of comments we received on our research, many commented on the need for a convergence of these media. One comment to a TwistImage blog commentary on the notion that "no one uses email anymore" said:

"I'm 23 years old—I probably receive a large majority of my messages through social networks (I don't have the email addresses of a number of friends—we keep in touch via Facebook), but email remains a vital hub for managing communications. Keeping up with all of the messages on these fragmented sites would be nearly impossible if alerts weren't sent to one central inbox. If email can maintain its position as a hub, it will stay relevant."

Will email continue to be the "hub," the one inbox to rule them all? I think there are many reasons to think it will. The first is the fact that it is ubiquitous—and certainly 99% of the population can't be wrong. It is similar to me to compare how English became the international language…not because it was better, just because it was already ubiquitous.

How do you leverage this as a marketer? Continue to ask for permission and ensure you are reaching your audience at their "preferred" inbox. Over time, they all may be the same inbox anyway.

—Chip House of ExactTarget

With pink emails filling our inboxes throughout Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the merits of cause-related marketing have come more prominently onto the Smith-Harmon radar. We wondered how well it really works, and MediaPost came through for us by publishing an article on this very topic. MediaPost reports that cause-related marketing can generate double-digit sales gains for brands—woah! No wonder so many companies jump on the pinkwagon in October. Not only do the companies get the satisfaction of contributing to important research; their customers also get to feel good about shopping.

Not surprisingly, there are complicating factors to consider. Paul Jones, president of Alden Keene & Associates, explores such factors on his blog about cause-related marketing. On the issue of transparency, Jones argues that "cause-related marketing trades on trust." Customers are more likely to trust in the sincerity of brands that are upfront about where money goes and how much money is going there.

An article by Steven Van Yoder also makes the point that the marketing focus should never be lost in the cause. Cause-related marketing is sustainable only if it yields mutual benefits for the charitable organization and the brand supporting it.

We looked at examples of how brands have used email to approach cause-related marketing for several important issues. Here's what we found:

● Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Judging by this month's inbox, pink is the new black. Among many others, Lucy encouraged subscribers to "Shop for a Cause," White House Black Market invited subscribers to "Give Hope," and Sephora asked subscribers to "get gorgeous while giving back." In each of these cases, the brands advertised products and donated a portion of their proceeds or advertised a window of time during which they would donate a portion of total sales.

Betty Crocker's message was a bit different, encouraging subscribers to celebrate women's health by making pink (Betty Crocker) cake and announcing General Mills' donation, which was not tied to sales of certain items. They also invited dialogue on PinkTogether.com, where cancer survivors can share stories.

● Women's Cancer Research: Saks Fifth Avenue also supported women's cancer research, but they stepped away from all of the pink of the month and partnered with Key to the Cure to donate funds to the Entertainment Industry Foundation's Women's Cancer Research Fund. At first this struck me as a little odd (was it just so that they could feature stars like Gwenyth Paltrow in their ads?), but with deeper thought it's clear how Saks' approach was on-brand, speaking to their audience of high-end fashion connoisseurs. Oscar de la Renta designed the pricey Key to the Cure t-shirt this year, and Mercedes Benz partners with the organization as well.

● St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: The Williams-Sonoma Inc. brands included banners in their emails last holiday season advertising their fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and they then sent out a thank-you e-card announcing the results of the fundraiser. Gymboree also supports St. Jude, but the link to the fundraiser in their email is tiny and very subtle. I wonder how results differ between this understated approach and the more prominent Williams-Sonoma Inc. treatment.

● The Global Fund (to help women and children with AIDS in Africa): This Gap email is almost wholly devoted to the Gap(Product)Red effort to benefit the Global Fund, featuring a special limited time promotion. The subject line: "Can the Shirt off Your Back change the world?" speaks to the headline: "This One Can." This message barely mentions regular Gap items, but because Gap has established (Product)Red as such a prominent element of the brand, the focused approach doesn't seem to detract from Gap marketing, and even solidifies Gap's charitable image.

● Musicians on Call: Boomingdale's "Charity is Chic" message looks pretty much like any other sale email. The headline is cause-oriented but vague, and only in fairly small print does the copy inform the subscriber of where their money is going. I wonder whether it's effective for Bloomingdale's to downplay the charity in their creative.

With the high sales increases reported from cause-related marketing, it's worth considering what could happen if brands began using it more frequently—monthly or quarterly, maybe, instead of at just one or two key points throughout the year. In addition to driving huge sales, brands could all do a lot of good. We're interested to hear what others have tried and discovered in cause-related marketing.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Are you happy with the structure and performance of your email program? If you wish you could just blow it up and start over, we dare you—no, we Double Dog Dare you—to consider this challenge from Loren McDonald, vice president of industry relations for Silverpop:

Start your email program over from scratch. Shut the door, turn off your phone, IM and Twitter, and get out a plain, old-fashioned sheet of paper or clean off the office whiteboard. Ask yourself these questions: What would I do differently if I could start our email program over? What am I doing purely out of habit or because everybody else is doing it? What do I wish I could do but I can't because I don't have the budget or backing from management?

As you stare at the blank page or whiteboard, ask yourself these questions:

● List growth: Are we focused on quantity rather than quality? Are we using questionable acquisition methods just to hit some arbitrary list-size targets? Are we still using pre-checked boxes and single opt-in because my boss couldn't care less about spam complaints, list hygiene and delivery rates?
● List churn and inactivity: Do we understand how active our database is? From one-third to three-quarters of our list is likely inactive; so, what are we doing to reactivate those subscribers that have tuned us out? What programs do we have to deliver greater value to our loyal customers? What can we do to minimize unsubscribes, spam complaints and bounces?
● Design and format: Are our image-heavy emails with lots of administrative information located above the fold still the right approach? Is it time to start from scratch and have an email-design professional create a template that renders well on mobile devices and in preview panes with blocked images? Should we redesign our masthead and navigation links to better correspond with the actions our subscribers want to take?
● Welcome program: Is it time to chuck the text-only confirmation email for a well-designed, multi-message welcome email program?
● Message types: We've been sending the same basic emails for the last two years—our "Weekly Specials" email and monthly "Close Outs." Should we blow this up and let subscribers select different categories and frequencies? Can we add a slew of new email types—birthday specials, reminders, surveys, refer-a-friend promotions, geographic-targeted messages, educational or tip-oriented emails, etc.? Can we wrestle the transactional emails away from IT and design them to cross-sell and up-sell?
● Batch-and-blast: Is it time to stop whining, "How can I move to a lifecycle-, behavior- or trigger-based approach when it's all I can do to get the weekly batch-and-blast emails out the door?" Could I swap one or two batch-and-blast emails a month so I can start testing some more targeted approaches?
● Metrics: Are we tracking the right performance metrics? Our open and click-through rates are doing well, but my boss doesn't seem to care and wonders why we spend so much time on email marketing. Is it time for me to tackle proving the contribution of email to lifetime customer value, cost savings and direct ROI?
● Incentives: Have we gotten hooked on incentives —free shipping and 10% off? Should we test some targeted emails sent only to people that clicked on specific links and use no or reduced incentives to see if we can improve our margins?
● Preference centers: Our unsubscribe page is so ugly and doesn't offer any alternatives. Can I get some design and Web resources to create a worldclass unsubscribe/preference page? Speaking of preference centers, can we continue without one?

If you take up this dare: Let us know by commenting below. Did you overhaul your email completely or just tweak it here and there? What's the first thing you would change about your program if you could? Finally: Which of these changes, if any, could you actually make in your present program? And if you have a Double Dog Dare for the eec community, let us know about that, too.

–>See more Double Dog Dares.

From Sept. 5-15, top designers swarmed New York to exhibit their 2009 spring styles. The models walked the runways in Bryant Park, but that wasn't the only place where the fashion was happening—email inboxes around the world were also getting some Fashion Week action. Here's how retailers promoted spring-facing fashions through email, via NYC:

Running Reports:
Berdorf Goodman stirred up excitement by running reports on "The Latest From the New York Spring Fashion Shows" in a siderail adjacent to their standard messaging, also linking to a couple of "featured designers" in each message. Their senior women's fashion director, Roopal Patel, made the rounds and reported her impressions. BG's fashion show focus alongside their usual ads sent a smart, strong message: "Read about what's hot, and get it here."

Fresh from the Runways:
BG went further than fashion week updates, pulling looks straight off the runway and emailing them out. They featured the usual designer imagery but with some extra backing: we KNOW this is hot right now…it just walked down a runway.

Video Archives:
Nordstrom ran similar reports, but also linked to a series of videos called "The Town Car Chronicles with Jeffrey Kalinsky." Fashion guru Kalinsky's enthusiastic commentary runs alongside clips of the runway shows, generating anticipation as he ponders what he'll buy for the store. Nordstrom's slick email companion to Fashion Week let subscribers feel like they were attending the events with an insider.

Watch it Live!:
Michael Kors invited his subscribers to tune into the Michael Kors website to watch a live broadcast of his runway show. Michael has become familiar and dear to many of us through his appearances on Project Runway. Fans of his collections felt excited and important to be members of his live audience.

Image Archives:
Michael also delivered an email linking to an online archive of photos from Fashion Week. What better way to prove that his styles are hot right now than to show them strutting the runways in all their glory?

Behind the Scenes:
Shopbop pulled their subscribers behind the scenes, presenting images and commentary from big names all around the event. Shopbop promised to deliver the scoop on the "trends and chicest styles," rousing anticipation for spring pieces and convincingly portraying themselves as the go-to fashion authority.

The innovative inclusion of media, expert advice and informative articles made the Fashion Week emails an interesting study in fresh, exciting ways to deliver an exclusive experience to inboxes everywhere.

—Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Your call-to-action (CTA) tells your email recipients what you want them to do, and what they can expect from you when they do it. Subject lines get a lot of love, but once you get an open you need a click, so don't forget to lavish some much-needed attention on your CTA.

FOUR GREAT WAYS TO MAKE YOUR CTA POP!:

1. Stay focused. Design the entire message to direct recipients towards the CTA. Don't distract them with too many equally-weighted links and offers. Select imagery that draws the eye toward the point of conversion. Make the path appealing and clear, and make sure that it extends beyond the email itself to the landing experience.

Pottery Barn achieves serious CTA-focus with this summer sale message. The email is simple, text-based and entirely pointed toward sale shopping. The CTA whisks the recipient away to a coordinated landing page where a simple product grid offers customers the opportunity to dive into the shop category that interests them most.

2. Keep it direct and clear. It's fun to write clever copy, but make sure that even the quirkiest wording is to the point. This Ann Taylor CTA, "Click and See," feels pointedly enticing as does Piperlime's "See for yourself"… I DO want to see!

This Anthropologie message is lovely, but lacks clarity. I'm not sure what the CTA is, or whether the message even has one. The sweater and all the buttons are beautiful…they make me want to do something, but I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do.

3. Make sure it's above the fold. It doesn't matter how adorable and endearing your email is—there will still be subscribers (many of them!) who will be too rushed to scroll down and get to the bottom of it. Keep the CTA above "the fold," or in the part of the message that's visible without any scrolling. While the fold location can be hard to predict with all the varying preview panes and computer monitors out there, put your CTA up top where it gets the attention it deserves.

I love this Giggle email, but the CTA is way down there. Keeping it above the fold doesn't have to stifle creativity. This Banana Republic message has some fun with image layout while keeping what's important up top.

4. Make it POP! Keeping it above the fold is a good start, but go further. Make your CTAs stand out visually. Try using HTML buttons as opposed to text links. You'll grab more eyes that way and generate a higher CTR.

In this email, it almost seems like Free People is trying to hide their CTA. Why is it so tiny, tucked away in weeds? If it were right beneath the body copy, Free People would better serve their shoppers and increase sales without compromising their low-key approach.

While this Land of Nod CTA falls below the fold (gah!), the green button totally pops, and the very specific wording makes the destination absolutely clear. If you're looking for copy inspiration in general, check out Land of Nod; they have tons of fun with CTAs and beyond.

For more on buttons, check out my article on "The Bulletproof Button". Learn all about how to optimize your button design for maximum performance.

Which CTAs get you clicking? Please share your experiences with the eec community by posting a comment below.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Every week the EEC adds new content to its Whitepaper Room. Here are the latest additions:

TailoredMail: Connect 1:1
In today's world, email marketing is no longer a simple strategy. Marketers need to make their message stand out with personalization and relevance by communicating effectively with customers and prospects to promote dialogue. Check out this great whitepaper from TailoredMail for some great tips and information.

Welcome Email Checklist
What elements to include and to consider for a high impact welcome email. Compare your welcome email design against this checklist before approval.

*Have a whitepaper you'd like to contribute? Email it to whitepapers@emailexperience.org.

The holiday season sends everyone into a flurry. It should be a fun flurry for email senders, giving us a chance to mix up our typical creative. But accompanying this potential for uniqueness and experimentation is the potential for the sort of holiday clichés that cause consumers to cringe. Bring freshness to your holiday approach this year by indulging in a percolation period before starting in on your design work.

Start now: Allow time to gather inspiration that embodies the holiday attitudes you want to convey. This first stage of the creative process can take the form of a physical bulletin board or a digital archive—anything that lets you store and revisit images and other touchstones. Whether you find yourself digging through old boxes at the back of the closet or clicking through internet collections of ads from years past, look for anything that might make your emails sparkle.

(1) Consider new ways to use traditional imagery: Look through old childhood holiday photos and stills from favorite movies. Sift through magazines and online ads. Seek fresh stylistic choices: unusual backgrounds, unique croppings, interesting camera angles.

(2) Envision inventive color palettes: Browse ads and emails from past years or try out combinations of wrapping paper scraps and ribbon. If you're stuck, visit your local hardware store and peruse paint swatches, or browse the Adobe Kuler site to see what color palettes others have used.

(3) Focus on fonts: Consider the effects of different font treatments you come across in holiday cards or magazines and how they might fit into your creative scheme.

(4) Eat chocolate: Get in the holiday spirit with a piece of the good, dark bittersweet stuff! I have become no less than obsessed with Theo's Madagascar Dark Chocolate Bar.

Looking around early with an eye to inspiration will give you a storehouse of options when it comes time to actually build your holiday email design library. By focusing on the creative process upfront, you discover the tone and style that dresses your brand in its own holiday best.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

–>Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Welcome messages show some of the highest open rates in the email world. We're surprised by how many senders neglect to even send a welcome or, almost as bad, send lusterless messages that feel downright unwelcoming.

When people invite you into their home or office, you know whether you feel welcomed even if it's tough to pinpoint exactly why. Do your hosts reach out to you with a handshake or hug? Do their tones and expressions tell you they're thrilled to see you? Several subtleties contribute to welcoming you into a new place—why should welcome emails be any different?

To help you make the most of your welcome, we at the Email Design Roundtable have added a Welcome Message Checklist to our Email Checklist series. With so many details to think about, our checklist offers a collection of ideas that you can easily apply to your own message style.

We drew our inspiration from emails we received that delivered the most on that warm and welcomed feeling:

Stephanie Miller of Return Path loves Sephora's welcome email, which does what a welcome message should— confirms the sign up, makes the subscriber feel delighted to have signed up and gets recipients shopping. And it does this all in a well-designed format that is similar to the regular messages Sephora sends. Sephora gets bonus points for their touch of personalization: adding a first name here makes the email feel like a visit to a store where the clerk knows you. Omaha Steaks adds the same personal touch to their message, and they also throw in a special offer that shows the recipient that they're now on the inside track.

Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon: First of all, I love Virgin America.
Second of all, I love this eleVAte welcome email for at least two reasons:
(1) It includes all the details I need to revisit the site, which inspired me to actually keep and file the email away.
(2) Welcome emails are sometimes made to do too much, which turns into a law-of-diminishing-returns, over-messaged mess. This one is super-simple, which makes the three icons and buttons to book, edit preferences and view routes POP!

Chad White of the Email Experience Council: When I did the data collection for my Retail Welcome Email Benchmark Study last year, I saw a huge range of welcome emails in terms of engagement. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of emails that looked like Foot Locker's welcome message—boring, text-only, weak branding, and almost nonexistent calls-to-action. Fortunately, there were some retailers that recognized the engagement opportunity that a welcome email presents. For instance, Circuit City's welcome email focused on making sure that subscribers had indicated their preferences and were signed up for the newsletters that were most relevant to them. And HPshopping's welcome message does a good job of covering lots of different bases succinctly. The best advice I ever heard about welcome emails was: "Give them a reason to save the welcome email." Hopefully this checklist will help marketers achieve that goal.

Share your worst and warmest welcome message experiences by commenting below.

–eec Email Design Roundtable co-chairs Lisa Harmon and Julie Montgomery of Smith-Harmon

I'm on the road lately and find that some marketers I meet are surprised to learn how much marketing there is in email deliverability. In fact, the marketing piece—all the things you do as a marketer to ensure a great subscriber experience like great content, relevant promotions, strong calls to action, effective design, frequency, permission, privacy, triggered messages, transactions—is often more essential to great deliverability than the technical aspects like infrastructure, reverse DNS and authentication. Of course, you need both to reach the inbox.

Here's why the marketing plays such a key role—because complaints are such a key factor in determining your deliverability. ISPs view complaints as a proxy for how relevant and welcome your subscribers find your messages. Relevant messages have low complaint scores, the key factor in Sender Reputation and good deliverability. Irrelevant or too frequent messages have a lot of complaints—lots of subscribers clicking the "This is spam" button. No matter how good your infrastructure, privacy policy or even the practices of your email delivery vendor, if you want to consistently reach the inbox—and earn a response—you need to keep complaints at a minimum, and apply both marketing and technical brains to creating great subscriber experiences.

So it's just as true that the IT folks can't blame us marketers and we can't blame them (or our ESPs). The great, important weight of deliverability is a shared responsibility—and opportunity!

—Stephanie Miller of Return Path