Sometimes people need a nudge to try something new, edgy or against the conventional wisdom. So here you go, we dare you—NO, we Double Dog Dare you—to consider this challenge from Aaron Smith of Smith-Harmon:

Ask your subscribers to rate your emails. One of the more interesting email features I’ve seen recently is a poll in the footer asking recipients to rate the usefulness of the message or comment on the contents. General Mills, for example, includes a “rate this message” module at the bottom of their Betty Crocker messages using a 1 to 5 star rating system. Taking that concept one step further, I double dog dare you to include an email rating module not just at the bottom of your message, where few people will ever see it, but at the top, above the fold!

In theory, the rating module serves two purposes: (1) to gather feedback on the usefulness of your email program, and (2) to provide folks who are thinking about hitting the “this is spam” button a different opportunity to let their feelings be heard. So go ahead and add a rating module to your email programs…and don’t be shy about the placement! Let your subscribers know you’re truly interested in their opinion.

If you take up this dare, let us know how it went by commenting below. Do you see reduced spam reporting? Do you use the ratings information to make incremental improvements to your program? Or have you found you’ve given up valuable real estate for a feature that doesn’t provide any meaningful insight or lift? And if you have a Double Dog Dare for the eec community, let us know about that too.

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Sometimes people need a nudge to try something new, edgy or against the conventional wisdom. So here you go, we dare you—NO, we Double Dog Dare you—to consider this challenge from DJ Waldow of Bronto Software:

Add an unsubscribe link to the top of your emails where it’s more easily seen. Why is it that the vast, vast majority of unsubscribe links reside (hide?) at the bottom of the email message? Is it because as consumers, we've been trained to scroll to the bottom of the email to unsubscribe? Or is it that as marketers we don’t want to do anything to suggest that subscribers should opt-out? Consider the likely positive benefits of adding another unsubscribe option to the top of your emails: Would this give more people faith that the unsubscribe link would work and therefore reduce the number of spam complaints? While it would surely increase the number of unsubscribes, would you lose active subscribers? Your inactive subscriber are most likely to act on the new, more visible opt-out link, which would give you a more engaged subscriber base that’s cheaper to mail and administer.

You may have a more specific business reason to make the unsubscribe link more prominent as well. For example, you may want to add the additional unsubscribe link if your spam complaints are too high, particularly if you have lots of younger subscribers (which tend use the “report spam” button to opt-out). Also, if you see your spam complaints rise after sweepstakes acquisition campaigns or during the holidays when you increase frequency, adding a more prominent opt-out link will likely reduce those complaints. I dare you to test this on a small portion of your list (and share your results).

If you take up this dare, let us know how it went by commenting below. And if you have a Double Dog Dare for the eec community, let us know about that too.

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Sometimes people need a nudge to try something new, edgy or against the conventional wisdom. So here you go, we dare you—NO, we Double Dog Dare you—to consider this challenge from Stephanie Miller of Return Path:

If you include your website navigation bar in your emails, test to see if it’s truly worth the real estate. I find it fascinating that many marketers have intense loyalty to including their website nav bar in their email templates, even if they have never actually done any analysis on the nav bar to see if it’s (a) relevant and interesting or (b) ever clicked on. This is definitely worth testing, especially as so many of them take up a lot of key real estate in the preview pane. If the nav bar in your emails isn’t driving significant clickthroughs, then I dare you to cut it.

If you take up this dare, let us know how it went by commenting below. And if you have a Double Dog Dare for the eec community, let us know about that too.

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Sometimes people need a nudge to try something new and edgy. So here you go, we dare you—NO, we Double Dog Dare you—to consider this challenge from Chad White of the Email Experience Council:

Design an email that scrolls horizontally rather than vertically. Used with the right content, it’s a design format that can really stand out in the inbox, and might even generate a surge in forwards. Dylan Boyd of eROI over at The Email Wars blog has discussed this before, most recently in regards to a Dell email about wide-screen displays. For examples of horizontal scrolling websites, check out Urban Outfitters’ blog and the product pages on the Abercrombie & Fitch site.

If you take up this dare, let us know how it went by commenting below. And if you have a Double Dog Dare for the eec community, let us know about that too.

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