Presented at the Silverpop Agent ROI Road show in Boston, MA on 9/15/11.

1. CRACKING THE CODE:
Keys To Email Creative Success
Alex Williams | Sr. Digital Strategist | Trendline Interactive | @alexcwilliams + @trendlinei
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2. Introductions…
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4. Agenda
Email creative is more than just design.
It’s also branding, sales, content, layout, UX, and technical execution. You don’t
have to be a graphic designer to add value to the creative process.
Today we’ll discuss:
• How to approach, develop, and evaluate email creative
• Updating your layouts for the new mobile paradigm
• How to connect with your subscribers in the social age
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5. Start every email with 3 questions
What?
Why?
How?
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6. What?
What is the point
of this email?
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7. Why?
Why should they
care?
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8. How?
How do they take
action?
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9. The answer to these questions
will help you concept, build, and
evaluate your email creative
using “The Triangle Offense”.
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10. “The Triangle Offense”
This design strategy embraces
the fact that most people don’t
read emails, they scan.
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11. How it Works
Optimize each modular
section of an email for
fast comprehension of
What, Why, How.
Users might jump
straight from What to
How, with the general
content and imagery of
the inner triangle acting
as the Why.
Make sure your email
passes the triangle scan
test.
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12. The Triangle in action: B2C
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13. The Triangle in action: B2B
Single Game Suites on Sale Now
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14. Which one scans better?
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15. The Keys to the Triangle
Communicate efficiently. Make sense.
• Tie your headlines and calls-to-action together
• Remove extraneous copy and visuals that don’t support
the goal of the email or module
• Expect your subscribers NOT to read the entire text
• Find the emotional need of your “What”
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16. Does this make sense?
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17. Does this make sense?
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18. MOBILE
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19. Smartphones & Tablets (also
known as “mobile”) have
changed email design forever.
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20. Source: Litmus Email Analytics Sept. 2011
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21. Each audience is unique
Client A Client B
How mobile are your customers?
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22. “Mobile Friendly” Email Creative
TOUCH
Thumbs and
fingers are the
new mouse.
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23. How to make your email “Mobile Friendly”
• The “mobile version” is a dated concept. Mobile
users expect a scalable, readable email.
• Prioritize content, remove “filler” content
• Increase all font sizes, especially headlines
• Keep email weight (kbs) low, mobile bandwidth
can be an issue. Use images wisely, slice them to
reduce load times
• Scalable widths will provide readability (640px
max). Explore fluid width tables.
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24. Desktop version of mobile friendly width
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25. Mobile version of mobile friendly width
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26. Advanced: @media queries
CSS style sheets that modify the email design
when device’s capabilities match specific criteria.
Allows you to:
• Hide content from displaying in the email
• Show higher resolution images on iOS
• Add alt text to background images
• Progressive disclosure to show additional
content on click
• Change text sizes based on screen size
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27. SOCIAL
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28. Social = People Power
• Humanize your content
• Use public user generated
content
• Tweets
• Facebook Comments
• Reviews
• Speak using a real voice and not
in marketing/campaign speak
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29. “Everybody’s doing it”
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30. Social Comments are 3rd Party Validation
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31. Take “you’re” word for it
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32. Let your customers speak for you
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33. Thank you!
Alex Williams
Sr. Digital Strategist
Trendline Interactive – Strategic Email Marketing
alex@trendlineInteractive.com
Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/alexcwilliams
LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/in/emailmarketingstrategy
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