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E-mail
marketing: A job for the talented web designer
These
days more and more organisations are looking at contacting
their client base through email. While arguments over this
type of direct marketing approach still rage, there is little
doubt that email has become a complementary form of promotion,
alongside other, more traditional methods. The real beauty
with email is the speed with which it can be put together
and fired off out to hundreds and thousands of recipients.
Whether the push behind the email shot is considered legitimate
or not, email as a marketing tool is likely to be with us
for a long time to come.
Organisations
have possibly been enticed by the promise of huge cost savings
over tradition print and postal options. This may well be
true, but the big issue many tend to ignore are the click
through and conversion rates. There is a noticeable trade
off in the relationship between effort / cost, verses the
returns. This return on investment (ROI) depends upon many
factors, but there is little benefit from saving a bundle
compared to other options and in return receiving much less
response. While we can discuss issues such as targeted mailing
lists…ie customers who are known to have particular
interest etc, very little discussion surrounds actual email
design.
Now
that organisations are adopting HTML email, a whole new world
is opening up for the talented designer. To a greater extent
we can begin to apply many of the rules we’ve learnt
from web site design. While there’ll always be a minority
who’ll hate logos, colour and animation, used skilfully,
to most these are techniques that can really engage and in
turn increase response rates. As with web design we need to
consider how to convey the message with the right mix of graphics,
text and navigation. It’s doubtful if email will ever
be considered art, although it should be, nevertheless imaginative
design will always win out over bland text only variants.
Some of this obviously depends upon the audience. Subscribers
to a particular update bulletin will not necessarily need
all the bells and whistles. But as with other forms of marketing,
where people need eye-catching enticements, good design is
essential.
Some
of the best emails are naturally emerging from the large organisations.
This doesn’t mean they all score well in the design
stakes. In fact some larger concerns are still rather backward
in their approach, but on the whole there are some great examples
to learn from. With the advent of broadband, in the same way
web sites have suddenly become more adventurous, so can the
email. Now we can attempt to captivate the reader with embedded
animation, video or even games for instance. So long as Microsoft
doesn’t apply any more restraints through new versions
of Outlook, email can really begin to reach it’s full
potential. So the message for those who want to inject some
life into their electronic communications is to think about
improving the visual impact of their emails by using good
web designers.
This
article is free to republish provided the resource information
below remains intact.
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