Designing Effective Eblasts
Does the look and feel of your email messaging effect the campaign results? You may have wondered whether an ordinary-looking email would get better results than a designed one, or vice versa.
We already knew that adding personalization would increase responses. But would people view a simple text email as more personable? Or would the color and design of a newsletter-type email help it stand out in crowded inboxes?
We divided our list in half, sending out a total of 1200 emails. We sent them out at the same time, with the same subject line and the same content—the only difference was the design of the email itself.
Designed email
Plain email
The results? We had more than twice as many people respond to the designed email, and 200% more forwarded it to a friend compared to the plain version.
Results
Overall, click-throughs from the eblast were responsible for a 387% increase in traffic to our site.
The Power of Frequency
When advertising legend Leo Burnett died in 1971, a book simply titled, Leo, was privately printed and distributed by his associates. Those lucky enough to have worked with the man received a coveted copy. Glen Peak was among the fortunate few.
In Leo, a compilation of famous speeches, we find timeless words of wisdom, amazingly relevant today. In about 1950, Burnett wrote about “the brand” in a speech called, “The power of frequency.” He almost sounds like a modern branding guru when he explains, “Whether it is an impulse purchase like a candy bar or a package of cigarettes or an infrequent and highly deliberated purchase like a washing machine, a refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner or a mattress, the biggest single thing that advertising can contribute is a friendly predisposition toward the brand—a whole complex of thoughts and emotions which give the purchaser peace of mind in the choice he [or she] makes. We shun the unknown. We are naturally drawn to the familiar. You might call this simply ‘friendship for the product.’ Your best friends are people whose qualities you like and admire and whom you enjoy being with—but they are usually people you see frequently. The principle of frequency in advertising has long been recognized. Several great brands have been built around rigid adherence to this principle rather than through the content or power of any single advertisement.”
The idea of a “whole complex of thoughts and emotions” about a brand sounds like modern branding building, doesn’t it? And, Burnett’s emphasis on the power of “friends” seems almost prophetic in this era of social networking.
Although the concept of brand friendship and loyalty hasn’t changed much over the past 60 years, media choices dramatically have. As marketing experts today, we ask ourselves. how much advertising is too much? How much is too little? The battle between reach and frequency is going through seismic shifts in perspective and is altering everything we do.
In light of the changes occurring almost daily, it is beneficial to review some basic concepts in media strategy and examine how those concepts are evolving. To read more about our perspectives on media planning, click here to request our White Paper 3.
Introducing our Fall 2009 Art Interns
PeakBiety welcomes graphic design interns, Hemi Shimizu and Meghan Buchanan.
Hemi (pronounced emmy), attends the International Academy of Design and Technology in Tampa and is majoring in graphic design. Hemi considers herself not only a graphic designer, but a diverse, persistent and creative illustrator. In the future, she plans to work at targeting Hispanic markets as well as the general market. Diversity not only runs in Hemi’s designs, but in her family, too. Her father is Japanese, her mother is Venezuelan and her husband is American.
Meghan Buchanan, a student at the Art Institute of Tampa, comes with freelance design experience and is a member of AIGA and Ad 2 Tampa Bay. She has worked on numerous projects, including rebranding, advertising campaigns and web site development. Her work was featured in the Design Futures Showcase of 2009. Megan has always had a passion for creative thinking. She strives to be a citizen designer, concerned for the betterment of society and is focusing on the necessity of design.
Both Hemi and Meghan have hit the ground running and have participated in branding research and conceptual illustrations. We are looking forward to what they will bring to the table in the coming months.
Complex Language Weakening Brands
from the Brand Strategy Insider
“Call the law enforcement officers. We’re being robbed.”
Not a likely scenario. What the average person is much more apt to say is: “Call the cops. We’re being robbed.”
Unfortunately, marketing people are not average persons. Marketing people are much more likely to elevate their languages until, in some cases, they lose their meanings.
A few years back a senior marketing person at United Parcel Service asked me what I thought of the company’s trademark.
I like it, I said, but what UPS really needs is a motivating idea or rallying cry, something like: UPS delivers more parcels to more people in more places than any other company in the world.
UPS, he said, is not in the parcel delivery business.
Huh. That came as a big surprise to me. We’re a customer and I always thought that UPS was in the parcel delivery business.
No. UPS is in the logistics business.
He wasn’t joking. At the time UPS was in the process of repainting some 88,000 vehicles with its new theme: Synchronizing the World of Commerce.
A serious impediment to communications is this constant upgrading of the language. No aspect of life is left untouched by the upgrade police. Not only does a term have to be politically correct, it has to be as long and as complicated as possible.
Maintenance men are now physical plant managers.
Janitors are now custodial engineers.
Garbage collectors are now sanitary engineers.
A business strategy is now a business model.
Accounting firms are now professional service firms.
The purchasing department is now the procurement department.
The personnel department is now the human relations department. (At Electronic Data Systems, the HR department has become the Leadership and Change Management department.)
Fireworks are now pyrotechnics.
A jail is now a correctional facility. Anyone setting off the pyrotechnics illegally will be sent to a correctional facility.
It would be amusing if the problem hasn’t become a serious impediment to marketing. Many firms, for example, call themselves financial services companies. What’s a financial services company?
If you want to buy banking services, you go to a bank like Bank of America.
If you want to buy insurance, you go to an insurance company like State Farm.
If you want to buy stocks, bonds or mutual funds, you go to a brokerage firm like Merrill Lynch.
Let’s go to a financial services company to get our finances serviced, is not the way people talk. People talk in terms of specifics, not generalities.
As a matter of fact, it’s easier to go from the specific to the general than vice versa. People know that a drug store sells a lot more things than just drugs. Toiletries, candy, soft drinks, stationery, photo supplies, etc. Should a drug store (pardon me, pharmacy) describe itself as a personal services store? I think not.
Boston Chicken was a huge hit when they first opened its doors. It was the first fast food restaurant chain to focus on rotisserie chicken for the take-home dinner market. But then it added turkey, meatloaf, ham and other items to the menu and changed its name to Boston Market.
Everybody knows what a chicken dinner is, but what’s a market dinner No wonder, the company went bankrupt.
The same principle holds true among marketing companies. You probably know of many famous advertising agencies and many famous PR agencies, but how many famous marketing communications agencies do you know of? Name one.
When in doubt, use the narrowest possible term to describe your category. Let the mind do the upgrading, not your marketing.
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