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It's #FridayRoundup time! Here goes:
Invent an Industry Metric (Nick Kolenda)
Everything is quantified nowadays.
We measure movies by Rotten Tomatoes, websites by Domain Authority and babies by Apgar scores (ouch!). This focus on numbers has made us develop an instinctive preference for anything marked with a higher number. For example, people will choose a hotel that has a higher rating in whichever metric it is quantified with (cheapest, most luxurious.)
How can you use this number fixation to help your brand?
Invent your own industry metric. Is your bread softer than competitors? Show a softness score. Are your yoga pants stretchy? Create a stretchiness score. You get the picture.
'This works for all DTC brands" doesn't mean it's right for you - look at YOUR customers to decide (Fabian Geyrhalter)
FOMO creates urgency and moves products... there are plenty of studies demonstrating this, and every brand uses it. Scarcity always works, right?
Wrong.
Fabian discovered this when his record shelving brand, Toneoptic, went down the FOMO path. They were almost sold out, so it was a no-brainer to highlight the scarcity. Or so he thought. Then he got an email from a potential customer who was worried about the limited stock. If he bought units now, the customer wondered, would Toneoptic have more in 6 or 12 months when he wants to expand his vinyl storage?
And we all know that for every customer that sends an email, there are hundreds of others quietly thinking that same thing. By creating FOMO, Toneoptic had unwittingly pushed away some prime customers.
With every decision you make, think about what you know about YOUR customers. Because even when an entire industry is doing it - it simply may not work for your niche or tribe. And that is the only thing that matters.
How to best utilize testimonials in email + a hidden benefit of ecom sales emails (Nikki Elbaz)
Reading scores of testimonials/reviews can be overwhelming. A good way to capitalize on the impact of reviews? Feature a single review so people can really absorb it. (Nikki talks about putting a review in your email signature; another way is to structure the entire email around that review.)
Email should be used to build relationships, and relationships are about give and take. And that's why you need to provide value as you sell, with your emails being a mix of content and sales.
But - with ecommerce, sometimes the selling IS the value. When we get emails with nice lifestyle images, it's a little like window shopping. It’s the reason so many ecomm brands get away with sending pretty, non-content emails.
(So much as I tout the importance of storytelling in emails - don't drop those image emails altogether!)
On that note: check out this tool from litmus. It can make the window shopping aspect of your emails fresh, personalized and dynamic.
But, but, but...
Don't get so caught up in the excitement of that tool that you forget this:
The best kind of email is not with or without images - it's the kind of email that people WANT to read (Daniel Throssell)
A new iOS update now banishes promo emails on mobile and doesn’t auto load images. This is the first instance of one of the major inbox providers disabling image loading by default.
Daniel believes it's because images are used to track opens. Even 'plain text' emails have a tiny invisible pixel to allow marketers to see who has opened an email.
And why would an inbox provider want to prevent email tracking? Because EMAIL USERS DON'T LIKE IT. (It really is kind of creepy that email managers all over the world can see exactly which email we opened, when we opened it, and sometimes even how many times we opened it. Privacy, how we miss you!)
And that brings us to the main point.
The best kind of email to be sending is not with images, or without images…
Because if people want to read it, inbox providers will want to deliver it.
The iOS image change will probably be tweaked, because many email users do, in fact, want to see the images from ecommerce companies (window shopping, hello). But the importance of the message remains: your goal should always be to create emails that people are happy to get.
Because chasing tactics that force people to get or open emails that they don't really want to get - that isn't sustainable. Nor is it good for your brand, even if it sometimes helps short term sales.
See you on Monday,
Chavy