Some Quick Tips to Designing successful emails.

Designing emails is one thing, designing effective emails is another. When creating emails for fun or business, here are some quick tips to keep in mind.

Who are you talking to?

• One of the most important things when designing an email is to know who you are talking to. An email designing for a 20 something, won’t work the same for a 40 something. Make sure to speak to them so they can relate. Give them products and offers that are relevant to them.

What are you trying to accomplish from your email?

• Is it informative or actionable?

Prominent call-to-actions

• If you want them to click, make it noticeable and interesting. Grab their attention so that they don’t have to look for it, make it pop. Be creative.
  

Sharing

• If you have a great offer you want people to pass on, make it possible. Perhaps there is an incentive (eg. Earn an additional 10% for every friend that you forward this to, get your friends to register and get 50% off)

Catch their attention

• Eye-catching graphics, animation – make your email stand out form the rest.

Best Practices

• Try and figure out how the majority of people are receiving the email. Are you targeting mobile users? Do the majority have hotmail addresses? What email client are they using? Although some of these might be hard to answer, try and find out as much as you can.

Be aware

• What are your competitors doing? What works? What type of emails work for you? What emails work for the people in your demographic? When designing emails, it is important to be up-to-date on what is going on in the industry. Subscribe to email lists and see what other people are doing. To be an expert, you need to know what works and what doesn’t from a consumer point-of-view. The easiest way, is what emails in your inbox are getting YOUR attention.

Additional Resources:
I came across this site, which has some really good examples and case studies of emails if you want to see some examples of successful emails. Take a look:
http://www.retailemailblog.com/2008/01/design-hall-of-fame-2007-inductees.html

Interactive Ads – Letting the user take control

The future of ads are evolving. They are cooler, dynamic and interactive. Using software such as Flash, we have the opportunity to explore, new innovative ways to do ads. Add to this the knowledge we have of consumers, we can increase consumer engagement in the work we do for clients.

There are many opportunities we have with ads. Adding dynamic content, segmenting, however the one I want to explore in this write up is that of Animated Interactive Ads that engage consumers through gaming and user controlled movement. This can be allowing them to control the content of the ad, allow them to move products around, to play a game, anything that engages them in the ad and changes it from a visual piece to a means of entertainment.

I recently read a study called “High Recall and Low Recognition of Interactive Ads”. This study analyzes Highly Interactive Ads, Medium Animated and Static ads for recall and effectiveness. After doing the study, Interactive ads proved to have better recall, as the subjects retained more of the information in the ads. One can attribute this to the level of engagement they have. Think about it this way, when you are on a web site, you usually go on for a purpose. Ads can easily take second place as you navigate the site for the original purpose you came there for. Now add in an interactive ad that catches your attention. The user interacts with the ad, and now you have engaged them in the message for a longer period of time then if they had just noticed the ad at the corner of their eye.

To make an Interactive Ad effective there are a number of things one needs to consider.

• Is the method of interaction relevant to the message?
• Is it appropriate for the demographic?
• Does it display the brand?
• What are you asking them to do?
• Is it informative or actionable?

By creating ads that are more interactive and engaging, we can ensure better message retention to our consumers, as well as provide more innovative solutions to clients.


Written by Christine Worrall


Resources:
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/1/2/9/8/pages112982/p112982-1.php

Interactive TV - Bringing TV Back

Interactive TV is definitely a channel to explore. While I still feel that online channels are the ones to invest a big percent of our efforts in, we may want to consider how we can incorporate Interactive TV in a way that is beneficial to us and consumers.

With the demand of online media, it is often speculated that it may be the end of media channels such as TV. That TV and commercials are not an area to invest advertising dollars and on their way out. It is true that commercials as they are becoming less effective. However with the introduction of Interactive TV, TV as a media is no longer becoming obsolete but re-invented.

Interactive TV brings us a means to see TV in a new way. Allowing the user to engage with the brand, helping with retaining the brand message. Studies show that when you engage the consumer in the brand longer, they will retain the message and have better success in recall.

In Interactive TV, you allow the user additional options when viewing a TV commercial. Rather than just watch the ad, they are prompted for additional options which may be to answer a quiz, play a game or be directed to another channel. All the commands allowing the use of their remote, requiring no additional software. We are able to engage them in the message and keep their attention longer.

Some companies are already starting to explore Interactive TV. In an article I read online for the Wall Street Journal (see links below), Burger King teamed up with Twilight: New Moon, where users can use their remotes to take a quiz testing their knowledge of the film. This was done through DirecTV in the U.S. Unilever, Charmin are also doing interactive ads. It is only a matter of time before the technology becomes common in Canadian television. Rogers, who offers Digital Boxes and HD TV, could have the capabilities to support the technology here in Canada.

After looking into some of the potential for Interactive TV and seeing some of the technology trends, it may be something to think about. When one looks at the success of YouTube, you can see that TV, Video, are not dying, they are just changing. We need to change with it.

Written by Christine Worrall


Below, are some resources related to Interactive TV.
Wall Street Journal Article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703363704574503623115546590.html

Interactive TV News
http://www.itvt.com/about-us

Some of the top trends as showcased in CES 2010 (3D TV is one)
http://www.cesweb.org/news/releaseDetail.asp?id=11869