HTML vs JPEG Email experiment

I recently redesigned our newsletter template in light of the Inbound Marketing University class on email marketing by the great Eric Groves of Constant Contact. It really highlighted for me just how effective this method of inbound marketing can be when it’s done properly.

Here are a few tips from Eric’s lecture

• Emails not in line with your customers’ interests will most likely be deleted
• Write great content that will help your customers solve their problems
• Share your expertise – it will really help build a relationship with every individual

The main focus of the redesign for me was to ensure that anyone receiving this email knew instantly what it was about, why they had received it and what the value was of opening it. To acheive this, I tested several email programmes and found that the majority will automatically turn off images received in an email from an unknown address. The implications of this could be devastating for us – the first element in the email is our company logo in a banner! If someone received this email and images are off in their email viewer – all  they will get is a red cross and an option to download images if they choose, and what they will probably do is delete it there and then.

In order to try and increase the number of views I swapped out the image for a simple html table in which the top row had a blue background and white text with the same content as the banner. This should improve the number of opens if people can see what the email is about when the preview it.

I’ve also simplified and reduced the amount of content. It’s a newsletter format email, so I’ve reduced the content down to one shortened article that anyone can view in full by clicking a link, and the featured employers of the month. The primary function of the newsletter is to help our subscribers send off good applications, so both the above elements are important.

I’ll post the results in a couple of weeks when the full impact of the email can be compared against the original newsletter email.