Clear email subscription consent confirmation

 There's a clear email subscription consent confirmation right here!

A rare example of a nice reactivation email

It's been a while since anything catch my eye in terms of email copy. But this message from a brand I didn't buy from for a decade made me smile. Let's take a closer look.

It's an email from a hockey club. I visited its game once years ago. I also didn't open any of their emails for a while.

So they did a right thing – they sent me an email asking if I still want to receive their communications. And I indeed want to – thanks to the amazing copy which made me smile.

Well done, Anaheim Ducks!

Not the best way to make you emails recognised by AliExpress

Just see the 'friendly' from name sent to a customer from Russia:

Reply by email to a reported issue which impressed me

It's really hard for me to find a thing to write about in this blog lately as I've basically seen it all in email marketing. But today I've got an epic story for you.

Last week I've reported my bank an issue in their mobile app. And asked to provide a reply via email address. Few days after I've got an email, below are the steps I had to take in order to actually read their reply:

1. I opened the email, it said that the reply is provided as an encrypted email in a second email message. The first email also had a pdf manual attachment explaining how to open an encrypted email (sic!).
2. I scrolled down to the second email message and found it has some kind of an attachment (probably the encrypted email reply) and a link to read it.
3. After clicking the link I had to set up some sort of an account in a system allowing to read encrypted emails in a browser (sic!).
4. Then I've seen a content of an encrypted email, saying that the reply itself is attached as a pdf document.
5. I opened the pdf attachment and found out it's just saying 'sorry for the bug, you can do this in an office'.

OMG, that was sick!

Renault email marketing manager probably is a good guy, but...

Why did I get an email saying 'While you're waiting for a car to be delivered...' when I've been driving the car for 2 weeks? Yes, I understand that usually, you have to wait for a car to be delivered, but that's not my case.

Not enough details in a LinkedIn email

I'm not a fan putting all the possible information in an email and turning it into a landing page. So I personally prefer to keep 'em short and effective in terms of CTR. Anyway, sometimes I feel that an email is missing really important information which just *has* to be there.

Here's an example of this situation - an email about my LinkedIn job application. Will you be able to guess what's missing?

Guys, the company name is missing. Email marketing positions are named pretty much similar, so I need the company name in order to remember my application. And it's just not there, and I have to click on a link (no button or CTA, by the way) in order to learn it. And I won't be doing so 'cause I'm reading it on mobile.

Nice email marketing where you don't expect it

I've visited a nice karting place a week ago. I have to admit it has a great management system right from the start - initially you create you racer's profile with a PC stand and then you actually get a chance to drive.

I've been impressed a day after the visit when I finally checked out my inbox to find an email... coming from the venue. And it was just great - not the usual marketing bullshit, but the results of the races I've had on the previous evening.

We're so obsessed with finding best touch points with our customers that we totally forget about the businesses and cases when desirable email content comes straight from client's situation.

Anyways the email isn't perfect. Take a look at its poor view on mobile:

Product Integration into Gmail

Take a look into this opportunity: https://gsuite-developers.googleblog.com/2017/03/bring-power-of-your-apps-into-gmail_9.html

I'm curious if it's going to be premoderated and therefore not available to most of products like Actions.

3 Months Since AliExpress Russia Hired a New Email Marketing Manager

3 months have passed since AliExpress Russia hired a new email marketing manager. Let's take a look at their emails for the last 30 days. You can see the 'results' even if you don't understand Russian:

Customer Care Request Form Confirmation Email

I've sent a request to customer care via a form on a website. Seconds later I've been checking my email and I found this:

This is an epic fail, isn't it?

And here's why:

• Sender isn't recognizable. If I would check my inbox minutes or hours after request submission I'm likely to not understand where it's coming from.
• There's no request ID or something similar that will allow me to check its status later.

• Actually there's no content at all!

Finally I Understood Why Email Designs Frequently Are So Bad

Finally I've got a feeling of what happens when a company is sending out an email campaign with a poor design. At least it should be one of the most important cases.

I've been reading through web designers CVs lately. A lot of CVs as I'm looking for an email designer for a top 3 Russian cell phone operator. And I see a situation when web design is being done by designers with a printed design experience.

At first they're starting doing things for web - and it's a mistake #1 as they don't fully understand that media. And at some point some person asks such a designer to create a mockup for an email campaign. But email as a channel is different even comparing to web design! And here we go - the designer who totally doesn't understand email marketing is guiding the way email are going to look like.

How To Waste Email Subject Line Opportunities

My bank started monthly email digest lately. As an email professional I'm carefully reading all their email. The last one was pretty appealing - up to 10% cash back on gas stations, discount on tickets to electronic music festival etc. Much effort spent on proposed opportunity, design and so on.

But the subject line was the worst possible - just "Our News In Short". What an opportunity wasted!

Emails Of Cell Phone Service Provider Marked With This: Be careful with this message. It contains content that's typically used to steal personal information.

Earlier I wrote about email authentication problems of one of my banks.

Now I've seen a pretty much similar problem with my cell phone provider monthly email:

Of course this problem can be solved. The question is if your business has a person in charge of email marketing or not. For a company with tens of thousands of employees it's a must.

Another wrong thing with this email is I can't see anything in an attached PDF file on my Mac:

Steam - Not So Good Email

I'm using Steam as a platform to install and play PC games. Today I've got an email about a huge discount on a game I was up to buying.

Of course I used a chance to get it with a reduced price, but it took me a while how to use actually move from email to the buying process. Take a look at the screenshot and try to tell what you're expected to click on if... there's no any big visible button or a link (no, the price tag isn't clickable!).

Correct answer is the big image. Yes, I had to click on it on order to get a web site. This email definitely can have a better conversion if there is but CTA.

A Well Known Mistake In An Email From FC Barcelona

I was expecting a flawless emails when subscribing to this media giant having its own TV channel and very useful online website.

But that's how the very first email from them looked like:

It's a pity to see such a 'classical' issue of email looking empty. Not showing images by default is very common on smartphones, but this happened to me on desktop - something went wrong, probably because of a weak WiFi signal. The issue might be fixed with easy by splitting the design into few images and providing useful alt texts for each of them.

This Is Why UGC Might Be Dangerous

This is a digest email from a blog platform with fun stories:

Such fails with user generated content in email campaigns may be easily prevented by adding premoderation of automatically selected UGC prior to sending.

Another thing to mention regarding this campaign - I wasn't using this product since 2008 (sic!) when it was a geolocation based social network (innovative idea back then). So it's a mystery why they still try to reach me.

Email Address Bounced Back? Here's an Alternative Way to Deal With That

In a great blog post at Word to the Wise blog we're seeing a not so frequent approach to processing email bounces. As a shop customer the blogger has received a sticker on her delivery bag asking for an email update because it has bounced. What an example of not so common friendly email marketing! :)

Yes, Uber Really Need an Email Marketing Manager

Today I've applied to an email marketing manager vacancy at Uber. Their jobs website was extremely slow and almost non-responsive.

Anyway the most important thing about the process was a confirmation email I've got soon after the application. It's really funny to see how it looks like taking into account key requirement for the job - make sure everything works fine both on desktop and web environments.

What are the flaws?
1. Too small to read comfortably.
2. Friendly From doesn't exist, as a result I're getting an email from "no-reply".
3. Too big useless indents.

That's clear that's not one of the most important Uber emails, but why don't you try to deliver your best at every email?

P.S. You could check my previous posts and a good <LINK> and not so good <LINK> examples of Uber emails.

That's What You Have Been Looking For!

I've got an email with such a subject lately. Initially I understood it as "We're reading your mind" and it really impressed me as the email was showing different portable batteries for smartphones I was willing to buy last week.

Only a few minutes later I remembered the fact I was visiting their website for those products earlier this week, and the fact I've bought from them a year or two go. So what has happened here? The website has seen their already existing customer browsing for some specific products. He remembered that fact and followed up the customer with an email about those products hours later.

In fact that's a very similar email to abandoned cart follow up, but based on product pages views instead of things put into cart. And it's pretty effective in the era when many of our purchased are based on price but not seller reputation and sometimes customers don't remember their brand at all.

A Really Good Example of an Airline Tickets Aggregator Campaign

Finally I've seen an interesting email coming from one of widely known airline tickets aggregators.

The email had a lot of interesting information for casual flyers:
- airport lifehacks
- tips on how to spend couple free hours around most popular airports

Of course it won't be new to a frequent flyers e.g. business travelers, but for me as a casual traveler that was a bunch of useful and never known before tricks. Fabulous!

But even that great email had a flaw. I've tried to unsubscribe from their digest just to check their unsubscription flow. Everything went fine except the fact I didn't find a way to re-subscribe. It means you're likely to not see some new great emails from them.