WHITEPAPER EMAIL SUCCESS TOOLKIT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Before you hit the send button on yet another “oops” message, use this toolkit to prevent mistakes. Included are a Project Brief to help with your process, a Quality Assurance Checklist you can use to organize your email testing, a Mitigate the Impact Checklist to remind you what to do if a mistake does slip through, and examples of “Oops” campaigns for inspiration. CONTENTS 1 PROJECT BRIEF 3 PROBLEM? MITIGATE THE IMPACT CHECKLIST 2 QUALITY ASSURANCE CHECKLIST 4 EXAMPLE GALLERY ©2014 Digital River, Inc. 5 OTHER RESOURCES bluehornet.com PROJECT BRIEF Below is an example of an email project brief. Depending on your specific situation and needs, the contents may vary, but this should give you a great starting point to put some structure and clarity into your process. PROJECT OVERVIEW Template / Campaign Name: Review / Approval Owner: Creative Due Date: Tested HTML Due Date: Email Launch Date: TEMPLATE / STARTING POINT Design new email from scratch Create new email from existing HTML/Template • If creating from existing assets, please describe: BACKGROUND / BRAND DIRECTION Goal / Objective of this campaign? Who is the primary audience? Tone / Image of template? What are your KPIs / Success Metrics? Specific elements to incorporate into template? OK to Share to Social? If so, which channels? Copy Deck location? ©2014 Digital River, Inc. Make sure your entire team is on the same page before you begin. When everyone understands the bigger picture – the project goals, audience, success metrics – it empowers everyone to make the right decisions during the process. Page 2 MAKE SURE COPY DECK INCLUDES Headlines and Sub-headlines and CTA button names Body Copy Call-To-Action button names and URLs Links (full URL paths including navigation, social, body links, CTAs, privacy policy, etc.) Snippet View Online / Mobile Verbiage The more revisions there are, and the more back and forth there is, the greater the likelihood of miscommunication and mistakes slipping through. Iron out all of the content before it you get it to the design phase. Address Book Verbiage ( if applicable ) LAUNCH INFORMATION Substitute Name (for personalization) From Name From Email Reply Email Subject Line Footer Campaign (if applicable) Bill Code (if applicable) Attributes (if applicable) Test List Email Addresses Segments to Send to Segments to Exclude (if applicable) Send Date (Month/Day/Year) Send Time (Hour : Minutes AM/PM) Although it may sound counter-intuitive, conducting A/B split tests on your campaigns can actually help prevent mistakes. With an extra layer of variables in play, people are more cautious and thorough when setting up the email. If a mistake does get through, it may only affect a small percentage of recipients. And, of course, you are gathering insight and data to make your future emails more successful. A/B Test Details (if applicable) ©2014 Digital River, Inc. Page 3 QUALITY ASSURANCE CHECKLIST After your email is designed and programmed, QA is your last line of defense against mistakes. This checklist will help give you an idea of how to keep track of all the elements that need to be tested and where the email should be previewed before the send button gets pushed. Whenever possible, have someone other than the creator of the copy and design available for testing. A fresh pair of eyes can do wonders. DESIGN AND TEMPLATE Confirm final creative matches creative brief, tone, design, and assets specified. Confirm correct template is being used. TEST MESSAGE RENDERING IN EMAIL CLIENTS AND BROWSERS Outlook 365 Outlook 2013 Outlook 2010 Outlook 2007 Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail / Windows Live (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari) Yahoo! Mail (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari) Gmail (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari) AOL Apple Mail 6 Apple Mail 5 iPhone Android Remember that HTML for email is very different than HTML for websites. If your design looks good when you preview it in your browser, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will look good when it gets to the end user. Mobile emails have a bigger audience than ever. Take advantage of email rendering tools or third parties like Email On Acid and Litmus to streamline the testing process on multiple devices. BlackBerry ©2014 Digital River, Inc. Page 4 SPECIFIC RENDERING CHECKS Overall layout/readability of message Placement holding of all components: images, paragraphs and spacing, indentations, etc. Font accuracy - style, size, placement, formatting Rendering of special characters Link underlining/color consistency Check View Online version to make sure all content displays correctly Check to ensure Text version mirrors the HTML version with offered links and content View email outside of company firewall to ensure images are publicly viewable CONTENT ACCURACY From name From/reply email Substitute name Subject line Link underlining / color consistency Snippet copy Headline Sub-headline Body copy Offer (Discount, expiration, disclaimer / fine print, etc) CTA / Button Checking for spelling and grammar at the same time you are reviewing for message tone and clarity is difficult. Instead, read through the email a few times, with a different objective each time. Remember that yspell check won’t catch everything. A great trick is to read the copy backwards... it forces you to ignore the message and lets you focus on individual words. Disclaimer Custom fields populated correctly Call any listed phone numbers Double check every date (Events, releases, number versus day of the week, etc) ©2014 Digital River, Inc. Page 5 CONFIRM LINKS Correct path All links are tracked Functionality Links open in new window Variable for duplicate link paths in HTML (if applicable) ALT TAGS Accuracy Landing pages are often created at the same time as the email, so be sure you don’t overlook a placeholder link or a URL intended to go to a specific interior web page that’s temporarily directed at the home page. One for each image CAN-SPAM COMPLIANCE Includes physical mailing address Unsubscribe link is working ©2014 Digital River, Inc. Page 6 PROBLEM? MITIGATE THE IMPACT CHECKLIST First you need to truly define what type of error it is. For example, is it revenue impacting or not? There was a big box retailer last holiday season that sent out a message that was selling iPads for the absolutely wrong price. The price was so off that they really couldn’t even honor the pricing in the offer – so that is a BIG error. But if it is a broken link in the navigation to the contact us page…or the view in browser link – it probably isn’t so monumental. Use this checklist as a guide to help keep your cool and make sure you are thinking everything through under pressure. WHAT TO DO WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG Stay calm and assess the situation Will this impact revenue? Identify who you need to involve to address the mistake Determine IF you want to send an Oops message at all. And to whom. IF YOU NEED TO SEND A FOLLOW-UP “OOPS” EMAIL, REMEMBER… Be timely Maintain your brand voice Be transparent Don’t blame anyone else Learn something ©2014 Digital River, Inc. You can’t change any code that’s in the sent email, but you might be able to change what’s on your server that the email is pointing to. Depending on how the mistake was made and how your server is set up, you might be able to fix images or links with broken paths. It can be as simple as posting a new file with the mis-spelled name. Or if there’s a typo in the image, you can repost an updated image. Page 7 EXAMPLE GALLERY The proper “Oops” email response is entirely dependent on the actual mistake that was made, but here are a few examples to give you some ideas should you ever find yourself in need of sending one. FROM: KATE SPACE SUBJECT LINE: THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.... HERE’S A SWEET TREAT FROM: PACSUN SUBJECT LINE: OOPS, OUR SITE WAS DOWN. LET’S TRY THIS AGAIN! ©2014 Digital River, Inc. Page 8 ORIGINAL EMAIL FROM: WHICH WICH? SUBJECT LINE: CELEBRATE OUR BIRTHDAY WITH $3 WICHES! FOLLOW UP OOPS EMAIL FROM: WHICH WICH? SUBJECT LINE: OOPS . . . ©2014 Digital River, Inc. Page 9 FROM: THREADLESS SUBJECT LINE: WE SCREWED UP! FROM: THINKGEEK SUBJECT LINE: OOPS! THINKGEEK’S IN THE DOGHOUSE FROM: STELLA & DOT SUBJECT LINE: OOPS! PLEASE DISREGARD OUR CONGRATULATIONS EMAIL ©2014 Digital River, Inc. Page 10 OTHER RESOURCES On-Demand Webinar Did you miss our “Preventing the ‘Oops!’ Email” presentation? Kara Trivunovic, VP of Strategic Services for BlueHornet discusses how to avoid the “oops”, how to mitigate its impact, and discusses ways to get creative with “oops” emails. Watch it online now... www.bluehornet.com/form/preventing-the-oops-email-on-demand-webinar Editable Checklists Would you like an editable Microsoft Word version of any of these checklists to build from? Just email [email protected] with your request and we’ll send you the file. BlueHornet 2355 Northside Drive Suite B250 San Diego, CA 92108 (866) 586-3755 www.bluehornet.com [email protected] Twitter: @bluehornetemail ©2014 Digital River, Inc. Page 11
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