Where are you hiding yours…?

One thing I’ve done as part of this “experiment” is go to the websites of the UK’s leading charities and sign up for email newsletters. Sounds simple? It’s not – it’s incredibly difficult. It seems like many charities are trying to hide their email newsletters. Are they ashamed?

Here are some highlights:

• CRUK – couldn’t find where to sign up
• Macmillian – took about 3 minutes to find the form, was squirrled away behind a small link on fundraising page
• RSPCA – no idea where it is
• NSPCC – no idea either

And then there were sites that made the sign up process difficult

• BHF – link hidden under multimedia under events, tried to sign up, asked to register for the website, went through the site registration process and then asked to sign up for an event, had to navigate myself back to the email sign up form
• National Trust – 2 data protection opt-ins. One for National Trust, one for NT Enterprises. This is only explained when you fail to select the check box, but it still seems very salesy (find out about our credit card). This is really confusing and I’m sure some will give up.

There was one good one, Marie Curie – simply sign posted from the home page and a quick and easy form. Shame this is such a rarity!

12 days of xmas email…

First up, who is this email from? The lack of Christian Aid branding and an obvious mention of the organisation is really stark to me. Their supporters will have to be well aware that Present Aid is their sub brand for virtual gifts. No logo and only mentioning the organisaiton deep into the body copy will have people reaching for delete until they discover it’s from an organisaiton they trust.

Secondly, I think this email is a bit confused about what it’s trying to get me to do. Is it selling Present Aid? Is it a feedback (I haven’t bought from them before), is it content about their celeb’s trip to Tanzania? I’m confused! A clear call to action and a single minded proposition is an absolute essential in an email – more so than any other communication. What needs to happen should be clearly marked above the fold, but there’s nothing here doing that (fold indicated by black line of image below).

present aid email with graphics enabled

Thirdly, copy errors in the final paragraph make this seem very sloppy and slap dash. Proof reading before pressing send costs nothing.

Finally, the data opt out is to opt out of 12 days of Christmas emails. What if I want to opt out of all communications? Or all present aid ones? What happens to communications from Christian Aid if I opt out here? I think they’ve tried to give the supporter choice here, but without a crisp explanation this just adds to more confusion.

I do like the creative look. It feels quite clean and simple – not over designed. I also like the header copy before the link to the html version – this introduces a bit of the content of the email and gives it a bit of intrigue and CTA to open the email, rather than just “click here if you can’t see the images” which tells you nothing about what’s inside.

An experiment…

Email marketing is one of my bug bears. The channel can no longer be described as being in its infancy – yet there is an incredible amount of bad practice in email marketing – especially in the charity sector.

Email is a very powerful and profitable medium and it is only going to carry on growing so it’s important charities learn how to use it now. There is so much expertise in the sector for direct mail, but so little for email – this just seems crazy to me and leads to common mistakes and error being repeated over and over again.

So I’ve decided to do a bit of an experiment (as part of an effort to make me blog more) and monitor and comment on emails that I receive from various charities. I’ll comment on the good and the bad and I won’t hold back from identifying organisations and poor practice. I’ll also try and look at things like targeting and frequency and see if these are being optomised. I hope that this will come together to be a resource for everyone to see a bit of a snapshot of what charity emails look like now, as well as helping people improve their email marketing.

I won’t be posting about creative from my organisation. Not because I think it’s perfect but because it’s unfair on my colleagues and also because it’s not very professional of me as I should be highlighting my concerns internally to the relevant people. Also, as a disclaimer, nothing I post is a malicious attack and I don’t claim to know the ins and outs of every organisation or their marketing plan – this is just my subjective opinion as someone who’s approaching this a member of the public.

So to start…an agency email I got recently.

I know this isn’t in the exact spirit of what I’ve just written, but as it’s a charity agency and it’s incredibly poor practice I thought I should highlight it.

Xmas party email from a charity agency with images turned off

I have blanked out the name of the agency to protect their modesty (aren’t I nice?).

As you can see, this is what confronts you when you open up the email. A load of empty boxes with red crosses. What am I possibly going to get from that?

This is such an incredibly common mistake – relying on images to do the work where html text should take over. Lots of lovely images may make the email look nice, but unless you’re a trusted sender of the recipient they’re not going to get a chance to see your email. Trust me, having a load of blocked images like this does not add intrigue.

Making an impact with words is incredibly vital as it’s the difference between your email getting deleted or people taking the time to download the graphics, read it and respond.

For balance, including my name in the subject is a good touch to increase open rates.

What does this email say to me about the agency who sent it? They don’t have much of an idea about email marketing, and I certainly won’t be beating a path to their door for an email campaign. So whilst the email is trying to build client relations by inviting me to a party, it’s actually ended up scoring a bit of an own goal.