eROI Days Email Agency » iMediaConnection

Outlook 2007: New Editor, New Challenges

Ryan Buchanan — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:48:33 +0000

This morning’s feature article on iMediaConnection answers a lot of questions that the entire email marketing world has been buzzing with anticipation. Until reading this article, most of us knew that Outlook 2007 is using a new rendering engine (MS Word) instead of the much more intuitive choice of MS Internet Explorer like previous versions of Outlook. Some of my quick observations on the annoyances of Outlook 2007: Background images and colors are removed and rendering of emails using CSS and style sheets gets screwy.

But here are a few things we didn’t know as well:
1. Adoption rate of Outlook 2007 is going to be quite slow, especially among B2C users.
2. The article mentions, “Outlook changes may encourage designers to stick to simple HTML and, as a result, increase compatibility with a greater number of mail clients including those on handheld devices and cell phones.”

The Good stuff: What to do about it. Read the full blog posting and article >>

This is straight from the last page of the iMedia Connection article and is copied in its entirety:

“Education & Understanding

Read the MS documentation on Outlook 2007 so you and your designers understand the limitations and can account for these if you want to design Outlook 2007-friendly emails (Email Marketing Report’s Brownlow)
Outlook 2007 has been available as a no-charge beta for months, enabling many marketers to test and optimize their email in advance of the recent launch. (Microsoft’s Spiezle)

Test, test and re-test

Test, test and re-test campaigns to optimize deliverability. Tools and deliverability resources are available for mailers at www.microsoft.com/postmaster as well as from http://postmaster.live.com/ (Spiezle)
Review your subscriber list to get a feel for the webmail services and likely clients being used by them. Test these services and clients against your design and adjust accordingly. (Brownlow)
Ensure your email service provider has tested any plug-n-play templates that the company offers (GOT’s Vezina)
Test the rendering of your campaigns in all email clients PRIOR to mailing. Use a tool provided by your email service provider, agency or deliverability partner, or just set up test accounts and check manually. (Return Path’s Miller)

Adjustments & New Best Practices

If you’re a beginner or intermediate at web design, simply avoid: CSS (cascading style sheets), background images, animated GIFs and

tags. (Vezina)
Add a link to the web version of your email, so if things look grim there’s an alternative for your recipients to view. (Brownlow)
Realize that Outlook 2007 is one of many display environments that can wreak havoc with inappropriately designed email. Designing email just for Outlook 2007 is like designing a road for bicycles only. (Brownlow)
In Q2, start to roll back to simple HTML and try to inform your design as much as possible with real subscriber input. (Miller)
Offer a quick poll asking when your subscribers intend to upgrade (if at all). Talk to your subscribers through online surveys and/or focus groups. Are some of the advanced features you feel you can’t live without really that important to them? Will simple links do just as well as interactive elements or search fields? (Miller)
Sadly, there is no “sniffer” that will tell your MIME formatted messages that the client is Outlook 2007. However, you can add mouse type to your header instructions to easily view the message as a web page or to change preferences to text only. This will at least address any rendering difficulties until Outlook 2007 has a broader share of market. (Miller)
Track subscriber behavior, particularly for B2B subscribers. Are formerly active subscribers suddenly going non-responsive? Maybe they can’t see your email! Are there certain receivers/ISPs where you see a drop off in open and click rates? Perhaps the Outlook 2007 adoption is higher to this segment. This data may give you a clue as to adoption of your own file. Invite those subscribers to re-subscribe to the text version. (Miller)
Give more attention to the words you use. The tougher the limitations on design, the bigger the role your text plays in driving action. A picture is worth approximately zero words if it isn’t displayed properly. Don’t let clever design get in the way of the message. (Brownlow)
Hope for the best: Using Word as Outlook’s rendering engine appears to be some sort of horrible mistake. We can only hope that Microsoft, which is already reportedly at work on Service Pack 1, puts Internet Explorer back in charge of rendering soon so email marketers can avoid some HTML overhauls down the line. (EEC’s White)”

Dove: Re-defining Beauty with a Major Impact

Ryan Buchanan — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 18:59:45 +0000

eROI President Ryan Buchanan writes in iMediaConnection about the Dove campaign:

“Dove no longer sells soap. The company is so much more than a set of commodity products. Dove sells real beauty; natural beauty; non-superficial beauty. The Campaign for Real Beauty website features a one-minute film that shows the transformation of an average-looking woman into a strikingly gorgeous supermodel. Only by seeing this process can we truly comprehend the illusion that the media has portrayed of these fabricated dream girls. The beauty of this site is that it doesn’t end with just awareness of the problem. It launches immediately into an actionable item for eight to 12-year-old girls to sign up for Dove’s real beauty workshops. These workshops teach girls about the importance of identifying beauty within themselves in the pre-teen years before the peer pressure to be like the mythical supermodel drives them to anorexia or bulimia.

This site has generated major buzz for good reason. It is authentic, genuine, and true to the Dove brand. It is an extension of the type of values that Dove has demonstrated for the past several years as one of the first major brands to feature larger women in their ads. It challenges convention and educates. As a viral website, “Campaign for Real Beauty” employs all of the right strategies and tactics. It’s easy to send the website to a friend, it has a compelling call-to-action, and it positions the educational resources on the site as the main focus– a testament to Dove’s humanitarian reasons for creating the campaign. It is clear what is important here, and that isn’t just selling product. It’s helping women and girls redefine beauty to change their life in a positive way.

The website is clearly targeted towards women and girls, but us men and boys are a big part of the equation. As for me, I think my wife is stunningly beautiful whether she is getting out of the tent on an early morning of a camping trip or dressed up in an evening gown for a swanky date. However, I must say that the superficial, heavily-altered, Photoshopped supermodel in the advertisement at the end of the Dove film is straight-up HOT! Men are a simple breed. My question to Dove is, what’s next? How can you break through to men?”

Hip Humor Reaches Youth

Ryan Buchanan — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:47:34 +0000

We are regular contributors on web marketing campaigns for iMediaConnection.com. We get asked to review new campaigns and would like to steer you to these from time to time.

This one focuses on fuse TV and was well done. Read our CEO’s takes.

Hip Humor Reaches Youth
fuse TV targets youth with a website that offers animation, comedy, downloads and music.

eROI CEO Reviews Nordstrom Silverscreen

Ryan Buchanan — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 06:51:52 +0000

Another review we recently did for iMediaConnection.com. Worth a quick read as many people only associate eROI wil email marketing. We actually run a full service agency as well that helps deliver campaigns like the one reviewed below.

eROI CEO Reviews Nordstrom Silverscreen

Ecommerce Meets Entertainment
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Shopping and entertainment merge in Fallon’s Nordstrom BDA; audiences can watch remixed music videos, and buy the featured clothing while still within the video.