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B2BM
April 2009
effective complement to email. Eloqua’s
Image blocking: rules to remember
director of client services, Stuart Wheldon,
comments: “A feed from, say, an industry
While images remain blocked, your ability to track is seriously
magazine, can be embedded into an email
about your products and position you as a
compromised. Here are some simple tips to bear in mind:
thought leader. Producing a webinar on a
• Use compelling subject lines: • People know how to download images, but certain topic can also result in good leads.”
headlines drive people to action include a link above the email, directing Thanks to technological advances, there
• Only use pictures as an enhancement: Don’t recipients online if the images are not are now more options for displaying
put key content in images and don’t put displaying correctly. content in emails. Weatherall says that
images at the top of a message, or the • Test different creatives. iTunes has a huge B2B catalogue – but few
recipient may see a large blank. • Some may prefer plain text emails anyway. companies are using video and podcasts:
• Strike a good balance between copy and These are cheaper, and can look more “You don’t necessarily have to read
images. personal. “HTML emails are like a red flag, information. In an email, you can direct
• Place the key message in text at the top of alerting recipients to the fact that they’re people to where they can view a video. It’s
an email. being sold to,” warns Michelle Crouch, about asking ‘What’s the best way for them
• Use effective descriptors, fully describing marketing director at Blue Sheep. to get this information?’ ”
what an image represents. • Ultimately response lies in your relationship In this way, email can become more of a
• Remember that if the content is valuable, with the recipient: nurture this, and the rest ‘pull’ than a ‘push’ trigger. Richard Lee,
people are more likely to interact with it. will follow. managing director of Blue Sheep, is an
advocate of this trend to use email in order
to boost what he terms ‘brand stickiness’.
brand that has taken a thought-leadership perceived value of content. We all have our “Until now, email has been a cheap and
approach. Recipients are invited to sign up Blackberries. Content is key; the time you overused acquisition tool,” he says. “It can
for information bulletins and RSS feeds and send isn’t so important,” he explains. be used to drive real-time updates in opt-in,
a variety of easily disseminated content is Outlook can now receive RSS feeds, and with choice and preference being driven by
promoted via email. “The big thing is the many experts agree that these can be an the customer. This will mean the recipient
B2BM APRIL 09 – www.b2bm.biz
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