Welcome to the new Friday Email Review Series. If you’ve missed the reviews from the last few weeks, you can see all past Email Review blog posts here. Not sure what I’m talking about? Learn more about the free Email Review’s in this blog post.

Also, I’m always taking submissions. Be sure to fill out the webform and send in your email to be reviewed next week.

Today’s Email Review screencast is Blue Sky Factory client, 1st Mariner Bank. Be sure to follow them on Twitter (@1stmarinerbank) where they talk banking and engage with their followers. Also, they are quite active on Facebook, posting timely articles and other banking information.

The 5-minute Email Review screencast is below.

Having trouble seeing? Try going directly to YouTube.

7 Takeways & Suggestions For 1st Mariner Bank

The following points were all covered in the screencast above, but for those that like them written out, see below:

1. Design For Images Off: Remember that most email clients have images off by default. 1st Mariner Bank does a great job designing this email to render nicely with images off. Once I enabled images, you’ll notice that the pictures enhanced the email, but were not critical to the overall design.
   
2. A|B Test Subject Lines: The subject line that 1st Mariner Bank chose, 1st Mariner Exchange-May 2011, was a bit bland. That being said, it doesn’t really matter what I think. Let the data dictate the best subject line. Or, you could also use a combination of Google’s Wonder Wheel and their Adwords Keyword Tool in combination with an A|B test feature that most email service provider have (see some recent enhancements to Blue Sky Factory testing feature). Test. Test. Test.
3. Preheader: It’s nice that they included a link to view the email online (in a browser), but don’t forget to use the preheader space for your call to action too! In this case, 1st Mariner Bank could have linked the text to their main article, increasing possible touch points (click-throughs) and driving subscribers back to their website. For more on preheaders, see slides 14-19 here.
4. Share With Your Network (SWYN): First, it’s great to see 1st Mariner Bank including SWYN icons at the top of their email; however, don’t forget to give subscribers a reason to share. Why? What’s in it for me. Most specifically for this email, 1st Mariner Bank could have included the following text: “Hey Parents! Post this email to your teens’ Facebook Wall.”
5. Balance: Nice balance between images, text, and links. Great touch to include a few clickable videos. By making them open in a new tab/window, 1st Mariner Bank is better able to track click-throughs.
6. Test Calls To Action: I’d suggest that 1st Mariner Bank includes a few more options to click. Link the images as well and look to see how many subscribers click there. Also, try different wording on the links. Instead of linking “here” (hard to see), link more words in the sentence.
7. Social Icons: I can see the icons to connect with 1st Mariner Bank on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, their Blog, and Flickr. That’s great, but why? Why should I connect? What will I see on those social channels that I don’t already get in the emails?

As always, these are just my suggestions. I’m not privy to the background on this campaign, nor am I aware of any previous testing. So, take it for what it’s worth!

How about you? What did you think of this email? Do you agree with my comment? Please share below.

Want to have one of your emails reviewed for free? It’s simple. Just follow the directions here. Until next week!

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory

At Blue Sky Factory, we strongly believe that, if used properly, email marketing and social media go together like Batman & Robin. If effectively implemented, email marketing can power social media and social media can power email marketing.

Good news! We have an eBook that provides 16 tips to use email and social together.

What are you waiting for? Download the eBook now!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 27th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Email Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.