Email Promos: A Good Thing?

Over at Heather Morton's site this post on Email marketing really strikes home. I get a lot of requests from clients to set up some sort of email promo. "Let's get some names and send 'em stuff... that'll be the ticket!"

Mmmm... Not so much.

Ask an Art Buyer: Email Promos — HeatherMortonArt buyer:

"While emailers sounded like a good idea several years ago, they are now little better then spam. Most of the work I get is not appropriate to any need I might possibly have, and lots of it just isn’t good at all. Plus, if the image isn’t displaying in my email window and fast, I’m on to the next one. On the other hand, when I receive a printed promo, at the very least, I look at the image(s). I also notice your attention to detail in your paper and design choice. Most often, email promos feel templated and generic, hence the agency opt-outs."

Do make sure you read the whole thing at HMAB.

If your email is ugly, and your message is "I made this" it may not be enough that it was delivered by Email. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. At least not without a lot of thought and preparation. Morton delivers some excellent examples and links to other narratives on the subject, but I will weigh in with a couple of things I try to impart on clients.

1. Don't buy lists. Create lists. Sending email blasts to people who are not interested in what you are selling doesn't make sense or clients. Make sure that recipient of your editorial portraits actually is interested in editorial portraits.

2. Simply attaching an image won't do. Attachments are a hassle. Figure out how to get that image inline... and make it load really fast. So keep the extraneous to a minimum.

3. Design it. Brand it. Make it visually something that they would want to pass on to a colleague. Or potential client. Make sure that it has the visual savvy to break through the other 30 they received that morning.

There are more, and I am working on an LE post on email marketing for photographers. This list keeps it simple and gets to the point.

We had a lot of great responses from the Apricot Lane promotions we did because they were attractive, branded, polished and had real information for the end user. Granted that was retail, but it was still Email and it was definitely targeted.