Three More Points On Preview Panes

No sooner had I finished yesterday's post on preview panes, than I ran across Email Diva's take on the matter (Melinda Kruger, 9/25/06, Email Insider, from Media Post). She suggests all email marketers should be optimizing for the preview, assuming that blocked images are the norm, by giving the reader a choice on whether to open or delete.

Seems simple enough. Just pack your punch in the upper left corner, work to get on the friend's or safe list with each subscriber, and consider using Goodmail for Yahoo and AOL subscribers.

On the first of these, the advice still has me a little bit concerned. Perhaps so few are truly doing this. It may not be the 'numbing down' of the same layout over and over again which I'm so cautious about. As Melinda puts it, "While we are all tempted to put a big image and graphic headlines at the top of the e-mail, it more often than not comes through as boxes with red Xs in the corners." She suggests you determine what makes your e-mail a must read and put those benefits top left. On working to get on the friends safe list the suggestion is to ask for this on the registration screen, in the welcome e-mail and in every single e-mail that follows. Then there's Goodmail certification. Here the advice is to do it so your e-mails can arrive intact. Kruger says, "Goodmail certification also allows copywriters to curtail self-censorship... free is no longer a dirty word."

While I like and admire the writing I see in the Media Post, I'm still a little worried about the standard advice, which seems a bit too much like a common recipe, something we all must do in the same way if we want to see results. If awareness advertising is the art of marketing and direct marketing is the science of getting people to respond and make decisions, then the science has trumped art. It is the science of direct marketing that is truly winning.

There's no question that permission marketing has a defined set of best practices. However, the more we follow each other, the less true innovation in format and style we'll see.

Maybe it's just me. But I'm concerned with the straight-jacket that seems to be emerging.

Imagine the same restrictions on a print brochure. Or, a commercial. As consumers of media, we would go a little crazy with the monotony, redundancy and repitition if subjected to the same execution, over and over again.

Fashion icon Diana Vreeland once responded to the question, "what is style" by saying "True style has an animalistic, steely whip."

Now that's light years from permission marketing. But, the essence of it seems bear consideration. Real style, in anything you can name, will always be derived from genuine orginality. The challenge for the creative person is to "find new patterns in old things."

But how can do this, with so much imitation of technique?

I'm looking forward to learning more about real creativity in e-mail marketing.