Prevent Your Customers Becoming One Night Stands with Allie Donovan

Influencer Question of the Day: What’re the best practices and steps to follow when working with influencers to create IGC (Influencer Generated Content) on behalf of your brand? Before continuing to read this article, open a new tab, or click the link below: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/collabsmanager/start/brand/" target="_blank">facebook.com/collabsmanager/start/brand/</a> Click “Apply As An Advertiser” and get onboarded to Facebook’s “Brand Collabs Manager” which is their FREE influencer search engine tool.&nbsp; It’s worth mentioning that this isn’t some third party tool with a bunch of scraped data from an outsourced independent contractor that's overseas. This is the mothership - Facebook - giving the public an influencer identification tool, I repeat,&nbsp;FREE of cost. Before we’re able to get into best practices of creating content with influencers, this entire process begins with your ability to find the RIGHT influencers for your brand that will create winning IGC (Influencer Generated Content). During the identification process, as you filter through potential influencers to partner with to create UGC/IGC, keep the following pro tip in mind. Not only should you be looking to see if this person is a brand fit by the looks of their social feeds and the captured audiences that they have, but also, you need to get a gauge of the influencer’s ability to create content, specifically video content. ALWAYS source video content from influencers, over static imagery, as they tend to outperform the other across all channels... With this in mind, when assessing an influencer’s video content creation ability, ask yourself the following questions: <ul><li>First and foremost, can this influencer sell my product and convince buyers to become a part of our community through their video content?</li><li>Is this influencer able to speak fluidly and articulate the value props of my product service and the ethos of my brand?</li><li>Is this influencer able to capture my attention within the first 3-seconds of watching their content?</li><li>While it's the most oversaturated terminology within our industry, it remains important. Is this influencer able to create content that is authentic and organic in comparison to fake and "salesy"?</li></ul> Once you've identified your set of influencers following these criteria, it's time to create some world-class IGC. 🔥🔥 While it may seem obvious, it's worth mentioning that there needs to be intentionality behind the content you're creating with influencers.&nbsp; Many within the marketplace seem to believe that influencer marketing can be done in a few simple steps. A.) Source/contract the influencer&nbsp;B.) Give them a couple talking points to make sure to include that are “on brand”&nbsp;C.) Rinse and repeat with all the influencers you work with&nbsp; I want to be clear in saying, this is not the level of intentionality needed to be successful in creating quality influencer content. When sourcing influencer creative, the starting point for brands is with the customer journey in mind.&nbsp; You are NOT merely sending over the same templated talking points to every influencer a part of your campaign.&nbsp; This is where you run into all the people that say, "Influencer marketing is a scam." "Influencer marketing doesn't work, and it never will work." I’m not making fun, but more so calling it as it is. Many do influencer marketing incredibly wrong, fail, and become completely shut off to the channel altogether and miss out on massive opportunities to scale their business. I want to make sure YOU do not fail, so make sure to start with the customer journey in mind and not make the same mistakes as others. My subjective hypothesis as to why many don’t think about creating content with influencers in this way is that people are so used to working with them to execute social posts in which there is NO customer journey. It’s merely a one-off post that is one and done or re-engaging the same audience (the influencer’s followers) with several posts, which is still no customer journey at all. For purposes of creating an effective influencer creative campaign, we need to switch the framework of thought surrounding the above. This is what all of us marketers love to do anyhow- let’s put together a methodical customer journey that’ll convert our target audiences! Think about the steps of your customer journey and the different audience segments you’re targeting within email or FB/IG ads Audience segmentation to keep in mind: A.) New customers that have never heard of your brandB.) Existing newsletter subscribers and/or social media followersC.) Website Visitors&nbsp;D.) Abandoned CartE.) First Time PurchasersF.) Repeat Purchasers The audience segments above are merely examples, but make sure to identify what these segments are within YOUR campaign before sourcing influencer content. For purposes of this example, let’s walk through the type of content you should create when targeting a few of these audience segments (A. B. &amp; C from above). Audience Segment A: New customers that have never heard of your brandAt the top of the funnel, Influencer content intended for people that have never heard of your brand needs to be educational and entertaining. On the educational side, this creative needs to be product-focused and be incredibly clear from the jump on what the product/service is and what your brand is all about. On the entertaining side, the content needs to capture attention from the moment it begins. <blockquote>Pro Tip: Have the influencer showcase the product clearly and/or speak to the product from the start of the video in a way that is “thumb-stopping” for viewers.</blockquote> Audience Segment B: Existing newsletter subscribers and/or social media followersWhen re-engaging existing newsletter subscribers and/or social media followers, having influencers speak to a brand promotion, such as Black Friday/Cyber Monday or the giving season in December, is an effective means to enable community members to take the next steps in their respective, customer journeys. Whether this is a piece of video content with the influencer speaking to the latest deals/discounts or an email positioned from an influencer to your newsletter subscribers laying out the latest promotion, re-engaging with these audience segments in this way is powerful. Audience Segment C: Website Visitors&nbsp;Based on the objective of your campaign, I'd recommend two approaches when sourcing influencer content to retarget Website Visitors that are yet to purchase. If the objective of the campaign is to build brand equity, I’d recommend creating content with influencers speaking to your brand ethos- what you guys are all about and what you care about! Think of this content as a brand piece. If the objective of the campaign is conversions, create "mashable" style ads for this audience segment by piecing together clips from all of the video content provided by several Influencers into a single ad. This will effectively position the product/service as though it is everywhere, and everyone is using it, hammering home the idea that people need to get it now or they're missing out- instill a sense of FOMO! These are a few examples of the type of influencer content that has been effective when targeting this set of audience segments, but the main point of this is to lay out the thought and framework that it takes to be successful when working with influencers to create content. Instead of sending influencers a couple of templated talking points that you send everyone, put together unique, single page, creative briefs for every influencer you partner with. Each influencer creative brief should entail unique scenes and talking points that are specifically tailored to the audience segment the content will target within the overall customer journey of your campaign. For your convenience, I’ve shared an example creative brief that our team uses as well as a templated format for you to use moving forward with influencers. Let's continue to take the next steps in this process. Once your team has successfully identified, briefed, and created content with your influencers of choice, should you simply implement the influencer’s content the way it’s provided or what editing, if any, needs to be made before launching it across your marketing channels?&nbsp; Step 1: ALWAYS MAKE SURE TO CAPTION!<ul><li>The majority of people viewing ads never click to listen to the sound. If there are no captions, potential consumers will not be able to understand what your ad is trying to communicate.&nbsp;</li><li>The last thing you want to do is hope that your audience is filled with master lip readers!&nbsp;</li><li>Performance has also reflected that videos with captions ALWAYS outperform those without.&nbsp;</li></ul> Step 2: Reformat the Influencer Generated Content for optimization purposes on the marketing channel your team intends on using it (I.e., 1x1 &amp; 9x16 on Facebook's ad platform). Captioning and reformatting are all that is needed before launching highly effective Influencer Generated Content across your own marketing channels. By taking all of the steps laid out above, the IGC will maintain it's organic nature that is native to the viewer's feed in which many may not even realize it's an ad. 👍 🙌&nbsp; Step 3: Create iterations off of the IGC that includes text overlay, graphics, branding, logo, etc. and test it against the ad that is much more of a raw asset in comparison to see which outperforms the other. Creative testing is key when gauging what type of influencer content performs best for any given ad account.&nbsp;Now that you know what to do, go and execute! As I'd love to hear from you, please share your success stories with me on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TaylorLagace" target="_blank">@TaylorLagace</a> or via email taylor@kynship.co! Let's win.

What’re the best practices and steps to follow when working with influencers to create IGC on behalf of your brand?

How to Master Influencer Generated Content

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Accessible Email Matters with Timothy Buck

AMP for Email: The 411 with April Mullen and Jen Capstraw

<a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/skillshare" target="_blank">Skillshare</a> offers thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people. Topics include design, creative entrepreneurship, email marketing, web development, and more. In other words, an audience that is smart, savvy, and has lots of creative juices running through their bodies – which makes nailing the email experience even more stressful because of how easily the service can be judged from the inbox. So when we saw a brand new redesign and strategy come out of Skillshare (we've been tracking them for a while), we dug deeper with their Jeremy (JPC) and <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/marybaumgardskillsharecom" target="_blank">Mary</a> (MB) from their team to figure out what caused the change and what they are learning. Here's a recap of that conversation. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/2d3a1a74e4144f02a2287dec834933fd"> <hr>The Skillshare emails stand out due to the vibrant colors, background images, and live text. How would you describe Skillshare’s design language? JPC: The Skillshare visual concept leans into the idea of the creative journey. Very specifically, about the journey itself and not worrying about an endpoint. By emphasizing lines, we explore the use of meandering paths and bold colors to create a graphic and eloquent personality to what Skillshare is about – finding yourself. We’re a digital-first company, so we’ve really leveraged the vibrancy of color in RGB to generate excitement and to help grab focus in a world where every brand is vying for attention. Recently Skillshare had a<a href="https://www.skillshare.com/blog/company/sharing-the-next-step-in-the-skillshare-journey" target="_blank"> rebrand</a>. How did that impact your email template design and sending cadence? JPC: The rebrand was really the impetus for new email templates. We began by simply “reskinning” the “old” email suite to have them match the new visual identity. After the first set launched in January, we began more extensive re-designing of emails, using tests and experiments to validate some of our design choices and email formats. We had some grander ideas during the concept phase, but, as is typical, we’re hitting some roadblocks in development and consistency across all email clients. Really keeping an eye on accessibility across platforms. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/fb3969f1bd664defbfbf771e5b702ddb"><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/introducing-the-new-skillshare" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/introducing-the-new-skillshare</a> What is the hardest part of designing for an online education company? How do you think that it differs from other industries? JPC: First and foremost, we want to make sure the content and comms are accessible to everyone. Education shouldn’t have blockers, and we really try to design with enough flexibility that the site and emails work for everyone. The next challenge is also related to our audience in the sense that there are a lot of creative professionals&nbsp;–&nbsp;designers, writers, marketers – who use Skillshare. We do our best to create objectively well-designed things, because it’s important that we “walk-the-walk” in order to build trust in the audience. If our design is bad, why would you want to learn design from our teachers? What has been your best email, and what specifically made it the best? JPC: We were really proud of the design for our web relaunch in the new year. It was one of the first newly-skinned emails to go out, and the fact that, for many, it was the first impression of the new brand, we wanted to make sure it looked great. It took some dev trickery to have the journey path work top to bottom and across all clients, but it was great to make it happen in the short timeframe. We also reimagined our perks email, imbuing it with new copy and a new design. Really happy how it turned out - the mobile and desktop views are both great. Objectively, the emails that have performed best have been more interactive. From our downloadable wallpaper email to a recently launched quiz experiment, we’ve found really high engagement when our audience is invited to participate. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/1144a7f6ae98445cad45b2387175d508"><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/quiz-find-the-perfect-class-for-your-mood" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/quiz-find-the-perfect-class-for-your-mood</a> What’s one thing you thought you knew about email at the beginning that you now understand differently? Anything you would change in your emails now that you can look back on it? JPC: I’m the first to admit that I know nothing besides that it’s really hard to design for email. A lot of companies use workarounds like text-in-image to get a good looking email, but we really want to make sure our comms are accessible to screen readers and dynamic across mobile and email clients. We err on the side of clarity and editorial sensibility over design trickery. It keeps us honest, our design simple, and our work available to everyone. What tools do you use when designing / building emails? What could you not live without? JPC: Figma has been a game-changer. Collaborating with designers and developers remotely within a shared design system has made the entire process faster and more fun. Most of my independent contract work has been around design &amp; innovation sprints, and Figma fosters that sprint mentality - work quickly, iterate constantly, and no one person owns a design.&nbsp; MB: We also added in Email on Acid last year to help us QA emails across devices and providers. It’s taken out a lot of guesswork with email design, and we can be confident now that every user is going to receive a stunning email (even if they are using 2007 Outlook). What new tool do you wish existed for email? JPC: No “tool” specifically. Personally, I wish email wasn’t so fragmented. We have, generally, strong standards and coding languages in place for the web and mobile. Email is very much stuck in the past and due to the competitive landscape, I don’t see it catching up any time soon. As various OS have evolved, email has just gotten trickier. Dark mode has been a particular pain point.&nbsp;	 <h2>Some Questions About Skillshare Strategy:</h2> What kind of tests are you currently running? Any results that you can share? Any small changes that you have tested in your emails that made a significant impact in retention, click-through, or service to Skillshare paid customers? MB: Explore interactive + AMP for Email - Interactive elements and AMP for Email provide a lot of opportunities for us to create moments of creativity and discovery directly in the email, without ever having to go to the site, so from a brand perspective, these can be really powerful. We’ve tested interactive quiz emails and seen promising results, and we’re in the process of scoping out additional interactive campaigns for the 2nd half of the year. In a COVID-world, we are trying to retest a lot of baselines given the world looks so different right now, and that’s impacting who is coming into the funnel. EX: timing of triggered emails to bring users back to saved classes, subject line language, and onboarding content. One of those things is class recommendations - testing both algorithms feeding them and how we frame them for users. For example, we’ve sent an email with personalized class recommendations several times a month for the last two years. Late in 2019, we did testing on changing the formatting for the classes without touching the algorithm. By packaging classes in digestible pairs, instead of just listing 6 to 8 classes, we improved CTOR by 16% and class engagement by 19%. We didn’t need to touch the algorithm at all, so it was a very simple test that had a significant impact for us. Do you think email is a good tool to build community? JPC: Absolutely. If we provide quality “stuff” (comms, tools, insights, etc.), it gives us consistent and direct access to our audience. By our community opting-in, we’ve received an invitation to create valuable dialogue. We view that responsibility with weight, and we work hard to make every email feel useful - whether that's letting them know about a class they may like, communicating our support for social justice, and reminding them that they will be charged for their membership. We use email to live our values – of transparency, community, and curiosity – and that builds not only a large community but a diverse and engaged one. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/ebc1cc2e1dd747ec898859b8b5a5bd31"><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/honoring-juneteenth" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/honoring-juneteenth</a> How are you balancing a strong design aesthetic and the need for these emails to perform well and aid in growth and service to existing paid customers? What would you say is the most important email KPI to your organization? JPC: As mentioned above, we strive for performance-first. That's what separates design from fine art - we're here to communicate, make good choices clear, and move the business forward. It just so happens that better-looking emails happen to perform better. The most important KPIs are probably similar to many companies - Acquisition, Retention, and Engagement. We happen to believe a strong brand sentiment helps with all of those, and that sentiment is cultivated through great customer experiences. What kind of triggered campaigns are you running at Skillshare? MB: General philosophy on these emails is asking how we can get Members to more deeply engage with classes and their creativity. We don’t generally use it to celebrate milestones such as birthdays or anything like that. But here are some that work well: <ul><li>Member onboarding - 5 send series focused on educating the user on the various offerings included with their Membership and how a creative practice can fit into their life. </li><li>Saved class - If user saved a class but hasn't engaged with it, we send a reminder email to bring them back to the class.</li><li>Class completed - Watch class, prompted to do project.</li><li>New user/abandoned membership onboarding - 4 send series. These are folks who created an account without starting a free trial, so in a lot of ways they are an abandoned cart customer. Unlike the Member onboarding, this is much more focused on value.</li></ul> Do you treat transactional and promotional emails differently? JPC: We do. We’ve been slowly migrating our product emails (mostly transactional) into Blueshift to better align with our general email process from a template, experiment, design and copy perspective. However, we want to be as transparent as possible when it comes to transnational emails, so we tend to use simplified, clear templates in direct support of the messaging. We also do our best to remove “noise” from those comms, like additional class recommendations, unless they directly support a value prop. How do you choose between using a designed template (colors and images) vs. a plain text letter style template (styled text)? JPC: This relates to the transactional question above - really, we look at the goals and the types of communication and try to be as direct as possible when applicable. Not every type of communication should be wrapped in surprise and delight. Transactional emails, comms on COVID and Social Justice are just some that we’ve chosen directness for. What's an unsuccessful campaign that you ran? What did you learn? MB: When we launched the rebrand earlier this year, we tested different types of playful emails to inspire Members. One of these was timed with Love Your Pet Day in February, and we showcased Member projects inspired by pets, with the hope that is would 1) get Members with pets into their next class and 2) be a moment for delight for users without pets (who doesn’t love some pugs and kittens?). The answer is apparently our list! It did not perform well on any of our KPIs. It was very clear we pushed too far on “surprise and delight” and did not clearly provide a learning path for our Members. It was a disappointment, but we look back on that email when we’re formulating new campaigns now and use it to interrogate the strategy and if it’s helpful for Members. <h2>Some Questions About Skillshare Culture:</h2> What's the dynamic of your team? Is there a lot of idea sharing and creation, or is it pretty linear? How do you think this affects Skillshare's emails? JPC: We’re fortunate that Skillshare is still a relatively small company, which means there feels like a lot of room for collaboration. We’ve got a smart, humble group of people doing work that we believe in. Sometimes it can be linear but, more frequently, we’ve had an agile workflow throughout the marketing, product and brand teams.&nbsp; If you were going to hire an employee to work on your emails, what traits would you look for? MB: These three things:<ul><li>Curiosity - There’s always something to test or a new way to approach a foundational campaign.</li><li>Empathy - Being creative and sharing that with others is a vulnerable thing. Keeping that mind in our emails so we can be focused on getting people comfortable and believing in themselves is extremely important.</li><li>Diplomatic - Email is a collaborative channel, and there’s always going to be a tension between various goals and resources. Being able to navigate that is critical.</li></ul> <h2>Lightning Round For Kicks &amp; Giggles:</h2> What is one piece of advice that you could give about building a brand through communication? JPC: Be consistent, transparent, accessible: Your audience wants to know what to expect, and they want to be able to trust you. It’s hard to build those other two if people can’t access the information. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/bcdc497ae2da4c9f8f28dabf6d3189e9"><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/4-ways-to-use-creativity-for-good" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/4-ways-to-use-creativity-for-good</a> What other emails inspire you? Which company that you subscribe to does email the best? MB: <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/headspace" target="_blank">Headspace</a> - I love the design of the emails, and they do a great job of explaining the value of meditation and nudging users to keep up with it. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/grammarly" target="_blank">Grammarly</a> - I love the stats and performance emails, as we think of incorporating that into emails, they are a source of inspiration. Babbel - Just signed up for this to learn Spanish, and I found the onboarding helpful and encouraging.&nbsp; I love <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/harry-s" target="_blank">Harry’s</a> emails — The copy is fun, informative, and clear. The design is unique and consistent. Engaging overall. JPC: Nike, Apple, Aesop, Uber. They all look good across platforms - though, sometimes really too heavily on images-as-text. They all also need a wide variety of emails - marketing, transactions, shipping notifications, etc.&nbsp; What was the most recent spam message you got in your spam box? What was the subject line? MB: Before Skillshare, I did email fundraising for political campaigns, so I still get a ton of political email. The most recent was from “CNN JUST REPORTED” with the subject line “Amy McGrath DOMINATING Mitch McConnell.” Political emails are a completely different league than our emails, but ultimately we’re both tasked with figuring out how to get readers to believe in rather intangible concepts like growth, change, and progress. We won’t incorporate all-caps into our emails anytime soon, but they give me food for thought. &nbsp;JPC: Lots of political emails these days. Interestingly enough - I got an event added to my calendar (via google) with a spam link in it. Which I thought was pretty savvy/sketchy (don’t worry, I didn’t click it).&nbsp; What is your favorite book? MB: "The Amazing Adventures" of Kavalier and "Clay" by Michael Chabon. JPC: That’s like asking my favorite song! I tend to go back to Hemingway &amp; Murikami most frequently. Caffeinated beverage of choice: Coffee, Tea, Soda? JPC: Coffee forever.&nbsp;

Skillshare is an online learning platform providing access to thousands of classes for curious, creative people. Here's what they do with their emails.

Rebranding, activism, and interactivity: What you can learn from Skillshare's email design and strategy

Pumpkin spice, <a href="https://youtu.be/sct6UTiVHlI" target="_blank">mental inbox advice</a>…these are the ingredients to make the perfect fall emails. We know you’ve at least considered combing through your closet to find those cozy oversized sweaters, finding your favorite flannel and boots, buying the best-smelling cinnamon brooms, and baking pumpkin spice everything with the folklore album playing on repeat. You’ll find all of these elements sprinkled throughout fall emails where companies use the season to their marketing advantage to advertise products, a feature release, a scent, or a memory. These seasonal emails could be the invisible string tying you to your readers. <h2>What to include in your fall emails</h2> Fall is one of the busiest seasons during the year for sales and donations with Labor Day (U.S.), Oktoberfest, Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. This is a great opportunity to reward your subscribers by including special offers, promotions, and quality content in your fall emails that lead back to your site, your blog, or your shop. Share a snippet about your sale or updates and capture your readers' attention with a playful subject line, fallen leaf emoji included ("Fall in love with our new pumpkin candles"). Create urgency by using custom preheader text, including your sale end time ("Hurry - offer ends tomorrow"). In the subject line, preheader text, and email body, you’ll also find mentions of… <ul><li>Fall freebies</li><li>Fall fests</li><li>Fall sales</li><li>Fall faves</li><li>Fall in love</li><li>Falling for fall</li><li>Gratitude</li><li>Candy corn</li><li>Apple cider</li><li>Pie</li><li>Turkey</li><li>Gravy</li><li>Stuffing</li><li>Fireplace</li><li>Leaves changing colors</li><li>Cornucopia</li><li>Nutmeg</li></ul> <h2>Get inspired by these 12 fall emails!</h2> <h2>1) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/simple" target="_blank">Simple</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smiles-davis-make-room-for-budgeting-this-thanksgiving" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/68dd81816897499dbd99312bb41068c9"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smiles-davis-make-room-for-budgeting-this-thanksgiving" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smiles-davis-make-room-for-budgeting-this-thanksgiving</a> The Simple Life newsletter combines a unique mix of email elements. It includes a heartfelt note from an employee thanking customers, promotes a giveaway, shares a customer’s story, and highlights another customer’s journey as it pertains to one of the company’s hashtags.While this email might only say “fall” with its hero image (and with the giant pumpkin further down in the email), the newsletter focuses on gratitude, a common theme in celebrating the holidays. <h2>2) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/hush-puppies" target="_blank">Hush Puppies</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/we-fall-boots" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/dff26c255f784cd9b73427863288a64b"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/we-fall-boots" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/we-fall-boots</a> This isn't your typical fall email design. Hush Puppies gives a nod to the season with its large hero text and lets the rest of the email sell for itself. The email includes some solid product photos and clear CTAs, doing a nice job stacking the images on mobile and desktop to look great with HTML text. <h2>3) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/aarp" target="_blank">AARP</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smiles-davis-your-fall-guide-to-your-city-is-here" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/21e8b7a39c224c959597ab0401af8116"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smiles-davis-your-fall-guide-to-your-city-is-here" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smiles-davis-your-fall-guide-to-your-city-is-here</a> AARP goes all out with this fall email filled with a leaf wreath, “fall in love” verbiage, fun GIFs, resizing images on hover, and CTA buttons changing colors on hover. There are a lot of images in this email, but the autumn colors and leaves sprinkled throughout the email make it stand out as a top fall email. <h2>4) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/chobani" target="_blank">Chobani</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/the-most-delicious-fall-recipe-inside" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/08ddda9cd2d7462389e5fd8434358f7f"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/the-most-delicious-fall-recipe-inside" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/the-most-delicious-fall-recipe-inside</a> Wondering how to make glazed pumpkin scones to celebrate fall (or to simply satisfy your pumpkin cravings)? Chobani’s got you covered. This fall email locks in a short and sweet message with a simple CTA and fun food photography showing off the crumbly baked scone goodness. <h2>5) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/fracture" target="_blank">Fracture</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/happy-thanksgiving-from-the-fracture-team" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/962f76dd94c349e5926b9f3a0291241e"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/happy-thanksgiving-from-the-fracture-team" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/happy-thanksgiving-from-the-fracture-team</a> Fracture is all about holiday gratitude in this mashup of a <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/thanksgiving" target="_blank">Thanksgiving</a> / <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/fall-autumn" target="_blank">fall</a> / <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/thank-you" target="_blank">thank-you</a> email with people clinking glasses and celebrating at a table decorated with orange napkins and placemats (because, fall). <h2>6) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/outdoorsy" target="_blank">Outdoorsy</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/the-most-colorful-fall-road-trips-near-you" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/aeb4a47a92014b27870559790b42f6ed"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/the-most-colorful-fall-road-trips-near-you" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/the-most-colorful-fall-road-trips-near-you</a> According to Outdoorsy, as soon as summer ends, fall brings in new colors, new roads, and new opportunities to explore while traveling. The beautiful autumn leaves on an empty road in this email paint a beautiful picture of what’s next. Outdoorsy keeps the fall vibes strong with a fall festival bucket list (though, these festivals would most likely be virtual now), and beautiful sunsets. <h2>7) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/postmates" target="_blank">Postmates</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smores-to-your-door" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/2d751663f2164242996ec9af6c3a4be5"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smores-to-your-door" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smores-to-your-door</a> <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/f22d150048b54c118fd886ed4ef0f822"> 3 ingredients, a skewer, and a campfire. Postmates offers its audience a delightful s’mores freebie, all customers have to do is pay for delivery. This is a great incentive for customers to order through the local delivery service. If customers are going to order a free s’mores kit and pay for delivery, this could inspire them to throw in some meals and other treats in their cart to make the most of that delivery fee. Throughout the email, Postmates includes a fun mix of illustrations and a recipe with clear CTAs at the end of the email. <h2>8) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/uber" target="_blank">Uber</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/flying-to-the-feast" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/9e49a205b6314824b2f265e3f27a9aee"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/flying-to-the-feast" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/flying-to-the-feast</a> Who doesn’t love a dancing email? Uber pairs a fun, fall-themed GIF with a well-seasoned pun: ”That’s gravy.” This fall email is playful, to the point, and stays true to its Thanksgiving advertising right down to the pumpkin orange “How It Works” button. <h2>9) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/lyft" target="_blank">Lyft</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/on-demand-airport-rides-from-lyft" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/d6dc9a4427084e93b871b31877bc72e6"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/on-demand-airport-rides-from-lyft" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/on-demand-airport-rides-from-lyft</a> Lyft’s fall email is more than just colored leaves and a turkey car surrounded by veggies. <a href="https://youtu.be/fF82l571j4M" target="_blank">The company</a> incorporates its hot pink branding in the leaves and the CTA, keeping its branding consistent throughout the email. Lyft keeps the fun going with its blocks featuring Thanksgiving-themed cars, from a cornucopia to corn on the cob. <h2>10) <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/trunk-club" target="_blank">Trunk Club</a></h2> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/feels-like-fall" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/612e4b28f7cb466ebad650bd95a1edb6"></a> <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/feels-like-fall" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/feels-like-fall</a> Trunk Club places its audience right in the middle of the autumn air through storytelling, complete with a bonfire, crisp breeze, and an outfit fit for fall. The company may have deployed an A/B campaign with the same image, <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/the-look-of-the-month" target="_blank">different verbiage</a>. Also, notice how one email mentions “fall” and the other mentions “autumn.” <h2>11) Bath &amp; Body Works</h2> <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/28b712e485864eddb4567a455efe17ab"> Bath &amp; Body Works knows how to sell their scents in every season. Winter? Vanilla Bean Noel. Spring? Blueberry Pie. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/school/summer-emails" target="_blank">Summer</a>? Sun-Washed Citrus. And, of course, fall? Pumpkin Pecan Waffles welcome in the season. Although Bath &amp; Body Works designs image-only emails, their product photography is always on-brand, smart, relatable, and aware of the season for its customers so they can picture the BBW products in their home. This fall email’s GIF, orange colors, season sweets, and autumn leaf wallflower product all keep the company top of mind in fall promotions. <h2>12) Michaels</h2> <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/546eba5c419642cc96815918383343d8"> Michaels shows off pretty fall florals, craft pumpkins, and wreaths in its emails. The “Make It” buttons, although image-only, empowers readers by showing them how to create their own sequin pumpkins and more. While Michaels is another company that creates image-only emails, we can appreciate and draw inspiration from their lifestyle photos and product staging to create our own stylish yet accessible fall emails. <h2>Really Good Fall Email Collections</h2> Check out these fall email collections from RGE users: Maria’s fall email collection showcases designs from Headspace, DogVacay, and Leesa: <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/mpalamar/collections/1D1OLkr8zZVPpbU0PqAp" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/mpalamar/collections/1D1OLkr8zZVPpbU0PqAp</a> Matthew’s Thanksgiving email collection highlights products and sales emails from companies like Baggu, BaubleBar, and Casper: <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/popcornguy/collections/gn2WkbvLjxtowO7U7mH9" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/popcornguy/collections/gn2WkbvLjxtowO7U7mH9</a> Here’s a look at some of my favorite fall emails, including emails from this article: <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/kellylamano/collections/cxc7fCWaoJ58GJizFqOz" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/kellylamano/collections/cxc7fCWaoJ58GJizFqOz</a> <h2>Engage Your Audience Year-round</h2> Whether you’re writing a personal <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/school/newsletter-examples" target="_blank">newsletter</a> or advertising your brand’s <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/school/ecommerce-emails" target="_blank">products</a> in a fall-themed email, it’s important to test your email designs to learn what works best for your audience. Keep the conversation going year-round in your emails, through social media, and on your website so your audience will come to love and expect your seasonal emails aligning with your <a href="https://youtu.be/QdyovP2Edfs" target="_blank">branding</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp; Did we miss one of your fall favorites? Send us your fall email by clicking the “Upload an Email” button in the top right corner of your screen.<img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/7afaf4f1f12a48cc8f37208b9d386fb7">

When summer's over, it's time to break out the flannel, the PSLs, and cinnamon brooms to spice up your marketing. Engage your audience year-round.🍂

Rekindle the Flame by Designing Easy, Breezy Fall Emails for your Readers

Data-driven email marketing begins with a reliable CRM system. But when it comes to how a CRM is built, customized, and maintained, marketers often don’t know what to ask for. This workshop is designed to teach email marketers and data-driven marketers how to navigate CRM systems so that they can have access to the data they need to successfully segment, trigger, and personalize their email campaigns. You’ll learn how to:· Understand CRM fields in terms of their purpose and your marketing goals· Ask for integrations to make CRM the single source of truth· Use CRM data to trigger automated marketing campaigns· Easily prove the ROI of marketing campaigns Who should come?Email marketers, data-driven marketers, B2B marketers Who should maybe skip this one?Designers, copywriters, email newbies Natalie Jackson is the Marketing Director for the emfluence Marketing Platform and for emfluence's Digital Marketing. She has nearly a decade of experience in B2B marketing and in digital marketing, including more than eight years of geeking out over all things email and marketing automation strategy. Natalie has spoken on email marketing, CRM strategy, and content marketing for storytellers at Digital Summit Kansas City and Digital Summit At Home, Microsoft Dynamics CRMUG Summit, emfluence’s And Then Some Conference, and for countless local marketing organizations. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Emfluence (if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

For data-driven marketers to learn how to navigate CRM systems in order to successfully segment, trigger, and personalize campaigns.

The 7 Things That Belong on Every Email Marketer’s CRM Wish List

When building a first-class customer experience, every little detail counts. Leaders like Spotify, Amazon and Netflix have ushered in a new era of convenience and personalization we didn’t know was possible. Now it’s on all brands to live up to these high standards. Though challenging, there’s hope—83% of consumers will share their data in return for more personalized experiences. This where Iterable can help! In this class, experts from the Iterable team will reveal how to achieve advanced cross-channel personalization by building individualized recommendations and dynamic content based on product metadata. You’ll learn how to:<ul><li>Sort and filter dynamic content groupings using multi-attribute criteria</li><li>Create localized recommendations, like “5-star restaurants, in my price range, near me”</li><li>Use Iterable Catalog to build personalized content collections and automate messages in real time</li></ul> Who should come?B2C marketers that focus on customer lifecycle / retention / CRM Email, mobile and cross-channel strategists Verticals: retail/e-commerce, subscription services, media &amp; entertainment, food &amp; beverage, travel, consumer tech Enterprise businesses looking to replace a legacy marketing cloud People looking to see what Iterable is capable of Who should maybe skip this one?B2B marketers, Small businesses, Marketers in highly regulated industries (healthcare, finance, etc.), developers and designers who strictly write code and design from scratch Note:This class is part 3 in a 3-part series. While you're encouraged to attend all 3 classes, each class stands well on its own. Choose 1, 2, or all 3! Alyssa Jarrett is Head of Brand &amp; Content at Iterable, where she specializes in creating data-driven content to educate growth marketers on how to develop world-class customer engagement. She has previously served in marketing roles for companies in SaaS and big data, including Ripple, Objectivity, Splice Machine, and Cray. Katie Barends is a New Jersey native turned California girl now living in Denver (with a few years in Florida along the way). Katie got her start in journalism, focusing on communicating and storytelling in every interaction. She has a knack for strategic conversations and helping others realize and achieve their goals. She's been in the tech world for the last 5 years working with Fortune 100 and C-Suite decision-makers across all industries. In that time, Katie has held a variety of roles in solutions consulting, sales coaching, and product and customer marketing to support both not only customers and prospects but also internal partners. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Iterable(if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

In part 3 of this 3-part series, you'll learn advanced personalization using product metadata.

Metadata: A 3-Step Plan to Cross-Channel Personalization (3 of 3)

Email campaigns are an exercise in relationship building. When done right, a well-mapped email program can bring in more sales and help you transform your existing client base into a community. But building a successful email strategy isn’t just selling things—by applying analytics to your customer journey, you can gather valuable intelligence about your prospect and customer base that can help you transform how clients experience your brand.In this class, we’ll talk about how to build targeted email campaigns for every step of the customer journey, with hands-on tips for deciding who to nurture, when to nurture them, what to say in your messaging, and how to measure email success. You’ll learn how to:· Map your email strategy to your customer journey· Grow beyond sales-oriented emails and into relationship nurtures· Use CRM data to determine who should receive which emails and when Who should come?Email marketers, data-driven marketers, client success teams Who should maybe skip this one?Designers, coders Natalie Jackson is the Marketing Director for the emfluence Marketing Platform and for emfluence's Digital Marketing. She has nearly a decade of experience in B2B marketing and in digital marketing, including more than eight years of geeking out over all things email and marketing automation strategy. Natalie has spoken on email marketing, CRM strategy, and content marketing for storytellers at Digital Summit Kansas City and Digital Summit At Home, Microsoft Dynamics CRMUG Summit, emfluence’s And Then Some Conference, and for countless local marketing organizations. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Emfluence (if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

Building a successful email strategy isn’t just selling things—you have the power to transform how clients experience your brand.

Building Better Relationships with Email

B2B email doesn’t have to be boring. In this workshop, we’ll talk about how to jazz up your B2B email strategy and better leverage your CRM data to improve your recipient relationships. We’ll take lessons from B2C email strategies and discuss how they can be applied to B2B relationships, see what B2B marketers can learn from ecommerce email, and open up the possibilities of B2B email beyond the standard newsletter. You’ll learn how to:· Explore new ways to use email as a B2B relationship tool· Experiment with fresh email designs, strategies, and messaging for the B2B inbox· Work within the Outlook inbox Who should come?Email marketers, data-driven marketers, B2B marketers Who should maybe skip this one?B2C email marketers Natalie Jackson is the Marketing Director for the emfluence Marketing Platform and for emfluence's Digital Marketing. She has nearly a decade of experience in B2B marketing and in digital marketing, including more than eight years of geeking out over all things email and marketing automation strategy. Natalie has spoken on email marketing, CRM strategy, and content marketing for storytellers at Digital Summit Kansas City and Digital Summit At Home, Microsoft Dynamics CRMUG Summit, emfluence’s And Then Some Conference, and for countless local marketing organizations. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Emfluence (if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

B2B email doesn’t have to be boring. It's time to open up the possibilities of B2B email beyond the standard newsletter.

The B2B Marketer’s Guide to Better Email

When building a first-class customer experience, every little detail counts. Leaders like Spotify, Amazon and Netflix have ushered in a new era of convenience and personalization we didn’t know was possible. Now it’s on all brands to live up to these high standards. Though challenging, there’s hope—83% of consumers will share their data in return for more personalized experiences. This is where Iterable can help! In this class, experts from the Iterable team will dive deep into all things data feeds between your ESP and outside sources. By mastering data feeds, you’ll be able to send time-sensitive content at the perfect moment for each customer. You’ll learn how to:<ul><li>Use data feeds to personalize campaigns, like active offers and blog newsletters</li><li>Differentiate public and managed data feeds and how to leverage them</li><li>Create individualized email templates using Iterable’s handlebars logic</li></ul> Who should come?B2C marketers that focus on customer lifecycle / retention / CRMEmail, mobile and cross-channel strategistsVerticals: retail/e-commerce, subscription services, media &amp; entertainment, food &amp; beverage, travel, consumer techEnterprise businesses looking to replace a legacy marketing cloudPeople looking to see what Iterable is capable of Who should maybe skip this one?B2B marketers, Small businesses, Marketers in highly regulated industries (healthcare, finance, etc.), developers and designers who strictly write code and design from scratch Note:This class is part 2 in a 3-part series. While you're encouraged to attend all 3 classes, each class stands well on its own. Choose 1, 2, or all 3! Alyssa Jarrett is Head of Brand &amp; Content at Iterable, where she specializes in creating data-driven content to educate growth marketers on how to develop world-class customer engagement. She has previously served in marketing roles for companies in SaaS and big data, including Ripple, Objectivity, Splice Machine, and Cray. Katie Barends is a New Jersey native turned California girl now living in Denver (with a few years in Florida along the way). Katie got her start in journalism, focusing on communicating and storytelling in every interaction. She has a knack for strategic conversations and helping others realize and achieve their goals. She's been in the tech world for the last 5 years working with Fortune 100 and C-Suite decision-makers across all industries. In that time, Katie has held a variety of roles in solutions consulting, sales coaching, and product and customer marketing to support both not only customers and prospects but also internal partners. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Iterable(if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

In part 2 of this 3-part series, you'll learn intermediate personalization using data feeds and other 3rd-party integrations.

Data Feeds: A 3-Step Plan to Cross-Channel Personalization (2 of 3)

When building a first-class customer experience, every little detail counts. Leaders like Spotify, Amazon and Netflix have ushered in a new era of convenience and personalization we didn’t know was possible. Now it’s on all brands to live up to these high standards. Though challenging, there’s hope—83% of consumers will share their data in return for more personalized experiences.In this class, experts from the Iterable team will cover the basics of how to user profile and event data to create personalized email and cross-channel messaging that supports a best-in-class customer experience. You’ll learn how to:<ul><li>Create custom events for lifecycle milestones, like downloading an app or visiting a high-intent webpage</li><li>Build the perfect email template that incorporates hyper-specific user profile data</li><li>Launch a foolproof campaign that delivers individualized customer messaging</li></ul> Who should come?B2C marketers that focus on customer lifecycle / retention / CRM Email, mobile and cross-channel strategists Verticals: retail/e-commerce, subscription services, media &amp; entertainment, food &amp; beverage, travel, consumer tech Enterprise businesses looking to replace a legacy marketing cloud People looking to see what Iterable is capable of Who should maybe skip this one?B2B marketers, Small businesses, Marketers in highly regulated industries (healthcare, finance, etc.), developers and designers who strictly write code and design from scratch Note:This class is part 1 in a 3-part series. While you're encouraged to attend all 3 classes, each class stands well on its own. Choose 1, 2, or all 3! Alyssa Jarrett is Head of Brand &amp; Content at Iterable, where she specializes in creating data-driven content to educate growth marketers on how to develop world-class customer engagement. She has previously served in marketing roles for companies in SaaS and big data, including Ripple, Objectivity, Splice Machine, and Cray. Katie Barends is a New Jersey native turned California girl now living in Denver (with a few years in Florida along the way). Katie got her start in journalism, focusing on communicating and storytelling in every interaction. She has a knack for strategic conversations and helping others realize and achieve their goals. She's been in the tech world for the last 5 years working with Fortune 100 and C-Suite decision-makers across all industries. In that time, Katie has held a variety of roles in solutions consulting, sales coaching, and product and customer marketing to support both not only customers and prospects but also internal partners. *All classes are recorded and will be sent out to all registrants for those that can't attend live and/or want to rewatch over and over again (who wouldn't?!) **By joining us for this class, you’ll also get free newsletters from Really Good Emails and Iterable(if you aren't already). You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time.

In part 1 of this 3-part series, you'll learn basic personalization using user profile and demographic data!

User & Event Data: A 3-Step Plan to Cross-Channel Personalization (1 of 3)

This FF episode was sponsored by <a href="https://more.emfluence.com/really-good-emails" target="_blank">emfluence</a>. Get paired with a marketer to see how your strategy will work in the emfluence Marketing Platform. <hr>📋 Key takeaways from this episode: 1. Using simple, clear text can help you focus on the content and make your emails easy to scan. You can also incorporate colored text to make readers pay attention to specific points in the email.2. Custom illustrations can make your email feel personal and engaging.3. Include one clear, direct CTA to steer your audience in the right direction to your product or an onboarding demonstration. <hr>Matthew Smith:&nbsp; Hey, happy Friday, everybody. It's Feedback Friday. Glad to be here with you, Matt Helbig. What's up, my man? Matt Helbig:&nbsp; I'm excited to be back again, another Friday, another Feedback Friday. Matthew Smith: Awesome. Awesome. Well, today, I've got queued up <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/ynab" target="_blank">YNAB</a>, which is a bizarre name for a brand, but it sticks. It is noticeable, and it means You Need A Budget. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OCIAfj3G91k" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/OCIAfj3G91k</a> I've signed up for YNAB before, but I am now cohabitating with my girlfriend, and we need a budget. WNAB. I signed up for these folks again, and lo and behold, they have a fantastic <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/categories/onboarding" target="_blank">onboarding</a> series. So it's a 14-day trial. And they started to pump me full of these how to think about budgeting, how to think about YNAB emails. We're only going to go through three today, but they are fantastic. You should sign up for YNAB just for the onboarding series, if nothing else. It's pretty nice. Great content. Great illustrations. These illustrations just really come through. This is not in order. It doesn't do service unless you see the entire thing, but they do an excellent job making this content very easy to read. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/ce6ca05435e74c9eb555c441f57c10e4"><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/your-budget-misses-you" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/your-budget-misses-you</a> Easy to scan and follow through with straightforward text. CTA is like a looksie now, and this connection to the team, getting to know Kelly, who's a teacher at YNAB. So this is one example, very simple, right? Like, but look at how easy this is on the eyes and how consistent the typography is, et cetera. Also, this lovely little hand-drawn signature, which I think adds a lot. But look at this, they're able using this templating sort of arrangement, whether it's a design system, an email design system, or if it is something a little more akin to just custom templates, they do an excellent job. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/efda8a8cf439442ab4ba831137183b72"><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/two-huge-wins-for-jamie-and-oscar" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/two-huge-wins-for-jamie-and-oscar</a> Look at the YNAB logo changes. The background color changes. The illustration style is the same. So these are custom illustrations that they've had done. You can even see this tiny little YNAB trophy. It's got that there. That's cute. It feels like something fantastic. So they tell me, you know, what am I going to learn today? All right. Budgeting can change my life for the better. All right. Getting my attention. This is a unique sort of call out. I guess some people could confuse that as a button, but I think because they don't round the corners, so it is like, here's where we want your attention to be. Hey there. Okay.&nbsp; YNAB wins come in all shapes and sizes. Sweet. And then, they use different colored text, which is unique to show this off. Usually, I wouldn't be a fan of that, but because it's so simple, otherwise, because they keep things so simple. And because the email itself is very colorful, they get me to pay attention to these checkmarks. The color does a job. Some people will choose a color just because it's, "Oh, neat. I like the color." No, don't do that. The color here is saying, look at me now, look at me, now look at me. They do blue here, and this is blue for links, but I think that because of the lack of underline, it's called out as unique and different, and I think it works. So I'm pretty impressed. I like how this comes together. I think this is pretty tight. The mobile styles are really clean, easy to scan, easy to read. Let's look at this last one.&nbsp; <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/0a4d5d8b4ff24e36b431576e6cee2d8e"><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/lets-talk-grocery-budget" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/lets-talk-grocery-budget</a> They change it up again. It's the same kind of illustrations. What you'll learn today. They keep them short too. This is not like long-form email stuff, but I can go and read another story about how Oscar and Jamie are doing grocery shopping, where they're using YNAB. I can see a video. Okay, cool. I can dive in on these other sections, and I'm feeling guided by Kelly, which feels great. Just a little bit of product onboarding, to say, Hey, at any time, I can jump into paying for the service. I think they've done a neat job of moving between these flexible templates and displaying information in an extremely digestible way. There's not much to these emails, and so it focuses on content, but think about like what these emails would look like without the illustrations, they'd be pretty dull. They'd still do a job, but they are more engaging with these colors and illustration changes. And then with this signature and the face. That all adds up to create a warm series the entire time. I was impressed.&nbsp; You hear me talk about design golf all the time. They do an excellent job of keeping the email simple. So you've got one heading, one subheading that same subheading, but now with a yellow background and then one body text, that's just all the same, and that's consistent throughout. The only thing that they change up here is colors with the list elements. But again, it works because everything else is different throughout. The only thing that I might do to change these, and I'm curious what you'd say, Matt, but is I think that maybe they could do a CTA at the end. That would be like, are you ready to start your trial? Let's get going. They make these emails about text and guessing maybe they've tried that. So those are some things that I think about, and then, of course, they're showing off their social down here, and we all know how I feel about wanting to see social, which of course we need to do on our email if I'm going to be such a hardass about that. So, anyway, what do you think, Matt, you think, think these are working? Matt Helbig: There's a lot of different email trends going on. Those rounded corners. This card design is one of my favorite ways to read an email. I think it adds an extra touch and makes it feel like a engaging. The "Hey there" across all of these is nice. I wonder if they meant to say your name, like, "Hey Matthew," or something, and maybe this is a fallback? It seems set up to highlight your name. So I'm interested in that. I think this one is probably my favorite example with the checkmarks. We love to see checkmarks. It lets you scan information when there are many testimonials or things that you need to get done.&nbsp; Then I think with the doubles, the signature and the photo on every email is maybe a little too much. I think perhaps the first couple of ones, but I do agree with your guiding principle. So perhaps that's something that they've tested. Sometimes we only see one or the other, but having both in place, maybe that makes it feel a little bit more personal and guides you along this journey.&nbsp; Matthew Smith: Right. Right. What would you change or what you think might be something that they could test?&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I think I do agree with your CTA example. These look similar to some other educational apps that I've gotten, and they have that clear CTA of the one action they want you to do next. I think these onboarding emails are pretty nice, but maybe that call to action could be a little more direct. Get back into the product or start setting your budget or something like that is a little bit more of a clear direction.&nbsp; Sometimes, if you're going to tell me someone's name, like, can I get in contact with them? How can they help me if I'm struggling with the product? I know they have that contact support link in the footer, which is nice, but maybe there's like some other email, where are if you are having trouble getting started or something, how can we help you? Matthew Smith: Good ideas as always. Well, thank you, YNAB. Good work. I appreciate it. If you're interested or anybody knows anybody at YNAB and would like to tell us more about how these emails perform, we would love to know. We'd love to share that. We'd love to get more people exposed to YNAB. It's a cool brand. Cool stuff as usual. Leave comments in the YouTube thread, subscribe to our YouTube channel so that we can continue to provide you with updated good content, even really good content. We'll be back next Friday.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Sounds good. See ya. Matthew Smith: Awesome. Bye-bye.

YNAB (You Need a Budget) is a personal budgeting software helping people take control of their finances.

Incorporating custom illustrations and digestible onboarding content with YNAB

Matt Helbig: What's up, email geeks? Welcome back to another Feedback Friday this week with our amazing guests, Lily from Litmus. How's it going, Lily? How are you?&nbsp; Lily Worth: Thanks. How are you? Matt Helbig: Very good. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?&nbsp; Lily Worth: Yeah, yeah, of course. So I work for Litmus as an email design and production specialist, which means that I design many of the emails that we send out to our customers and prospects based in the UK, in Nottingham. And I'm happy to be here on this sunny, your side Friday.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited to look at these Magic Spoon emails. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/elG1L1nzHOA" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/elG1L1nzHOA</a> So you sent over a few Magic Spoon examples at the site, and they inspired me. Could you talk maybe a little bit about the brand and maybe why you liked their email?&nbsp; Lily Worth: I'm not sure how it came into contact with Magic Spoon because they're based in the US. I'm not entirely sure whether there are UK suppliers, but definitely came across one of the emails and just loved the creativity. They have this great way of using color and things that just really stood out to me. I had to have a look and see who they are, and it turns out that they are a cereal brand and they create cereals that are keto-friendly and much healthier, but have that real kind of childhood feel about them, all those exciting cereals that we loved as children then, but they were just really packed with sugar and not very good for us.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Keto cereal. I feel like it was a trending search term. I have seen many of their ads on Instagram and then signing up for their emails, they bring that same sort of branding and feel into these messages. But I agree. It's that fun, childlike, delightful illustrations, bright colors. It catches your eye when you're looking for a fun cereal. Lily Worth: Yes. Absolutely.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Sweet. This first one looks like a welcome email. So I think I got this when I signed up for their emails, and I think it does a pretty good job. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/f502629e0b6a4c498d42e6f064826dfa"> It gives you a little bit of information. Thanks you for signing up. They show some of their trending products. It gives you that free shipping on your first order. Then they plug their Instagram, and that's pretty much it. They have like a little rotating GIF here. Overall. I think this one's pretty good. Is there anything that stands out to you on this welcome email? Lily Worth: I love the mix of things that they have here in terms of visual assets. I mean, they're using the bold colors. You can't miss those and gradients as well, but they've got illustration, and they got product photography, and then further down, they've got some stylized photography that has got a bit of a retro feel, which I like with that bright pink cereal that when you look at it, you think you probably shouldn't eat because it's packed with sugar, but no, that's the difference with Magic Spoon. Matt Helbig: Yeah. I like this little navigation up here. These quick links up here are a fun play on a more navigation bar. I'm not sure how many people would click these, but I think it adds to the design. Lily Worth: It makes a bit of a cohesive experience with the website because I think it's very similar when you land on their web page, there are limited links. So I think that's probably very much in line with what they have on their site.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I liked that the "Try now" versus "Buy now" or something like that. I think that's kind of an interesting choice to maybe try something like that with a CTA. This perhaps is a little low. On your first order, you might miss that code, but I think they at least bold it and maybe make it a little bit larger in all caps to make it stand out. So maybe you'll use that on your first order. I think this is an image, and it is a little blurry on my end. So perhaps they could try to slice it a little bit differently so that this quality image matches the rest of the live text that they're using in the email. But overall, I think it's a cohesive email bringing everything together.&nbsp; Lily Worth: Do you know when you received this? Was it this year? Last year? Matt Helbig: Earlier this year, so maybe they have made some strides to try to have some more live text or clean up some of those issues. We'll have to sign up and see if they send a different welcome email. It could have changed since then.&nbsp; So this next one is a trendy one on the site. I think it catches people's eyes when they see something like this graphic.&nbsp; <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/336f8c7cd0434962ae6dc45e7ecdc97d"> Lily Worth: Yeah. It's enjoyable. The fact that she's looking through a couple of cereal hoops and I love the way that the animation over the headline pulls you in and makes you want to read it. Matt Helbig: I like this little thing that they're doing. This is only five frames rotating with the different colors, but I think the timing and everything else brings your eyes in. This subtle animation adds a little bit of something to the email.&nbsp; Lily Worth: Yeah. They're good at using subtle animation. That is great for keeping down the email's weight if it's only really using five frames, but it still has an impactful way.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I was surprised by this use of live text here for this little subhead copy, and it's nice to see. They're bringing it together with that inverse pyramid, bringing your eye right into that CTA to "Try now."&nbsp; Lily Worth: They're great with their typography. In some cases, I know that to get some of the typographical effects, they have to use images, but I think typography can be very creative.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: That's great to see when they can, they use that live text, but for some of these more advanced brand fonts, they use an image. Overall, they do an excellent job on desktop and mobile, making them feel like the fonts sort of match. It makes sense going down throughout this. I think they try some new exciting ways to layout product information that feels slightly different, but I still think it is easy to scan and maybe consume if you're looking for more information. Lily Worth: Sure. They want to push their ingredients. They're showing that it's healthy stuff.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I think this is potentially boring information to show, but they do this with the gradient in it. It makes it stand out. So maybe a little bit more interesting than just seeing individual ingredients. This goes down to more of like an e-commerce sort of layout right here with the different product shots. Is there anything you think that maybe you'd want to see in this email that isn't there?&nbsp; Lily Worth: I think on occasion there are issues with colors, not in every instance, but I've noticed in some of their emails, perhaps the contrast isn't quite there. In terms of content, I think it's pretty packed full, maybe a bit heavier on the copy in this email than I've seen in many of their emails. I sometimes think they kind of cut back on the amount of copy and give you more of a scrolling experience where you've got more imagery to tell the story. But I think overall it's, it's an excellent design.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: They could add some interactivity in this section to make it bounce a little bit. Maybe if they add some hover effects, it might bring a little bit more attention once you hit the bottom of these individual products.&nbsp; Lily Worth: Not sure if this is a conscious decision, but those products at the bottom, that kind of eCommerce section doesn't tell you what any of those are. I mean, if you've got to look closely and tell what they are and what flavors they are, I wonder if that's conscious and they want you to explore to know more about it.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Yeah. I guess some product details and information or something like here, just providing you a little more context about some of these flavors. They lay it out a little differently on mobile, but it might be hard to find out exactly what kind of flavor these are. This is another fun, cool design bringing in a lot of that color and a little bit of that animation.&nbsp; <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/79a8eae2702c4dff93beb3c7248233fc"> Lily Worth: Yeah, this is great. This is something that they sent out reasonably recently over the summertime. They do a lot with this one. They're bringing in subtle animation. I love the way that they're not using hard edges between sections. The typography is excellent. It's appealing. I think the way they use the product photography gives it that little bit of 3D. It makes it kind of standoff the screen.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: The imagery is an eye-catcher for me. This 3D effect it feels like everything's sort of floaty. To pull in some of this animation, they have to&nbsp;make this one mostly images. I liked this line separating the sections. It's not just a solid line. Lily Worth: Something that they're doing more now, and I can see it further down. I think there is the use of the emojis. I'm assuming there are emojis. It could be just an image. Matt Helbig: I think these are images. Some of the emails that we've seen where we're highlighting social proof like this with quotes feel sort of static or something. Adding these emojis is a brilliant idea. Adding some of these annotations almost with the GIFs makes it pop and highlights what they want you to see in these social proof testimonials. Lily Worth: Absolutely. I love the circling of real fruit and striking on the words they want you to catch.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: It is nice to see that they are using as much live text as possible while still adding some of this animation. This is almost a similar email to the last one, in my opinion, where they're pulling in some more social proof. I liked this one a little bit more.&nbsp; <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/5ecea9edb65e48a5a7126f975c7da406"> Lily Worth: It's got a bit of a theme to it, and it's kind of circus theme, which I like. Again, it just feels like it's taking you back to sort of childhood things that were fun and exciting. Yeah. I think that's kind of what caught my eye with this one. They are bringing in some great styles. It's got an off-grid feel on this one. It's light on the copy. It's very easy to get the message. You get a nice visual experience as well.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: So this is the section I like with pulling in the user handles. Then there's a social media showcase. This is a very effective way of bringing in some of that social proof and talking about how people are talking about your new product launch.&nbsp;Like the other ones, some bright colors, these repeating CTAs bringing your eye down. I think this one's a pretty complete one when it comes to showing you this new product. It's focusing on this product launch, offering social proof and ends very cleanly, and just allowing you to click into the CTA to get a little more information. Lily Worth: Yeah, absolutely.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: We have one last one. It's a text email. This is a fascinating use where they're mixing some of their marketing emails and having emails like this that are more personal one-to-one.&nbsp; <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/708174e47922483f9fef5ae3ca46536f"> Lily Worth: I like how they're bringing in plain text for specific kinds of direct messaging. They want you to take action here. So they're taking away any of their distractions that you might get with the lovely designs. They're pushing you towards making that purchase. They use it for other kinds of more personal messaging. They've sent this from the founder of Magic Spoon, and I think when they really want to get a message over, this is the approach they adopt. Matt Helbig: They're using the polished marketing emails to showcase their product and their imagery and using those bold colors, but then they're also using the power live text to make it feel more personal and direct. In some ways, those two messages that we just saw are the same. They're bringing in some testimonials showing those handles, but in this one, it feels a little bit different, and it's just an excellent way of contrasting to try them more product marketing focused email, and then something like this. It's a bit more pared down and direct. I think it's a nice balance between those two types of emails that it shows that they are knowledgeable that they can use those two different tools in different ways to get a message across. Lily Worth: They do influence me in the work that I do. I love it.&nbsp;I've just got to find out whether I can get them here in the UK.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Well, we'll have to order some boxes, and they have nice looking bowls too. So we'll have to get some of those. Great. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to record this episode.&nbsp; Lily Worth: Sure. Any time. Matt Helbig: Can we find you online?&nbsp; Lily Worth: I'm on Twitter. You could find me on Really Good Emails. I've got quite a lot of stuff saved in there if you want to take a look at what I enjoy seeing on the site, but yeah, otherwise, Twitter.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Thanks so much. Have a great Friday. Lily Worth: Thank you. You too.

Magic Spoon is a keto-friendly cereal company based in the U.S., creating sweet and healthy breakfasts for champs.

Diving into a bowl of reverse pyramids and striking 3D imagery with Magic Spoon

This FF episode was sponsored by <a href="https://more.emfluence.com/really-good-emails" target="_blank">emfluence</a>. Get paired with a marketer to see how your strategy will work in the emfluence Marketing Platform. Matthew Smith: Hey, it's another Feedback Friday, Matt Helbig. How are you doing, buddy?&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I'm doing great, Matthew Smith. I'm excited to look at some of these <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/ritual" target="_blank">Ritual</a> emails.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QdyovP2Edfs" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/QdyovP2Edfs</a> Matthew Smith: It's another time of taking a brand and unlocking their email mysteries.I think you or maybe one of their designers started submitting some Ritual emails recently. And I was thinking, Ooh, what's this pretty little thing—been enjoying it. It's mostly images, not a big fan of that, but they've done it pretty well in this example if you're going to do it.&nbsp; <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/db0064a8112446cb92fa06c1957d7800"><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/transparency-is-kind-of-our-thing" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/transparency-is-kind-of-our-thing</a> No BS. Well, what does that mean? Okay. So transparency is a big deal to them. So let's talk about it. Five stars, five stars, five stars, five stars from these different people talking about what they love. So social proof, but really like an email dedicated to social proof. I don't see that very often, and I think it's pretty impressive. Show me more so I can go and see more about their social proof. See what that's all about. My favorite. I love it when people do this. Don't tell me you're on social. Show me on social. Show me why it matters to follow you on social, right? Like, look at this sick stuff. So they're doing it. I'm not sure what tool they're using. There's a couple that can do that.&nbsp; Or if they're grabbing some recent images. That's how some people do it as well, but they're doing it, and I think that's powerful. This generally is what you'd call the footer. We talked about Readymag's footer last week, and I had this like a little crush on it. This is another excellent footer. What the heck. Two weeks in a row, man. I'm super psyched. Matt Helbig: Having this dedicated customer satisfaction, customer happiness, social proof email is a brilliant idea. They're not even really showing product shots in this, which is interesting. Maybe that is an opportunity for them. I'm not sure. I think the paired down text first. Showing different stars, talking about products. I guess sometimes I sort of glance over these just because, of course, they're going to include the best of the best talking about their product, but I still think it helps build that brand relationship and brand trust by showing stuff like this. Matthew Smith: We did <a href="https://youtu.be/4cH5kz-lHJI" target="_blank">an episode</a> with my friends at Biddyco, and we were talking about <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/supergoop" target="_blank">Supergoop</a>, which is a product that is like a sunscreen and what they were doing is they were showing somebody, shot on an iPhone, not a studio shot using the product and then talking about it, like a testimonial talking about it, and that went even further. So it wasn't just a bottle of the product. It was showing somebody using it, and that made a nice connection. And then the other thing that I've seen people do here is. Chose it because I'm sick of not knowing and ready to fuel myself with the best or something. Right. Highlight that somehow, call it out, make it bold, put a highlighter yellow behind it, or something like that. That's another way of going the extra step.&nbsp; When I see all five stars, sometimes I wonder if, like you're saying, that feels like a little bit too much. They almost don't feel real. That's a challenging one. That's going to need some testing. Yeah. So I think the social proof is an interesting one. I am seeing Jill P. Okay. How do I know that these are real? How do I validate those? Sometimes adding like a location can help with that a little bit. Interesting challenges. Overall, I'm impressed with this email.&nbsp; Let's go on to the next one. They're digging in a little bit. What's on your plate? All right. Okay, multivitamins, but this is food, so what's this about? So they dig in a little bit about what they're intending and why their brand is so focused on transparency, clarity, good food, things like that within their multivitamins. One thing to note here is they're using centered text here. Now, generally speaking, this is a big no-no. It's hard to read. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/7d717dfdec814289b294924e7df95f36"><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/whats-on-your-plate" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/whats-on-your-plate</a> Now that said, one of the reasons it barely works here is because that's all that's going on. It's very large text. The text has enough line-height or letting, and it's just very simple. There's a brand called <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/tracksmith" target="_blank">Tracksmith</a> that <a href="https://youtu.be/5wWEknjgsus" target="_blank">we've done</a>. They do this occasionally, and it works. Just be real careful with it. Technically speaking, you really shouldn't get over about three lines of centered text in terms of graphical rules, whatever those are. There's no typography police. I've applied. I'd like to become one. They haven't admitted me yet, but in the meantime, it's just something to keep an eye out on.&nbsp; As you look down through these articles, they're doing a good job. This is a better use of centered text. Notice here that they're using live text within something where they're pulling in probably something either live or maybe where they're split testing some text or more of an article, so I'm glad to see that. I like these big, clear CTAs, yellow being that real clear primary for them. And then some additional articles here done a little bit smaller. I think that's working pretty well. They're using this as their little CTA. If it were me, I'd put some yellow underline, or if this is your CTA and you're doing both here, why? Is that necessary? Find out in your testing. Now here, you've got the blue underlined text. It's a prominent CTA. So at least there's that. I often think if there's a way to connect your different CTAs, I think that might be blue in there. So that probably is partly helpful. And then they get down into their products. And this is like an overview that they're doing here with three. It's a little bit out of alignment, something a little bit challenging there to fix. I like how they handled it over here on mobile, even better actually. I think that's the one that works well. And these articles are stacked well. One of the things that I think they'd get, right, that many people don't is there's enough padding below the one before and above the next one, that this feels like its own little lockup. Whereas many brands, the space ends up feeling like I don't know where the CTA belongs to what image and things like that. I think they've done an excellent job and man super consistent. The footer isn't quite as happy as the last one, but it's real simple. So I like that. But what about you, man? Do you think this is working? Matt Helbig: I'm starting to think that like a cheat code for Really Good Emails is just to add rounded corners on your images or something. We love that. I think this is one of those where they have focused a lot of time on that mobile view. I'm going to guess just based on their branding and their audience, that maybe that is where they get the majority of their opens. Using that full width, it feels on-brand. Using those brand colors throughout this entire email and all feels very Ritual style. And then desktop, I think it is a little, like you said, lacking maybe. The alignment might be a little off, and I think it still works like the email is somewhat usable. You can click out and things like that, but the hierarchy feels a little different to me. I think that the mobile view is where it shines. They always try new and exciting stuff with their images and photography and layout. So this is a brand follow, and you can see more examples on our site of some newer emails that they've been sending out that are taking risks on layout and trying out some new stuff. So it's cool to see. Matthew Smith: As always, you can find the transcribed episode and more examples on our site's <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/school/feedback-friday" target="_blank">Feedback Friday</a> part. Thanks for following along. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/reallygoodemails?sub_confirmation=1" target="_blank">Subscribe</a>, tell your family and friends. We will see you next Friday, Email Geeks. Matt Helbig: See ya. Peace. Matthew Smith: Peace.

Ritual is a no-B.S. vitamin company that makes multivitamins with clean ingredients, backed by science.

Finding clarity and building brand trust with Ritual

Matthew Smith: Hey, it's Feedback Friday, everybody. Welcome. We're going to talk about <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/readymag" target="_blank">Readymag</a> today, where we're digging into brands and their emails here on Feedback Friday. Hey Matt Helbig, what's up, man? Matt Helbig: What's up, Matthew Smith? Welcome back to another Feedback Friday episode. We are long time fans of the Readymag brand, so I'm excited to walk through some of these emails.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KZHfmRHHXNg" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/KZHfmRHHXNg</a> Matthew Smith: I think I've been getting Readymag stuff for years in different forms.&nbsp;I'm just super impressed with what we're landing on here. I believe you found these, and I'm psyched you did. This enormous, beautiful live text. Cool, like fun, use of this sort of old school emoji. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/3aeae1b331604216b247cf38f95826c9"> I think these varieties are emoticons when it's more than just ASCII art. It's almost entirely black, and they're using that to create something super interesting. The "Apply" button is just really clear. They're using giant bullets here to talk about specific things down the way, which I find interesting. I'm just really impressed. The visuals make sense. They're clear and focused and exciting, but it's so simple. You know how I feel about design golf. They've just really trimmed this up. If you're going to be a design magazine, if you're going to think about design in your brand, if you're going to care about the things that Readymag does, you've got to freaking own your emails. They can't be shitty.&nbsp; I think they've done that here, and I'm pretty impressed with how they're using such minimal color. Look at that tight little footer. Last week, we talked about how the footer seemed like the dirty rest, like the milk after the cereal has been eaten. This feels like fresh cereal right here. Do you want to eat that up? Delicious.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I feel like this one, I can like feel the grid. Everything is sitting nice, and everything's aligned. The mobile and desktop styles feel pretty right to me. It's a well-coded thought out email. Everything seems to have its place and stood out to me in the inbox. Something a bit different. This is an excellent use of a simplistic pared-down email to me. I feel like what Readymag left out is shining through&nbsp; Matthew Smith: These are exciting changes that they made to mobile, where they did June 8, 2020, over here, inspiration, which is here, and then they drop newsletter. Many people would jam everything in, but hiding specific elements is okay as well. Speaking of hiding, I am not like a hundred percent on these giant bullets centered. I feel like they work incredibly well in this version. When you have a bullet that hangs off the edge, you call that hanging punctuation, and it works so well here and then not so well here. Why not just mimic some of what you've got going on here and have a slightly less wide mobile email or maybe pull the bullet left and put it over here. I don't know. Centered doesn't feel quite right to me, but everybody's got a subjective opinion. That's mine. So should we switch over to the next one? Matt Helbig: Yeah.&nbsp; Matthew Smith: Whoa color! It's a big deal. It's getting crazy over here. They're asking us to stay creative at home, and I can get behind that. They continue to use a straightforward layout here, the same kind of design, introducing color this time, which I think is a nice change. Look how simple these graphics are to move people through. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/a7f01d80f98c4e608239c103d6b763cf"> We were talking a couple of weeks ago about <a href="https://youtu.be/J6LhVZgy52Y" target="_blank">FontShop</a> and. I think this is another straightforward newsletter. There's just no-nonsense. They've done simple so well. They've nailed this approach. Everything is very elegant and easy to read and scan. As a user, to me, I feel served by this. I can know quickly if I'm interested in this, and I enjoy looking at it. The value of actually just looking at it is great versus so many emails that we get in that we end up having to deny and not accept to our feed. They're just too busy, or they try and do too much. They don't get down to the point, and they're not enjoyable to look at, which is not just fluff. It's part of selling your product. That's why brand is essential. I don't know, man. I'm kind of obsessed. I think I've got a crush on these emails.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: When you don't use color and then using color, it stands out. They're using these graphics effectively to express emotion or message. When you include enough white space and balance out a well thought out design system that you're letting the design system flex and take in some of these longer headlines, and they still work on mobile and desktop.&nbsp; Matthew Smith: The only thing I would love to see is a bit of interactivity on these, like just subtle, but it doesn't take much to add some interactivity to your buttons. Depending on where you're sending your email from and coding, some of those kinds of things can be an issue. Can we talk about the footer again?&nbsp; Matt Helbig: Sure.&nbsp; Matthew Smith: No, let's not. All right, everybody. This was a great one. I'm psyched. Readymag. Well played, my friends. Well-played. Hey listeners, viewers, friends, Email Geeks. Let us know what brands you'd like us to cover. Let us know how we can improve or things you're looking for from us. Subscribe, like, love, give us hugs. We love all the stuff. So it's great to be here with everybody, even though we're virtual. All right, we'll see you next Friday. Matt Helbig: See you.

Readymag is an online design tool that empowers people to create professional websites, presentations, and portfolios.

Creating clear, elegant, no-nonsense visuals with Readymag

This FF episode was sponsored by <a href="https://more.emfluence.com/really-good-emails" target="_blank">emfluence</a>. Get paired with a marketer to see how your strategy will work in the emfluence Marketing Platform. Matthew Smith: Hey, it's Feedback Friday once again, everybody. How's it going, Matt Helbig?&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I'm doing fantastic this Friday. How about you, Matthew Smith?&nbsp; Matthew Smith: I'm good. My man, I'm good. This Friday, my girlfriend moves in after 18 months of being apart. So I'm psyched about that. I'm also psyched about these Youth To The People emails here on Feedback Friday, where we discuss brands and their emails, and what's working well and sometimes a few thoughts or tips.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F5Ec1I80jBw" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/F5Ec1I80jBw</a> I'm into this <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/youth-to-the-people" target="_blank">Youth To The People</a>. I think you sent this over, man, this is yours. So why don't you kick us off?&nbsp; Matt Helbig: This one is on the line for me. This is similar to some of the other more experimental designed emails that we've looked at in the past. It's doing some more modern stuff in the inbox. It is one of those examples where it is mostly all images. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/5565571f98bd4b47ac9d09eef2a95fb4"> Maybe this is just an image, not an email, but I think they are trying out some interesting new stuff with color and layout and things like that. This is one of those that I thought would be interesting to talk about, but I don't know if it would ever be featured on our site fully. Matthew Smith: Right, right, right. Interesting. I think a lot of these decisions seem to be around the brand. Can you push something like this where there's a lot of different typography styles? It's a busy email in some ways, but it seems like this is part of the brand. It's so hard. To me, so many people try and do this and don't execute well. Whereas I feel like this gets into that category of they are executing well. It's busy. It's fast. It's got many lines. It got many shapes, but it keeps you moving. If they're going to be all images, they've made the text large enough to read on a mobile device. I'm able to see that easily.The email is set up from the get-go to be something that feels readable. Now, I've got some things like this as a CTA, look at all these other big, even rounded corner things that feel like CTAs to me. And, by looking at my mouse here, I can tell that they are, in some ways, CTAs. I'm curious where they're all leading—hitting me then with this "BOOK NOW." I know that it's a CTA. So I think other people will, but it would be hard to say scan quickly and understand that. So, as a rule, I tend to feel like your CTA color, your CTA focus should be something unique to the rest of your design, not the same color, but here it works. But like you said, it's sort of on the line. Let's look at some of the others. They change up colors.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: This is another green on black example that I think we've covered before as a general design trend. It has many exciting elements that I think people could borrow to make their live text emails a little bit more interesting. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/ae781cf8e07d435bbb5cc608672ffcff"> Playing with the layout and using images and things like that. Maybe something a little bit more locked up that email designers could try to make into live text. Even with this list, like having a different font and color.&nbsp;I think that is something that you could try to do in live text, and it still might sort of work out for many email clients. So taking some of those elements and maybe trying them in a well-coded email. It could be interesting to see.&nbsp; Matthew Smith: It's interesting seeing how they take the brand, and they take the aesthetic and continue to push it through. It's working. It's a little bit hectic for my taste, but I think it's consistent. And that's one of the things that I think I value about it.&nbsp; So let's pop over and look at another one and see that consistency again. So in this one, now we've got yellow, and in this case, we've got this very odd GIF here that a is telling me to dream beyond it. This doesn't feel as on-brand to me. I think that maybe they're just pushing some things and seeing what's out there. I'm not exactly sure what sort of studio this is. It's interesting. It almost looks like mountains, and then you realize, Oh, those are pillows. So there's just kind of an interesting vibe going on here, but I'm curious. And I think that's at least what they're trying to get me to be. Is curious to see what is coming soon. I want to find out. This is a design trend where you kind of lock things up in these boxes like this. It's a throwback to some mid-century and older design with a sort of punch cards and things like that. But I think it works well here. And it is a nice change to see how people sign off on things. Like why not do the whole footer in that aesthetic? The footer is the weakest part of these emails. I think as it is in most emails.&nbsp;It's sort of like the dirty rest. The dirty rest is what my friend Nate used to call the milk after you were finished with the cereal. That's what's going on in footers often. Anyway, what do you think of this one?&nbsp; Matt Helbig: This shorter teaser email. I think it does a job pretty effectively to build a little bit of hype. I noticed as well that they're using this graphic on social media and things like that. So it's nice to see them reusing a graphic across multiple channels. <img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/384343035d824fb79cebabec63c95618"> The majority of skincare brands that we've covered tend to use all images. I guess it's just to see the differences between these brands on innovating on the style. So I think that's what we've seen a lot with different fashion and beauty stuff. A lot of the emails they're delivering will be all images. I think it's a challenging thing with a brand that is so focused on branding and imagery and appearance online on social to spend the time to work on a well-established email template that is accessible. I know we would both love to see more brands take that step and still balance pleasing aesthetics with a more accessible email.&nbsp; Matthew Smith: Good job, Youth To The People. By the way, this little white YTTP down here at the bottom. That's like one of my favorites. That's a tight little lockup right there. I just wanted to point that out. I'm into the name. I'm into the brand. It's interesting. Not my style, but they pull it off. Good work. I hope everybody enjoys this. Leave your questions in the comments. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/reallygoodemails?sub_confirmation=1" target="_blank">Subscribe</a>. Please share it with your friends and your parents. Your parents need to see these videos. It's great to have everybody here. Thanks for being such a cool community. See you next Friday.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: See you.

Youth to the People is a sustainable skincare company based in Los Angeles, California, creating cruelty-free beauty products.

Exploring brand concepts and staying curious with Youth to the People

Matthew Smith: Hey, it's Friday, everybody. Happy Friday, Matt Helbig. How are you doing? It's Feedback Friday.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: What's up, Matthew Smith? Welcome back to another episode of Feedback Friday. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J6LhVZgy52Y" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/embed/J6LhVZgy52Y</a> Matthew Smith: Here this week, we are here with <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/fontshop" target="_blank">FontShop</a>. I've been following these folks for a long old time cause I love me some typography. They've been doing some exciting stuff for a long time, but one of the fascinating things about them is they have gone wide.&nbsp;They're a wide load here, man. They're pushing some boundaries. I think it's working. So let's walk through that. If you're a font brand and you're showing off visuals of how people use typography within different examples, like these albums here, for instance. You want beautiful, powerful imagery. What better way to try and use full-screen design if possible? Making sure that it translates to mobile as well. Nice big fonts. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/new-arrivals-have-just-landed-browse-the-latest-on-fontshop" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/08b163712c6f4678a77f68706a0a1063"></a><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/new-arrivals-have-just-landed-browse-the-latest-on-fontshop" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/new-arrivals-have-just-landed-browse-the-latest-on-fontshop</a> Now here, they're doing something interesting that I think they're pulling it off. And it's not something I generally recommend, which is a centered headline with left-aligned text. Now, I guess that they're choosing left align text down here because centered aligned with this much text is challenging to read, or it becomes more challenging to read. Notice that the text is large enough that you can read it. Like this is called the measure typographically. So that measure is such with a size of that type that it works. Now that said, I'm guessing that they're counting on people's email browsers not being like super wide since you usually don't browse an email widescreen. But maybe they account for that. I don't know. But one of the reasons that it works here is because of how simple it is. They have nice, big titles, real clear, really large, very heavyweight. And then nice big type here that keeps your measure. The measure means the number of characters on a line.&nbsp; I think that the number of characters on a line is supposed to be less than something like 5. As long as you're in that range, then you're doing well. Some type nerd is going to say it's not 58, it's 62. So we'll see. I'm into this. I think they're making it work, man. I love seeing how people use typography from a brand perspective. I come through here. Very quickly. I get to see, Oh man, I like how that type works. I could see using that. I could see getting behind that. I'm going to go buy it. There's nothing that shows you the font more than like how somebody else does it. Now, one thing I might change, I guess, that it could get pretty heavyweight, but if you could do a GIF there with three slides of different uses of typography and get the file size down, I think that could be pretty interesting, but they do an excellent job of running through this.&nbsp; Matt Helbig: I think the use of embedded fonts is great to see. I think you can poke around their code and maybe see how they're doing some of this. I believe they have a home-court advantage because they own many of these fonts, but it is interesting to see how they're using these wackier fonts in email. It's pretty unique as well that they are live text. I don't know if I love these hero images. I'm not sure exactly if they're the best showcase of these individual fonts. For me, I think maybe even some animation could be nice. I liked the little pulsating heart at the top of the email. For some of these fonts, I'd almost like to see them more embedded in the different sections. I think in some other examples, they might use color a little bit more to break up the individual sections to sort of match these styles. So to me, this is just a pretty short newsletter-style focusing on these three or four brand new fonts. In general, I think it does a pretty good job of getting the message across, but I feel like there might even be a better strategy to showcase these individual fonts. Maybe focusing on one and showing multiple styles on different colors and things like that.&nbsp; Matthew Smith: Look at one of their others in and keep comparing. One of the things you can see here in this email is that this white, black, yellow is a big, big part of their brand. And then what they try and do, I think, is get out of the way visually so that the typography examples can stand alone on their own. <a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/thank-you-for-subscribing-to-our-letternews" target="_blank"><img src="https://files.reallygoodemails.com/blogContentImages/68ff1aaad7fe4d76b50243e79f78d98d"></a><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/thank-you-for-subscribing-to-our-letternews" target="_blank">https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/thank-you-for-subscribing-to-our-letternews</a> So I like the way that they continue to use this, "Looks best in browser" GIF, and this time it's a little different. The low contrast here is interesting. I was a little bit surprised by that, but let's keep going and see what's going on. So they're showcasing a sale, which I think is cool. They get in here and say the next order is 20% off. That's a neat little illustration. This is more about them, I think, as a shop, rather than the typography that they're showcasing. This feels really on brand. I also like this hover state. That's a nice little touch that they bring in here. This is fascinating to see this coming through. And then finishing with a map to it looks like probably Germany that they are. Yep. One thought here is, this is another one where this is interesting to me. They are almost using this as movie credits, the way that they're like talking about managing directors and things like that. But it's like, is that serving the user? That's one that I've always asked, and if it's not like, if this isn't critical information to me then maybe it could go, or perhaps it could be buried in the link that I could as a user, go in and read more about—some of those kinds of things. But I do appreciate the consistency of the illustrations, and this one's really on brand. Feels pretty good. Matt Helbig: Yeah. I liked this one. I feel like pairing down the yellow throughout the rest of the email using those brand colors is smart. So this one, compared to the last one, to me, it feels a little bit more put together as a product update email, and like a discount email, this one's pretty straightforward. I don't have that much feedback.&nbsp; I think they're effectively using formatting. Using bold and font sizes and things like that. Keeping things pretty simple and pared down. I think these give me enough information, but still, lead me to want to go to a landing page to learn a little more. So overall, I think this one's pretty straightforward and a pretty clean example. Matthew Smith: Yeah, I agree, man. I think this is a really basic newsletter. It's just showing me some text, some images, and some CTAs, but they've done it well. One of the things that many people end up doing is they add complexity to their emails that aren't necessary and end up creating a muddy water situation where it's hard to know what to do as a user. In this case, I'm very clear about what I want to do. I want to start exploring, or I want to shop, or I want to learn more about this interview. So I'm pretty into simplicity. If you're going to have a very simple newsletter, this is a great way to do it. Good work, FontShop. If anybody has any questions about a FontShop or questions directly to FontShop, let us know in the comments. Always please <a href="https://www.youtube.com/reallygoodemails?sub_confirmation=1" target="_blank">subscribe</a>. Let us know how you'd like to see it improve or other brands that you'd like to see showcased. Matt Helbig:&nbsp; See you next week, Email Geeks.&nbsp; Matthew Smith: See ya.

FontShop is a leading font retailer based in Berlin, Germany, offering 150,000+ font selections for desktop, mobile, and web.