Inbox roundup - How much is too much?

Nicks Wine Merchants - Vintage Direct is a large Aussie online liquor vendor. They do a great job of making me part with my hard earned $$ in my ongoing quest to build a decent Single Malt Scotch collection.

I enjoy my Scotch neat. But neat is not a word I'd necessarily use to describe these emails. Whilst there are a lot of quite nice things that they're doing such as having a clear banner image and branding, a prominent offer (Free delivery on orders over $200) and a table of contents (that doesn't link anywhere), there's a few things that I think could be done a little better.

Subject: Issue No. 435 - Nicks Newsletter

The first area to look at is the header and intro. You normally have around 250 pixels of 'above the fold' space to work with. (A separate debate on whether 'the fold' is relevant will be had in a future post.)

But it seems that there's a little bit of a waste going on here - with about 5 lines of instructions before the banner starts. A little too much I think!

Secondly, the introductory article or feature is massive. We normally suggest that less is more when it comes to copy in an email. This is is definitely on the 'more' side. While not a huge issue when it comes to communicating the message, the problem is that we're missing out on some important clickthrough information. I'd imagine that for Nicks, like with any retailer, enriching your database with customer clickthrough information (ie, leads!) is a huge benefit of online and email.

Just like the finish on an old peaty Islay Malt, this email goes on forever! There's about 7 full page lengths of content crammed into the one piece of communication.

It begs the question. Why is there a need to cram so much into the one email? I'm sure that a simple introduction to each of the 9 (!!) featured items with a click for more and a 'Buy Online' button would have sufficed. Were short and long versions tested?

I'm wondering why it doesn't seem important to collect information on those that have expressed interest by clicking through on a product - and not necessarily gone ahead and purchased. One would think that a re-campaign to that segment with a special offer would yield some nice results.

And it's not just in the articles that we're missing clickthoughs. I'd really like to have seen the header image click though (especially when it contains a web address). Perhaps also having the site related nav elements - Your Account, Login etc up the top near the header would have been handy.

The shame is that the link to their email service provider is one of the most attractive and best executed CTA's in the whole email...

I'll bet you a Laphroaig 25 Year Old that we can't help you improve your next email campaign! Just drop a comment or contact us!