Email marketing continues to be a powerful part of most companies’ strategies, but many factors can contribute to the success of an email program (text vs. email, time of day, day of the week, etc). It can be overwhelming at times to pinpoint the ideal email for your organization, and testing different combinations is often necessary.
The good news is that the London company Alchemy Worx has solved one piece of the email puzzle for us—subject line length. According to their research, response rates are highest when the subject lines are in the 50-character range or 80-character range, but they fall in the middle when the length is 60 or 70 characters. To increase open rates, keep these magic numbers in mind next time before you click send.
Summer is here. Maybe you’re ready for a vacation. We are. Click on the photo of a Hammock person below and learn about a trip they love remembering. Hint: It’s easier to use at the full-size version of the map here.
Hammock has some really talented designers — and I’m not one of them. So I asked our art director, Kerri Davis, to help me understand what goes into the font choices designers make when they’re laying out a spread in a magazine.
I tend to think things I don’t understand are just magic — don’t we all? But Kerri shared with me the guidelines she follows as she starts her work. The end result still looks magic to me, but we can all learn from the method behind it.
I took Kerri’s notes and marked up two spreads that I posted on Flickr. Click over to see her thoughts.
More: Seth Godin also had a great post this week on using fonts and type effectively.
A magazine article is only as good as its source. But breaking into unfamiliar territory to find the perfect source is no easy task. Where do you turn when searching for a source takes you on a wild goose chase? After a number of trials and errors, we’ve adopted a few general rules to help us find good sources fast.
Here are some tips that work for us:
Staying organized in life, let alone at work is a constant struggle for most of us. With each day feeling increasingly busier than the one before it, how do you manage to stay organized and control the flow of email, deadlines and projects? As a custom media company, deadlines, whether for editorial, production, or marketing projects are an integral and necessary part of our daily routines at Hammock. So how do we keep everything organized and on track?
When I asked other people at Hammock for the secret to their organizational approaches, here is what I heard:
Back in December I wrote about my issue with the way The New York Times presented its “53 Places to Go in 2008” cover article for its Travel section. I explained how the digital version of the same article was far superior because of its clear and logical organization, not only in the presentation of the information but also the design.
Imagine my dismay therefore, yesterday morning, to flip to the Travel section to the “31 Places to Go this Summer” cover article to see a repeat violation. The headline grabbed my attention, but the design is another disappointment. It’s visually entertaining, creative and playful, but it doesn’t serve my need for access to the information in a concise way. I am not engaged. I quickly remembered that not all was lost as I quickly clicked on my nytimes.com bookmark. Sweet relief yet again. While the Times fails in print, it succeeds to surpass my needs with the online version of the article. The design copies that from the December article: All 31 places are presented with a small thumbnail image. Now, where will I go this summer?
In the corporate world, design and logo guidelines are standard. Companies and associations set up rules about how the logo may be used, for instance, or what colors are acceptable in company memos. Many organizations will just provide standard templates for spreadsheets, written documents and emails.
But what about your words? Does your organization need a standard style guide for the words in your written documents? If your publications don’t use a style guide, follow along with me for a few moments. Even presentations, advertisements and other printed materials benefit from a standard written style.