No Duh! - your email needs to look good

EROI keeps churning out good data on what matters the most to email marketers...

Here is a report summarized at Direct Mag that basically says you need to leverage some of the best practices from direct mail in your email marketing, including, focusing on the creative elements and presentation.  Here's a great quote:  “A lot of e-mail marketing people want to distance themselves from direct mail because they’re thinking ‘look how much better we are,’” said Mills. “In fact, you go back and you look at the direct mail world and you discover that people started putting the offer that was on the inside of the envelope onto the outside of the envelope. There’s a reason they started doing that.”

Here's some advice - learn from the Direct Marketers.  They've been doing this stuff for a while. Yet, for some reason there is a disconnect between email and direct. Go figure. It reminds of all the new "Web 2.0" startups in San Francisco who think they are inventing the internet.

But, back to the "no duh" part. When Christine (my fiance) and I started our food business a friend of mine said, rather earnestly, "well, the food has to be good." No Duh!  That statement seems so obvious. But when you think you are doing something new and different - you often can overlook what is the basic fundamentals of business.

Keep in mind that communicating is still communicating and Email is a lot like direct mail if you think about it.