Initial impressions
Good points: The clean design makes this email clear and easy to read. The use of colour throughout also helps bring the message to life and this is complemented by a good use of images.
Bad points: For me, the subject line could be a bit more enticing. Whilst it is good to see that BCD include the company name and date, so recipients can easily recognise the sender, there is nothing that would really encourage a first-time recipient to click through. Similarly, when you look at the email itself, there is no obvious call to action. The logo is also relatively big, which means that for some recipients it might be the only thing you would see in the preview pane. If recipients are using a client like Outlook, which automatically turns images off as standard, then the welcome message would be the first thing you would see and – because it is all in capitals – it could be viewed by the recipient as being ‘spammy’ content.
Content
Good points: There is lots of really good content in this email that would be of use to anyone that was interested in finding out more from this company.
Bad points: Overall, the email is too text heavy, making the message really long. Generally speaking, you need to capture the reader’s attention very quickly and I don’t think this email achieves that. Making the images more prominent, reducing the text and bringing out more calls to action would help to rectify this issue. BCD has tried to give the newsletter a magazine style layout, with content in columns. Whilst this might work for certain brands, the type and length of content here makes the email much more difficult to scan and read. I would suggest testing a new layout style to see if this gains better click through rates.
Technical aspects
Good points: It’s great to see that BCD includes a ‘sign up to this newsletter’ link at the bottom of the email. This means that if the email has been forwarded to a friend for example, the new recipient can also quickly and easily sign-up to receive future messages. It is also good to see social media sharing links added at the bottom.
Bad points: BCD would do well to consider investing in a ‘friendly from address’. The from address as it stands ([email protected]) is fairly obscure and might prompt some to delete or even report it as spam. An address like [email protected] would work much better. The email also doesn’t include a view in a browser link, which is always a good feature to include to allow recipients that are having renderability problems to see the email in its full glory.
Summary
Overall this is an email that has a lot going for it with some really interesting content. However, I can’t help but feel it undersells itself and, with a few fairly simple changes, could do a much better job of engaging the intended recipient.
Rating: 3/5
