Email Marketing: My Friday Favorites

After getting this cool new program called SnagIt, I made the executive decision to post three of my favorite emails from the previous week. This program allows you to get full screen shots, partials, etc. and not have to go through the rigmarole of Photoshop and all that. (Sorry, I won’t have to go through all of that.)

First Hit: Major League Soccer’s latest email blast, seen above. Sent out this past Thursday, I love this email for several reasons. One: it says a lot without seeming too jammed in. The ad spaces at left aren’t traditional ad-looking, but fit into the larger scope of what this is trying to accomplish. MLS is a league that is using the arrival of English star David Beckham as a launching pad into the American sports lexicon and this newsletter surpasses expectations. Compared to some NHL newsletters I got this past winter, MLS is a breath of fresh air. I should note that while this version looked great in Hotmail, some of the headers were missing in Outlook 2007. Sigh. They’re also missing the very important ‘Can’t See This Image? Click here to view’ verbiage at the top.

Second Hit: Ultimate Fighting Championship’s latest PPV. I’m a big fan of mixed martial arts, so I’m always interested to hear the latest in the big dog known as UFC. One of the reasons that Dana White’s group has come to the forefront of contact sports over the past few years is because they push names and faces. They bring the public nose-to-nose with their stars, exemplified in these graphic-rich emails they push out. The latest is hyping their Saturday PPV, Respect. Note how they have three distinct messages (the ppv push, a special message from Couture and merchandise), but they all fit into the overall feel of the email. Love it! One minus is they’re also missing the ‘Can’t See Image?’ info as well. What gives?

Final Hit: The LA Kings’ Season Ticket Push: I worked in pro hockey for six years and we never came close to creating an email as sweet looking as this. Vibrant, informative and quick-hitting, the Kings have been an email fave of mine for about a year now.And the One Bad One. For every yin, there’s a yang…

Jim Ross’ blog updates. For decades, the venerable J.R. has been manning the position of lead announcer for WWE’s Monday Night Raw, in addition to work in WCW and many other pro wrestling organizations along the way. JR has launched his own line of signature bbq sauces in addition to a restaurant in Oklahoma, hence the new blog on his company website. However, I don’t get why his online people haven’t built him a template that would house his blog, ads for the restaurant, ordering info and more. Instead, we get this:

Despite reaching out a few times, I haven’t heard anything back.

Have any nominees? Send them along to josh@emailmarketingguy.com. Join me in forcing the email marketing community to be better.

Originally published at SendLabs