I found this banana muffin recipe (nibbledish), made some modifications and am really happy with the result. The muffins were delicious and even Justin loved them (he is usually a little critical of my muffins).
Purpose of this post is to remind me of the ingredients and the details. Yes, it’s more for me than you, but you can benefit too. Definitely try the recipe.
——————————-
INGREDIENTS (makes 6 muffins):
30g unsalted butter
60g clear honey
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large, very ripe bananas
10 diced walnuts
6 diced dates
150grams Wholemeal Flour
1 tsp baking power
1/2 tsp bicarb
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of salt
COOKING DETAILS (use the wet into dry method):
Melt butter, honey and vanilla over low heat. Leave to cool for a few mins
Mash Bananas in a bowl
Measure out flour, raising agents, cinnamon and salt. Add walnuts and dates to the mix.
Mix melted butter with banana
Mix into dry ingredients. DO NOT OVER MIX! A lumpy muffin mixture is always good sign
Bake at 190 deg for 25mins
——————————-
TOTAL TIME: 35mins
HEALTH RATING: Pretty good because there isn’t any sugar (refined) or eggs. There is a bit of butter, but when you divide it per muffin it doesn’t work out too bad.
Check Facebook is a great site that allows you to understand the following about Facebook stats and who is using it:
Global users
Total users by geography
Largest countries
Fastest growing countries (penetration)
US vs global
Male vs female
Not sure about you, but I constantly get asked by clients and colleagues about how many people in Australia are using Facebook. As at 2nd July, 2009 there were just over 5,800,000 Australian’s using Facebook and over 225 million global users.
Checkfacebook home page
Checkfacebook % online population by country
Checkfacebook US overview including age & gender
Checkfacebook largest countries (biggest users of Facebook)
Checkfacebook fastest growing countries (biggest users of Facebook)
My post went up this morning and in the 5hrs it’s been live over 30 people have been driven from Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s new website through to my blog. Reason being that the post appears on their home page (see details below).
CP+B home page - Dom Hind Collective reference
CP+B home page - Dom Hind Collective reference (detail)
——————————–
FINAL THOUGHT:
Imagine if you were pitching against these guys and wrote a couple of articles about your agency vs Crispin. It could definitely be interesting.
Trust & openness - rather than controlling what appears on the website there is an openness associated with the site. It doesn’t matter whether the information is good or bad, it appears. Nice focus for a company to be honest, particularly in this economic environment.
Simple – no flash or animation trickery. The hero of the website is the content. It’s a great thing for an agency to be pushing. Let the words and opinions speak for themself.
Introduction - because there is a lot to look at on the site, it’s good to have an introduction letting people know what the site is about and what to expect.
One of my previous post (Who has the best designed emails? Air NZ) focused on why Air New Zealand have the best designed emails, this one looks at the different elements that are reused or templated between the emails (ie the consistencies).
How often are Air NZ sending emails?
This is a really important question when you are using templates. If emails are sent daily (eick), then the email template needs to be very similar with just minor changes being made prior to sends. Unlike the other airlines (particularly Qantas and JetStar), Air NZ doesn’t spam their base (well not me anyway). Below is an overview of the amount of emails they have sent since December 2008 (total of 14 over 6 months – just over two per month). This means that at least Air NZ don’t need to compromise the design for frequency.
Air NZ emails sent - 15 December 2008 - 7 June 2009
—————————————-
WHAT ELEMENTS ARE THE SAME?
Air NZ’s emails are divided into four sections:
Header - each individually designed dependent on the offer/email theme (UNIQUE)
Body - follows a similar format across all emails, but designed dependent on the email theme (PART TEMPLATED)
CTA – exactly the same across all emails (TEMPLATED)
Base (email preferences) – exactly the same across all emails (TEMPLATED)
—————————————-
Body – below are two examples of the email body and the similarities between them. The two examples show an international email (Aussie Airfares) vs a domestic email (Domestic Airfares). This section is divided into two key parts:
offer information
functional area where the subscriber can start their airfare search within the email.
Air NZ offers template (email body) - International
Air NZ offers template (email body) - Domestic
—————————————-
CTA – each of Air NZ’s emails have a really strong call to action and it is consistent across all emails. There are four options for the subscriber (see below) giveing them the option to be directed to the different business areas within Air NZ (holidays and airfares), as well as communication channels (web or phone).
Air NZ calls to action (CTA)
—————————————-
Base (email preferences) - at the bottom of each of the Air NZ emails, your email preferences are displayed. I really like this feature because you can see which email address you have subscibed with (very beneficial if you have multiple addresses) and also can update the email format easily.
Air NZ email options (bottom of email)
—————————————-
LEARNINGS
Templates don’t need to mean matching luggage - you can make elements of an email the same without it looking boring.
The design of the header (preview panel) is key – this is the most important part of the email and must be different and appealing to get the cut through. This shouldn’t be templated too much. Some elements should be the same (email not visible, safe list, mobile device, navigation), but there is leverage to be creative and push the design.
Consistent CTA is madatory - rather than try and teach your subscriber how to use the email every time, keep some things consistent. Particularly the CTA element.
Highlight email preferences – don’t hide the subscribers preferences, highlight them and show them what else they can be doing. It adds value.
This is a really short post, but I really like this graph showing who is winning the US webmail war. It looks at the average visits per visitors, the average minutes per visitor and the total unique visitors. The information comes from ComScore via The New York Times.
Based on the total unique visitors, Yahoo! is winning hands down. Hotmal/Live and AOL are neck and neck with Google coming forth.
Based on the average visits per visitor, Yahoo! and AOL are neck and neck.
Based on the average minutes per visitor, Yahoo! is a clear leader followed by AOL.
This is a great idea from a US agency where the client has the ability to pay what they think the idea is worth. It’s a little risky, but a great way to tackle the GFC (global finance opportunity) and the lack of perceived value that clients have in agency’s work.
Agency Nil doesn’t show any of their work on the website, but their idea is a great. They have just updated the site to include a chat function too. They aren’t there at the time I’m writting this, but no doubt when it’s a weekday and normal hour there is someone there.
Agency Nil - home page
Agency Nil - How it works
Agency Nil - The Deal
Agency Nil - Why?
Agency Nil - Chat window
———————- LEARNINGS
Adapt to the environment - rather than let the economy get you down, you need to adapt to survive. If the recession takes your job, rethink the way you do things. Help turn the agency model from headhours into a value game.
Gather like minds – like minds can help push you further and do things that you aren’t necessarily comfortable with.
I’ve just found a great email marketing report from MailerMailer (published June 2009) that provides an overview of what is happening with email stats for emails sent through their system. I’d recommend a quick skim over the report, but if you don’t have time I’ve done it for you (see summary and key stats below).
———————————–
WHAT DOES THE REPORT SAY?
Most people will open their emails in the first 24hrs, but only a small percentage will click through to the content (less than 3%). It’s best to send emails on a weekend or Monday with a subject line under 35 characters. Personalisation needs to be more than just the subject line.
———————————–
WHAT ARE THE STATS?
As a top line summary, here are the key findings:
1. How Soon Do People Open Their Email? 74.5% of opens occur within the first 24 hours and 84.3% occur within the first 48 hours.
2. Open Rates The overall unique open rates stand at 12.52% which is a marginal decline from the 13.20% open rate experienced in the first half of 2008.
3. Click Through Rates Click rates held steady. Subscriber clicks in the second half of 2008 were comparable to those in the previous six months, rising a mere 0.08%.
4. Best Days to Send Though weekends and the beginning of the week outperform the other days, Monday is the clear winner having both the highest open rate and click rate.
5. Subject Lines Yet again, emails with subject lines shorter than 35 characters were opened more than emails with subject lines longer than 35 characters.
6 .Personalization Personalization can be good. Data shows when only the message is personalized, there are more opens and clicks. However, emails with only the subject line personalized garnered the least amount of opens and clicks.
7. Deliverability For the second year now, deliverability continues to increase and bounces continue to decrease. This means more messages are reaching recipients’ inbox.
8. Number of Recipients Messages delivered to small and medium lists have far greater open and click rates than messages delivered to lists containing 1000 or more subscribers. A smaller list does not directly affect open and click rates, but mailings to smaller lists may be targeted better, contain more relevant content or have more recent subscribers.
—————————— WHO HAS THE BEST OPEN & CLICK THROUGH RATES? Here are the trends in open rates and click through rates by day, you can see that Sunday and Monday are the most popular.
Email Open & Click Through Rates
In previous reports, it has been recommended to send emails on Tuesday at around 11am. Obviously this trend has changed.
Having a look at the click through rates by industry shows that religious and spiritual emails have the highest click through and travel related emails are next.
Email Click Through Rates by Industry
—————————— WHAT WORKS IN SUBJECT LINES?
Below is a word cloud of the most popular subject lines. They centre around news, party, free, holiday, weekend and night.
Popular Subject Lines in Emails
—————————— DOES PERSONALISATION MATTER?
It’s interesting to look at personalisation and how it effects open rates and click through rates.
Email Open & Click Through Rates based on Personalisation
Key take out is that you need to do more than just personalise the subject line.
—————————— HOW MANY LINKS MATTERS?
The more links in an email that subscribers can click through to, the more likely they are to click through. I know it sounds pretty straight forward, but not sure if I would want over 20 links in an email just to encourage me to click through.
Email Click Through Rates based on number of Links
I hate to say it but airline newsletters are boring. All they focus on are pushing deals and deals with little or no personality included. This is true for all airlines except Air New Zealand.
It doesn’t matter if it is a domestic or international email/offer, every piece of communication has been designed really well. There are elements of every email that are the same, but each have their own idea and design, all represented in the email header (see screens below).
Air NZ Domestic Sale Take Off email
Air NZ Domestic Deals email
Air NZ Gotta Go Domestic Deals email
Air NZ Gotta Go Domestic Deals email 2
Air NZ Get Packing email (holiday deals)
Air NZ Great Aussie Deals emails
Air NZ Best of the West email
Air NZ Quick Aussie Escapes email
——————————–
OBSERVATIONS:
Email header: all emails provide the ability to view the email online or to manage your email preferences.
Preview pane: the most important part of the email is what is visable in the preview panel. This is what will encourage consumers to click through. The preview panel of each of the above emails is very engaging and encourages opens.
Logo: the Air NZ logo appears on the top left-hand side of every email. The only exception is for the holiday deals email (see above Get Packing example).
Headline driven: each of the email is headline driven. All of the headlines relates to the offer or element that is being promoted in the email.
———————————
Stay tuned for more Air NZ email review posts. They are coming through soon.
While doing an email review of J.Crew, I came across three key templates that they use for all of their email communications.
Sales email: this is a headline (text) lead email on a block of colour (usually pastel) promoting an upcoming sale or the final days.
Single product email: this is a single product/image lead email with a strong headline supported by minimal copy. The image is usually of a female wearing the products. It focuses on one product or feature (new online catalogue).
Mulitple product email: this is an email that promotes multiple products from within the J.Crew range. The products/images are the hero and can either be worn or are product shots. There is minimal copy to support the images.
The great thing about J.Crew is they use these templates, but they are not restricted to them (see screens below).
———————————-
1. SALES EMAIL
J.Crew 30% Discount Woman's Swim email
J.Crew Summer Sale Starts email
J.Crew Summer Sale New Additions email
J.Crew Private Sale email
———————————————
2. SINGLE PRODUCT EMAIL
J.Crew Dress up your Boyfriend email
J.Crew New Online Catalogue email
———————————————
3. MULTIPLE PRODUCT EMAIL
J.Crew Jenna's May Picks email
J.Crew May Additions email
—————————————–
OBSERVATIONS
Email header: in every email header there is an overview of the offer, a click to view images and viewing on a mobile device. This is standard across all of the emails.
Navigation:the key navigation is consistent across all emails. The logo appears at the top and all key sections are constant. The forward to a friend option is highlighted.
Unsubscribe:this is constantly included at the bottom of every email.
Headline driven: all of the above templates are headline driven. Very different to most email programs, where the images drive all communications.
Minimal copy: even in the multiple product emails, there is very little copy. The images and the headlines are the heroes.
As part of most email or newsletter programs, there is a confirmation or activation email that is sent after you subscribe online. The next email you receive after that is the first newsletter from the company.
I subscribed to the J.Crew newsletter in mid-April and was shocked to see a Welcome email from them in my inbox the following day (see screens below).
JCrew Welcome to The Club email
Even though there is not much in this email, I like that it welcomes me to The Club. It’s a positive experience.
The other positive thing about J.Crew is that they don’t spam like other retailers. Since signing up to the program in mid-April, I have only received 16 emails – which is about one every few days (see emails received below). With Bluefly, I receive at least one a day pushing me to buy something.
JCrew Emails received - 12 April - 6 June 2009
There are a few common themes with the email details sent by J.Crew:
Time: all emails are sent in the morning (or in the afternoon US time), usually between 3.30am – 7.00am. There was only one sent later, but majority are within that timeframe.
Subject lines: there is no consistency in the treatment of subject lines – some are in CAPS, others are normal text, some promote sales, others promote products. The common element is that majority are reasonably short and aren’t consistent.
Frequency: the first and last 10 days of the month are the most active. Within this period, there is an email sent every other day.
OK, so I have become a little obsessed with Apple’s email marketing and understanding what they are doing and not doing.
Below is a presentation showing Apple’s email marketing or a collection of all the images used in the previous posts, as well as a screen grab of the email visable in the preview panel. It’s an interesting journey and has definitely helped me understand more about their ongoing communications and why clients love Apple so much.
QUESTION:
Are there any other company emails/newsletters that you think are doing a great job? Would be really interested to read anything else?
One of the best things about going home for the weekend is that my mum looks after me with so much great food. This post is more for helping me remember a few great recipes that mum made rather than anything to do with marketing, advertising or digital. If I put the recipes online, I have no excuse for loosing the piece of paper or forgetting how to make them.
Please feel free to try the following. They are so simple and easy.
Hommus (Philip Johnson’s recipe – minor modifications)
1 can of organic chickpeas
1/2 lemon, juice only
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon of tahini
2 teaspoons of crushed garlic
1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup of chickpea juice (from can)
sea salt/ cracked pepper
Place chickpeas, lemon juice, vinegar, tahini, garlic, salt, pepper and oil into the food processor (hand held). Add the chickpea juice to adjust consistency.
TIME: 5 mins
Caramelised onion (Philip Johnson’s recipe – minor modifications)
10 onions (red or brown)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon of unsalted butter
100ml red wine vinegar (or balsamic vinegar)
sea salt/ black pepper
Cut onions into semi-circles. Heat oil and butter in pan over moderate heat. Add the onions and allow to sweat for 10mins. Add vinegar and cook for 15 – 20mins or until onions are dark in colour and jam-like consistency. Season with sea salt and black pepper. Cool and store in covered container in fridge.
TIME: 40 mins
Beef casserole (mum’s own recipe)
550 – 700grams of beef strips (heart-tick)
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon of beef stock
hand full of cut green beans (or peas)
2 diced carrots
1 cut stick of celery
1 diced zucchini
1 diced brown onion (could be frozen)
chopped parsley
2 teaspoons of relish
3/4 cup of water
4 tablespoons of corn flour
sea salt/ black pepper
Combine all ingredients in a casserole dish. Heat the oven to 160 degrees. Cook for 1.45 – 2 hours. Stir every 30 mins and start monitoring after 1.30 hr for consistency. Serve with mashed potato or rice. YUM!
Time: 2.3 hrs (great weekend and cold weather food)
As sad as it is, I normally don’t pay too much attention to banners unless they are really different or combine a multiple of interesting elements. While doing some research on Rome, I came across this banner for AMP First. It’s the first banner that has made me stop and look for a while (see screens below).
AMP First - interactive banner
AMP First - legals within banner
AMP First - call to action
Why do I like this banner?
User interaction: for the first iteration, the banner automatically selects one of the competitor products then it invites the user to select or compare another.
Simple comparison: there are several elements that most consumer compare a savings/cash account against: rate, features and bank. This banner does it in a way that it only takes 2 seconds to understand. They have made something hard look simple.
Legals aren’t a feature: most financial institutions legal department don’t allow a banner (or any piece of creative) to pass through without having sentences and sentences of legal disclaimers. This banner allows the user to interact and find out all the legal disclaimers without it taking away from the banner. Well done AMP legal!
Summary end frame: the last frame of the banner summarises all of the account details and gives users a clear call to action.
For a financial banner, I think this is a really clean, simple and effective use of the space.
—————————————-
QUESTION:
Does anyone else know any simple and effective banners?
BP Australia have recently developed a website that showcases all of the environmental issues they are addressing, both locally and globally. The site is a great initative and focuses on the local initatives that BP are focusing on in the Australian market. On the site, all of the global initatives are listed.
The site is ‘talk stopped long ago’.
BP Talk Stopped Long Ago - microsite
BP Talk Stopped Long Ago - microsite
One of the sections of the site that allows users to interact with it is ’save more than fuel’ within the what you can do section (see screens below).
BP Save More Than Fuel
BP Save More Than Fuel
BP Save More Than Fuel
BP Save More Than Fuel
—————————
OBSERVATIONS
Environment, environment, environment: every company, even petrol companies, are getting behind it. Would be great if there could be an environmental standard, similar to the heart foundation to show who is doing something worth while and who is just saying it.
Local focus showcasing global: it’s great to see a local site that has been developed to show all of the local environment initatives, as well as highlight the global initatives that BP are undertaking.
User interaction increases engagement: I wouldn’t have engaged or spent the time on the ’save more than fuel’ application if there weren’t things that could be updated and changed. If there is an important point that you (or a company) wants to make, look at how you can make it interactive.
#adtechny finished for me in 2009. Overall good conference, some sessions hit and miss. Last day was great! 2 weeks ago
@shanitomkins - good to see herd of nerds is updating their image.....big improvement! See you soon. 2 weeks ago
Sitting in the SOHO Grand, while models walk in and out auditioning for a velvet catalogue! Sooooo skinny. When did stockings become pants? 2 weeks ago
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