The TL;DR:

• Let’s Chat D2C: The Anatomy of Great Email Design

• What I’m Thinking about this Week: Prompt Engineering 101

• The D2Z Podcast: No episode this week, but we’ll be back next week! If you want to be considered, or have someone you think could be a good fit for the podcast, just reply to this email!

• App Updates & Highlights: Klaviyo SMS Age Gating, Recharge native gifting, Recharge Bundles, and Status preferences.

• Upcoming Events: Nothing coming up! I’ll be in Miami until Thanksgiving if you want to connect.

Also, you can now easily share this newsletter with a friend! As you refer, you earn:

• 3 Referrals: A Free Tech Stack Audit

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Let’s Chat D2C - The Anatomy of Great Email Design

SMS marketing, direct mail, push, etc., etc. All of these channels are hot in 2023, but let’s not forget about the tried and true revenue driver for most brands! Email.

So, what goes into a good email design?

Clear Objective —> Primary & Secondary CTAs:

• Before you start designing, establish what the goal of your email is.

• Whether promoting a product, sharing news, or nurturing relationships, your design should align with your objective.

• Incorporate strong, clear CTAs that guide recipients on what steps to take next, like making a purchase or browsing a collection. These CTAs should tie into whatever the objective of your email is.

• Style your primary and secondary CTAs differently, so that they don’t compete with one another.

Responsive Design:

• Create a responsive design that looks good and functions well on both desktop and mobile devices.

• Most ESPs have the ability for you to preview how your email will look on desktop and mobile, but you can use a solution like Email on Acid to see how your emails will render across multiple different types of devices and email clients.

Visual Elements:

• Maintain consistency in branding elements like logos, fonts, and color schemes to foster brand recognition and trust.

• Incorporate visuals like images, GIFs, or videos to make your email more engaging and convey your message better.

• Showcase your products effectively with clear images, descriptions, and prices.

• Use white space strategically to create a clean, uncluttered look and to draw attention to key elements.

• Feature customer testimonials or reviews to build trust and social proof.

Compelling Headlines and Subject Lines:

• Craft engaging headlines and subject lines that encourage recipients to open the email and read on.

Content & Personalization:

• Keep your content concise, relevant, and to the point. Ensure that it delivers value to the recipients.

• Tailor content to individual recipients based on their preferences, past purchases, or behaviors to enhance relevance and engagement.

• For example, the tried and true form of “personalization” is including the recipient's name, but there is WAY more to personalization than just this.

Easy Navigation:

• Make it easy for recipients to navigate the email, with a clean layout and a logical flow of content.

• Consider including a header navigation bar similar to what you have on your website to increase CTR.

Footer:

• Social Sharing Buttons: Include social sharing buttons to encourage recipients to share your content on their social networks.

• Unsubscribe Link: Always provide an easy option for recipients to unsubscribe in order to comply with email marketing laws and best practices.

• Considering creating a footer navigation like you have on your website to increase CTR.

Testing and Optimization:

• Use A/B testing and analytics to measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns and to optimize them for better performance.

• Test different designs, subject lines, and content to see what resonates best with your audience. Here are some different tests you can run:

  • Image-based vs text-based

  • Emojis vs no Emojis

  • Lifestyle vs Product Image

  • Offer Type

  • CTA color

Compliance and Accessibility:

• Ensure your email design complies with legal requirements and is accessible to all recipients, including those with disabilities.

Promotions and Discounts:

• If applicable, highlight promotions, discounts, or special offers to entice purchases.

One of the most important things I can’t stress enough is TESTING! Take all of the above into account, but make sure you’re testing into your specific audience and also analyzing how certain segments respond to different types of content, design, etc.

What I’m Thinking About This Week - Prompt Engineering 101

AI is everywhere now, and we as workers are being forced to adapt our skills to work with it, not against it. Prompt engineering is crucial to making the most out of ML models and will become (if it isn’t already) a critical skill set to set yourself apart in the workforce.

I put together my best practices below:

1. Understanding the Task:

   • Before beginning with prompt engineering, have a clear understanding of the task at hand and the desired output.

2. Selection of Prompt Type:

   • Select the type of prompt that suits your task. Common types include textual, visual, or a combination of both.

3. Prompt Format:

   • Format your prompt in a way that guides the model towards the desired output. This could be in the form of a question, a statement, or an instruction.

4. Explicit Instructions:

   • Make your instructions as explicit as possible. If necessary, specify the format you want the answer in or any other particular details that are important for your task (i.e., “In 1 paragraph, summarize X”)

5. Test and Iterate:

   • Test your prompts with a small dataset to see how well they perform. Iterate and refine your prompts based on the performance.

6. Variability:

   • Experiment with different phrasings and structures of prompts to explore the space of possible performances.

7. Utilize Templates:

   • Create templates that can be filled dynamically based on the task requirements.

8. Prompt Ranking:

   • If possible, create a set of prompts and use a ranking system to select the best prompt for each particular task.

9. Evaluation and Feedback:

   • Continuously evaluate the performance of your prompts and collect feedback to make necessary adjustments.

App Updates & Highlights - Klaviyo SMS for Alcohol Brands + Age Gating, Recharge Native Gifting + Affinity Theme, Recharge Bundles + Product Subscription Plans, and Status Preferences

Klaviyo SMS for Alcohol Brands + Age Gating

Klaviyo SMS is now available for alcohol brands! In the past, compliance regulations have made it challenging for brands in certain sectors to be able to market via text.

The release of age gating now allows alcohol merchants to validate the subscriber’s age before texting them. You can now find an “Age Gate” block that collects subscribers’ date of birth and verifies their legal drinking age based on the country the form is displayed. Klaviyo secures the subscribers’ date of birth and subscription timestamp for regulatory compliance and data collection.

This is just another sign of how the ecommerce industry, specifically the major tech players, are recognizing the revenue opportunity in the alcohol vertical and this is great news for all merchants as they are now able to use the same tech that everyone else can!

Recharge Native Gifting + Affinity Theme

Gifting subscriptions is now natively available to customers on the Affinity customer portal theme.

Recharge Bundles + Product Subscription Plans

Product subscription plans allow you to create an order interval or frequency with a unique discount for each product. Now, bundles are compatible with product subscription plans, so you can offer up to 100 different variations of intervals (i.e., every 4 weeks) and discounts (i.e., 10% off) on your bundle offerings as well as your individual products.

Status Preferences

Now in customer accounts brands can capture zero-party data that can then be used to personalize marketing messaging, on-site experiences, and more.

Upcoming Events - N/A

Nothing coming up! I’ll be in Miami until Thanksgiving if you want to connect.

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