Inspiration: Dreamforce
When I came across Salesforce’s Dreamforce email in my inbox I was impressed! For the most part, B2B emails can be boring and not very visually appealing, so I was very pleased with this email.
The first thing that caught my attention about this email was how wonderfully it was set up. The hierarchy makes it organized, easy to follow, and the most important content is featured. For example, the header, “Blow out your Salesforce ROI,” the subheader, “Don’t miss the chance to save $300 before July 31,” the call to action to register for the event, and a customer validation quote at the bottom are prominent over the other text. In addition, the benefits to attendees are highlighted to the right of the email in the three images. The hierarchy in this email is extremely successful and draws readers’ eyes to all of the right places.
What else do I like about this email? A LOT! I love the social proof content that is highlighted at the bottom. The testimonial validates Salesforce’s claims in the email and ease readers’ concerns about making an investment to register for the conference.
Another positive about this email is the preheader, “Register now! – Dreamforce Savings.” As Justine describes in her post, “Get your email opened: First impressions matter,” preheaders are the third thing your subscribers are seeing so they should stand out and not just be the typical, “Having trouble viewing your email?” Salesforce does it right in this email by using the call to action in the preheader and using a link so that the results can be tracked. Go Salesforce!
And one of the best parts of this email is that it looks great even with the images disabled, as you can see in the screenshot below:
Even with the disabled images, the email still has a great hierarchy and the most important aspects are featured. Salesforce did this by styling the ALT tags, assigning colors to certain cells in the layout, and using a bulletproof button for the call to action.
The styled ALT tags can be seen in the fact that “Dreamforce Summer Savings” is in a large bolded text, as is the text in the three colored boxes to the right of the email. Even with the images disabled, these important aspects of the email are still prominent as a result of the styled ALT tags.
The colored ‘boxes’ in the email are a result of assigning colors to each of the table cells in the right-hand column for the callouts. This effect makes it appear as if the images are still there (a little less appealing than the actual images, but nonetheless it has a similar affect).
Lastly, how fabulous is that bulletproof button?
As Alex Ball states in his post, “Creating Bulletproof Email Buttons,” “The concept behind bulletproof buttons in emails is to provide the user with a compelling, attractive and enticing call to action without the use of images.” This is done by coloring the cell where the button is placed and using text instead of an image to write out the call to action; regardless of whether images are on or off, the call to action still stands out.
Is there anything about this email that needs improvement? Not much! The only recommendation that I have is to make it a little more mobile friendly.
As seen in the infographic, “Anatomy of the Perfect Mobile Email,” emails that are one column are easy to read on a mobile device, so since this email is two columns it is not very mobile friendly. In addition, the font looked a little small on my iPhone, so I would suggest using a larger font. Besides that, this email looked great even on my mobile device; the register now button was large enough that it is touch friendly.
Do you like this email as much as I do? Do you have any recommendations for how it could have been improved? I’d love to hear your feedback!
P.S. We used Mailchimp’s smartphones@ service to get the nifty screenshot of Salesforce’s email inside an iPhone. It’s a huge timesaver!
