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Emailing Flash
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - May 18, 2001

No, we're not talking about some kind of sleazy porn email. Is it OK to send a Flash movie via email? In fact what can you send to customers by email without getting on their nerves and more importantly, so they can actually see what you're sending them. Following the often heated debate about the rights and wrongs of HTML email, the focus of conversation turned to Flash.

Stephen Pratley kicked things off, "I've just had someone call me who's insistent on emailing a Flash .exe file to their customer base who they SAY have requested it as an attachment. Why this was even offered as an option I will probably never know. If there's anyone out there who is prepared to take this on, please get in touch off list. I had one agency contact who did this as a follow-up from the New Media Fair, I was so horrified I threw their card straight in the bin."

He continued, "Whilst I have to agree... on the HTML issue (and I've got my own figures to back it up), I would say that this one IS a black and white DON'T, and I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is."

Katy Evans had successfully done this in the pasty, "...we mailed a flash.exe file out on request as it was a demo of our product - we had an excellent response to this as our product was complicated to explain without demo - people 'got it' once they'd seen the flash demo."

Sally Krumholz highlighted some of the issues, "...the problem with sending EXE files is that they have the potential for getting bounced by [corporate] firewalls. So this may minimize your results. What i suggest is you look into some of the newer rich media email products out there, which incorporate flash within the body of the email. It's essentially streamed in. On the downside, you cannot view this offline. On the upside the file load weight is low due to streaming and you have the benefits with some of these products for tracking 'forwards' and in some cases interactivity within the message."

Stephen Pratley replied, "I'm not saying that flash doesn't have its uses, but that the delivery method is riddled with problems and dangers. Why not leave the movie on a web-site and link to it from the email?"

Sally Krumholz confirmed this viewpoint, recalling a cautionary tale, "I recall about two years ago a little fun & cute holiday greeting game was sent out by an agency. Very cute little snowball throwing elves game. It was an EXE file and I remember it getting passed around a lot - even well after Christmas. Somewhere along the way, it got infected by someone and contained a small virus. I don't remember what it did. In any event, Alex is right. EXE's leave you open to things further down the line, which you may not expect. It's hard for me to advise or recommend to any client that they use a product involving an EXE."

James Hatts highlighted another issues, "...leaving aside the fact that anything involving a Windows .exe application will be useless to Mac/Linux/WebTV users, etc."

Rod Begbie added, "Worst offender that I know of is Battlemail. For those that don't know, it's a play-by-email game system where you can kick the virtual crapola out of your friends and loved ones. Turns are mailed to you as attachments, which you have to double-click to view.

When it was all the rage around work a year ago, I spent many happy minutes forging Battlemail emails and getting people to click on all manner of dodgy attachments. As long as it looked and smelled like a Battlemail mail, they were happy. Most hilarious of all was Battlemail's claim that 'you are ensured that this is virus-free, because the mail comes From: mailer@battlemail.com', seemingly oblivious to how piss-easy it is to forge a mail-header!"

Suggesting some examples from the entertainment industry, D. Dias wrote, "This flash e-cards, DAPs (what an ugly word - 'Digital Audio Postcards' anyone?) seem very popular within the music, entertainment industry with companies like Ministry, Worldpop, Dotmusic selling them to advertisers. Obviously impresses the clients, Ministry claiming 15% click thru rate (not that I'd believe them mind you) from their DAPs..."

Like website design, the use of Flash is still raising many questions, particularly compatibility. To use or not to use, is still going to be largely an issue of the audience and the campaign objectives.

Lazy Slashing

It could just be me, but it irks when I receive a promotional email that has a badly formed web address, or an email address that is clearly wrong. Maybe I need to get out more, but at the very least it's poor marketing.

James Hatts received a particularly fine example from the organisers of Internet World, who emailed him:

> PLUS free entry to the Internet World UK 2001 exhibition with your conference
> pass!
>
> REGISTER online and view the full programme at http:\\www.internetworld.co.uk.
> Places are strictly limited so book today!

He commented, "How can it be that the organisers of the UK's biggest Internet show can't even format a simple URL correctly?"

Jon Clarke replied, "As the back slashes are on the other side of the keyboard, perhaps the culprit is a left handed one digit typist..."

Leslie Bunder added, "...Alas I guess the person who sent this out either didn't get it checked before they did it. But I entered the address http:\\www.internetworld.co.uk into IE 5 and it got to the correct address. I have seen on several occasions people using the \\ slash but it usually works anyway even though it looks totally wrong... No doubt a more techie DNS type person on this list will explain why \\ will also work."

Alex Chudnovsky duly emailed, "http:\\ has NOTHING to do with DNS as this (http:\\ bit) is a PROTOCOL which tells browser how to 'talk' to specified domain name "www.internetworld.co.uk", which is indeed resolved using DNS. Didn't test much whether \\ will work in mainstream browsers but my IE5 happily accepted it. While it MAY work, you SHOULD NOT count on it."

Rod Begbie explained why it works, "People kept getting it wrong, so Microsoft 'fixed' IE, Outlook, etc. to ake it work. Just another example of what makes IE 99% more usable han Netscape. (Top Tip, for those who don't know it: if you enter a word in the address bar, then press CTRL+Enter , IE adds "http://www." and ".com".)"

And just to prove that we haven't learnt from our mistakes, Ashley Pomeroy found an example from a couple of years back, "This very thing was mentioned on NTK - in May 1999"

Creative Tailoring

Chris Crooks, asked the list for suggestions for his new online venture, "Am looking for some input into alternative/guerilla marketing ideas. We have used html e-mails but found numerous problems with firewalls and their ability to be forwarded successfully.

What is slightly unusual is that the nature of our business is tailoring i.e. suits etc. Anyway if anyone has any thoughts including ideas on games then i would be most grateful and might even make you some shirts or a suit if you are in London. you can also check out our site www.hurstandbanks.com which is new and hopefully addresses the problems of usability and style- am prepared for abusive comments to the contrary!"

Katy Evans suggested, "How about sending out some promotion bods with blow up dolls and a range of your clothing - get people to dress them up/ or down! could get some PR - maybe I'm just twisted..."

Ken Cowley added, "Since you're looking to sell suits, I presume you're already leafleting and visiting places where lots of 'suits' hang out, i.e. city blocks? And doing corporate deals for staff introductions? 'Fashion' displays at 'corporate' events like The Derby, Twickenham, Boat Race, etc. Of course none of this is on-line but it seems most productive for clothing. My own guess goes:

Book online for somebody to come visit = scary, commitment
Be one of the crowd when someone comes calling = easy

Sorry if this is a grandmother/eggs situation - our company hasn't had a (real world, snail mail) mailer from you as far as I know..."

The initial responses were particularly interesting, mainly because the first suggestions were 'offline' rather than 'online'.

Chris Crooks responded, "Thanks for the ideas, difficulty is that of retaining brand image. [We] have not sent round general e-mails as they annoy me off and go straight in the bin. Corporate deals have been a winner and anyone wanting to sort something out for their office is duly rewarded. We also use incentives to encourage promotion- i.e. if you get some friends interested then we will give you free shirts etc."

Is it worthwhile using the Internet to market this type of service, Stephen Pratley posed this question, emailing, "You might not get many orders online, but for giving people an idea of the myriad of options in a personal product like this I would have thought it is probably the best medium there is? The chance to play around and find out what's available is probably quite attractive to a new buyer who wants to walk into the store with some air of confidence."

There were some suggestions about where this audience could be targeted online. Luke Coleman suggested, "You've got a great idea here - I would recommend targeting professional online publications... I have many (too many) friends that are surveyors, and the whole bespoke suit in the office... is massively popular with them. They also play rugger a lot, so you have that angle...I'm sure lawyers etc are equally stereotypable (plus points for a new word!)"

John Braithwaite added, "Firstly, you need to know where your market congregates, i.e. MoneyExtra discussion boards. By doing a little research online, you should be able to find [out] the key places that you need your message to be. Without giving the game away (or for free!) I would suggest then getting your online presence established in some way or another in these key sites to drive a sales promotion.

The sales promotion should be a means of getting the interest up - something mouth-watering that it'll get people interested in choosing bespoke - but not cheap enough that it looks like a give-away. It could be one of many things - an additional discount, tickets to an exclusive event for 'one lucky winner' in June, a free pair of (say) Bausch and Lomb sunglasses with every suit ... er.. the list goes on (for a long while.. ). The great thing about bespoke tailoring is that it is exactly that - made to measure. You don't need to give away your right arm, pardon the pun."

LINKS OF NOTE:
A quick round up of interesting, funny, useful and other links gleaned from the uk-netmarketing list, office gossip and other nefarious sources...we take no responsibility should you chose to click...basically, it's not our fault. Enjoy:

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