vertical response GUIDELINES june 2014
2  Vertical Response Guidelines
WHY USE VERTICAL RESPONSE? All offices and disciplines of Perkins+Will are required to use our firmwide Vertical Response account for sending bulk and marketing email. By using this shared account, Perkins+Will complies with global email spam laws, and tracks those clients who “opt-out” of receiving similar correspondence from the firm. The firmwide account also provides consistency in our marketing emails – in the look/feel of the templates, as well as in the name recognition of the Vertical Response software. For more information, or to obtain a log-in, please contact: Leslie Jenkins Corporate Marketing Director Leslie.Jenkins@perkinswill.com t 212.251.7074
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brand standards in email marketing fonts in vertical response emails
The following sans-serif fonts should be used in emails created for external distribution to ensure maximum readability and brand consistency across all devices and mail clients. For your convenience, these fonts are pre-coded into the templates in Vertical Response.
Arial Verdana Helvetica* ď š code
font-family: arial, verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;
*Helvetica is not a standard font on computers running Windows; it should only be used in external emails where HTML code accompanies the email (i.e. Vertical Response) to ensure for non-Mac users the email is displayed in Arial or Verdana. Please do not use for internal emails.
colors
R0 G 177 B 223
R 178 G 210 B 53
R0 G0 B0
R 128 G 128 B 128
R 240 G 240 B 240
HEX #00b1df
HEX #b2d235
HEX #000000
HEX #808080
HEX #f0f0f0
accent color for links, headers, and possibly call out text
option as accent color
body text
large call out text or captions
background color for page
4  Vertical Response Guidelines
tips for a successful email blast brand standards in email marketing /
01. Subject Line
Crafting a subject line that is simple and concise, yet informative and clear can be the key to the reader opening your email. There are a plethora of online resources that can help guide you in the process. A few helpful tips to get your started are: • Keep your subject line straightforward • Keep it to less than 50 characters if posssible (studies show that emails with 28-29 characters had the highest click rates) • Avoid using promotional phrases or things that look (or sound) spammy • Know your audience. What will interest them? • Consider including a call to action or an intriguiing question. People respond well when they are asked (or told) to do something The folks at Mailchimp said it best: “When it comes to email marketing, the best subject lines tell what’s inside, and the worst subject lines sell what’s inside.”
02. be relevant + useful
03. balance images + live text
Litmus recently looked at email marketing trends and discovered that when subscribers receive an unwanted email “over 68% reported they would delete the email, 58% stated that they would unsubscribe, and 49% declared that they would mark the email as spam. While it’s reassuring for marketers that subscribers would delete or unsubscribe before marking an email as spam, it’s still not ideal. That’s why it’s crucial to send relevant, useful emails to your subscribers.”
People like images, but email clients block images by default. The email should still convey your main points even if all of your images fail to load. Shoot for 80% or more of the email to be live text if possible, with the other percentage being images that will need to be loaded by the recipient. If you have a balance of live text and some images, then the email is useful even without images.
Avoid all-image emails!
04. be mindful of the width
05. alt text labels for images
Each template has a set width, which never exceeds 600px. Images should be cropped to match and not exceed the width of the table designated in the template to avoid formatting issues.
Assign “alt-text tags” to all of your images by selecting and right-clicking on the image, selecting Image Properties, and typing in a description in the Alt Text portion of the window. These are key to telling the reader what the content is before they load the images.
06. don’t forget the plain text format
With plain text emails, no information is lost in translation if the email is viewed on email clients or devices that don’t support HTML emails or if the user has selected Plan Text as their default viewing setting. • Use lots of whitespace to avoid having a huge gray blob of text. Leave space between paragraphs and after headings, and aim for paragraphs of four to five lines. • Use short URLs wherever possible. Longer URLs can break up and become hard to click on, or copy and paste. • Make your copy easy to scan by dividing it with clear headings (i.e.designating main heads with all caps). • Use a string of underscores, dashes, or equal signs to create a border between sections in your email • Don’t put the extra time and effort into adding line breaks every 60 characters or so, which can look ragged on iPhone and other mail clients. The most popular email clients ignore these line breaks anyways and will resize the email to fit within its parameters. Instead, let the paragraphs in your plain-text email campaigns run free.
07. test. test. test!
Send your email to at least 2-3 test email addresses (preferrably a range of differnt email clients: Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, AOL, etc.) before sending to your client list. There are also online resources for testing your code and ensuring deliverability. (i.e. Email on Acid).
Spam filters often use the ratio of images versus text as a flag to gauge whether an email is legitimate. Emails built from a single image are more likely to be marked as spam than mixed content emails.
08. don’t hesitate to ask for help Email corporategraphics@perkinswill.com verticalreponse.com 5
using branded templates in vertical response Step 01. Log in to Vertical Response and go to Email > Drafts
Step 02. Click the “Name” Column Heading to bring the templates to the top of the list
Template Previews Click on a thumbnail to view the template in your browser
TEMPLATE WITH NO IMAGES
Template with Large + Small Images
Step 03. Decide which template shown to the right is the best match for your email content
TEMPLATE WITH header image
Click on thumbnail preview to the right to view the template in your browser or view the preview in Vertical Response by clicking on Actions > View to the right of the email listing.
small image newsletter
6 Vertical Response Guidelines
large image newsletter
guide to using branded templates in vertical response /
Step 04. Once you’ve selected your template, make a copy of the draft email by selecting Actions > Make a Copy
Step 05. Rename your email, select “Edit the new email,” and then click the “Copy Email” button
Step 06. Enter the email information and settings for your new email and select “Next”
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guide to using branded templates in vertical response /
Step 07. Create your header image that contains your headline text (Please use the Trade Gothic Bold Condensed No. 20 font used in the file)
The 530px x 100px header .psd file can be found here: M:\Firmwide_Resources\00_General\Brand\Templates\PSD_Templates\530x100Header.psd The 378px x 100px header .psd file (for the newsletters) can be found here: M:\Firmwide_Resources\00_General\Brand\Templates\PSD_Templates\378x100Header.psd NEED MORE ROOM? Feel free to add to the vertical height of the canvas (Image > Canvas Size...). In order to avoid formatting issues, please keep the width at the original dimension.
Once you have replaced your text in the .psd file select File > Save for Web & export as a jpg with maximum quality.
Step 08. Crop your images to the dimensions indicated in the template’s gray placeholder images Step 09. Change out the images (header and gray placeholder images) Right click on the image > Image Properties > Change Image...
don’t forget to update the alt text label for your new image!
8 Vertical Response Guidelines
Step 10. Replace the placeholder text with your new text, adding in any appropriate hyperlinks Step 11. When you’re done inserting all new content, be sure to check the format of the Text Version (which is automatically generated). To make edits, simply uncheck the “Generated Text Version Automatically” box beside the Text Version tab*. *f you uncheck this box, any new changes to the email will need to be manually updated in the Text Version. See Tip #6 for guidance on creating the Text Version of your email.
Step 12. Test. Test. Test. Send your email to at least 2-3 test email addresses before sending to your client list. Please include leslie.jenkins@perkinswill.com and mimi.day@perkinswill.com in the test.
need help with your email? or Not seeing a template that fits your content? Email corporategraphics@perkinswill.com
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