Nikon’s my Picturetown Email Isn’t Fully Developed

Posted by Gregory Ng | Filed under ★★★ If It Works, Great

I have been a very happy Nikon customer for quite awhile. They have a file in the “Brands I Love” filing cabinet in my head. But despite my love for Nikon I was a tad confused about this email I received. Take a look below:

One of the things I am very guilty of with emails from brands I trust is skipping right over the subject line. In this case I dove right into the email and was hit with a huge picture of fish at an aquarium and a headline that says, “2 GB FREE!”

Normally I don’t advocate huge images dominating the top of the fold but with a company like Nikon it makes sense. They are after all, all about imagery. But what confused me about this email was I had no context of why I should care about getting 2 GB Free.

The payoff to the headline didn’t clear it up any better: “Bring Your Circle Closer”. I am not a fan of campaign-like vague payoff lines. Tell me in plain english what I’m getting out of this service. “Bring your circle closer” tells me absolutely nothing. Are we a wolfpack or something?

Now I know what you are saying to yourself, “Read the subject line you dummy”. The subject line reads: “Spring is here! Share and Store your pictures for FREE with Nikon’s my Picturetown”

Except if I read the subject line I would have only seen “Spring is here! Share and Store your…” Had I spent the time to read the subject line I think I would have gotten the vague idea that my Picturetown is an online photo bank for my pictures. Instead I was left wondering if I was going to get a 2 GB memory card for referring a friend to Nikon.

It is not until the bottom of the email do I see any sort of value proposition. “Share your pictures with Nikon’s my Picturetown” would have been great next to the button of “Learn More”.

Finally, the biggest FAIL of this email was the final call to action. It simply lists the URL, “http://mypicturetown.com”.

What a huge, huge opportunity wasted.

By adding this URL this way it encourages me to key it into my browser. Why not use a personalized URL instead that way you can track me whether I click or not? Oh, that’s right, you can’t use a personalized URL because its set in an image! Grrrr.

Here’s how Nikon can make this email better:
• Cut out the “Spring is here” portion of the subject line moving up the Share and Store your pictures FREE”
• Move the benefit statements up near the headline and button.
• Use a personalized URL in the call to action or at least make the URL look clickable to track engagement.

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Comments (View Comments) | March 24th, 2010

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