This month’s “Best Email Ever!” goes to the NFL who scores a Red Zone touchdown with their weekly email newsletter the 1st & 10. In general, I’ve been impressed with the NFL for their email marketing campaigns, but their 1st& 10 newsletter, which features the league’s top stories leading into Sunday games, is one of my personal favorites.
Being a die-hard Denver Bronco fan, and an avid fantasy football player, I depend on getting news and updates before the oblivion that is the family weekend. Getting timely, relevant content about the things that interest you is exactly what email should be about.
Overall the newsletter is a nice mix of simple content, with a peppering of secondary information done in a way as to not overwhelm the reader. The layout works perfectly for both desktop and mobile viewing. In the desktop version, you get a clean, single-column layout along with thumbnail images that support each story. However, in a mobile environment, they followed an industry best practice and hid the images that are not vitally important to the overall message; thus cutting load time and streamlining the reading process on a mobile screen.
The NFL also did a great job of breaking the content up by adding cross-promotional banners for the NFL Shop in between the top 5 stories and the last. It’s a nice visual break in the content, and it entices the reader to keep scrolling to see the last 5 stories. The Team News section at the bottom of the layout is a nice ending because this is typically where they place the most recent updates about injuries and player news, which is key, especially when you discover your fantasy QB is out 4-6 weeks!
There are also a few elements within this email newsletter that deserve to be highlighted on the JumboTron. One of those is the animated Breaking News ticker that highlights the top headlines of the week. It works in both desktop and mobile, and it can be integrated into your next winning email campaign using a partner such as PowerInbox.
Another nice feature for fans is the ability to set a reminder so that you receive an alert for the upcoming games that are relevant to you. And lastly, sometimes it’s just the little things. I’m a big fan of lists, numbers and visual organization so I’m loving the small red flags that represent each story number.
The NFL does a great job with this email for their timely, relevant content that is easy to read on any device, and is full of interesting content that matters to their audience. Helmets off to the NFL’s 1st & 10 weekly email newsletter… this is October’s Best Email Ever!
Corey Duncan
Corey serves as PostUp’s Interactive Creative Director, where he manages and designs all creative development for the Professional Services department. He is responsible for designing, implementing and tracking everything from email, web banners, websites, social media and SMS while adhering to digital marketing best practices.