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How to Design Emails That Work
Many of us feel inundated and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails that show up in our inbox every day. However, email is still a powerful marketing tool. In order to capture your audience’s attention, use these tips to boost your email open rates and begin to engage your readers.
Craft Effective Email Subject Lines
Remember that people scan for interesting information. Like newspaper or magazine headlines, if you don’t grab their attention and convey the right message in the subject line, consider them lost.
Things you can do that make email subject lines really work:
- Keep your subject line under 40 characters. That’s an effective quick glance for the reader, but even more importantly, most email browsers will cut off anything over 40 characters.
- Use sentence case, rather than all caps, which conveys screaming and low credibility.
- Concisely state your offer (the benefit to the reader). Then, in the email copy, deliver exactly what you promised. You must build trust in each and every subject line, or you will lose your reader forever to the dreaded ‘unsubscribe’ button.
How to Write Effective Email Content
Online marketers are becoming very good at honing the craft of creating effective emails. Best practices are emerging, which focus on content, format and style.
Just like everything else in the marketing world, email best practices are evolving fast, but the best performing emails integrate some basics that increase click throughs and conversions:
- Place some of your most important content in the first two sentences. Readers will give you 2-3 sentences, but if they don’t find value almost immediately, they will delete it.
- Design the spacing in easy-to-grasp chunks (like this post!) Use headings, subheads, bullet points, short paragraphs, and white space.
- Personalize your email. Many email platforms make this easy.
- Include images, but no more than 20% of the entire space. Always include image tags or titles, so if the image doesn’t come through to the reader, they can still grasp the idea.
- Always include links back to your site or source, and test them before sending the email. (You’d be surprised at how many folks don’t take the time to test links!)
- Proof read it slowly and carefully. Even if you are in a hurry. Typos undermine your professionalism and credibility. Then have someone else proof read it, too.
(Many thanks to www.VerticalResponse.com for the inspiration for this post.)
What email tips make your campaigns more successful?
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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.
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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman: With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com
