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By Ryan Buchanan
Subject: The “subject” line is perhaps one of the most critical components of any email campaign. While all recipients read the subject line, a minority of emails—typically 10 percent to 40 percent—typically are opened. Knowing who the email is from is the foremost important item. However, it would be nice to know if the email is relevant to the recipient. Having a short, to the point and relevant subject line is the next thing recipients need. This element of an email campaign is one of the easiest to test and can make a significant impact on the overall results.
• Is the subject short and to the point?
• Is it a something that makes one want to open it and read?
• Is it clear of any keywords (offer, save, buy, free, etc.) that will trigger spam traps or filters?
Preview pane: In some applications, the first three lines of body text are visible without opening the document. Having the most relevant and revealing information in the first couple lines will tell recipients what your email is about and if they will open it. Remember that many people will not scroll down in an Outlook preview pane, so having a call to action or value proposition toward the top of the email will help convert reads to clicks.
Many email programs display the first few lines of your email in the body of the email preview pane. Is your call to offer or value proposition clearly visible without scrolling? Is the preview pane going to show up in image or text? This is important to know as many web-based email systems now turn images off by default. Making sure that your header or email format will allow for clearly visible text and not simply images will increase your chances for reads and conversions.
Body Copy: What do you want to say to your customer? This is where you want to get your message across. Why should they do what you want them to do? You need to convince your target audience to take action. This can be a very easy thing. Most of the time, you need to provide a reason why. What is the information or offer, and how much do you need to say to encourage a click through? Newsletters traditionally employ leads in copy (three to five sentences) with a link to read more. Offers or “one-off” campaign emails provide short sentences of a value proposition with three to five bulleted calls to action to encourage click through.
How much is too much? Within the context of the complexity of your information or offer, text should be kept to a minimum. If emails become too wordy, subscribers may become lost or not clear on what action they should take. They may simply become bored.
Graphical Elements—HTML only: A picture is worth a thousand words—and you want to convey the correct 1,000 words. Images are subjective. What a marketer feels is relevant and compelling may be offensive and mocking to the recipient. If you are a graphical design software manufacturer marketing the newest version of your product to current users, you probably don’t want to show images of people in business suits using the products. You’d most likely get better results using images of hip users oozing creativity. Your customer wants to see that others like them use this product or are excited about it.
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