A quick look, a snap decision, and your email either gets read or rejected. Welcome to the zero-tolerance world of email marketing where relevance is in the eye of the beholder and stating your case clearly and concisely is your only chance of survival.
The Five Stages of Email Viewing
According to a whitepaper by ExactTarget, a provider of email marketing solutions, customers and prospects typically view emails in five stages: looking at the "from" line, the subject line, the preview pane, the opened but not-yet-scrolled message, and the full email.
So how do you turn a skeptical eye into an eager eye? By using proven design tactics at each key stage, you can quickly build trust and lead your reader deeper into the details of your offer. Here are four that make a difference:
Design for common email clients. Depending on which email client your recipients are using, your design is going to look different. About 75% of all business-to-business recipients are using Microsoft's Outlook or IBM's Lotus Notes. The most common business-to-consumer clients are Yahoo, which brings in 25% of email recipients, Hotmail, which accounts for 20%, and AOL, which accounts for 18%.
Keep it consistent. Don't make your recipients guess about the legitimacy of your email or its contents. Make sure they instantly recognize your emails by standardizing messages with your company or brand name or the name of someone they will recognize at your company. The "from" field is especially critical in establishing credibility, so make smart use of it to clearly identify yourself.
Show less, get more. Studies confirm that time spent on email deteriorates as a reader moves through it, so the less you have them scroll the better. If you're trying to cover a lot of content but have only a few messages or articles, a paragraph synopis and link to more information is an effective way to go. For a lot of messages or articles, a short sentence and a link for each will generally bring better results.
Make optimum use of the preview pane. That four-by-four-inch square is "the big stage" for attacting the attention and winning the trust of your email audience. Be sure to have your brand name, offer and call to action prominently displayed in this space and keep everything clean and to the point. You'll want to keep designs at 600 pixels wide or less to save readers the chore of scrolling horizontally.
For more ideas to drive sales check out archives to this blog or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.
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