The average person is bombarded with dozens of emails every day. Getting your email to stand out is key. How do you get someone to pay attention to your content and, further, look forward to receiving it? Below are five best practice tips and techniques to use when crafting your next email:
- The Preview Pane Pitch. In Hollywood, you get 20 seconds to pitch the next big idea. In an email, you’ve got just a few seconds. When the average person reads their email, they only scan what’s in the preview pain. This accounts for the top 200-300 pixels of your message. The preview pane should include the title of your message and engaging content lead-ins.
- Keep it Short & Sweet. Your email should not include full text articles. Rather, give it a compelling subject line, a few attention-grabbing headlines, with captivating lead-in paragraphs, and always link to your Website to reveal the rest of the content. Keep it short & sweet and leave them asking for more.
- Focus on What’s Important. When people receive your email they want to be able to scan through and read what interests them. They aren’t clicking on yours because you have fancy images or borders. Focus on what’s important. A few eye-catching images are OK, but no need to drown your content in design. Besides, email messages that have too many graphic elements often get caught up in SPAM filters.
- Test And Then Test Again. Be sure to send test emails to a variety of email clients such as Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail. Email clients can vary in the way your email is displayed. Avoid embarrassing mistakes by viewing your email in different environments. Another important step is to check the “spam score” with spam tools like Free Content Checker, SpamCheck, Contactology. And when you’re done testing, test it again just to be sure!
- Be consistent. Consistency is key to a successful email. Your goal here is to develop a brand that your readers will remember and look forward to. Keep with the same look & feel and attempt to keep all the regularly used elements in the same place. Also, sticking to a specific day and time will have your readers expecting your email.
Emails are a great, cost-effective way of reaching your online audience. The key is to grab their attention and then real them in.
Image from Flickr: derrickkwa