Anatomy of a Compelling Email from Dog’s Best Life

We love pets, and so it warms our hearts when we find customers’ pet-related businesses doing great things with their email marketing campaigns.

Take Sara Hansen’s website Dog’s Best Life. Her emails consistently average 50% open rates, thanks in large part to her fun email marketing design and content.

We’ll break down what makes Sara’s emails so cool in hopes to spark some email design inspiration for you.

The Anatomy

Here’s a glimpse of what Sara’s emails look like:

Want to see her full emails? You can check them out here.

The Physiology

The mouth: editor’s note – At the top of every email Sara greets readers and gives them a preview of what’s going to be talked about. She also encourages readers to contact her and links to her social media networks.

The eye: readers’ photos – People like sharing pictures of their pets and looking at pictures of other cats. Just look at I Can Has Cheezburger. Including a section that features a picture of one of her readers’ pets is a great way to engage subscribers.

The nose: relative sponsors – Including ads in your emails is a great way to earn some extra cash. Done the right way, and it’s also helpful to your subscribers. Sara features a site that sells accessories for dogs, which is perfect for her audience.

The ear: readers’ requests – Every email asks readers to submit topics they’d like to see. This shows that Sara cares about creating valuable, relevant content to her subscribers, and providing content they want leads to higher open rates.

The tail: archive access – The end of each email includes a link to the broadcast archive, where subscribers can read previous emails. This is a great option for new subscribers who want to see the tips and topics already covered.

Help From Fido

Her site being what it is, we thought it would be perfect to describe her emails in terms of canine anatomy. Take a look:

What Do You Think?

What do you think is important to include in your newsletters? What do you think is annoying in emails?