While social media is beginning to dominate much of our content efforts, it’s key to never forget the power of a successful email marketing campaign. But how do you get an email read–not just opened, but read?
Here are 13 tips to help increase your reading and CTR (click through rates):
1. All emails within a campaign should be branded consistently to match your brand’s colors, font schemes, design habits and any specific visual features related to this campaign focus.
2. Open with a strong subject line! Subject lines determine whether or not your email gets opened, so be sure you work with your content marketing team to develop a strong, click-worthy subject line.
3. Don’t match your subject lines and email headers. They should relate to each other but never match, otherwise you’ll lose your reader to the “duplicate content” fatal mistake.
4. Avoid long, colorful sentences. Emails are meant to be short and to-the-point so that you can read them quickly. Stick to simple language that’s engaging but focused in content.
5. Keep it under 250 words. Emails should never exceed 250 words, and if you need more content, consider including PDFs and/or linking to landing pages with more information.
6. If including event information, keep each detail on its own line and bold the detail type to help it stand out. For example:
Date: Monday, March 3, 2016
Time: 9:00 am to 10:00 am
Where: XYZ Auditorium, 5th level
7. Use videos instead of pictures or text if you’re trying to provide information. Videos should be 1 to 5 minutes long.
8. Don’t use calligraphic fonts that are hard to read. Fonts are downsized on mobile devices, so stick with the typical Times, Georgia, Arial or Calibri options.
9. Use “bold,” “italicize” and “underline” sparingly. Unless information is important, there is no need for any of these font embellishments.
10. Hyperlinks should always be a different color from any text within the email so that they stand out.
11. Work with your creative team to help design unique email elements, i.e. headers, feature photos, bucket CTAs and more.
12. Don’t send an email unless it’s necessary. One of the most fatal habits an email marketer can make is sending too much, too often. Try to condense multiple emails into one if the content can fit, otherwise, try your best to space out send dates and times so you don’t get a lot of unsubscribers.
13. Make CTA buttons BIG, BOLD and COLORFUL. Instead of simply using “Click here to read more” and hyperlinking the “click here” or the following URL, make CTA buttons that stand out. Include text on the button to explain what they will find when clicking, but keep it short– no more than one line of text.