The Necessities of Excessive-performing Emails

Inventive content material is the cornerstone of a profitable e-mail marketing campaign, driving opens, clicks, and purchases. On this submit, I’ll assessment the important artistic parts of high-performing campaigns.

The Fundamentals

Step one is an efficient e-mail template. The basics embody:

• Format. Single-column designs are the simplest to optimize for cellular units.

• Textual content and pictures. In my expertise, the very best emails are roughly 60% photos and 40% textual content.

• Dimensions. A width of 400 to 600 pixels renders nicely throughout all units. Size can range primarily based on the message, however longer emails improve load instances.

• Fonts. Stick with in style fonts resembling Arial, Calibri, Georgia, Occasions New Roman, and Verdana. Lesser-used fonts won’t operate nicely throughout all e-mail applications.

• Dimension: Hold the file dimension beneath 100 KB. The smaller the dimensions, the faster the e-mail will load and the upper the chance that recipients will learn the content material.

• Code. Emails should render nicely on all units — desktops, tablets, smartphones. Smartphones now account for as a lot as 75% of all opens. Keep away from extra HTML or tags that may set off spam filters. Use a plain-text editor to repeat and paste textual content, not Microsoft Phrase or related, which might trigger hidden formatting errors. By no means embody JavaScript or Flash, as they don’t seem to be supported in e-mail shoppers. And keep away from embedded varieties.

• Regulatory necessities. Embrace within the footer an unsubscribe hyperlink and your organization’s bodily mailing handle — the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act requires each.

Total Design

Advertising and marketing emails must be easy, clear, and simple to learn.

• Headings, subheadings, and white area assist set up the message. Isolate the call-to-action to face out.

• Fonts must be a minimum of 12 to 14 pixels on desktops, 16 pixels on smartphones.

• Colours. The less, the higher — not more than three.

The design ought to all the time help the 4 W’s:

• Who the e-mail is from.
• Why it’s related to the recipient.
• When the recipient ought to take motion.
• What to do subsequent.

The clearer you convey these 4 parts, the higher possibilities of conversion.

Photos

• Width. Photos will be wider than the template (for increased decision) after which sized down utilizing the picture attributes or CSS.

• Alt textual content will show when a picture doesn’t load or is blocked by the consumer. Alt textual content ought to subsequently rigorously describe the picture to assist customers perceive its objective.

• Embrace folks. In my expertise, photos containing folks outperform people who don’t.

• Relevancy. Make certain the picture helps the aim of the e-mail.

This template instance from Shopilicious has an excellent ratio of photos to textual content. Additionally, the call-to-action (“Store Now”) is close to the highest, offering a transparent course for the recipient.

Video and GIFs

Movies and animated GIFs can encourage clicks. However not all e-mail shoppers help video streaming within the template itself. This consists of Outlook and Gmail. The perfect work-around is to incorporate a picture with a play button overlaid that hyperlinks to a web-hosted video. (Nonetheless, roughly half of e-mail suppliers help embedded HTML5 video.)

Everlane reveals a play button on prime of a picture on this e-mail. Clicking the button takes the consumer to the hosted video.

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All e-mail shoppers help animated GIFs. However maintain the file dimension to 1 MB or much less.

All e-mail shoppers help animated GIFs, resembling this instance from Starbucks.

Cell Optimization

Responsive e-mail design will routinely modify the template to the recipient’s machine. Different useful cellular practices embody:

• The decision-to-action button must be giant sufficient to click on with a finger (at the very least 44 x 44 pixels with 16-pixel minimal font dimension) and as near the highest as sensible.

• Single column formatting solely.

• Line spacing of at the very least 1.5 instances bigger than font dimension to create enough white area.

• The brand must be prime middle or prime left.