In our daily lives, we adjust our style of written communication to suit the situation and the audience. Formal business communications, whether by letter or email, require structured paragraphs, accurate grammar, and professional language. Whereas arranging to meet a friend for a drink can be a short message full of textspeak and emoticons.
Email marketing should work on the same principle, but the reality is that many email marketers use a one-size-fits-all template for every campaign. If you use the same template every time, recipients may ignore the content of your emails, thinking that they’ve seen it all before. Cramming your content into the wrong layout may mask the message and result in a poor response rate.
If you send out alerts to keep your email subscribers up to date with news or current events, keep the email brief and avoid cluttering it with unnecessary images. By keeping alerts quick and easy to create, you can reach recipients with breaking news ahead of your competitors.
Newsletters should combine informative content and engaging images. HTML can be used to create an attractive layout. However, some recipients will not be able to read HTML, especially if they access their emails using a mobile device. Consider adding some plain text to your newsletters to ensure every recipient can read the content.
A catalog format displays pictures of your products with a short description and the price. Catalog emails are rich in images, which may not display if the recipient has images turned off. Test your layout to ensure that the text alone will engage a reader, even if the images do not appear.
To give your emails a personal touch, consider writing them in a letter format. Start by using a personalized greeting, engage the reader with a thoughtful introduction, state your offer, and close with a friendly call to action. Always include a P.S. at the end of your letter. Studies show that the typical recipient glances at the P.S. before they read the body of the letter. Use a creative P.S. to restate or incentivize your offer.