Consider the Message

Actually sitting down and creating the email message is one of the most challenging aspects of email marketing. There are many parts you must consider when creating a message that readers will read and hopefully, act upon. Writing the copy and designing the message are two major elements that should be carefully considered. Branding your message across different types of message templates will help you keep all your messages organized.

The first order of business is to decide what types of messages you are sending; newsletters, transactional emails, confirmation emails, notices, press releases, product announcements, tutorials, the list goes on. Each email type should be made to work toward establishing your brand and doing its intended job. A newsletter should inform, product releases should drive traffic, confirmation emails should confirm subscriptions.

You should send multi-part messages that contain both a plain text and HTML portion at the same time. While plain text messages typically have better deliver ability rates than their HTML counterparts, it is well established that HTML leads to higher click through and open rates. The plain text and HTML portions should say the same thing, but the HTML part must be designed to be read in a number of email clients to ensure that it looks good and will display properly. Create a template for each type of message you want to send and use those for every message of that type.

Write short but effective subject lines to separate your email from all the other emails in the recipient's inbox. The goal of the subject line is to get the reader to open the email and read the content. Subject lines should grab the readers attention and promise something valuable inside.

Design the HTML message to work, even if images are not displayed. Most email clients now block images from unknown senders. When this happens to your brilliantly crafted HTML message, it could ruin the entire effect. Most people already know not to have your entire message one big image, but smaller images and banners should be placed so the message can still be read, even if the images are not included.

Write for the reader in order to satisfy them that your message meets their needs. They provided you with their email address for a reason. Keep that reason in mind and address it with each email you send. If you do not keep the promise that made when the subscriber signed up, it will not be long before you lose them altogether.

Copyright 2008, Pathfinder Email Consulting