Design Your Emails To Get More Responses

Of course you want subscribers to open and read your email newsletters. Everyone wants that. But what you want even more is for them to take action, right?

When I was working with customers to optimize their email campaigns, I was on the lookout for strategies that help improve message. You first need to get the subscriber to open your message, then the ultimate goal is usually to get the subscriber to take action.

If you’re looking for ways to increase the number of responses your emails get, there are three things you should try…

Include a Web-Based Version

So you’ve gotten subscribers to open your message, but what happens if they can’t read it? To make sure everyone sees what you’ve created, you should include a link to a web-based version of your message.

How can you do that? You just need to archive it while you’re on the message editing page. This will give you the direct link to that message:

You can then link to that web-based version in the pre-header of your message.

HTML + Plain Text = More Responses

You might not think a plain text copy of your message can help increase the number of responses you’re getting, but it can. If you have an HTML version, it will go out by default, but if a subscriber’s email client does not accept HTML it can revert to that plain text version. Remember to include a link to your web-based version here as well.

If you install email web analytics on your site, most of our analytics features can work with plain text messages. This means you still have the ability to track who is clicking on your links, while also making it easier for them to do so.

By doing this extra step to accommodate all subscribers, you’re setting it up so everyone will be able to read, and then hopefully click though, your message.

Eyes Should Be Drawn to Your Links

After working on getting subscribers to open and read your message, you don’t want to drop the ball now. In order to get more clicks, you want subscribers’ focus on your call to action.
Here are some things that might help:

Find out where clicks are happening. Are people more likely to click links in your header or footer? The only way to find that out is to track where the clicks are coming from. Once you know where, you put your most important links there.

Don’t bury the call to action.Make the link prominent among other text and images. You want eyes to be drawn to it, so give it plenty of room. At the very least, put a line of space between your link and surrounding text.

Try using an image.

If you’ve been using just text links, try creating a button or linking up an image. Snowboard Addiction does that very well:

If the subscriber wants to see the video, they need to click on the screenshot to get there.

Note that while images and videos can be very effective, you should also include a text link in case the image is blocked.

What Have You Found To Help Optimize Campaign Results?

We’ve talked about tactics to get more subscribers, keep subscribers on your list, and improve messages.

But what about you? Have you ever done something that helped your campaign’s performance? Please share it so we can identify other common optimization tips!

Original: Email Marketing Tips