The 2 common points that we often find in the emailings that we audit during our Diagnostic services are these:
- The lack of structure of the email There is usually a lot of text, and emailings are very long. In a newsletter, there are often several news articles, key dates to remember, invitations to events, products/services to highlight... all this requires a "heading", an organization of information to see clearly.
- Lack of clarity and precision the message must sometimes be read several times to fully understand the offer, whereas understanding must be grasped as soon as the message is opened, at first glance or even in the subject line/preheader (but we'll talk about that in another article) !
So, where do we start? What do we write?
Or The substance: What approach to take in designing an email?
One piece of information to know before you continue reading this article:
The average adult reader can read 250 to 300 words/minute. If the average reading time of an emailing is 11 seconds (and we're being nice I think), the ideal length of an email would be about... 50 words.
So you really have to focus on the most important thing: a relevant teaser, capable of interesting the reader. Knowing moreover that 80% of the clicks of an emailing are counted in the main CTA. The rest of the email will only be read by people who are really interested and who still need more information (or reassurance?) before going further.
To know how to write an emailing, the ideal is to put yourself in the reader's shoes by asking yourself 5 questions:
- Why me? The recipient must understand why they are receiving the email.
- What am I told? The offer contained in the email must be expressed in a clear, visible way, with simple and effective words that allow us to directly understand the why and how.
- What should I do? You must encourage the click by clearly explaining why to click: "Test now", "Subscribe", "Find ..."
- Why would I do that? It is necessary to express the advantages of the offer, the values of the brand, the competitive differences...
- How can I contact the sender if I have a question? you must give several ways to contact the brand, a phone number, a form...
The answers to these questions make it possible to define different "blocks":
Ok so the substance of the email, check. What about the form? How can I make my email clear at a glance?
Or The form: the organization and hierarchy of the message blocks
Structure your content on the inverted pyramid model. Start with a single column block (so the block that takes the whole width of the email) to a block of up to 4 columns (after that it becomes unreadable)...
Need help?
Reading content isn't everything. The best way is to talk to us.
if there is a lot of information and images like in the editorial newsletters, the zigzag structure is still nice.
And how do you prioritize the information within the different blocks?
Well... based on the inverted pyramid model... using a Heading, a Subheading, a Paragraph and a CTA to divide the content into easy to understand sections!
So if we had only one image to remember from this article, it would be this one:
If you want us to analyze your emailings and to bring you the tracks of optimization it is here:
