Email campaigns, one of the oldest tools known to the world wide web. Before we had our instant messages and social media to connect the world we had electronic mail. What was once used solely to communicate with co-workers, loved ones and russian spies rapidly opened the opportunity for businesses to grow their reach to clients through this medium.
I will be the first to admit that I have my email full of junk from newsletters I have subscribed to but now I leave unopened and lost forever in the dark whole that is my email account. Why is that? What makes an everyday users like you and me subscribe to list only after a few emails completely ignore incoming emails. The key is content!
Back in the day the only content you could include in emails was text, so you were limited to utilize very persuasive content. Later on we got images and it made it easier to create a more appealing campaign but the issue became the balance between text and image and to this date we have that same issue. Again, the key is content.
As a web developer it is very simple to program any email that we receive and not bat an eye on whether the email is extremely big in size but I too worry for the inbox of all users. There needs to be a balance of text and content and images in order to create campaigns that get through to the client and not end up in the spam folder.
So how do we achieve that? Repeat after me, less is more. Whether you are sending out an informative link, inviting new user, introducing a new product or service or simply remind your clients that you are thinking of them you have to make sure you do attack their eye holes.
It is simpler than you think, you only have to remember the golden rules:
Nobody likes text walls! That is right, nobody absolutely nobody enjoys reading text walls, especially in an email. Picture this, you get an email from a client or coworker explaining the necessities of a project through an email. You have to spend 5-10 minutes reading something off your email app of your liking, tedious right. Now imagine that same scenario but with something you don’t have to read the latest news from your favorite website. Are you really going to go through the hassle of a 5-10 minute read just to know that they have a new flavour of beverage? The answer will always be no.
The text you utilize in your campaign needs to be short and to the point, if you want to give a more in depth look in to what you want to communicate, then offer a handy link to your website so if they so choose, they can but at least you did not end up in the trash folder without being read. It is very crucial that you find the perfect combination of text and image to communicate your message to the world, which brings me to the next golden rule.
Images speak a thousand words! One image makes the difference between having a text wall and having a very composed email. Picture this, no pun intended, you recieve the latest news on that new beer you have been waiting to be launched in the market. Would you rather read a description of the product in all its glory in a thousand word essay and finally a link to buy a 12-pack or would you prefer one beautiful image and a link to buy a 24-pack with all the time you saved from not reading. I will take the 24-pack any day of the week.
Now it’s safe to say that yes images are a great marketing element for email campaigns but that’s not to say that you go overboard on the images. Here is where the developer in me comes to shine. We have to remember that every image you include in an email will make your campaign heavier, more data for the client to process thus making it slower to load. As we all know since we have gotten better and faster connections, we have become accustomed to living a virtual life as fast as possible, we are unable to tolerate any latency in anything. If a Youtube video takes more than 2 seconds to load we immediately look for something else, if a website takes longer than 2 seconds to bring up a product we lose interest.
This same principle applies to emails and is more critical given the limitations that exist when programming an email template.
So what have we learned today, that although there are more and more ways of reaching out to clients, email campaigns are still one and an optimized campaign could make the difference between getting many clicks or ending up in the trash or spam bin. Optimize your email campaigns and you will see the change in no time.
