10 ways to optimise your email content

No matter if you are about to embark on your first marketing automation (MA) campaign, or whether you are a seasoned user, you’re likely considering how you can optimise your campaign results and in so doing the potential return to the business. There are a number of ways this can be achieved, from optimising emails for mobile, through to design and content.

Below, Jane Allan, Client Services Director here at CleverTouch shares her top 10 tips for writing email content based on our experience across thousands of client campaign sends.

1. Aim for 100-120 words, and never go over 150 words. People will not fully engage, grasp the key message and take action if you tell the whole story in a single email.
2. Personalise throughout. We all appreciate the personal touch, so use a friendly and relaxed tone that addresses an individual. MA enables you to send fully-personalised emails, so make the most of the capability available too.
3. Give the reader something they want to read. Okay, it sounds obvious, but so often clients come to us wanting to tell a story that is not relevant to the person they’re telling it to. Start by asking ‘am I offering information of value to the reader and not just saying what the business needs to say?’
4. Don’t always mention your company name in body copy. It sounds a bit extreme if you’re in a sales-based culture, but you need to take the reader on a journey to your product or service. You wouldn’t instantly try and sell a product or service in the first few minutes of meeting someone in person, would you? Now apply this concept to emails.
5. Use numbers. We like to read independent facts and they attract the eye in a body of content. If in doubt, just think about the boom in infographics that are largely based on numerical data.
6. Never offer more than two call to actions (CTAs). You don’t want to overload the reader and give them so many options that they miss the purpose of the email or feel too overwhelmed to act. We regularly see overall results dip when companies insist on four to five CTAs. Less is definitely more.
7. Stay under the spam filter radar. Consider carefully your choice of words as many will increase your spam score, and validate your emails using the wide range of deliverability testing software available.
8. Experiment with subject line tones. Start all new campaigns with subject line testing, especially if it is your first. Content testing must be a key element of any MA deployment plan.
9. Keep subject lines snappy. There is no specific right or wrong number when it comes to subject line lengths, but typically, the snappier the better. And remember, don’t try and be too clever with the words, as this is the first attempt to get the reader’s attention.
10. Follow the three R’s; Repurpose, Reuse, Recycle. By using copy from blogs, white papers and social channels across to emails, you make your content work harder, save yourself valuable time, and take one step closer to aligning your channels.

As part of our role as a Marketing Automation consultancy customers often turn to us for advice and best practice. We pride ourselves on being able to offer independent guidance based on our years’ of experience. If you are looking into MA for the first time or you want to make sure you’ve made the right choice, take a look at our definitive guide to Marketing Automation.

We hope you have found these points helpful. If you would like to discuss with us further ways we can help you to optimise your MA campaigns, please contact us or leave your questions in the comment section.