5 ways to improve your email creative strategy

Email has been around for a very long term, in terms of technology at least. The first email was sent in 1971 by computer engineer Ray Tomlinson and saw the first use of the @ symbol within an email address.

45 years on, email has become one of the most effective and most popular marketing channels. It has given marketers a way to share their story, and connect with customers on a direct and personal level, which helps bond customers to their brand.

In the time since that first email, marketers have developed ways to bring email campaigns to the next level. As you advance your email campaigns, consider these 5 tips:

Tip 1: Use subject lines to evoke emotion and personalise emails. Brand and business equity increases as the number of emotional connections between a consumer and a brand increases (Igniting Customer Connections, Frawley, 2014). Subject lines that evoke emotion and feeling in their readers naturally create a connection. Emotional content can also lead to an increase in click-through rates as people will base a purchase on an emotion and rationalise the decision later.

Tip 2: Optimise your pre-header text. A recent study by Litmus showed 56% of opened emails were opened on mobile devices; this illustrates how important pre-headers are for response rates. Good pre-header text supports a subject line and gives people a reason to open your email. To drive open rates, try leading with an offer, personalisation, or urgency, for example “offer ends at midnight”.

Tip 3: Optimise designs for the preview pane. When your emails are optimised for the preview pane, you can ensure your main message and call-to-action are visible no matter the device they’re opened on. To best use this space position the most important information and call-to-action within the first 300×300 pixels of the email.

Tip 4: Incorporate adaptive content (also known as time of open content). Create a personalised experience for your readers based on time, location, weather, device and the behavior when your email is opened. This can help to drive engagement and typically leads to a 15-35% increase in response rates.

Tip 5: Leverage animated GIFs. Animated GIFs and images are a great way to capture a reader’s attention. In fact, animation in emails can help to increase click-through rates by up to 40%.

Email is ever changing and growing as a marketing channel. And when used alongside other media, for example print, social, or web, is an incredibly powerful tool.

Read CIO.com’s recent article: 15 ways to improve your email marketing strategies for more information on improving your email marketing.