Content is still king

A great-looking email template can do a lot for your campaigns, from establishing credibility with your readers to establishing brand recognition over the long run. However, your content is just as important as the look. After all, it's one thing to look great and make a strong first impression - but it's your content that will keep your readers subscribed and clicking through.

The first thing a reader will do when opening or previewing your email is ask themselves 'what's in it for me?' You have about 7 seconds to answer this question. This is where looking great makes a real difference - a trusted brand and a clear layout will help make your content immediately accessible to the reader. But the real trick to maintaining interest beyond the 7-second mark - no matter how good it looks - is offering content that is both relevant and engaging. Being relevant helps answer the "what's in it for me" question, and the engaging content ensures that your readers will click through to your site and forward your email to friends and colleagues.

Whatever the goal of your email - whether it's creating awareness, generating sales, or building customer loyalty - these 5 tips cover the basics of making your content work for your business:
Know your audience
Knowing something relevant about the person across the table goes a long way in a conversation. The same applies in an email dialog, and better email marketing tools, like industry leader GOT’s Campaigner, offer reporting functions that allow you to learn more about your subscriber base. Analyze past campaign reports, compare open rates, and question click-through rates to understand what gets their attention and what gets them to act. Understanding and delivering what your subscribers want is the key to improving your content over time.

Remember who you are
The tone and personality of your communications will create brand perceptions, and will also help establish long-term relationships with your audience. What is the nature of that relationship? Is it built on trust? Familiarity? Speaking to them like they're right across the table might work wonders in cultivating those long-term relationships.

Keep it short and sweet - 'K.I.S.S'
Always keep your content short, to the point and highly relevant. With only 7 seconds to make an impression on your reader, your content has to offer exactly what your reader wants within that time frame. Keep information and sentences short and easy to absorb using bullet points or short paragraphs.
A useful rule of thumb: the more frequent your newsletter is, the shorter it should be.

Layout and design
The look and style of your content can also play a major role in making your newsletter content more relevant. Respect white space between your paragraphs, graphics and table borders, and remember to maintain the same look and feel throughout the newsletter. Keep font colors in high contrast to the background color to maintain readability, and consider using columns to facilitate quick on-screen reading.

Linking
The use of links within your content is a very successful way to drive traffic to your website. Don't limit yourself to just buttons and banners; using strategically placed hyperlinks can generate click-throughs that are qualified due to their positioning within your content. A MarketingSherpa study found that click-through rates tripled by increasing the number of links within the newsletter content!

Quick Tips & Tricks

Length and Frequency
The more frequent your newsletter is, the shorter it should be. People will happily open a short "Joke of the Day" or their daily horoscope; but almost no one wants to get something longer than that every single day!

So, keep dailies and weeklies short. Biweeklies (every two weeks) and monthlies can be longer - only if you have truly fascinating information to share. Never go longer just for the sake of length.

Also, reconsider doing a quarterly newsletter. That may work in the print world, but online people change their email addresses so frequently and their attention span is so short, that quarterly frequency will only hurt you.

About GOT Corporation
GOT Corporation™ offers Customer Relationship Marketing technology that allows organizations to move beyond traditional product-centric marketing to create relevant communications with customers, resulting in long term, profitable relationships.

About the Author:
Luc Vezina is Director of Product Management at GOT Corp. He monitors industry trends closely and has been instrumental in helping shape email marketing best practices for thousands of GOT's clients. GOT is a founding member of the Email Service Provider Coalition.

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