A few days ago I did participate in a discussion concerning the transfer of existing print mail campaigns to new e-mail-campaigns. An issue within this discussion was, whether and to what extent content and structure should be changed.
The basic answer can be summarized as follows: E-Mail campaigns are quite different in comparison to print mail campaigns. Different reading habits when reading “online” require different structures and concepts for e-mail campaigns. Due to research results we know the following reading habits:
- An e-mail text is more browsed than read in detail.
- The attention to read the entire text needs to be attracted with anchor words or even buzz words.
- Only the first 10 rows will be absorbed in total.
- The reading rates online is lower than offline.
- Customers expect that the sender gets to the point as soon as possible.
- Customers will not follow all arguments to the bottom line.
Taking these reading and abortion styles into considering the following rules and recommendations can be derived:
- Write to your readers what is most important right at the beginning.
- The entire text of your mail should not excess the half of the letters text.
- The line of arguments should have a maximum of three layers.
- Your e-mail should be clearly arranged. Hence your mail needs more paragraphs compared to a letter.
- Each paragraph should contain only one core message.
- Avoid nested sentences.
- The salutatory address should include the sir name.
Of course, there are some other features that are important for the success of your e-mail campaign, too. Since a large number of websites have discussed those issues I will just summarize other important features. Here they are
- Adress management
- Return address
- Subject heading
- Target audience appropriate content
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Good luck with your e-mail campaign.
January 1, 2010 at 6:34 am
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