Commentary

Make It Easy On Your Subscribers

Email messages today deliver more value than their 20th-century counterparts through improved design and content, images, branding, and integration with websites and social networks.

However, all those gains can come at a price: overly complex messages that sacrifice utility and usability for the latest email fad.

The result is a message with so many distractions that subscribers can't easily do the things they want to do as well as what we want them to do, such as responding to promotional offers.

Some of these changes might have resulted from a lemming-like rush to copy other marketers, which I covered in a recent column, "Are You a Lemming or a Leader?"

Maybe it's time to consider that old design adage "Less is more" and simplify or streamline messages so that they serve both our subscribers' and our own needs without sacrificing the value that drives email's utility and ROI.

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Simplify without Sacrifice

Rather than continually adding new functionality as it emerges, consider a redesign of your template from the ground up. Also, don't get lazy and use the same pre-header, navigation and footer approaches for every email in your portfolio.

The list of questions below can give you some places to start:

1. Does your design replicate your Web navigation or reflect email needs? Web navigation is designed to direct people who have already arrived on your site. Email navigation, on the other hand, while generally similar, might incorporate fewer or different links whose purpose is to drive people to your site.

Perhaps you use a primary and secondary navigation format or focus navigation just on higher-level site categories. Do you use the same navigation approach in all of your emails?

Transactional emails such as order confirmations probably should have completely different navigation links that are focused on the most common service and support questions.

If you are a B2B company, do you use the same navigation in your newsletter as you do your lead nurture or Webinar follow-up emails? Or does each reflect a recipient's likely needs and content focus?

For retailers during this holiday time of the year: Do you add secondary navigation for shipping deadlines and return policies?

2. Does your email design use a hierarchy that gives priority to content and functionality important both to your subscribers and to your marketing goals? Offering multiple promotions in a single message can be good strategy, because if someone isn't interested in your primary offer, a secondary offer might catch his eye.

However, when these offers compete equally for the reader's attention, your highest converting offer or product might get lost in the fray. Your design should provide a clear movement through the message, highlighting your most important content. 

3. Is your preheader out of control? The preheader area of emails (content typically located above the masthead, navigation or brand logo) has evolved rapidly from its incarnation as a single link to aid viewing an email when images are blocked.

Today, many preheaders bundle three or more links or copy in this area, including:

  • View Web version
  • Primary call to action or repeat of subject line
  • Add to address book
  • View mobile version
  • Share this email
  • Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
  • Unsubscribe

Where does this madness end? In another two years, will we see a few more administrative links and content at the top of emails? Some of this might make sense, but perhaps there is a better location for it.

I don't have the definitive answer, but will toss out a couple of ideas:

  • Incorporate "view Web and mobile versions" links in a secondary navigation.
  • Include "add to address book" in your welcome emails, but then move them to a secondary location in the email template.
  • Move social links into the email body near the content mostly likely to drive sharing.

4. Is it time to rethink youradministrative footer?

Down in the administrative footer, the "Unsubscribe" link often is next to the "Update Preferences" link and in the same font size. Why do you give these links equal weight?

Presumably, you'd prefer subscribers to change preferences rather than unsubscribe. So, consider redesigning the footer to direct people to stay subscribed, while still making the unsubscribe link easy to find.

While you obviously know what options are available in your preference center, your subscribers don't. Consider incorporating preference links for each of the core options you provide (update email address, change frequency, other newsletters, change interests, etc.).

Are there areas of your email that you are rethinking? Have you tested different approaches to your preheader or footer areas? Please share in the comments below.

Until next time, take it up a notch!

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