Email News and Leads Today

The newly released Silverpop study, "Email Creative That Works,"  analyzes 612 emails sent by 430 companies between April and August, and reveals a wealth of information—including a few surprises--for marketers.

Faced with increasing competition to capture customer attention, email marketers are beginning to take a sharp look at the creative aspects of their messages. In fact, 76 percent say one of their top priorities is to develop creative copy and designs that work, according to information gathered by MarketingSherpa in planning for the 2006 Email Marketing Summit.

To help marketers identify creative elements that can really improve results, Silverpop undertook a comprehensive study of both BtoB and BtoC email messages, evaluating a variety of creative elements and comparing open and click rates. The company’s Strategic Services Group analyzed data on 612 emails sent by 430 companies between mid-April and mid-August. Reports of opens and click rates were evaluated to identify creative elements that work best.

The study evaluated the following elements:

• Content of the “From” line
• Subject line content
• Location of logo
• Ratio of text to images
• Various design layouts
• Number of links
• Type of links (text vs. image)
• Presence and location of navigation bar
• Inclusion of lifestyle photography
• Feature offers
• Location of call-to-action

Key Findings
Recipients must first open your message in order to be dazzled by your copy and imagery. Silverpop found in its study of hundreds of email “From” lines that 92 percent included the company or brand name. Most marketers also wisely include that information in subject lines. More than half of BtoB marketers and 46 percent of BtoC marketers branded subject lines. BtoB emails with branded subject lines had average open rates of 33 percent compared to 22 percent for those without branding. BtoC companies enjoyed open rates of 32 percent on average compared to just 18 percent for emails without branding in the subject line.

As for design formats, many marketers still seem to approach email design with a print-oriented style. For them, the classic direct mail styles still hold sway. Hence, the postcard design has remained a favorite among emailers, especially with BtoC marketers.

Top 3 Most Popular Email Designs

Most surprisingly, when an evaluation of the impact of layout style on click rates was calculated, it appears that BtoB marketers would be better served by the classic postcard style. BtoB postcard-formatted emails recorded click rates of 7.9 percent, on average, compared to a rate of 3.4 percent for BtoB’s most frequently used format, the one-column style. Conversely, BtoC emails in a newsletter format performed better than the popular postcard style. Newsletter emails generated a 7.1 percent click rate for BtoC marketers compared to 6.2 percent average open rates for postcard formats.

Newsletter-style emails generated 15 percent more clicks for BtoC companies than postcard style messages:

Postcard-style emails generated 75 percent more clicks than one-column formats to BtoB marketers:

Other findings from Silverpop’s “Email Creative That Works” study included:

• Overall, text-style links averaged higher click rates than image-style links
• When navigation bars were included in email messages, those positioned on the left side of BtoC creative formats showed much higher click rates than when the bar was located elsewhere. For BtoB marketers, the best location for the navigation bar was on top.
• Placing the call to action above the fold is critical for B2B marketers, increasing average click rates by 3.5 percentage points. Surprisingly, it didn’t make a significant difference in the click rate for B2C messages.