Email Marketing

3 best practices to transform your creative from good to great

Create habit forming emails through data-driven creative  

The power to transform your creative lies directly within your data and your knowledge of the latest industry developments. Leaning into hyper-personalized, relevant creative will help you deliver more value to potential customers with every communication which will lead to improved engagement, revenue and offers a way in for brands to seamlessly integrate themselves into their subscribers’ daily rituals. Below, we’ve outlined some ways you can up your creative to make a real impact with your best prospects.

1. The 6-Second Rule

Capturing the attention of your audience in a world full of distractions is going to be your biggest obstacle. Megan Troth from NBCUniversal, famously said that advertisers have 6 seconds to catch the attention of their audience, as the attention economy is unforgiving, leaving no room for error. Either seize their attention within this brief window or risk being disregarded entirely. In fact, some in the industry have shortened the 6 seconds down to a mere three.

This principle is widely regarded as the paramount rule in email design. How can you accomplish this? By embracing clarity, brevity, and skim-ability!

So, how can you ensure success?

  • Employ effective/eye-pleasing typography and fonts
  • Utilize a layout that adheres to both vertical and horizontal margins
  • Maintain a singular main objective
  • Establish color harmony
  • Embrace white space
  • Keep it simple
  • Minimize excessive text

Pro tip: Steer clear of the dreaded “Wall-o-Text” The term “Wall-o-Text” refers to any text that exceeds four lines. When confronted with such a sight, readers instantly conclude, “I don’t have time for this,” resulting in your message being ignored.

2. Create Value-Added Content

Approach your creative strategy from the perspective of your prospect. You need to give them a reason, aka a benefit, from interacting with your content. The value could be a special offer or sale, a piece of content which will help them in their everyday lives (personal or professional), etc. Only you know what kinds of content your prospects will find engaging. Having enhanced and enriched data that allows you to approach your prospect as a whole person will help you craft value-added messaging to keep them engaged.

Pro tip: Consider adding sticky-content to your emails. Sticky content helps enhance the appeal of your emails by incorporating bite-sized editorial information that is educational, helpful, and entertaining. Including such content not only engages your audience but also encourages them to regularly open your emails.

The Data Axle Newsletter gives readers book and podcast recommendations to help them achieve their career goals.

3. Your Prospects are Looking at Their Cell Phones. Yes. Right Now.

Did you know that the average American checks their phones about 96 times per day? That’s around once every ten minutes. You need to ensure your ads and emails look pristine on mobile – from phones to tablets, you need to develop your creative with mobile in mind. In addition to looking good, make sure your emails are scalable and responsive.

Want more tips?
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Download all 10 creative best practices and transform your creative from good to great!

Natasia Langfelder
Content Marketing Manager

As Content Marketing Manager, Natasia is responsible for helping strategize, produce and execute Data Axle's content. With a passion for writing and an enthusiasm for data management and technology, Natasia creates content that is designed to deliver nuggets of wisdom to help brands and individuals elevate their data governance policies. A native New Yorker, when Natasia is not at work she can be found enjoying New York’s food scene, at one of NYC’s many museums, or at one of the city’s many parks with her two teacup yorkies.