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Audience Development Strategy

5 Components of a Snippet-Based Email Template

Do you know how to develop a snippet-based email template for your newsletters?

If the email templates you are using for email newsletters and promos are successful in engaging your reader base and selling products, then you don’t need to necessarily make any changes.

However, there is always the chance that a new template can help

Do you know how to develop a snippet-based email template for your newsletters?

If the email templates you are using for email newsletters and promos are successful in engaging your reader base and selling products, then you don’t need to necessarily make any changes.

However, there is always the chance that a new template can help in the areas where you may falter.

Consider the amount of emails you receive each day. Now consider how you interact with these emails. If you receive dozens, or even hundreds of emails each day, chances are you don’t spent an equal amount of time of each; instead, you probably cipher through the from and subject lines to determine where the content is coming from and the its inherent importance.

Personally, I get dozens of emails each day. I respond to the most pressing issues first and get to the email newsletters when possible.

This seems to be a common action by email users, as it’s been reported that the average email users spends at average of 51 seconds on each email newsletter they read.

If this average pertains to your market, you need to develop a way to maximize your email’s ability to connect with your audience. We believe the snippet email newsletter format adequately presents information for the following reasons.

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-Present your content well. In the Mequoda Daily email newsletter, we divide each snippet with a line that stretches the entire length of the newsletter. This helps users focus on the different articles easily.

And since email users may not have a lot of time to devote to your email newsletters, make them easy to skim. This way, the content that does interest them can be quickly seen and they can be sent back to your website for the full article.

-Headlines drive interest. Putting your copywriting hat on while creating the headlines of each news snippet helps attract attention to the content. If you need a refresher on subject line writing, take a look at The 17 Best Email Subject Lines. Each individual snippet should be thought of like an email subject line in terms of reader engagement.

-Use visual imagery. If you have images at your disposal, use ones that relate to the content and are aesthetically pleasing. Unique images may even help content get shared with new users. In the Mequoda Daily email newsletter, we use one image in each edition to add significance to our featured articles.

-Alignment. Data from eye-tracking marketers have shown that the left side of the screen is the main focus of email readers. Due to this information, the left side should be where your email images should be placed.

This data may also help dictate potential locations for putting ads in a new email template design.

-Centralized theme. If you are utilizing a snippet-based email template, you need to have a theme to each issue. Doing so increases the likelihood of getting all the individual articles read. In our email newsletters, the overall theme is based on the content of the feature article. Each corresponding article is then related in some manner.

Are you currently using a snippet-based email template? Have you seen better results with it than with a single email newsletter? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

By Amanda MacArthur

Research Director & Managing Editor

Amanda is responsible for all the articles you read on the Mequoda Daily portal and every email newsletter delivered to your inbox from us. She is also our in-house social media expert and would love to chat with you over on @Mequoda. She has worked with Mequoda for almost a decade, helping to evolve the Mequoda Method through research, testing and developing new best practices in digital publishing, editorial strategy, email marketing and audience development. Amanda is a co-author of our four digital publishing handbooks.

Co-authored handbooks:

Contact Amanda:

Contact Amanda via email at amanda (at) mequoda (dot) com, @amaaanda, LinkedIn, and Google+.

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